Page 10 of Savage

He slipped it over the first knuckle, and she smiled at him. It vibrated around her, and as she watched him push it more onto her finger, she could feel the magic of it running up and over her arm to her own body. And it did fit like it had been made for her. It was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.

The band of it was wide and so brilliantly shiny that she wanted to hold it up to the sun to see it sparkle around her. It was the blood-red color of his dragon and it too seemed to catch all the sunlight that was shining down on them and sparkle in the eyes of both her and Tucker.

The diamonds were set in a Tiffany setting that showed off the gems like it was an offering to her. Even the blue sapphires were bright. She did lift it up to the sun and laughed when it rained beautiful stars around her to the point that she was dizzy with them. It was like she was being rained upon by the most wonderful colors in the world, and she couldn’t have been happier.

“I’m glad that you like it.” She asked him if anyone else had worn it, hoping not, but didn’t know. Her trust level in the man was still new to her about him. “No one but you would wear something so beautiful as you are. It dulls in beauty when you wear it upon your finger.” He pulled out the second, much larger band. “This is for myself, as I want everyone to know that you have chosen me over all men in the world. I will forever be your one and only from this day forward.”

His words were like a branding to her heart. They were there for her to pull out and think on for all her days. This day to her would be like none other. The day that Tucker Savage had chosen to take her as his mate forever more.

“I love it, and I love you.” He kissed her hand again and stood up. “Will you kiss me and sort of seal the deal between us? I don’t care for a fancy wedding or even a small one. Just knowing that we’re together will make me the happiest woman forever. I love you so much, Tucker. But if you get all macho on me again, I will not hesitate in taking you out. I won’t be hurt by your words or actions again. Do you understand me? I won’t give you a second chance with this. You either keep your mouth shut when you want to be mean, or I’ll remind you what it’s like to have words hurt you.”

“I understand.” He pulled her into his arms and lifted her chin up. “Kaida. My little dragon, I love you so much.” Then he kissed her, making her body feel heat from the bottom of her feet to the top of her head.

Chapter 5

Margo hung up the phone and let a little of her dragon go to let off steam. She’d been warned no less than a dozen times that if she messed up the room, she was going to have to pay for it. The Savages were making her life hard at the moment, but they had allowed her—well, she had bullied them into bringing her along. Christ, even her brothers were turning against her. Smiling, she thought that was funny. They’d never liked her any more than she liked them. Being their older sister had made her angry at the time, and it hadn’t gotten any better when they were older, either. She had loved being an only child, and her parents paid for them having the two boys with their lives.

Plus, her needing to make sure that they knew who was the stronger of the three of them had paid off over the years. She had always bullied them into her way of thinking, even going so far as to make sure that they were the ones who had been caught when things went sour. Sometimes, she would just walk away and leave them to face whatever consequences there were when she wanted them to suffer. Yes, she thought to herself, they were going to give her what she wanted and then beg her to allow them to live.

Never one to save money, she was in deep trouble now. If not for Sofia and William, her aunt and uncle, she would have been jailed a long time ago. She might well have known that there were fees and dues to the leader of their kind owed, but she’d never paid any attention to it or the summons that she’d gotten either. She’d never been responsible for anything. And even if she had been, it didn’t take long for her to shove it all the way to the back of her mind and right out. Being responsible for things would mess up her life.

Now she had less than thirty days to make it right, or she was going to be stripped of her magic and her dragon, pretty much killing her where she stood. It wasn’t fair that they could kill off dragons and when it came to her, it was suddenly frowned upon. Stupid rules. She hated to have to be ruled by people. They should just let her have her fun, damn it.

With pentiles and back payment she owed her kind nearly fifty million dollars. Then there were the other things that they were attaching to her bill. Attorney fees for them having to find her and calculate how much it came to. There were also the damages that she caused when they brought her in. Shifting to her dragon at that moment had gotten her nearly killed as well.

“They’re going to pay it all for me and keep their mouths shut too.” She thought about seeing Savage there. “Christ, what a delicious hunk of waste of a man. She might not have alienated him so much if she’d known that he’d be that good-looking later in life. Her brothers were so-so looking, but Savage looked like the name that he went by, a savage and a good-looking one, too.

Now, all she had to do was get ahold of her brothers and shake them empty of cash. Maybe getting an eye full of hoping for more than she needed, she was going to take that as well. No longer was she going to be without just because she didn’t have cash or gems on her all the time.

Her usage of tears had been taken from her when they thought that she’d killed her parents. She had, but without proof, all they’d been able to do was take a bit of her magic away. She had disliked her parents as much as she had her brothers. Well, anyone if she was honest with herself. Sometimes, Margo didn’t even care for herself, much less a bunch of humans gathered together in one place. Christ.

