The Dynasty Club Read online

  Sienna knew she was being petulant, but she never cared. As much as she was hurting inside, she wondered if her mother was feeling the same thing. That idea actually made her feel a little bit better. And maybe she wasn't the only one that had to pay for her father’s stupid decisions.

  Her mother tried to talk to her a few more times, and Sienna just kept walking and tried her best to ignore it. It wasn't the way she wanted to end things, but her anger was all consuming, and she couldn't think of another way.

  Sienna left her mom behind and kept walking the halls. When she started to get bored of the view, she started to walk the grounds around the Dynasty Club to ease her mind.

  She had people that were following her around, and she was sure that it was on her father's request. It was the day everybody waited for, and she couldn't walk around freely because he was afraid she was going to leave again. Truth be told, she would have, if there were a chance.

  The situation never arose, so Sienna finally went back to her room to get ready for the wedding. It was the wedding of the decade, but she didn't want to be a part of it. Sienna didn't want to marry Darius. She didn't even know him. They had seen each other in passing, and that was it.

  She ignored the knocks that she heard on her door. Sienna knew that it was her mother or sister, and they were going to try and make her feel better. They weren’t going to do very well in that aspect, and there was no point.

  She tried to shake the melancholy, but it was impossible. It wasn't like her, she wasn’t a depressed kind of person, but ever since she had found out about the wedding, there was nothing good to feel anymore. Sienna was just going to have to hold on to the moments that she had with Trent. Hopefully, one day, she would be able to forget the rest of it. The part of it that had broken her heart into a thousand pieces.

  When Sienna finally got out of her room, her mother and sister were there to tell her how beautiful she was. It didn’t make much of a difference one way or another for Sienna. She didn’t want to be beautiful. She wanted her outside to match all of the pain and turmoil that she was hiding on the inside.

  Her father came by to inspect her and make sure that she was dressed right. He approved but didn’t say a word.

  “Your father isn’t happy about all of this either, Sienna.”

  Sienna didn’t want to hear about her father and how he felt. He was the one that had caused it all, so she had no sympathy for him.

  “Let’s just get this over with.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Aren’t you going to tell me how happy you are for me?”

  “Is that really what you want to hear, Darius? You don't want to be here either.”

  Darius shrugged his shoulders and made it like a didn’t matter either way. For some reason, that made Trent even more upset. He had already been drinking a bit too much, and his mouth was a little too flappy.

  “I don't know. I saw the chick; she's pretty hot. I guess she will do.”

  Trent did not want to hear that from his brother. He wanted to tell him that she was a precious gift and he was damn lucky that he hadn’t run off with her himself. He’d felt every inch of her and was never going to be able to forget about Sienna. She was better than just doing. She was everything, and Darius was stupid if he didn't understand that.

  “I got to know her a little bit, Darius, and you should give her a little more credit.”

  “She is a woman, Trent. She's pretty and designed to know how to shut up once in a while. That's all that I need from her. That and give me a couple of heirs.”

  “You're not even going to try?”

  Darius shook his head like his brother was an idiot. “Of course not. I'm going to have Amber to take care of my needs and a wife to give me a legitimate son. That is all they are really good for anyway. Right?”

  Trent was finding it harder and harder not to say anything. What he wanted to say was not going to be welcome. He also had a feeling that if he let it go too long, then he would say too much. He would tell his brother how he had taken his bride's virginity. He wanted to tell him everything and tell him that Sienna was his.

  The more he thought about it all and talked to Darius, the more Trent wished he hadn’t brought her back at all. He didn’t like the idea of what he had actually brought her back to.

  “So, you are not even planning on making this a real marriage?”

  “Of course, it will be a real marriage. How do you think our parents have lasted this long?”

  It wasn't something that Trent really thought about. He knew that his mother was unhappy. He could see that much in her face, but that was about all he consciously thought about it. Did his mother hate her his father as much as Sienna thought she would Darius?

  That was certainly something that Trent never thought about before, and it made him ponder.

  “And that's what you want?”

  “It will be enough, Trent. There is no perfect ending in this scenario. I just have to work with what is given. At least she is not ugly.”

  Trent did not like the sound of it at all. It just seemed so fatalistic, and it felt way too much like settling.

  “I never would have imagined that you would go along with this.”

  “You know that I don't have a choice. Father told you about the McClellans?”

  “Yeah, he did. Are we really going to let them dictate how we live our lives?”

  “It has nothing to do with them dictating anything to us. It has to do with us keeping what is already ours. This has to be done. I thought you knew that. Why are you changing your mind all of a sudden and getting weird about it?”

  Trent knew that he had always been uncaring about the wedding from the beginning. He hadn't even wanted to come to America to attend it, but now things had changed. And he couldn't tell anybody why.

  “I just don't want it to happen to me after you have left the house. Then it'll be my turn to get pushed into a marriage, with a family for some alliance. There's no telling who it will be, and if you go along with it, then I'm going to have to go along with it as well.”

