Bride Of The Dragon (10 page)

Gabriel drove Kelly back to the castle and pulled up on the enormous roundabout, idling the car.

“You swear to me that they didn’t abuse you in any way?” he said for what seemed like the fiftieth time.

Kelly managed a smile. “No, there is no need for you to go sky-challenging anyone. They were no more than mildly surly. After growing up with my mother, mildly surly does not even register on the annoy-o-meter. It would take full-on bitch to even get me to blink twice.”

“I shouldn’t have let them take you.” He scowled.

“It was my choice, not yours,” she reminded him. “And there was no point in having you take on a dozen dragon centurions over a minor matter like that. You’re no good to me dead.”

“Ah-ha! But I am some good to you alive!” His tone was gloating.

She snorted and opened her car door. “You are twisting my words around. Are you coming too? You look like you’re about to drive off.”

“I’ve got some business to attend to in town,” he informed her.

“What business?”

“None of your business.” But he smiled charmingly as he said it.

“Are you going to go do something stupid?” she asked him.

He blinked in shock and gave her a deeply wounded look. “Who, me?”

She shook her head chidingly at him and gave an exaggerated sigh. “That means yes. Well, carry on. Call me if you need bail money,” she said.

“If you knew how many times my parents said that to me…” He grinned as she shut the car door and headed up the front steps.

Gabriel left the castle and drove into town. Specifically, straight to the Maplethorpes house. He knew that if he’d told his family he was going there, they would have strongly objected. That was why he hadn’t told them.

The Maplethorpes lived in a big, gaudy McMansion in a fancy subdivision outside North Lyndvale. The red barrel roof tiles and yellow stucco exterior were trying for Mediterranean, but the modernist angular style of the house’s body was straight out of the 1970s.

Their vast front lawn looked ragged and unmowed; weeds poked at random angles and snaked through the wilting flower beds that ringed the house’s exterior. There were big patches of yellow in the grass, as if it wasn’t being watered regularly. Was somebody having trouble making their water bill?

Probably. All was not well in Maplethorpe-land, Gabriel noted as he pulled up and parked. A tow truck driver had hooked up a Humvee to his vehicle and was climbing back into his seat, ready to drive off. So their big fancy car was being repossessed. Interesting.

Mr. Maplethorpe stood outside on the front porch, face red with fury. There were neighbors standing out on their front porches, watching with interest.

“Car thief! I’ll have you arrested! I’ve called the police!” Mr. Maplethorpe yelled, shaking his fist.

“Good. I got the repo order right here,” the driver said, waving a piece of paper out the window. Mr. Maplethorpe tried to snatch it from him, but the driver yanked it away from him and drove off.

Mr. Maplethorpe turned and directed his wrath at his neighbors. “What you looking at?” he screamed at them. The show was over now, so they ducked back into their houses.

Well, this was new. The Maplethorpe family always made a huge show of flaunting their wealth. They came to town dressed in designer clothing and jewelry from head to toe, drove flashy cars, announced their donations to charity in the local papers, and bought dinners for their country club friends at the most expensive restaurants in town.

But it appeared as if that might all be for show, or maybe they’d just lived beyond their means and it was catching up to them now. Gabriel had thought they only wanted Pandora to marry him for the prestige, but perhaps they also saw it as a financial bail-out. Everyone knew his family was wealthy.

Gabriel climbed out of his car and walked up to the front porch.

Mr. Maplethorpe looked startled as Gabriel approached the house. “What are you doing here?” he demanded nervously.

“I’m here to tell you to stop trying to frame my fiancée,” Gabriel snapped “See, I was sitting next to Kelly during dinner, so I know for a fact that she wasn’t muttering incantations. That means I know you lied to the police. You try to pull that crap again, and I will fry your fat ass and not worry about the consequences.”

Mr. Maplethorpe took a step back, his eyes bugging out with alarm. “Don’t you come near me. I’m personal friends with Principe Teague and I will have you arrested. Everyone knows that you’re a criminal!”

