Bride Of The Dragon (13 page)

Teresa pulled up in a car with Winthrop a few minutes later, and they took Kelly to a home he owned on the outskirts of South Lyndvale.

“I purchased this home in case I ever found the perfect woman,” Winthrop said, glancing fondly at Teresa, who simpered in a way that Kelly found rather gross but Winthrop apparently found charming.

Winthrop’s house was tucked away on a couple of acres of property at the end of a long driveway with meticulously clipped hedges. It was an English-cottage-style home with a steeply pitched roof and a chimney, and Kelly could see Winthrop’s influence everywhere. The gardens were neat and orderly, the topiary bushes with their balls of greenery didn’t have a leaf out of place. The gardens around Gabriel’s castle were much more free-flowing, designed to look like wildflowers had sprung up from the rolling hills.

“What are we doing here?” Kelly asked as they walked to the front door.

“You’ll see. Come on, clock’s ticking – we have no time to waste,” Teresa said.

They hurried into the house, and to Kelly’s surprise, Evangeline was waiting for them in the living room. She was sitting with a woman who looked like an older version of her – a thin woman with deep circles under her eyes and a blank stare. The woman wore a white nightgown, and had copper bracelets on her wrists. Dragon shifter. Evangeline’s mother, clearly.

“We smuggled her out of the castle through a secret tunnel that only the Kingsleys know about,” Winthrop explained to Kelly. “That way, if the forty-eight hours expire without a solution, the ice dragons won’t find her when they storm the castle.”

As Kelly got closer to Evangeline, she felt a humming. A vibration.

She walked over to her and looked down. Evangeline was holding the Dragonsblood Ruby cradled in her hands. The enormous red stone was thrumming with power; Kelly opened her mind and it hit her in waves that almost knocked her off her feet.

Kelly sank down on the couch next to her. “Where did you… How did you…”

“How did I get it?” Evangeline shrugged. “I know where my family keeps their loot. And they use retinal scanners for their security system. My retina is in their system; I can use it to get anywhere in the castle.”

“How did you make it work? You’re a dragon shifter.”

Evangeline’s lips quirked in a wry smile. “I’m half human. My father was a gem empath. That’s how he and my mom met; they used to boost power gems and sell them on the black market.”

“Where is he now?”

Evangeline scowled. “When my mother went crazy, it was too much for him. He took off.”

“I’m sorry. That was a dick move. I mean—”

“I’m fifteen, Kelly, I’ve heard the word dick before,” Evangeline scoffed. She looked down at the ruby. “After I talked to you about power gems and empaths, I went and got the ruby out of our safe, because I thought it might fix my mother. I knew it didn’t work just having her hold it, but I thought maybe if I amplified its powers it would work. I sat there and experimented with it. I practiced and practiced, but it didn’t work the way I hoped it would.” Tears spilled from her eyes and ran down her cheeks. “I can control her actions so she doesn’t try to attack anybody, but I can’t bring her mind back.”

“You were the one who made the dragons attack the Maplethorpes,” Kelly said. “Evangeline, you could have killed people.”

Evangeline’s gaze dropped to the ground. “Pandora called me crazy,” she muttered.

“
Evangeline.
”

“I’m sorry,” she said, her expression pained. “I shouldn’t have done it. I’ll never do it again.”

“All right, focus on the real issue here – we need to fix her mother, and there’s only one jewel that has those kinds of powers,” Teresa said. “You know the Sunrise Citrine? We’re going to steal it from the museum in New York and use it to heal Alexandra.”

Teresa was planning a heist? Had the world gone mad? “Why would you do that?” Kelly asked, astonished. “And how?”

“I’m doing it because it’s the right thing to do. And as for how, everyone thinks of me as this perfect goody-two-shoes who does everything she’s supposed to. Nobody is going to suspect me. I’ve already contacted the museum and told them Allied Jewel Insurance needs to see the citrine. I will go in to the museum with a fake. While pretending to examine the citrine, I will swap it out, and I will bring the real one back here.”

“My God. That might actually work.” Kelly’s eyes widened in admiration. “But where will you get the fake?”

“Gabriel. Already called him. Their family had a replica prepared for when they tried to steal it the first time.”

