Bride Of The Dragon (9 page)

The sun was burning the early morning mists off the grass the next day as Kelly and Gabriel enjoyed breakfast in the rose garden behind the castle. Kelly hid a yawn and gulped another cup of coffee. Lying in her bed alone the night before, she’d drifted in and out of sleep, tormented by highly erotic dreams of Gabriel – and the knowledge that he was lying in bed only a thousand feet away.

Gabriel poured some more coffee from a carafe into her cup.

Damn stupid considerate dragon
, she thought to herself, stirring in cream.
I hate how thoughtful and attentive he is.

“So, my father checked with his friends in town, and the ice dragons who attacked the Maplethorpes all claim that they have no memory of doing so,” Gabriel said.

“That is weird.” She frowned. “Have they been arrested for assault or anything like that?”

“No, they’re being examined by dragon medics to see if they’d been drugged or bewitched. There’s an attorney representing them. They’ve got a good case to make, in that none of them had criminal records, and they’d never even met the Maplethorpes before. And the fact that they all started attacking the Maplethorpes at the same time seems to indicate that there was some outside influence acting on them.”

“In their defense, if I was capable of freezing the Maplethorpes into jerksicles, I’d be extremely tempted myself,” Kelly said.

She drained her cup of coffee and set it down. Time to get back to work.

Well, here goes nothing
, she thought.

She glanced up at the castle. “I’d like to see some more of the castle today. Can we go up top on the walkway between the towers?” Kelly asked. “I want to check out the view.”

Gabriel nodded. “Of course,” he said.

As servants cleared the remains of their breakfast, he and Kelly went back inside and took an elevator to the top.

Gabriel led her outside to the walkway, and they strolled slowly. Kelly took a minute to admire the magnificent view, with the rolling green hills and the colorful patches of flower gardens like a patchwork quilt behind the castle. Several young dragonlings flapped awkwardly through the air near the apple orchard, with mother dragons flying underneath them in case they fell.

How wonderful it would be if my children could fly,
she thought wistfully.

Then she opened her mind and began concentrating. She casually wandered along until they were closer to the south tower. Gabriel paused, so she had to stop too. She needed to get closer to the tower if she had any hope of feeling for the ruby.

Gabriel pointed out the fields behind the castle. “See that hill? That was where I learned to fly when I was a dragonling,” he said. “Our dragonlings will fly there.”

“I’m human – I wouldn’t be able to have dragonlings,” she said without thinking. Then she looked at him. “I mean, not that you and I are really getting married and having children.”

“You could have a dragonling through artificial insemination. The dragonlings would be raised in a hatchery,” he said. “That’s how Evangeline was conceived. Her father was human. The only way he and her mother could have children was at a fertility clinic that specializes in dragon births.”

“Where are her parents? I’ve never seen them.”

His expression went dark, and he looked away. “Her father left, and her mother is on life support.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. That does kind of explain her attitude.”

“To an extent,” he conceded. “We make some allowances because of it. Maybe more than we should. We don’t want to let her grow up to be an out-of-control, tantrum-throwing brat. Her mother wouldn’t have wanted that.”

She nodded, staring out at the green fields that stretched away far into the distance.

“You’re good with Evangeline. Believe it or not, she likes you,” he said.

A cold wind whipped through the air, and he stepped in front of her, shielding her with his body, and pulled her close to him.

“Sometimes you’re not too terrible,” she admitted, settling up against him.

He bent down and kissed her. The touch of his mouth was firm and sweet and welcoming. Her lips parted beneath his, and he cupped the back of her head and hooked his arm around her waist so he could pull her closer against him. She could feel the steady thump-thump of his heart, and she nestled against him, twining her fingers in the front of her shirt and clinging to him.

But then she pulled away and put her hand against his broad chest, holding him at arm’s length. “What if you do get married to someone and father their hatchlings, and then you steal a jewel and get caught and go to jail for the rest of your life?”

“I’d enjoy your conjugal visits?” he suggested with a wicked flash in his eyes, but she wasn’t having any of it.

“Damn it, do you consider all this marriage talk to be a joke?” she demanded.

His smile faded and his expression grew serious. “No, I do not,” he said.

“What kind of future would you be offering me? The Dragon Elders are just waiting for you to screw up. Your family has a terrible reputation, and you really screwed up with the Dragonsblood. Everyone is watching you now. If you got caught stealing again, a judge would be likely to throw the book at you. Do you have any idea what that would be like for your children?”

“Yes. I’m aware,” he said quietly.

“So can you understand why I wouldn’t want to have children with someone who might put them through that?” she asked.

There was a moment of silence that stretched out.

“Yes, I do understand,” he said finally. “And that’s fair. You’ve seen that we operate a highly successful jewelry store. Nobody in my family has been arrested in a very long time. My father’s probation is almost finished. I’m not saying one way or another whether the Kingsleys deserved their reputation in the past, but I can assure you that now we are on the straight and narrow.”

“Then why did you steal the Dragonsblood?” she said irritably.

He shrugged. “Who says I did?”

I do.