Gabriel snorted at that. “Then why are you trying to force me to marry your daughter?”

Mr. Maplethorpe’s face was getting redder and redder. “Because it’s tradition,” he mumbled. “It’s the law. Which some of us actually respect.”

As he spoke, Mr. Maplethorpe was backing towards the door.

Gabriel heard voices inside the house, a man’s and a woman’s, getting closer to the front door, and Mr. Maplethorpe turned around and screamed frantically, “Get back! Get back inside the house! Be quiet!” The voices fell silent.

One of the voices had sounded weirdly familiar. “Is that Marvin?” Gabriel said. “Is our former employee at your house?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mr. Maplethorpe blustered. “You’re trespassing. Get off our property.”

“Gee, I don’t know how you’d expect me to marry into your family if I’m not even allowed to visit my in-laws.” Gabriel smirked, and he sauntered off and climbed into his car.

Curiouser and curiouser,
Gabriel mused as he drove back home. Marvin could certainly visit the Maplethorpes if he wanted to – but why would he? They didn’t own a jewelry business. Marvin didn’t have any inside info that they could use against him – at least, not that Gabriel knew of, and when it came to security the Kingsley family was pretty tight.

* * * * *

When he got back to the castle, Gabriel went to the south tower and climbed into the elevator. Once he got to the metal door in the hallway, he paused to steel himself mentally for what he’d see on the other side.

He leaned forward in front of the retinal scanner and opened his eyes wide. The door slid open for him.

Alexandra was sitting with her back to him, staring at the wall with a vacant expression and muttering to herself.

“Hey, Princess Alex,” he said, using his childhood nickname for her. She barely bothered to glance at him, and then turned away again.

She’d been beautiful once – a slender, laughing girl with glossy black ringlets of hair that shimmered and bounced. She was a shadow of her former self now, heavily medicated, wearing copper anklets so she couldn’t shift into her dragon form.

The madness was getting stronger. The medication should have kept her under control, but it was losing effectiveness. Without the medication, she’d be raving one minute, quiet the next…and then she’d attack without warning, whether in human or dragon form.

She’d been wearing bracelets rather than anklets up until the other day. Then she’d managed to slip out of her bracelets and shift while he and Kelly had been up on the roof. She had hurled herself against the walls so hard, she’d cracked them. There hadn’t been enough room for all the guards to shift, since she’d already been in dragon form and filling up most of the enormous chamber that was now her prison.

One guard had shifted and protected the others as best he could while she’d blasted them with her flame. The nurse had shot her with several heavy-duty tranquilizer darts before she’d finally settled down. She’d burned several of the guards quite badly.

If they didn’t find a cure soon, they’d lose her forever. Evangeline’s mother would descend into a dark world of insanity from which she’d never come back.

They’d had high hopes for the Dragonsblood Ruby, but it hadn’t worked. They’d looped it around her neck and waited for days, and nothing had happened.

And now it turned out that Marvin wasn’t trustworthy, they’d need to find a new gem empath. Gabriel knew he couldn’t ask Kelly to help with this, and he doubted that they could get Christopher to come back.

Gabriel’s father, Emerson, was in the room, holding a book. He came every day and read to her, just as he had when she’d been a little girl. Evangeline had been there earlier. She visited almost every day, as painful as it was for her.

Emerson glanced up when Gabriel walked in. Then he looked at his daughter, and his normally cheery smile faded. “She’s getting worse. She’ll be past the point of no return soon.”

Gabriel nodded somberly. “I know, believe me.”

Emerson looked him straight in the eye. “I know that you don’t want to involve Kelly in this, and I know that trusting her would be a risk, but she might be our only hope.”

Gabriel’s family had gathered around the table in the great hall and they were sampling dishes that were to be served at the wedding reception. Kelly stood back by the wall and watched.