Teresa glanced at Kelly. “Also I called him a few things that I won’t repeat in front of Evangeline, but that’s a story for another day.”

* * * * *

Teresa was pants-peeingly nervous as her heels clacked on the polished marble floors of the Mildenhorff Museum. Chad and his family would have pitched a fit if they’d known she’d turned jewel thief. She could hardly believe it herself. But Winthrop had just nodded in his grave way when they’d told him the plan. That was the difference, she decided, between being concerned with decency and being concerned with appearances.

When she handed her bag over to the security guard, she felt as if the fake citrine was flashing red, making its presence known through the lining of her purse, where Winthrop had carefully sewn it with neat stitches. She had to stifle a tell-tale sigh of relief when the guard gestured her through to a small room behind a door marked “private”.

The archivist of the museum’s geology collection, which included its gems and semi-precious stones, was a middle-aged man with a lined face. “It’s such a shame to have taken it off display,” he said, “but we can’t take any chances until the security system’s been updated.”

“Can’t be too careful,” Teresa agreed solemnly. “There are some very untrustworthy people in the world.”

Teresa had shamelessly exploited her position as a gem empath for Allied to get access to the citrine. After Emerson’s attempt to steal the jewel, the museum had decided to install a new security system. Teresa’s story was that Allied would need to update their insurance policy to reflect that, and that meant she needed to re-authenticate the citrine.

The gem was stunning. It lay on the table on a velvet cloth, glowing with soft golden light. To Teresa’s eyes, the fake in her purse looked like cheap costume jewelry in comparison, even though she knew it was a valuable gemstone in its own right. Maybe it was because of the way the Sunrise Citrine
felt
. Even though her gem empath powers were weak in comparison to her sister’s, she could feel a warm glow of soothing energy rolling from the stone. Deep inside it, sparks of sunlight seemed to sparkle and fade.

She couldn’t believe she was going to steal it. She’d spent her whole life fretting about doing the right thing, trying to please her mother by making up for her father’s moral failings. But she realized now that sometimes it wasn’t that black and white. All she’d managed to do was make herself and everyone around her miserable. Now she could do the right thing by breaking the rules.

She took a deep breath and willed the wobble out of her voice. It didn’t completely work, but hopefully that wouldn’t matter.

“Mr. Blake,” she said, “forgive me – I wasn’t expecting the gem to be quite so powerful. Do you have a pair of gloves I could use to handle it?”

She wasn’t powerful enough for a gemstone to hurt her just by touching her skin, and anyway the citrine’s energy was all warmth and light. But Allied made a point of talking up its very powerful empath employee, and was reticent on the point of
which
employee. It was just good business practice to let every client think they were getting the best.

“Oh, of course.” Mr. Blake turned away to grab a pair of the white cotton gloves the museum kept on hand for handling fragile exhibits. He had to pull open three or four drawers before he found the right one.

Heart beating so fiercely she was surprised the guards didn’t hear it and come running in, Teresa quickly ripped open the stitches in the lining of her purse, tucked the Sunrise Citrine inside and replaced it with the very pretty but completely powerless stone Gabriel had given her.

Then she smiled politely as Mr. Blake turned back and she accepted a pair of gloves from him.

The ten or fifteen minutes filling out meaningless paperwork were excruciating. At every moment she expected Mr. Blake to extract the Sunrise Citrine from her purse with a flourish, and call the police, and then she’d be marched out of the museum in shame, and the judge would call her a menace to society, and she’d go to prison… Would Winthrop visit her? She didn’t have the nerve to be a jewel thief…

But a few minutes after Mr. Blake had conscientiously double-checked and signed the forms, written in fake legalese that would have given Allied’s lawyers a nervous breakdown, she was being ushered out of the museum.

They pulled up in front of the house and hurried out of the car. Teresa had told Kelly about the golden waves of wellbeing she’d felt pulsing from the stone. Kelly hadn’t
actually
been so excited she’d wrestled her purse off her and pulled the stone out right there in the airport, but the thought had crossed her mind. More surprising, Teresa had thrown her arms around Kelly and given her a rib-crushing squeeze. It was probably just the adrenaline hangover after breaking the law, but it still made Kelly feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

They let themselves into the house and called out, finding the others gathered in the living room. Evangeline was sitting on the sofa, her face pale. Her mother sat beside her, her features working through expressions of anger, puzzlement and pain. It must have been torture for Alexandra to be locked inside herself all these years, unable to fight free of the effects of the cursed opal. And they’d not only be able to free her, but spare her whole family the pain of seeing her like this, a shadow of her former self. Gabriel sat in an easy chair, angled away so she couldn’t quite see his face. Kelly couldn’t wait to see his reaction when they showed him the stone.