  It was all Trent could come up with, and it seemed to be enough. Darius understood selfish feelings all too well, and he agreed.

  “Well, then you better pick someone before Father does. And even then, it might not be enough.”

  That was a depressing thought, but it really didn't matter to Trent because he already knew what he wanted. There was just no easy answer to make it happen. He liked to believe that he could talk Darius out of it and that his brother would call off the wedding and he would get Sienna, but it became clear that Darius had changed his mind about everything.

  He was failing miserably, and it was the first time that he started to realize that this was really going to happen. Sienna was really going to marry his brother, and there was nothing he could do about it.

  He had brought her back for it. She had begged him not to and he wished that he would have just left. They could have run away, and nobody would have ever found them. Then they could be together.

  “Where the hell is your mind, Trent? You keep looking off into space.”

  “I know. I just kind of… I don't know. It's been a long week, you know.”

  “Yeah, I hear you. This is the day that I'm getting married. It has been one hell of a day. So why are you so weird today?”

  Trent didn’t think that he was being weird.

  “It has just been one of those days.”

  “So, you're not going to tell me what's going on?”

  “No, I don't think that I am. It’s nothing to worry about. It’s your wedding day, after all. You shouldn’t be worried about things like that.

  “I am not worried. You’re the one here with the sour face. I swear you need to find your own girl. Then you wouldn't be so bothered by mine.”

  Since Trent didn't want to hear it, he was pretty sure that his brother was right. If being with Sienna had taught him anything, it was that he’d been missing something for a whil
e. The problem was that he didn't see himself getting that feeling from anyone else.

  “I will see what I can do when I get back home. Looks like we're going to have a little bit of a war to take care of.”

  “You know that Dad’s not sending you. We all know how you are.”

  Trent didn't say a word for a moment. He was pretty sure that his brother was alluding to the fact that he didn't kill Carl.

  “Did you really want me to kill him?”

  “Why wouldn’t you?”

  Trent didn't know what to say to that. His family was far more aggressive than he was. There was no point in it, as far as he was concerned.

  “I didn’t see a reason, Darius.”

  “Because he disrespected the family. That is why you were supposed to do it. That is why you had to do it. That was her lover, no doubt.”

  “I didn't see it that way, Darius. They were friends, nothing more, and you shouldn't have taken it out of context.”

  “It doesn't matter. I don't believe that my soon-to-be bride is really lily-white, Trent. Don't tell me that she has made you think that.”

  “She is an innocent. I wouldn't say that she's lily-white, but she certainly is naive and inexperienced. You need to go slow with her.”

  As soon as Trent said it, he knew that he had said too much. Darius was looking at him a little funny and asked him how he knew all of that.

  Trent just told him that he had a feeling. It wasn't the truth. He knew it all by heart, every single inch of her, but once again, it wasn't something that he could say out loud.

  “Well, whatever she is, it will be different by morning.”

  Trent didn’t want to hear it. He wanted to claw his eyes out when he started seeing Sienna and Darius together in his mind. He’d done this all to himself. It was his fault that the images were burned into his mind.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Sienna was surprised when she finally saw Darius. Her whole body was shaking as she walked down the aisle, but for a moment, she stopped in the middle because she saw her soon-to-be husband. It was the brother of the man that she had fallen for, and they looked a lot alike.

  For a moment, she had actually thought that it was Trent, but then she saw him standing off to the side. He could barely look at her, and she wasn't sure how to feel about it. It wasn't like she hadn't tried to make something happen. She had begged him to let her go. The last thing Sienna wanted to do was marry Darius, but now she didn't have a choice.

  Her heart was hurting just from seeing Trent, so Sienna made sure not to look at him again. If looking at him was only going to make her hurt, then what was the point? She was always trying to figure out what the point of everything was, but now Sienna was starting to see that there was no point. The point was that there was no point.

  Instead, she focused on Darius. She didn't want to see the similarities between them, but it was impossible not to. The arch that they stood underneath was tall, and she wondered why it was so big. She also wondered why they were having the wedding outside when the inside was so beautiful. But then she started to look around and realized there were so many people there. Surely, she didn't know this many people. Surely her father didn't know this many people.

  Sienna felt like a stranger at her own wedding. She barely recognized anybody there and a few people that she did recognize were from her father bringing them over. They were all her father's friends.

  “It is good to finally meet you.”

  Darius said the words lightly underneath his breath and she finally looked up at him. Those dark brown eyes were the exact same as Trent’s, and she felt her face getting red. She could feel a burning around her eyes, and she knew that she was going to cry soon if she didn't do something to stop it.

  Instead of crying right there in front of everybody like Sienna wanted to do, she perfected a smile on her face and told him that it was good to meet him as well. It wasn't that good to meet him. She had never wanted to meet Darius. She didn't want to be there, but it was happening, and all she could do now was do it with a little grace. That was actually harder than she would have imagined.