The fact that she’d very likely sensed the Dragonsblood Ruby had rattled her far more than she’d expected. The problem was, she actually liked Gabriel’s family. Sure, they were a crazy bunch of criminals. But they were also warm and good-hearted and accepting, and they made her feel welcome and wanted in a way she never had before.

She liked Gabriel. Okay, more than liked him. She loved the way that he made her feel. He made her feel sexy and funny and desirable. She loved how loyal he was to his family, how he always stood up for her. She loved…him?

No, definitely not. Impossible.

But whatever her feelings for him were, she still couldn’t be with a man who made a practice of stealing from other people. He claimed that the family was on the straight and narrow, but he’d stolen the Dragonsblood only a year ago, and his father had been arrested for breaking and entering eighteen months ago.

“You’re still awfully quiet,” Gabriel said to Kelly. “Dragonsblood got your tongue?”

“Oh, you’re hilarious.” She gave him a sidelong glance. “I don’t suppose you’d like to just secretly turn in the Dragonsblood and be done with it?”
Please, please let him say yes.
It would be an acceptable compromise. Her firm wouldn’t have to pay the insurance fee, Gabriel wouldn’t have to go to jail…

“What’s a Dragonsblood again?” Gabriel said with a perfectly straight face.

“For the love of God, you are so irritating. You guys aren’t broke,” Kelly said in exasperation. “So why would you steal that ruby?”

“Exactly.” Still with the straight face. Fine, if that was the way he wanted to play it.

“You guys go ahead and figure out what you want to eat at your reception. It doesn’t matter to me, because I won’t be there,” Kelly said, and turned and walked away, leaving Gabriel staring after her in confusion.

She couldn’t keep doing this. She couldn’t keep falling deeper and deeper for Gabriel, and for his family, when she knew how it would all end. With Gabriel in prison. With her heart broken.

Gabriel followed her out of the room and grabbed her by the arm.

“Hey,” he said. “You’re upset about something new. You weren’t upset like this before. Is it something that someone has done or said to you? Talk to me. Please.”

She yanked at her arm, but he held on.

“We’re in a relationship, right? When people in relationships have problems, they talk.” He glanced at something behind her. “Oh, great. Incoming.”

Teresa stormed down the hall towards them. Her face was pale. She’d been crying; her mascara had run down her cheeks leaving gritty black trails, and her eyelashes stuck together in little spikes.

Winthrop was trailing behind her, looking distressed. “Miss Henderson… Oh, Miss Henderson…”

Teresa ignored him and stormed up to Kelly and slapped her face. Kelly gasped in shock and took a step back.

Gabriel stepped in front of Kelly, and the air around him rippled and shimmered as it grew hotter. He towered over Teresa, jabbing his finger into her shoulder.

“The only reason I didn’t fry your face off for that is because you’re her sister,” he growled at her. “Try that again, and I will end you.”

“What the hell?” Kelly said furiously, rubbing her stinging cheek.

“This is all your fault,” Teresa spat at Kelly. “Chad’s family found out you got arrested and they insisted that he break up with me. They’ve packed up all my things and they’re shipping them
here
.”

Kelly was sick of being on the receiving end of Teresa’s abuse. “Excuse me, it’s
my
fault that Chad has no balls and his family are a bunch of snobby dickwads? First they make you suffer for the fact that our father was a criminal – something we have no damn control over. Now they insist that Chad has to dump you because of something that
I’ve
done?”

“So you’re trying to say it’s
my
fault?” Teresa glared at Kelly.

Kelly shook her head in exasperation. “Why do you always need it to be someone’s fault? If you really need to assign blame, Chad’s the wuss who dances whenever his mommy and daddy jerk his puppet strings. And you know what? Yes, this is also somewhat your fault. You chose to be with a guy whose family treats you horribly. And you let him sit there like a big passive man-baby, never once speaking up in your defense. Frankly, that’s on you. You don’t want to be treated like dirt, then don’t stay with a guy who treats you like dirt.”

Teresa gasped in outrage.