Teresa handed Kelly her purse, and she reached inside, her fingers closing over the cool facets of the stone. At once a golden glow seeped into her fingertips and began to flow through her veins like warm honey. It was a feeling that everything in the world was all right.

She pulled the citrine out of the purse, holding it up and allowing the light to play in the sparkles in its heart.

She smiled. “We did it. Now we can—”

“Not so fast.” Marvin stepped from a doorway, his lips twisted in a malevolent smile. He was holding the Dragonsblood Ruby. He tossed it in the air and caught it again, and Kelly winced. His empath powers must be very weak indeed for him to treat such a powerful stone with that kind of disrespect. She could feel the low vibrations of anger emanating from the stone from here.

But weak or not, she knew he was going to try to use the stone – and with only shaky control, the stone could very well end up using
him
.

He smirked at Kelly, misinterpreting the horror on her face. “I’m really going to enjoy this,” he said. “You don’t like it, do you? Knowing one of the most powerful gems in the world is right in this room, and you’re not the one it’s attuned to.”

“Marvin—” she began, with no idea what she was going to say to talk him out of his crazy plan. But then a rumbling growl from Gabriel made her turn, and panic clutched her heart.

Gabriel was covered in scales, as rich and ruby-red as the Dragonsblood. The air around him shimmered with heat, the wallpaper behind his chair slowly scorching and blackening. Smoke curled from his nostrils with every labored breath. He turned his head and stared right through Kelly, as though she wasn’t there.

“Gabriel?” she stammered.

Marvin laughed. It was a nasty, gleeful sound, and Kelly had a sudden image of a little boy burning ants with a magnifying glass. “Pandora, Mr. Maplethorpe,” he called, “you can come in now.”

Pandora sashayed through the door, her pretty face distorted by a spiteful sneer. Mr. Maplethorpe followed. He was sweating, but he looked determined, and he was holding a gun to Winthrop’s temple.

Winthrop looked furious. There was an ugly gash on his scalp – Kelly thought Mr. Maplethorpe had probably hit him from behind with the butt of the gun.

“I must apologize for this, Miss Henderson, Miss Teresa,” Winthrop said. “The
gentlemen
” – he said the word with an inflection that coming from him sounded worse than any curse word – “took me by surprise.”

“You’re bleeding!” Teresa cried, and she tried to rush forward, but Kelly grabbed her arm and held her back.

Pandora gave a tinkling laugh, then she focused her gaze on Kelly, smiling spitefully. “I can’t wait to see Gabriel burn you alive. That’s why I had Evangeline call and lure him here – because I want to see him kill you. You nearly ruined everything for us.”

Kelly looked from Pandora to Marvin, who was rolling the Dragonsblood from hand to hand like he was playing with a giant marble. “You knew about the Dragonsblood all along,” she said. “That’s why you rigged it so you’d be the Fair Maiden.”

Pandora clapped her hands. “Oh, well done,” she said, her tone dripping with sarcasm. “Yes, we found out about the Dragonsblood when Marvin contacted us and struck a deal. We figured if I married Gabriel, I could find a way to gain access to the stone. Marvin would move into the castle with us, use the Dragonsblood’s powers, and share in the wealth – we’d control the Kingsleys, and through them all their money.”

“How did you even know about the ruby’s abilities to control dragons?” Kelly asked Marvin, desperately trying to stall. For what, she wasn’t sure.

“You think that you’re the only smart one.” The leer on Marvin’s face made him positively hideous. “I’ve been doing research on power gems for years, looking for one that would give me some advantage. I heard rumors about what the Dragonsblood could do. Then I went to Italy and found some original documentation about the Dragonsblood, hundreds of years old, describing its powers.”

Teresa grabbed Kelly. “Oh God, I feel sick,” she gasped.

