Page 8 of Fated to the Dragon King (Alpha Dragons’ Fated #4)

Alaric

“It’s done.”

Willow’s triumphant expression mirrored mine as she waved a piece of fax paper in the opened window between our offices. “Finally, Alaric, it’s all yours. Everything.”

I took the paper from her and read it, feeling as though a great weight had been lifted from me. “So many years of waiting now over.” I grinned and slapped my desk with my open hand. “It’s about damn time.”

“I know.” Willow laughed. “We can go home now. Take Hayley with us.”

At this, I glanced at Hayley as she worked on her computer, her silver hair caught up in a professional bun.

In the days since our wedding, she’d returned to work as my receptionist, and never informed the rest of the staff of her new status.

After work, she came home with me, but slept in a room separate from mine.

“Alaric?”

I grimaced, my new triumph fading. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea, Willow.”

“Don’t tell me you’re planning to dump her now,” Willow snapped. “She’s the best thing to happen to you since we came here. I’ve seen your face. You’ve never been happier.”

“I do care about her,” I admitted slowly. “But she’s staying distant. Physically and emotionally. She won’t sleep with me, not since our wedding.”

Willow also studied the back of Hayley’s head. “Well, you haven’t exactly promised her unicorns and rainbows. She’s looking at this as a business transaction. She fulfilled her part of the deal. Yes?”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Do you want more than that?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“I think you should find out,” Willow commented. “We need to start wrapping up this company, put someone in charge to manage it. We need to be home within six weeks at the latest.”

“Oh, nice,” I said dryly. “Put more pressure on me.”

“You can handle it. After all, this is your birthright.”

Birthright or no, I would not like to leave Hayley behind when we depart. She might be carrying my offspring even now. Once I go, all contact with her, save monetary transactions, will halt. I’ll never know about my child if she has it.

She’s my wife. She belongs with me.

Still, I can’t force her to come with me if she refuses. What a clusterfuck. I thought gaining my inheritance was all I needed. Now, I’m not so sure.

At the end of the day, I escorted Hayley to my truck. She smiled her thanks as I opened the door for her. Like the last few days, she refused to meet my gaze, or speak, while I got in beside her and started the engine.

“Hayley,” I began, feeling like I was walking blind in a room filled with sharp objects, “we should talk.”

“About the divorce?”

I shot her a sharp glance. “Why would you ask that?”

“You got your inheritance. You don’t need me anymore.”

“How’d you know?” I shut my jaw. “Never mind.”

Willow. Of course, Willow told her. My annoyance rose despite the knowledge I’d planned to tell Hayley myself during this very drive.

“No. I don’t want to talk about the divorce.”

“Then what?”

I dragged my hand through my hair, frustrated that I had no idea how to approach Hayley. “I’ll have to go home soon. Now that I’m – that it’s a done deal.”

“Oh. I see.”

I cast another sidelong look at her, but saw only the back of her head. Hayley gazed steadily at the city traffic, the stores, the restaurants, we passed by. I hoped to see an expression of regret on her lovely features, but when she turned her head at last, all I saw was a mild neutrality.

“You’ll want the divorce before then,” she said. “No worries, I won’t contest anything.”

“What if,” I began, my tongue tangling on itself, “what if, you know, you’re –”

“Pregnant?”

“Yeah.”

Hayley shrugged. “Then I’ll surrender custody to you. I can’t be a single parent.”

“Oh, man.” I sucked in a sharp breath. “This isn’t going well.”

“Look, we have a business arrangement. That’s all. There’s no reason we can’t talk about a baby we don’t even know has been conceived.”

I blurted the question uppermost in my mind. “Will you come with me?”

Now I received the full, astonished stare from her emerald eyes. “To your country? With you?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Why?”

“Well, because.”

“’Because’ is an answer you offer a two-year-old to appease the why question,” she said, her tone dry. “I’m not a-two-year old.”

“All right,” I snapped. “Forget it. We’ll get the divorce you want.”

“The divorce we both agreed to. Remember?”

“Fine.”

Irritated, not bothering to hide it, I drove toward the trendy downtown area and Roxanne’s house. Hayley wanted her clothes and possessions she’d left behind when she came with me. She said nothing more until I parked at the curb. She opened the truck’s door and hopped out.

“I won’t be long,” she said. “I’ll just grab my things.”

I also jumped from the cab. “I know. I’m going with you.”

“You don’t need to.”

“Of course, I do,” I grumbled. “Medusa might be in there.”

“Are you afraid she’ll turn me into stone?”

“Nope.” I walked with her to the front door. “I’m afraid she might hit you with one.”

Roxanne, aka Medusa, stood in her foyer with her bejeweled hands on her hips, scowling. “I told you not to come back.”

“I need my stuff.”

“The picture of that damn cat?” Roxanne sniffed. “I should have ripped it up.”

Hayley rounded her shoulders, her face lowered, as she tried to sidestep Medusa. That obvious cringe, when I know damn well she’s capable of showing her strong side, made me angrier than ever. I paced just behind her, matching Medusa’s scowl.

“You’re still fucking him, then?” Roxanne smiled with malice. “He won’t marry you, dearie. He’s not the marrying kind.”

I stopped, and halted Hayley with my hand on her arm. “As a matter of fact,” I said sweetly, “we are married. Two days ago.”

“What?”