The older her parents had gotten, the more set in their ways they became, like humans, only worse. They’d even gotten into the habit of hanging out with humans. Having vacations with them and the like. Killing them had been her greatest triumph. Nothing could have pleased her more than being able to tell the world how easy it had been to murder them in their beds one night. The worst part was, of course, that since they had thought that she’d killed them, she couldn’t inherit their fortune. She wondered if her stupid brothers had ever realized or been told that they had a great deal of moneyleft to them by their parents. The fools would give it to her if she was able to tell them. God, how she hated them both so much.

Her phone ringing startled her out of her thinking, and she snapped when she said her name. Whoever the person was on the other end was laughing, and that pissed her off even more. Hanging up seemed the right thing to do, and she’d be willing to bet that they’d call her back within minutes of realizing who they had angered. Putting her phone on the little table she had, Margo waited for whomever it was to call her back.

Three hours later, they still hadn’t called her again. Thinking that it had been the perfect way to show someone how not to be on her bad side, she still wished, just a little, that she knew who had called. It couldn’t have been one of her brothers. They would know better than to not call her back not to mention just talking to her in the first place. They had to know that it would piss her off.

Nor the Savages, Aunt Sofia, and Uncle William. Even though they’d not wanted her on this trip with them, they had gotten her a hotel room without room service. She’d tried to order something, just to test the waters, so to speak, but they told her that unless she had cash, they weren’t bringing her anything to eat.

“Mother fuckers.” She didn’t know what to think about her aunt and uncle when it came to Kingston. He didn’t bother them. Never once did she ever remember him being disrespectful to them, with the exception of the airport shit. But the way that they were speaking on the way to the little hotel, it had been planned that the other woman would show herself by being mean to Kaida. “Sofia seemed to think that the little twit was going to own them something, too. For some reason, I’d not mess with the stranger. She seems to be slightly deranged.”

William brought up how she was human. Only human is what he called her. Maybe they were hoping for her to be only a human, but she was far from that. You could almost smell the magic surrounding her. And it was powerful, too. While she didn’t think that she could shift, it would only be because she didn’t want to. The woman was scary like that. And she did wonder, off and on today, what she was doing with Savage. He had said, mate, but that could have been a lie. Neither of them had rings on, so that was just bullshit, she told herself.

Time would tell when she met up with her brothers. They’d tell her all she needed to know before she beat them senseless. She couldn’t kill them, mores the pity, but she could hurt them in ways that she’d never used on someone before. Having them dead would mean that everything they had, and she was sure there was plenty to be had, she’d get it all and be worry-free for the next few centuries or so. Poisoning her parents is what got the law put into effect that you couldn’t kill those related to you by blood. She’d been skirting around that law her entire life and had gotten away with it time and time again. Just look at Savage’s parents.

Kelly and Ben had been all right as an uncle and aunt. Savage had never been in the picture when they came to family outings, and he’d been less in the picture when she killed them. Had she known about the money that they had, she might well have killed them sooner rather than later. Before Savage and Lillian were born.

They deserved to die after using their magic to make sure that Lillian won all the awards for her beauty and poise. She’d asked to be able to be competitive with her cousin, but she was told—even today, it still hurt her that she’d been told that she wasn’t nearly as beautiful as Lillian was and that they didn’t have time for her. That got them all three dead. Treating her like she was an ugly duckling had pissed her off enough that when she’d killed her aunt, who had said that to her, she killed off Lillian as well as her mother. Kelly wasn’t beautiful at all when she got done with her nor was Lillian. It made her smile when she thought of how much pleasure she got out of the way that she’d murdered the three of them and got her to laughing when she thought of her uncle Ben telling her that she had broken the law by killing her relatives and that he was going to turn her in. Like that ever happened.

She was startled when a woman answered the phone when she tried to contact Cassian. She said hello twice before she asked if this was Margo Savage. She told her that it was before she could remember that she was all badass, and the woman on the other end of the line was—

“This is Kaida Savage. What do you want calling your brothers twenty times in the last half hour?” Again, startled out of making a good comeback, she really felt her dragon react to the woman’s laughter.

“I want to talk to them, obviously. They are my next of kin.” The laughter again. “What makes you think that you can do anything with me. I’m nearly ten times your age not to mention, I’m a dragon that eats your kind for breakfast.”

“Yes, I’ve heard about how you treat your next of kin. Did you really try and kill the two of them when they were only days old?” She said that she had and then told her they were going to die soon enough by her hands. “We’ll see about that. I know you think you’re all that and a bag of chips, but I’m in charge now, and you’re going to have to come through me to get to them.”

“Gladly.” She felt a moment of fear when she remembered who she was talking to. But once more when she thought of the magic around her, she remembered that not only were her brothers there but her aunt and uncle, Savage and Kingston. They were the reason for all the magic that she had felt. “Why don’t we get together and hash out how I’m going to murder you as well.”

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