“Teresa, do you really think—”

Kelly had been about to snap that now was not the time to make the situation all about her, but when she looked at Teresa, she was rubbing her wrist and casting her eyes sideways at Alexandra. “I think I’m going to faint,” she wailed theatrically.

Kelly glanced at Alexandra.
Oh.
She wasn’t wearing copper bracelets or anklets anymore…and Marvin and the Maplethorpes didn’t seem to have noticed. Alexandra’s flickering eyes briefly met Kelly’s. Or did they?

Kelly concentrated with all of her might, reaching into Alexandra’s mind, where darkness swirled and clutched. She pulled the power of the citrine from the jewel and poured it into Alexandra, burning away the darkness. Alexandra made a choking noise, and her eyes opened wide. She stared at Kelly with a startled look and then her gaze slowly swept the room, taking everything in.

Gabriel rose to his feet, his movements unnaturally smooth, like a puppet pulled by its strings. His beautiful eyes were glowing crimson and without recognition. His clothes were smoldering in patches with the heat from his skin. He walked towards Kelly and Teresa, and stopped a few feet away. He opened his mouth and took a deep breath, his broad chest expanding.

Kelly clutched the Sunrise Citrine so hard her fingers hurt, and yelled, “Now!”

Alexandra leaped in front of Kelly and Teresa, scales cascading over her skin like falling dominoes. Her wings burst from her back and she spread them wide, shielding the sisters. She roared with pain as Gabriel blasted her with dragonfire, but she held her ground.

Flames raced up the walls, licking at the ceiling. Paint bubbled and blackened as the fire spread across the horizontal surface in great lapping tongues of red-orange heat.

Mr. Maplethorpe staggered backwards, panic on his face. He gestured at Marvin with his gun. “Do something,” he demanded. “Use the Dragonsblood – control her.”

“I…I can’t,” Marvin stammered, and he shook the gem like it was a Magic 8 Ball. “It isn’t working.”

“Of course it isn’t working,” Kelly shouted over the roaring of the flames. It was getting hard to breathe. “The Dragonsblood wants chaos, and you’re not strong enough to rein it in. You’re
weak
, Marvin. You always were.”

Marvin turned on her, his face made ugly by a combination of anger and fear. “You self-satisfied bitch—” he began.

Then he crumpled to the ground and the Dragonsblood rolled from his limp fingers.

Winthrop stood behind him, the remains of a vase in one upraised hand. “I must apologize once again,” he said, wheezing through the smoke. “I would have intervened sooner, but I was inconvenienced by the gentleman with the gun.”

Mr. Maplethorpe made a horrible gurgling sound. His face was purple and beads of sweat rolled down his temples. Standing behind him, face a mask of tightly controlled anger, was Calder. The centurion had his arm locked around Mr. Maplethorpe’s throat. In his free hand, he held the gun trained on Pandora, who’d been trying to slip out in the confusion.

How had he gotten there? How did he know they needed help?
Never mind, Kelly would ask him later – if they all survived.

Gabriel was back in control of his body and looking around frantically. His gaze landed on his twin and the anger that was usually in his eyes let up for a moment as he gave him a nod of acknowledgement. But the fire was raging out of control. They all flinched as a window exploded outwards. Part of the ceiling collapsed at the far end of the room, charred debris crashing down and sending plumes of dust and smoke rolling towards them.

Kelly grabbed Teresa’s hand and they fought their way blindly out of the house, staggering away from the blaze, eyes streaming, choking on the smoke they’d breathed in. As they turned back to look at the house, Winthrop emerged, and behind him Calder, who carried Evangeline in his arms. Almost as soon as they were out of the house she wriggled out of his grasp and ran over to Kelly and Teresa.

They all huddled together, listening to the agonized screams from inside the house as one side of it collapsed into the flames, turning the neat little residence into a bonfire.

Moments later, two dragons emerged from the flames, rising on the thermals from the blaze and circling high above, their wings slicing through the billows of black smoke.

Gabriel landed on the neatly clipped lawn in front of them. He transformed back into his human shape, wings furling and folding back into his body, and carved-ruby scales giving way to smooth skin smeared with soot.

“It’s over,” he told Kelly. “I burned them all.  I’m so sorry for doubting you, Kelly.  I know I don’t have the right to ask, but please…forgive me?”