Chapter Twenty-Six
“How’s that possible? He must’ve made mistakes at some point in his life.”
“Mistakes, he has made, but he hasn’t seen them as such. Your grandfather is a very confident man. He thinks he knows what’s best for everyone.”
“Is that a side effect of being on the Directorate?” Oh shit, did she say that out loud?
This time her grandmother laughed for real. “I believe it is. When it comes to dealing with Blue males, it’s best to let them think they are in control. Yelling at him was risky. You shouldn’t do it again. If he had kicked you out, there would be no second chance.”
“How do you deal with his attitude? I’d shoot a fireball at his head.”
“Believe me, there have been times I’ve wanted to. But there’s a lot to be said for keeping the peace. Like I told you once before, he goes his way, and I go mine. It’s just…easier.”
…
When they reached Dragon’s Bluff, the guard parked in a lot across the street from a bakery.
“Are we having doughnuts for breakfast?” Bryn asked.
“No.” Her grandmother exited the vehicle and waited for Bryn to join her. “Suzette’s is just down the street. Before we eat, we’re going to visit a bakery. I need to decide on a dessert for the Christmas ball.”
When it came to Christmas, there was only one dessert that mattered. “Does the bakery make Christmas cookies?”
“I suppose they could.”
Her grandmother didn’t sound that interested.
“If they don’t, could we buy some ingredients to make Christmas cookies?” Sadness welled up inside her but she pushed it down.
“You want to bake your own cookies?” Her grandmother looked at her like she was speaking a foreign language.
Patience. “The only thing better than eating Christmas cookies is baking them.”
Her grandmother nodded. “We’ll see what we can do.”
They crossed the street. It was a pretty winter day with crisp weather and a cloudless sky. The light posts in front of the shop were decorated with silver snowflakes. “I wonder if it will snow for Christmas?”
At home, she’d had a few white Christmases. Her eyes grew hot. She sniffled and tried not to think about what had been. Too late. Images flooded her mind. Her dad dressing up like Santa Claus. Waking Christmas mornings and running to find the reindeer food they’d left on the fire escape gone. Stringing popcorn while watching Rudolph on television. Her dad singing all the songs, badly off tune. Bam. Bam. Bam. The hits kept coming.
She clutched at the light post she stood next to because it was within reach. It was real. Everything else was gone. Her entire life. Gone. Everything good, gone gone gone.
Bryn became aware that she was sitting on the ground and her grandmother was yelling at her. “Bryn, what is it? Are you sick?”
Strong hands grabbed Bryn by the shoulders and pulled her to her feet. Jaxon stared into her face. “What’s wrong?”
“It can’t be Christmas without them.” And then she burst into tears.
Lillith appeared by Jaxon’s side. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
People kept saying that, but it didn’t do her any damn good.
Her grandmother passed her a lace-edged handkerchief. Bryn took it and dabbed at her face, but the tears kept coming.
“You’re not going to stop crying, are you?” Jaxon said.
“I’m not doing it on purpose.” She took a deep breath and blew it out. Didn’t help.
“Perhaps we could sit somewhere and have a cup of tea,” Lillith suggested. “Suzette’s is just around the corner.”
“God, no.” Jaxon backed up a step.
The look of utter horror on his face turned Bryn’s tears to laughter. How bad could the tearoom be?
Her grandmother stepped into her line of sight. “Do you feel up to eating, or should we go home?”
The last thing she wanted to do was go stare at the walls of her bedroom. She sniffled and dabbed at her eyes. “Breakfast sounds good.” Wanting to prove she was okay, she added, “And we can shop for desserts afterward.”
“So we’re going to the teahouse?” Lillith’s face lit up with excitement. “I’ve been craving sweets, and they have the best cherry pie.”
Jaxon picked up the shopping bags he’d been carrying. “Why don’t I take our bags home, and you can stay and have a nice visit.”
“But you love the cherry pie at Suzette’s.” Lillith sounded like she might cry. Was she acting or was she experiencing hormonal mood swings?
The way Jaxon sighed and gave a resigned nod hinted at one answer over the other.
Lillith and her grandmother took the lead. Bryn and Jaxon walked behind them.
“So your mom is a little mood-swingy right now?”
Jaxon snorted. “I’m not sure you should comment on someone else’s mental stability.”
Bryn came to a dead halt. “Have you reverted back to the asshat you used to be? Because a little notice would’ve been nice.”
He rounded on her. “I am not the problem here. You, my mother, and that god-awful flower-infested tearoom are the problem.”
“You’re this upset about a tearoom? Now who’s emotionally unstable?”
“My mother dragged me there every Sunday afternoon from the time I was five until I was ten. Believe me, the pie doesn’t make up for the agonizing conversations I was forced to endure about china patterns and tablecloths.”
She almost felt sorry for him. Almost, but not quite. “Does my grandmother strike you as the type to chat about china patterns?”
“They all talk about china patterns. Like it’s mandatory.”