Because suddenly she felt it, moving somewhere just underneath her. Or specifically, she felt a ruby with massive power moving beneath her. She shivered. The rumors were true; it was a supremely powerful gem, and it should not be in the wrong hands.

She could feel hard, angry vibrations flowing from the gem. She turned away from Gabriel and closed her eyes, concentrating, trying to communicate with it. Oddly, she couldn’t – she was blocked. Somebody else was in control of the ruby right now, which meant that she couldn’t probe it and discover what its abilities were.

“Are you all right? You’re turning white as a sheet.” Gabriel’s voice sounded from far away as she struggled to wrest back control of the ruby and failed.

Then she felt a thud that was so hard the stone of the castle vibrated. It came from the south tower.

“What was that?” she asked, and he looked alarmed.

“Come with me, now,” he said, his voice turned harsh.

He rushed her over to the elevator and they climbed in. They went down to the bottom, and then he ushered her out but remained in the elevator. “There’s something I need to see to,” he said, and the elevator door shut in her face.

* * * * *

“So you’re sure it was the ruby,” Teresa said eagerly to Kelly later that day. The two of them were strolling behind the castle.

“Yes, it was weird. One minute it wasn’t there, the next minute it was. Somebody must have been moving it, and they got close enough for me to feel it.” Kelly folded her arms across her chest and frowned. “Of course, Gabriel was with me at the time, so I know it wasn’t him.”

A calculating look crossed Teresa’s face. “You’re certified as a gem empath. That might be enough to get a court order to search for it.”

Kelly had considered that, but she hadn’t contacted the authorities yet.

Was she reluctant because she didn’t want Gabriel to be arrested? Was she abandoning all pretense of acting like a professional? Well, whatever her feelings for the charming dragon shifter were, that wasn’t the only reason she wasn’t turning him in.

“I’m afraid it’s too soon,” she said. “First of all, I can’t be one hundred percent certain that it was the Dragonsblood. It was a ruby, and it was extremely powerful. That’s all I could say for sure right now.”

“Obviously it was the Dragonsblood,” Teresa said, waving her hand impatiently as if shooing away Kelly’s objections.

“Probably. But the only way we’d know that for sure would be if we recovered the gem and had it examined in our laboratory,” Kelly said. In order to be insured, the gem had a tiny identifying number laser-etched into it, invisible to the naked eye, and it had also been mapped using a laser and X-rays.

“We can’t identify the ruby if we don’t recover it.”

Kelly shook her head. “I don’t know where it is right now. It could be anywhere in the castle. If we reported it to the authorities and they decided to issue a search warrant, I doubt they’d ever find it. Then it would be even harder – maybe impossible – ever to get a warrant again. And the Kingsleys’ lawyers would be all over us.”

“And you wouldn’t be able to marry Gabriel,” Teresa said nastily.

Kelly rolled her eyes. “Yes, Teresa, that’s been my secret plan all along. I came here to the valley and disguised myself as the Fair Maiden so I could marry Gabriel. Am I an evil mastermind or what?” But Teresa was already walking away.

“You’ve been awfully quiet for the last few hours,” Gabriel observed over lunch that afternoon. He’d taken Kelly and Teresa into town to meet up with Cadence, who was going to take Kelly shopping. “You haven’t insulted me once. It’s disconcerting.”

Teresa was sitting at another table with Winthrop, glaring at Gabriel and Kelly, but mostly Kelly. She was ticked off that Kelly refused to notify the authorities about the Dragonsblood. She’d have done it herself, but the notification had to come from the empath who’d sensed the jewel, and Kelly wasn’t ready to take that step yet.

“Okay, you’re a jerk,” Kelly offered disconsolately, picking at her French fries. “You’re a terrible person.” She was depressed to have found out that the Dragonsblood was actually on Gabriel’s property. And she was disgusted with herself for being depressed.

“That’s all you got?” Gabriel scoffed. “Come on. Say it like you mean it.”

“You’re a terrible kisser?”

“Now you’re just lying,” Gabriel chided her.

She glanced up at him with a flash of annoyance. “Why, you smug, stuck-up bastard.”

“That’s a little better,” he conceded. “Oh, there’s Orion. Where’s Cadence?” He frowned at his cousin as Orion walked up to their table.

“Cousin,” he said. “There’s a problem with Kelly. Settle down,” he added as Gabriel stiffened and his eyes turned red.

“Not the best opening to a conversation,” Gabriel said hotly. “Would you like it if I told you there was a problem with Cadence?”

Red scales flowed over Orion’s skin and he let out a stream of smoke from his nostrils.

Kelly leapt to her feet. “Hey!” she snapped. “There’s a little too much testosterone here for my liking, guys, and I am not a fragile China doll that needs protecting. And I suspect Cadence isn’t either. So quit dragoning and tell me what’s up.”

Orion and Gabriel stood there for a moment, breathing hard and snorting and acting dragonish, and then they settled down, grumbling and glaring at each other.

“I came here to help you, you hot-headed asshole,” Orion snapped at Gabriel. “Pandora’s family swears they saw her muttering incantations right before the attack happened. So now the Principe has a warrant for Kelly’s arrest.”

