Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
The bond had gone quiet.
Alessandro felt it the moment he woke: a muted quality to the frequency that had been clear for weeks, like static where a song used to be. She was still there, still connected, but the emotions flowing through weren’t the warm, open ones he’d grown accustomed to.
She was pulling away. And he didn’t know why.
He found her in the bakery kitchen at four-thirty, already elbow-deep in bread dough. The sight should have been comforting, but her posture was wrong. Shoulders too tight. Movements too sharp.
“You’re up early,” he said.
“I’m always up early.”
“Earlier than usual.”
She didn’t look at him. “Couldn’t sleep.”
A flicker of doubt, or worry, reached him before she clamped down on it. The sudden silence was jarring. He’d gotten used to feeling her, to knowing her moods before she spoke them.
Now he felt like he was reading a book with half the pages torn out.
“Marina.” He crossed to stand beside her, close enough to touch but not touching. “Whatever happened yesterday, with Malachar, we should talk about it.”
“We did talk about it. You didn’t listen.”
“I listened. I just didn’t agree.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
She finally looked at him, and Alessandro stopped at what he saw. Not anger; he could have handled anger. Disappointment. The quiet resignation of someone who had expected to be let down.
“I’m trying to understand,” he said.
“Are you?” She returned to her dough with more force than necessary. “Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you’ve already decided I’m wrong. You’re just waiting for me to admit it.”
“That’s not…”
“It is, Alessandro. I can feel it through the bond.” Her voice cracked. “You think I’m being paranoid. Dramatic. That I’m seeing threats where there aren’t any because I don’t understand the situation the way you do.”
“I never said that.”
“You didn’t have to. I felt it.”
She was right, and that was the part he couldn’t argue. Some part of him had thought exactly that. He’d dismissed her instincts as inexperience, her concerns as overreaction.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and meant it.
“I know you are. But being sorry doesn’t change the pattern.
” She shaped the dough with angry, deliberate force.
“I’ve spent my whole life being overlooked.
Being told my feelings don’t matter, my observations aren’t important, my concerns are just silliness.
I thought—” She pressed the heel of her hand hard into the dough. “I thought you were different.”
“I am different.”
“Prove it.”
She waited. He didn’t know how.
The morning rush came and went, and the distance between them didn’t close.
Marina served customers with her usual warmth, but Alessandro felt the effort it cost her. Every smile was a mask. Every cheerful greeting was performance. The real Marina, the one who laughed at his terrible baking attempts and fell asleep on his shoulder during late-night research, was hiding.
And he was the reason.
His phone buzzed around eleven. Malachar’s name on the screen.
Lunch today? I have information about the curse you’ll want to hear.
Alessandro stared at the message. Part of him, the part that had trusted Malachar for a decade, wanted to say yes. Information about the curse was exactly what he needed. If Malachar had found something useful, wouldn’t it be foolish to ignore it?
But Marina’s voice echoed in his head: I thought you were different.
He should ask her. Should discuss the decision before making it.
Instead, his fingers typed: Where?
It was reflex. Habit. The ingrained pattern of a man who had handled his family’s problems alone for so long that consulting anyone felt like weakness.
He didn’t realize his mistake until Marina’s voice came from behind him.
“You’re meeting him.”
Alessandro turned. She was standing in the kitchen doorway, arms crossed, face pale.
“He has information…”
“He has NOTHING. He’s playing you, Alessandro, and you can’t see it because you don’t want to.” Her voice rose. “You said you’d prove you were different. And the first thing you do is make a decision about something that affects both of us without even asking?”
“This is about my family’s curse. My responsibility.”
“Your responsibility.” She laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Right. I forgot. You handle everything alone. You don’t need anyone’s input. Especially not from the clumsy baker who doesn’t understand the ‘complexities.’”
“I never said that.”
“You don’t have to say it. You just do it.
” She stepped toward him, and her anger found him through the bond, and beneath it, pain so sharp he had to set down the bowl.
“I’m not stupid, Alessandro. I’m cautious.
There’s a difference. And if you can’t tell the difference, then maybe I was wrong about you after all. ”
The words landed.