Kelly shook her head. “You’re pretty, you’re smart, you’re talented, and you let a guy treat you like crap. I’m sorry that you’re upset, but I’m not sorry it ended.”

Winthrop walked up just then, holding a kerchief, which he offered to Teresa. “Can I do anything to help?”

“Yes, you can! Quit following me around and mind your own damn business!” Teresa screamed.

Winthrop went pale, and said in a stiff, formal tone, “Yes, ma’am.” Then he turned and hurried away, his back ramrod straight. It was the first time he’d let Teresa out of his sight since Gabriel had ordered him to guard her.

“Okay, that did it
. Get out
,” Kelly said. “Get out of this castle, and get away from me. Go get one of the servants to call you a cab to take you into town. Leave right now, or I swear to God I will slap the taste out of your mouth.”

Teresa’s jaw dropped in surprise. “Chad threw me out of our house; I can’t go home,” she spluttered. “Oh, and by the way, mother is talking about
firing
me. It’s not like I could move back in with her. Where exactly am I supposed to go?”

“Bitchlandia. You’ll fit right in. In fact they’ll probably make you mayor.” Kelly turned and stormed off, with Gabriel following her.

Kelly’s phone rang. Her mother. Well, that was just the capper to a perfect afternoon.

She answered it. “No,” she said.

“I beg your pardon?” her mother said, in a huffy, offended voice. In other words, her normal voice. “No what?”

“No I’m not in the mood to be screamed at. Yell at me, and I quit.”

“Your sister was going to marry someone respectable and you’ve ruined it!” her mother screamed into the phone.

“Well, I wasn’t bluffing when I said I’d quit, so thanks for that. I’ll send a formal resignation by email. Yes, I am still on the Dragonsblood case, and as soon as that’s over, I’m done,” she said, and hung up. Then she turned her phone off.

“You look like you could use a break from work today,” Gabriel said.

She had quit. She had really done it. She felt sick and exhilarated at the same time. “I could use a break from my entire life,” she said.

“Care to go flying? I know a little place that you might like.”

She looked at him suspiciously for a moment, then she threw up her hands. “What the hell. Why not.”

He gave her a dazzling smile that caused a swooping sensation in her lower belly, as if they were flying already. “In that case,” he said, “might I suggest sleeping with the enemy?”

“Don’t push your luck,” she grumbled, ignoring the fact that her body responded enthusiastically to his suggestion as she remembered his sure, possessive touch on her naked body. “I’m in just the mood to show you where to shove your witty come-ons.”

“Kinky. I look forward to it.” She swatted at him, and he held up his hands to fend her off. “I’m sorry. Seriously, let’s go flying. I promise to be good.”

She followed him outside, into a paved courtyard. It was in the center of the four towers but open to the sky, giving the dragons a private space to shift without leaving the castle itself. Gabriel stalked into the center of the space and, completely unselfconscious, stripped off his clothes.

He really was a magnificent specimen. His muscled chest narrowed to a trim waist, and as her eyes drifted over his flat belly and lower still, she saw that his cock was standing proudly erect, jutting from the nest of coal-black curls between his thighs. She swallowed and forced her gaze up to his. There was laughter in his eyes, but it was fond, not mean-spirited. She couldn’t help smiling back.

Even in human form, power radiated from him, and the hair prickled on her arms and at the back of her neck as the magic rose and swelled. It was a little like the sensation she’d felt when she’d sensed the Dragonsblood Ruby, but there was none of the hard, angry energy she’d felt from the gem. Gabriel’s power was all confident, vibrant strength.

Crimson scales rippled over the skin of his arms, flowing over his biceps and across his broad shoulders. His eyes flashed scarlet and talons curved his from the tips of fingers, wickedly sharp. He snarled joyously, revealing sharp canines. Massive, leathery black wings burst from his back, and as they sliced through the air in anticipation of flight, they made a sound like tearing silk.