“I promise I won’t engage in any dish-related conversations.” She pointed toward her grandmother. “We better catch up.”
“I’m not going.” Jaxon took a step backward. “Tell my mother I left to check on a gift.”
Before she could argue the point, he took off like a man fleeing death. Fierce Jaxon traumatized by a girlie tearoom seemed absurd. Whatever. She hurried to catch up to her grandmother. They were waiting outside the tearoom.
“Where’s Jaxon?” Lillith asked.
Please don’t let her cry. “He said he needed to check on a Christmas present.”
“Oh, well I guess it’s just the three of us.” Lillith entered Suzette’s.
The dining room at Suzette’s looked like a florist’s shop had exploded. Floral carpet, floral wallpaper, floral tablecloths, and dear God, there were even floral dishes.
Yet the place was packed. Women of all Clans sat in small groups. There were a few dispirited young men who seemed to have been dragged there by their mothers. The males all had the same get-me-the-hell-out-of-here look on their faces.
Bryn blinked and then checked her grandmother’s expression.
“Something you wanted to say?” Her grandmother looked like the cat that had swallowed the canary.
How to be diplomatic about this? “This doesn’t look like a place you would enjoy. The decor is…busy.”
The hostess met them, grinning like she was in on the joke. “It must be your granddaughter’s first time with us.”
“Yes,” her grandmother said. “She isn’t known for her subtle ways. I’m waiting for her to make a comment.”
Bryn crossed her arms over her chest. “If they have pancakes, I can deal with the froufrou decorations.”
“We’ll do froufrou next time,” her grandmother said.
“This way.” The hostess led the three of them to a side door and down a hallway that led to a room that was the complete opposite of the floral nightmare up front. The walls were a soothing pale blue, the tablecloths were cream-colored, and the floor was polished hardwood. Not a froufrou item in sight.
“Is this more to your taste?” her grandmother asked after the hostess seated them.
Bryn stared around the room. Several women nodded in their direction. Her grandmother and Lillith nodded back.
A waitress brought them menus. Once Bryn saw the words “blueberry pancakes,” she was good to go. After they placed their order, she settled back in her seat. “What’s the deal with the fake front room?”
“Sometimes you want a place to get away from the men in your life,” her grandmother said, “a place they fear to tread.”
“The flowery room is a front for the real restaurant?”
“Exactly. For generations, women have dragged their sons and grandsons into Suzette’s. Once they’re grown men, they never come looking for us here again. As you can see from Jaxon’s reaction, it works.”
“That is sneaky and brilliant.” Bryn had a new respect for her fellow dragons’ feminine ingenuity. “Who thought of this?”
“A couple of Green dragons came together with the idea and approached the Blue women’s league asking them to finance the operation.” Lillith picked up her menu and turned the pages.
“And the men have never suspected anything?”
“They all want out the front door so badly, they never investigate anything else,” her grandmother said. “All the women take turns eating in the floral farce once a month. That way the room is always full.”
Their food arrived, and Bryn worked her way through the pancakes in the most ladylike way she could manage. Which meant she only dripped syrup on her dress three times.
“We need to work on your etiquette,” her grandmother said.
Bryn dabbed at the front of her dress with a wet napkin. At least the syrup didn’t show on the dark-colored dress. Time for a topic change. “What’s next on the agenda?”
Lillith sighed in satisfaction. “I finished my shopping, so I believe I’m going home to rest.”
“Perhaps we should go home, too.”
“But we were supposed to shop for desserts.” She cringed at the thought of going back to her room and staring at the walls.
“Yes. Well, you weren’t supposed to scare the life out of me.” Her grandmother’s words were harsh, but her tone was soft. She touched Bryn’s shoulder. “You might need rest.”
“Rest won’t fix the problem. Nothing will fix it, but keeping busy might help me cope. I’ll try to keep the breakdowns to a minimum.”
After a visit to the bakery to discuss dessert options, Bryn and her grandmother returned to the car. The driver sat in the front seat reading a book. Did he have to stay by the car like he was he on call? She needed to figure out how this system worked.
And that made her think of something she couldn’t believe she’d forgotten. When would she get her driver’s license?
“Will I have driver’s training classes at the institute?” Bryn asked as they took the winding road back into the forest to her grandparents’ estate.
“Why would you need to learn how to drive? One of the drivers can take you anywhere you need to go.”
Drivers? As in more than one? Wow. “At my old school”—she stopped short of saying “human school”—“everyone takes driver’s training classes. It’s mandatory before you can take the driver’s test and get your license.”
“That isn’t part of the institute’s curriculum.”
And apparently that topic was over. Okay. Maybe she’d ask Valmont to teach her to drive.
“We need to talk about what happened today,” her grandmother said.
“About what?”
“I understand you’re grieving, but what happened today is unacceptable. If you can’t cope better than that, then we might need to speak with a medic about helping you relax.”
Seriously? “First off, I didn’t plan it. Second, I’m not ashamed of grieving for my parents.”