“Marina…”
“Go to your meeting.” Her voice dropped. “Get your information. But don’t expect me to be here waiting to hear about it afterward.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I need space. The bond won’t let us get too far apart, but I can stay at Bea’s. The crystal shop is close enough.”
“You’re leaving?”
“I’m taking a break.” She turned away. “Nine days until the full moon. Maybe by then, you’ll have figured out whose side you’re actually on.”
She walked out of the kitchen before he could respond.
Her grief gutted him. His knees went soft and he had to brace a hand against the counter. She’d trusted him. And he’d chosen Malachar over her without even realizing that’s what he was doing.
The worst part was, he still didn’t entirely understand why she was so upset.
The lunch meeting was a disaster.
Not because Malachar was obviously villainous; if anything, he was more charming than ever. He ordered a 2015 Barolo without looking at the price, asked thoughtful questions about Alessandro’s research, offered genuinely useful insights about dragon contract law.
The disaster was Alessandro’s growing realization that none of it felt right.
“Your little baker seemed upset yesterday,” Malachar said casually, swirling his wine. “I hope I didn’t cause any trouble.”
“She’s concerned about you.”
“About me?” Malachar’s eyebrows rose. “How curious. What could she possibly find concerning?”
“She thinks…” Alessandro stopped. What did Marina think, exactly? That Malachar was dangerous? That he’d been sabotaging the Dravens for centuries? That his interest in her recipe book wasn’t casual curiosity?
Said aloud, it sounded paranoid.
But Marina wasn’t paranoid. She was the most grounded person he knew.
“She has good instincts,” Alessandro finished carefully.
“I’m sure she does. Selkies often do.” Malachar’s smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Though instincts can be misleading. You know that better than anyone: how many false leads have you chased over the years? How many dead ends that felt promising?”
The implicit comparison stung. Was Malachar suggesting Marina’s concerns were just another dead end?
Or was he deflecting?
“Tell me about the information you mentioned,” Alessandro said.
“Ah, yes. The curse.” Malachar leaned forward, voice dropping confidentially. “I’ve been researching the original contract, the one that created the binding. There’s a loophole. A way to break it without the elaborate ritual your baker’s book suggests.”
“What loophole?”
“Renunciation. If the cursed party voluntarily surrenders all claim to the family fortune, the curse has nothing to drain. It breaks itself.”
Alessandro stared at him. “You want me to give up my inheritance.”
“I want you to consider options. The fortune is cursed, Alessandro. Every dollar your family earns turns to ash eventually. Wouldn’t it be better to release it willingly than watch it bleed away?”
“And who would it go to? If I renounced it?”
Malachar’s pause lasted a fraction too long. “That’s a matter of contract law. The original binding would determine…”
“Would it go to you?”
The question slipped out before Alessandro could stop it. For one instant, one crystalline moment, he saw it behind Malachar’s charming mask. Cold. Calculating.
Then it was gone.
“What an interesting theory.” Malachar laughed, but the sound was hollow. “I’m trying to help you, Alessandro. I’ve always tried to help.”
“I know.”
But he wasn’t sure he did.
The lunch ended with promises of further research, further discussions. Alessandro drove back to Sweetwater Cove with Malachar’s words circling in his mind.
Renunciation. Surrender. Let go.
That wasn’t breaking the curse. That was giving up. And something in Alessandro’s dragon blood, the territorial, possessive core of his nature, recoiled from the suggestion.
His family’s fortune belonged to the Dravens. It had for generations. And he wasn’t about to hand it over to anyone, no matter how helpful they claimed to be.
When he got back to the bakery, he found the front door locked and a CLOSED sign in the window.
That wasn’t like Marina. The Salty Siren rarely closed early. Not on the day of the summit disaster, not on most of the worst days of their accidental bond.
A spike of fear jolted through him. Not his own. Sharp, urgent, quickly suppressed.
He circled to the back alley and froze.
Malachar was there. Standing by the bakery’s back door, one hand pressed against the wood like he was testing its strength. His rental car was parked at the alley’s end, engine still running.
“Malachar?”