Kelly moved between Orion and Gabriel before he could say or do anything else.

“Like hell,” Gabriel growled. Other people in the restaurant looked at them in alarm. Some got up from their tables and hurried out of the restaurant, and the waitresses stood there frozen in indecision. Nobody wanted to get caught in a dragon fight; things tended to get heated very quickly.

“Quit freaking the customers out and settle down,” Kelly said to Gabriel. “They won’t be able to hold me long; they’ve got nothing. Whatever’s happening, my agency will hire a lawyer, bail me out, and sue the Maplethorpes’ collective asses off. Not because they care about me, mind you, but because they don’t want to be seen as the kind of agency that employs criminals.”

Gabriel’s eyes blazed with anger. “They’re not taking you.”

Orion held his hand up. “Gabriel, I came here because I didn’t want things to get ugly,” he said. “The Principe could have come here and taken her in handcuffs. If you resisted, it would just start a big, ugly fight between the ice dragons and fire dragons, and it would give Teague an excuse to arrest you too, and it would also be hell on the tourist business here. That hurts everyone in town, not just you. Kelly’s right – she won’t be there long at all. I already have my attorney waiting down at the station. Hazel Jameson. And I’ve contacted several of the dragons I know who were sitting near you at the show, who can testify as to what they saw.”

“You could tell him thank you,” Kelly said to Gabriel as she followed Orion out of the restaurant. Gabriel stayed right by her side, and Teresa and Winthrop scampered after them.

“For cooperating with the Maplethorpes and the ice dragons?” Gabriel growled.

As they walked down the sidewalk, she glared at him until he finally muttered a reluctant “Thank you” to Orion, who answered with a short, curt nod.

“It’s ridiculous that the local Principe Vigiles is an ice dragon,” Gabriel grumbled as they walked. “Of course he’s going to be biased.”

“Look, I’ve never liked Teague, but under the circumstances, he didn’t actually have a choice,” Orion said reasonably, which earned him a scornful snort and a blast of smoke from Gabriel’s nostrils.

When they arrived at the station, they found a dozen ice dragon centurions waiting for them, looking resolute but nervous. One of them pointed to a door at the back of the lobby. She let him lead her to it.

When Gabriel tried to follow her, the centurion snapped a curt, “Not you.”

Before Gabriel could argue, she slipped through the door, calling out to him, “I’ll be fine!” and then slammed the door shut.

The dour-faced ice dragon centurion ushered her into a room and shut the door with a bang. There was a mirrored wall facing her. She was sure somebody was watching through the mirror.

She sat there for half an hour, growing increasingly irritated and worried about Gabriel. She knew he could handle himself; she was just worried that he would burn someone’s face off and go to prison for it.

Finally a police officer strode in, and she snapped, “I want to talk to my lawyer. Now.”

“Why do you think you need a lawyer?” the officer asked in a condescending tone.

“Seriously, don’t pull this crap on me. I have nothing to say until I’ve spoken to my attorney.”

“Once you speak to an attorney, there’s not going to be much we can do to help you.” He gave her a pitying look.

She slammed her hands down on the table, and he started. “I know my attorney is here waiting for me, so quit acting like you’re trying to audition for an episode of
Law & Order
, and send her on in.”

Sullenly, the officer turned and walked out.

A few minutes later, her attorney walked in. She was a wolf shifter; she let her fangs briefly descend and gave a low rumbling growl at the officer. “Don’t keep me from my client like that again, or I’ll file a lawsuit and chew your ass off for good measure,” she snapped at him. The officer left the room in a hurry.

Hazel confirmed what Kelly suspected: the police had just held her there for so long because they were stalling and hoping she’d blurt out something incriminating. They had nothing on her – several of Orion’s friends had already testified that they’d been sitting near her and hadn’t seen or heard her muttering any incantations, and nobody really believed that she was a witch. Witches were required to register with the State Magic Boards just like empaths, and the idea that Kelly could have gotten to the ripe old age of twenty-five without anyone noticing a little thing like her having magic powers… Well, nobody was buying it.

Hazel, using her wolf-shifter hearing, had eavesdropped on some of the cops talking amongst themselves. The ice dragons who had blasted the Maplethorpe family had no recollection of what they’d done or why. Their minds had just gone blank, and the next thing they knew they’d been standing outside the restaurant surrounded by a ring of dragons. So there was absolutely nothing implicating Kelly in the attack.

As for motive, Pandora’s family insisted that Kelly wanted them out of the picture because they’d filed a legal challenge to her marriage to Gabriel.

“But the Maplethorpes have motive to frame me, given that they want to force Gabriel to marry their daughter,” Kelly pointed out.

“Exactly,” Hazel said. “And I’m going to demand that you be released immediately.” She went and knocked on the door, and the officer let her out.

A few minutes later, Hazel returned, looking triumphant. “You’re free to go,” she said.

As Kelly walked towards the front door, Principe Teague stalked up to her. “Don’t leave town,” he snapped at her.

She burst out laughing. “Are you kidding me?” she said. “As if I could.”