Her grandmother’s lips set in a thin line. “Grief is meant to be acted on in private, not in public.”
“I’m so sorry. I’ll be sure to schedule my next breakdown for a time that’s more correct by your standards.”
The rest of the ride was a frosty affair. Her grandmother was angry. She got that, but how could the woman not understand how hard this was? She couldn’t adjust to her parents’ deaths overnight.
Over the next few days, Bryn did her best to meet her grandmother’s expectations. Not that they interacted much. Her grandmother’s time seemed to be taken up with planning the Christmas Eve ball. Her grandfather appeared at meals and kept mostly to himself.
Desperate for something to do, Bryn decided to investigate the mansion, avoiding any and all rooms with desks, lest she tread on her grandfather’s territory again. She started in her grandmother’s wing. She found a ton of guest bedrooms, some sitting rooms, and the occasional bathroom. None of the rooms were super interesting.
When she came across books, she investigated them, but most were about interior decorating or maintaining a proper staff. She knew her mother’s old rooms had to be around somewhere, but didn’t feel like she could ask. She suspected the rooms where Alec had taken Jaxon and Lillith after he’d drugged them were her mother’s, simply because they’d been neglected. The smell of mold and dust had only been outdone by the gasoline Alec had poured on the furniture to prevent her from using her fire. What had her grandparents done after the attack? They couldn’t leave gasoline-soaked furniture sitting around. For all she knew, the entire suite was probably destroyed during the battle. Searching through rooms kept her occupied in between meals with her grandparents.
One evening, she found a side stairwell that had a light that didn’t work. Very odd. Somehow, throughout this giant mansion, the staff kept everything dust-free and well lit. Could she have finally found a way to reach her mother’s old rooms?
Producing a flame in her right hand for light, she ascended the staircase, which ended at a landing crowded with boxes and cleaning supplies. A door stood ajar. Her heart beat faster. She pushed the door open wide enough to enter and sighed in disappointment. Whatever this space might once have been, it had been wiped clean. No furniture, no light fixtures, no carpets or anything filled the space. Although when she looked at the ceiling she could see bare wires hanging down where lights used to be.
Her footsteps echoed through the room and she realized it opened up into a much larger space. On the far wall she saw the elevator doors, which meant the way she’d come in had been the bedroom area, and she was now out in the larger sitting room area backward of the way she’d seen it on the night she’d faced Alec.
She headed back into the bedroom area, hoping to find a closet that might still hold some remnant of her mother, some proof that she’d existed. The closet in the bedroom proved to be empty and freshly painted like the rest of the room. It was long and narrow like a short hallway. At the very end, on the right side, Bryn saw the outline of another door half the size of a regular door, like something that might lead to an attic. She turned the knob and pulled, discovering that it had been painted shut. She yanked harder, and it came open. Kneeling down, she peered inside. Stairs, there were stairs. She crawled through and then stood, brushing dust off the front of her jeans. And there was a lot of dust. The cleanup effort hadn’t extended this far.
Bryn climbed the half flight of stairs and came to a small room with a pitched ceiling. Her breath caught in her throat. Pictures of her parents when they were still in school were tacked onto a makeshift bulletin board. She crossed the space and traced her fingers over the photos of her dad smiling with such love she had no doubt it was her mom taking the picture, and photos of her mom grinning like she was the happiest woman in the world. Under the photos there was a stack of books. Bryn picked one up and recognized them as part of the Legends series from the library, about a time when dragons could fall in love and marry without Directorate interference.
She opened the top book, unpinned the pictures, and carefully slid the photos between the pages to keep them safe. A piece of paper fell out of the book. She picked it up and saw a familiar circle divided into four sections, each section containing a triangle…the symbol for rebellion. She flipped through the pages in the remaining books, hoping to find more notes. But there was nothing. Had her mother drawn the symbol because she’d seen it somewhere, or did it mean something else? She could imagine her mother sitting up here, reading about people falling in love and fantasizing about running away. Now that she’d met her grandparents and lived in this world, she realized what courage it had taken for her mom and dad to do what they did. She was proud of them.
It was nearing dinnertime. Bryn decided to take the books and photos and hide them in her room. Not that she should have to hide them, but if her mom had taken the trouble to do so, she felt like she should continue the tradition. There might be other photos of her mom in the house, but she’d yet to see any, and her grandmother had never offered to show her where they might be kept. So she wanted to keep these photos safe. The drawing didn’t seem like something she should carry around. Since it had belonged to her mother, she wouldn’t feel right throwing it away. Instead, she slid the piece of paper behind the bulletin board.
She made it back to her room without encountering anyone. She used a damp cloth to clean the dust from the books, and then she put them in her book bag. If asked, she could say they came from the library, not that she expected anyone to go through her bag. Once that was done, she changed and freshened up before going to dinner.
During dinner, she listened to her grandmother talk about details for the Christmas Eve ball. She did her best to smile and nod in all the right places. If her reactions were off, her grandmother didn’t seem to notice.