Kelly watched in awe, eyes wide, as Gabriel fully shifted into his enormous dragon form. From the ruby-like glitter and shimmer of his blood-red scales to the sinuous curve of his long neck, he was breathtaking. He snorted a little self-satisfied spurt of flame, aware of the way she was looking at him.

When he lowered his big, diamond-shaped head, she eagerly scrambled astride his neck, wrapping her arms around it and holding on tight as he flexed his enormous wings and they lifted into the air.

The castle dwindled below them until it looked like a toy, a puppet theater for little wooden knights and dragons. From up here, all her problems seemed so small and inconsequential, and she allowed herself to shove them aside and concentrate on the fresh mountain air whipping past her face and the contrasting heat of Gabriel’s scales underneath her. The joy of flying blossomed inside her, and when Gabriel banked sharply and swooped into a descending spiral, she crowed with joy. There was a deep answering rumble of satisfaction from Gabriel’s enormous chest. He flapped his wings, the supple membranes holding them effortlessly aloft, and took them higher and higher into the sky before tucking his wings back against his body and going into a controlled dive that had her shrieking with exhilaration.

Only a hundred feet from the ground, he pulled up smoothly so they were skimming over the treetops, then he turned again and headed for the mountainside, setting them down at the side of a lake, on the other side of which stood a cluster of chalets.

The lake was mirror-still and placid, and the wooden buildings looked as if they belonged on the lid of a chocolate box. It was charming and very peaceful, and Kelly realized it was exactly where she needed to be to calm her mind and forget about all the drama and intrigue of Pandora’s obnoxious family and the hunt for the Dragonsblood Ruby, not to mention the control-freak histrionics of her own mother and sister. She took a deep breath of the mountain air. It felt crisp and cool.

When she turned to Gabriel, she saw that he’d shifted back into human form.

“It’s beautiful up here,” she said.

“I think so,” he agreed. “My family keeps a cabin on permanent reservation, though it’s deserted at this time of year anyway. I fly up here when I want some alone time.” Unabashed by his nakedness, he started gathering wood for a fire.

“Alone time?” she asked. “Your family seems so close.”

“Oh, we are,” he assured her. “That doesn’t mean they don’t drive me nuts sometimes. My mom’s the original drama queen, and—”

He broke off and concentrated on carefully laying kindling and arranging larger evergreen branches into a conical framework. “Come and get warm by the fire.” He aimed a blast of flame at the wood he’d gathered and it crackled into life, giving off fragrant pine smoke.

Kelly sat on the floor and held out her hands to the blaze, and Gabriel settled down next to her. They looked into the dancing flames, lost in their own thoughts.

Kelly glanced across at him, taking in his high cheekbones and the firelight reflected in his dark eyes. He was so sinfully handsome it made her stomach flip and a tingling warmth spread between her thighs just looking at him.

“Who would have thought we’d end up here?” she mused.

He glanced at her and smiled. “Me,” he said matter-of-factly. “I knew the first time I laid eyes on you that we were meant to be together.”

She gave an unladylike snort. “Hah! As if you even remember it. You were too busy flirting with every female in that nightclub in—”

“In Mayfair,” he interrupted her. “London. It was just past midnight and you were wearing this tiny little black silk dress that left just enough to the imagination. When I first saw you, you were licking a bead of condensation off the side of your glass. You had no idea how sexy you were.” His eyes glinted wickedly. “Your hair was pulled up, and it showed the curve of your neck and the dip of your collarbone. I couldn’t keep my eyes off you. There we were in a room full of trust fund babies in designer dresses and dripping with jewelry, and for me you were the only woman in the room.”

Kelly was stunned. She remembered every moment of that evening and of their dance together – the firm pressure of his hand against the small of her back, the intoxicating scent of him…the way he’d melted away into the crowd, leaving an aching hollow inside her where her heart should be. She’d assumed he’d forgotten that night, that it hadn’t lingered in his memory as it had lingered in hers, returning in the small hours when sleep eluded her.