Roxanne snatched a rapid glance at our ringless fingers. “No, you didn’t.”

“We did indeed,” I said, smiling.

“Impossible.”

“Didn’t you tell me to make my own luck and marry a wealthy man?” Hayley asked, also smiling. “So I did.”

“Bitch,” Roxanne snarled. “Where is your wedding ring?”

“I don’t need one,” Hayley answered. “We’re married in the eyes of the law and the gods. And goddesses.”

“You’re so stupid. Only a man who’s more stupid than you would marry you.”

As tempted as I was to smack Medusa into next week, I merely urged Hayley forward with my hand at the small of her back. “Get your things.”

Obeying me, she headed for the stairs and vanished up them. I eyed Roxanne with intense dislike. “You must really hate yourself.”

“That’s absurd,” she snapped. “I don’t hate myself.”

“Only people who have low self-esteem would belittle someone like that. You have to make yourself feel better by putting Hayley down.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I can see right into your soul, sister,” I said. “And it’s not a pretty sight.”

“Get out of my house before I call the cops.”

I smirked. “It’ll take them ten to twenty minutes to get here. We’ll be long gone.”

“I don’t like you.”

“I’m hurt.”

Turning her back on me, Medusa went to a side table and opened a drawer. After taking a lighter and a cigarette box from it, she lit up with hands that trembled slightly. I absently wondered why they shook, but put the reason down to her neurosis. Or illicit drug use.

Hayley returned from her room with a bulging satchel, walking down the stairs with it slung over her shoulder. She eyed Roxanne with brief curiosity before nodding to me.

“Let’s go.”

I gestured for Hayley to walk in front of me toward the door. From behind me came a strident shriek that sounded like a mix of a wild cat in heat and a baboon. I half turned, pausing, but Hayley continued on without looking back.

“I’ll get you, you little tramp,” Roxanne screamed. “You don’t walk out on me, slut. I hate you. I hate you both.”

“Give it a rest, Medusa,” I said calmly. “She’s out of your life just as you wanted.”

“I’ll get her,” she screeched, lunging toward me with her hands bent into claws. “I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you, I swear to God.”

I lifted my arm in a defensive motion, warding off her attack. Roxanne bounced off it like a pinball striking the wall, then fell, sprawling on her butt. Her cigarette flew from her fingers to land on the costly tiles, and burned a nasty black stain on the ceramic.

“You hit me!”

“I did not.” I sighed. “You attacked me, you fell down. Can’t you just have a bit of civility? Any possible decency?”

“No.”

I turned to find Hayley at my elbow, staring down as her sister beat the floor with her hands, screaming, her dark hair flying around her face. I watched in dreadful fascination, unable to fathom why such a minor issue resulted in a wild display of temper. Was this woman insane?

Hayley looked up at me, real fear tightening the lines at her eyes, the corners of her mouth.

“There’s no decency in her, Alaric,” Hayley said over the piercing voice shrieking like a toddler in a tantrum. “There’s no reasoning with her. All she has is her hate. Most of it for herself.”

“I hate you! You bitch! You did this to me!”

Roxanne awkwardly stood up, her hands still bent into talons. I braced myself for another attack, but Roxanne satisfied herself with hurling every insult under the sun at Hayley. Hayley rested her hand in the crook of my arm, and jerked her head for us to depart.

I obeyed her, turning my back on the hate-filled woman, absently wondering what brought her to this. I shut the door on Roxanne’s at the top of her lungs diatribe, and patted Hayley’s hand as we walked to my truck.

“Why are you scared?” I asked, handing her into the cab.

Hayley looked past me at the McMansion we’d just vacated. “She’s capable of violence,” she murmured. “You saw some of it.”

“She’ll never harm you.”

“You don’t know that.” Hayley met my gaze with a rueful shrug. “You’re leaving. Remember?”

I cursed under my breath. She was right.

Unless Hayley came with me, I wouldn’t be at her side to protect her.

I shut the door, and walked around the front of the truck to get in.

I saw nothing of Roxanne as I drove us both away from that madhouse.

It wouldn’t be difficult for Roxanne to find my address, and she certainly would know that Hayley was living with me.

Would she act on her threats? Her hatred?

“I still want you to come when we leave.”

“You don’t want me, Alaric.”

“You’re reading my mind now?”

“I don’t have to. You thought I was a brainless fool less than a week ago.”

“I’ve since altered that perception.”

“Have you?” She stared hard at me. “Or do you just like fucking me?”

“That’s not fair.”

“Sure it is. It’s an honest question. If all you want is my body, then say so. It’s at least honest.”

I gritted my teeth to prevent a sharp, acid retort from spewing from my lips. Yes, she asked a fair question. And, yes, she’s right to ask it. I married her in order to satisfy the demands of my father’s will. Not for any romantic notion of being in love with her. Or her with me.

I sighed. “Look, I don’t know where this – marriage – will take us. I was upfront about it, no secrets as to why I needed to marry you.”

“You could have asked anyone. So why me?”

“Willow likes you.”

Hayley stared hard at me for a long time, her mouth opened. “You asked me , out of everyone you know, to marry you, because Willow said so?”

I shrugged, embarrassed. “Well, yeah.”

“Great God in heaven, I am in trouble.”

“Yeah. So let’s get some dinner. Fights with Medusa make me hungry.”