Felicity was glad that no one seemed to blame her, or suspect Theodora of wrong-doing. She didn’t want to blame herself, or suspect Theodora, either. Theodora was her best friend here...wasn’t she?
But did best friends keep big secrets from each other?
Thinking about Theodora’s mysterious secret reminded Felicity of her own, and guilt flooded her as she excused herself to mop the restaurant. It was such a tiny thing, but Felicity knew that didn’t excuse the deceit. If she told the truth, she might lose her beautiful job here, and she’d never felt so at home anywhere else. It was an agony to keep it hidden, but she didn’t dare to confess it. Not yet. She was waiting until after Christmas. Maybeone minuteafter Christmas.
There was music rising from the stage at the bar. The siren, Saina, was testing the new sound system. Her voice was literally magical, and it made Felicity feel fuzzy and happy to hear it.
Felicity stopped, leaning on the mop.
Could Theodora be a mermaid? She looked nothing like Saina, but Saina was from the Indian Ocean, and Theodora was from northern Canada. Maybe she was a cold-water mermaid, and not a seal at all. A cold-water mermaid trying to keep her own magical voice a secret?
Could someone spoil food by singing the wrong enchanted song over it? Felicity tapped her nose because that helped her think. It seemed like the kind of power that a siren might have. Maybe a few notes had slipped out and soured the shrimp! It seemed more likely that it was an accident than that Theodora would actively try to sabotage the resort.
Felicity vowed to confront Theodora at the next opportunity.
CHAPTER8
The zoo where Robert had been imprisoned for two years wasnothingnow.
It was barely even rubble, scrubbed smooth and grown over. The stones of the walls were not just toppled, but spread across the space like someone had scattered them deliberately and them hosed them down with a power washer to take off the rough edges.
The jungle was starting to take it over. Saplings sprang up everywhere, eight feet tall in places, and vines clambered over every mound. Robert could not have said where the walls had been, let alone where his cell was. It didn’t smell like a zoo, or look like a zoo, and it didn’t feel like a zoo. Robert shifted, to prove to himself that he could, and stood as a human to let the cool night air dimple his skin.
Allistair Beehag had been a psychopath, bent on revenge against shifters, and he’d collected the rarest species and caged them for his private amusement. Robert had been just a specimen, forbidden from shifting from his white hart form, a restriction that was painfully enforced.
And the irony was that if he had been quiet about his shift form, not bragging about it relentlessly to impress pretty girls at the resort, he never would have made himself a target.
It was his own fault he’d been captured. He was vain and shallow, and he deserved—Robert pulled his thoughts back with ferocious effort. Letting himself wallow in guilt and resentment was self-defeating. He’d come here to prove that he was not a product of his past.
But if his mate didn’tknowhim, perhaps he still was?
Maybe he was more broken than he realized, and maybe the damage went too deep.
He wandered the area aimlessly and found himself on a bluff looking west over the ocean. If he was hoping for peace, he didn’t find it, but he did find distance, and he wasn’t convinced it was an improvement. He knew the dangers of letting memories fester un-faced, but it was by far the easiest path. The life he’d had before would never be his again. His mate didn’t acknowledge him. He couldn’t bear the hurt and humiliation.
A stick snapped behind him.
Robert turned and found a long-legged fox loping from the jungle. No, not a fox, a maned wolf, with a reddish coat, fox-like ears and springy stilts for legs. He moved so gracefully that Robert immediately suspected he had stepped on a stick on purpose, so as not to startle him. The wolf trotted to a short distance from Robert and shifted.
“Neal Byrne,” Robert said. “You were the one who freed us.”
“Not alone,” Neal said gruffly. “You did a not-so-shabby job assisting in our escape.”
Robert might have felt proud of that, once.
Neither of them were bothered by their nudity, beyond the basic discomfort of a chilly night, and Neal sat a polite distance away, ostensibly facing the nascent sunrise. “It’s hard coming back here,” he observed. “Especially the first time.”
“Did the resort send you?” Robert wanted to know. They probably didn’t want to lose himtwice.
“Scarlet knows everything that happens on the island,” Neal said. “She thought that I would understand what you were going through.” He gave enough of a pause to invite Robert to speak, and when he didn’t, went on. “I get it, you know. It’s not something you’ll ever forget or forgive, and there’s no real justice or meaning to any of it.”
Neal had been imprisoned far longer than he had, Robert remembered. Should he feel shameful about his self-pity?
He didn’t.
Robert made a fist out of habit and forgot to release it. Anger had been the first thing to come back, before, and he hated the person it made him. It was better tolock downthanlet go.
“You work here now?” he asked, without curiosity.