The demon turned smoothly, not a flicker of surprise on his face. “Alessandro. You made good time.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Admiring the architecture.” Malachar gestured at the old building. “These coastal structures have such character. The way they withstand the salt air, the storms. Quite resilient.”
His eyes, Alessandro noticed, were fixed on the window to Marina’s apartment. The one that overlooked her kitchen. The one where she kept her grandmother’s recipe book.
“The meeting ended an hour ago. Why are you still in town?”
“Research.” Malachar smiled. “I told you: I want to help. And sometimes helping requires… observation.”
Marina’s fear pulsed against him again. She was inside. She was watching. And she was terrified.
“I think you should leave,” Alessandro said.
Danger surfaced in Malachar’s expression. “Are you dismissing me?”
“I’m suggesting that loitering in alleys isn’t a good look for a family advisor.”
Neither of them moved. Then Malachar laughed—a sound that raised the hair on Alessandro’s arms.
“Of course. My apologies. The sea air must be affecting my judgment.” He walked toward his car, pausing beside Alessandro. “Give my regards to your baker. Tell her I look forward to… future conversations.”
He drove away.
Alessandro stood in the alley, blood roaring in his ears, trying to reconcile the man he’d just seen with the advisor he’d trusted for a decade.
They didn’t match.
They didn’t match at all.
He found Dante waiting at the front entrance, face grim.
“We need to talk,” his brother said.
“I’m not in the mood.”
“Too bad.” Dante blocked the stairs. “Marina’s been at Bea’s for two hours. She looks like someone kicked her puppy. And you just had lunch with a man she specifically told you was dangerous.”
“She’s overreacting.”
“Is she?” Dante’s expression hardened. “Because I’ve been thinking about Malachar too. About how long he’s been in our family’s orbit. About how none of his advice has ever actually helped.”
“He’s been supportive…”
“He’s been present. That’s not the same thing.” Dante stepped closer. “Marina sees something, Alessandro. I see it too. Why don’t you?”
Because seeing it would mean accepting that he’d been wrong. That he’d trusted the enemy. That a decade of independent research and careful strategy had played right into Malachar’s hands.
Alessandro couldn’t face that. Not yet.
“I know what I’m doing,” he said.
“Do you?” Dante shook his head slowly. “Because the brother I know would never choose a family acquaintance over the woman he loves. Not unless something was very, very wrong.”
The word landed. Loves.
Did he love Marina?
Even muted, even guarded, she was there: the steady beat of her presence like a second heartbeat. The way she’d become essential to him without his permission.
Yes. He loved her.
And he was losing her because he couldn’t admit he might be wrong.
“I’ll fix this,” Alessandro said.
“How?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Dante studied him. “You saw something, didn’t you? When you came back. Something that shook you.”
“He was here. After our meeting. Looking at the bakery like…” He couldn’t finish the sentence.
“Like what?”
“Like he was planning something.”
“And you’re still not sure if Marina’s right about him?”
Alessandro was still resisting and they both knew it, still trying to find an explanation that didn’t require him to admit he’d been blind. That he’d invited danger into his family’s orbit and refused to see it.
“I don’t know what I’m sure of anymore,” he admitted.
“Then maybe start there.” Dante’s voice softened. “You don’t have to have all the answers, Alessandro. You just have to be willing to ask the right questions.”
He left Alessandro standing in the empty bakery, surrounded by the smell of bread that Marina had made before everything went wrong.
She was at Bea’s, and the bond carried all of it: hurt, scared, determined. She wasn’t giving up on him. Not yet. But she was waiting for him to prove he could change.
Alessandro thought about his father. Decades of dismissing his mother’s concerns. The curse handled in stubborn, lonely silence. The slow erosion of trust that had turned his parents’ marriage into a polite armistice.
He’d always sworn he wouldn’t become that man.
And yet here he was. Making the exact same mistakes.
I have to be different, he thought. I have to actually change, not just promise to.
But change required admitting he’d been wrong. About Malachar. About himself. About everything.
Two words he had spent his whole adult life refusing to say.
He picked up his phone and started typing the apology, deleted it, started again.