  Sienna did not know who the person was that started to read the ritual’s words. Mating in the dragon world was a little different. Since the shifters lived so much longer, it was a longer experience. They were going to have lifetimes together, and it was a big deal. When two shifters decided to come together, it was for life.

  That is something that Sienna was worried about. There was no divorce in the shifter world. She was going to be married to him for the rest of her life. Or the rest of his life.

  The very idea of it made her heart beat a little bit faster, and it started to skip in her chest. As much as Sienna wanted to pretend like everything was okay, it really wasn't. By the end of it, when it was time for her to agree, Sienna was afraid that her voice was going to fail her. She certainly didn't feel like she should be talking right now. Especially not in front of all the people that she didn't know.

  “Yes.”

  Darius smiled at her like she had made the right decision, and she tried to reciprocate the movement. It felt strange to her because Sienna knew it was wrong.

  The last thing she wanted to do was get married to Darius, and the last place she wanted to be was standing in front of all the people when she did it. If there were fewer people, maybe Sienna could have just run out and said that she didn't want to marry him. She could have said no. None of those things were going to happen now. Sienna had no choice. She was going to get married, whether she liked it or not.

  Her husband agreed to marry her as well, and again their eyes met. She was hoping that she would see something in them that didn't remind her of Trent, but that's all she could see at that point. Darius wasn't even really a person to her. He was Trent’s brother. Now he was her husband, and that was a lot to take in.

  Next, they were supposed to kiss. That's how it always was, and it felt strange to have his lips pressed against hers. It didn't feel right, and as much as she tried to enjoy it, she couldn't.

  The funny thing about it was that Sienna wasn't mad at Darius. The man had done nothing wrong, just like Carl had done nothing wrong. Though Carl was dead now.

  She was actually mad at Trent. In her mind, it was all his fault. It was either his fault because he wouldn't let her leave when she begged him to repeatedly. Or it was his fault because he had shown her what love could actually be and then took it away without even a thought of how that was going to leave her. Either way, to Sienna, it was all his fault

  The after party was big and almost immediately after the wedding, all of the male shifters and some of the females shifted into their true form and started to fly around. It was later in the day, and though they were out a bit from the rest of the world, Sienna still felt strange to see so many dragons in the sky when the sun was still up.

  Her eyes should have been on the black and red dragon that was now her mate, but instead, she was looking at the purple in the sky. She knew that it was Trent; his color was so distinct, just like his face and his fingerprints. It was his color, and no one else would ever have it. Maybe he had gotten it from his father's grandfather, but that was it. It was still unique to him and his family.

  Sienna wanted to be up there with the rest of them. She had always hated the fact that she was not a full shifter. She had heightened senses and she could read minds sometimes, but how did that compare to being able to fly? Everybody wanted to fly. Humans and shifters alike.

  Finally, she was brought to meet the rest of the women. She now had a servant that would travel with her everywhere she went. Sienna had heard about this from Trent, but she still couldn't believe it. She certainly did not want any help that day, and she sent the young girl way. Mandy was upset with the way she talked to her, but Sienna was not in the mood for pleasantries. She really just didn’t have it in her.

  It was only when Mandy was gone that she realized she could not get out of her dress without her help. She was
supposed to change into something else before the party.

  Darius found her upstairs a bit later and he had a devilish grin on his face.

  “I am missing you, wife. Why are you still in your dress?”

  “I need help getting out of it.”

  The smile on his face got a little bit bigger, and she frowned. Of course, there was one thing on his mind, but it was the last thing on hers.

  “I have no problem helping you.”

  She had a feeling he was going to say that, and instead of saying anything, Sienna just turned around. The zip seemed especially loud in the room, but it was most likely her nerves that were making it so. She was so nervous that all of her body was shaking. Darius made a comment about it, but she didn't know what to say.

  He was waiting for her to take it off in front of him, but she held it up against her shoulders waiting for him to leave. Sienna couldn’t find the courage to meet his eyes.

  “I will be down in a minute, alright?”

  He agreed and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek.

  “I think I like the fact that you're shy. That will make it even sweeter tonight when I have your body as mine.”

  Sienna watched him go and tried to reconcile it in her mind. There was no telling how the night was all going to work out. She knew somewhere, deep down, that she was just going to have to make the best of it. He was her husband after all. He was supposed to be her husband for life. There was no getting out of it, no matter how Sienna felt.

  Her hands trembled as she put on another dress for the party. She tried to push the images from her mind that Darius’ words induced. If not, she wasn’t going to be able to make it through the day.

  Chapter Twenty

  Trent did not see his brother or Sienna after the wedding. He couldn't bear to stay there any longer, and it had been hard enough to stand there in front of all of those people and watch the two of them get married. A part of him died when he saw them kiss. Nothing was ever going to be able to make up for it, certainly not duty. He had messed up so completely that all he wanted to do was leave.