Bride Of The Dragon (3 page)

Fine. She’d go along with this ridiculous charade for now, and she’d use the opportunity to look for the jewel.

There was a loud knock on the door, and Gabriel went to answer it. Three maids marched in – and two of them were carrying her suitcases. One of them handed something to Gabriel, and the other two went and deposited her suitcases on the floor.

“How did you get my stuff?” she asked once the maids had left.

“I know this valley pretty well. Called around to find out what hotel you were staying at, and had my men go get your belongings.”

“The hotel just let your men take my stuff?” she squawked indignantly.

“Well, my family is pretty well known around here.”

“Yes, as thieves!” she protested.

“Of luggage?” He raised an eyebrow skeptically.

She put her hands on her hips. “So, you admit that you are a thief, just not of cheap stuff.”

He glanced towards her suitcases. “Oh, now, don’t put yourself down. Your stuff isn’t cheap – it’s very nice.”

“Thanks, I usually buy stuff at consignment stores,” she said, then glared at him. “Don’t change the subject! What we’re discussing here is your criminal behavior. You and your whole family.”

“My family may have had some minor scrapes with the law in the past, but we’re strictly legit now,” he said, giving her a wide-eyed, innocent look. “I’m sure you know how successful our jewelry design business is. Oh, and I believe this is yours.”

He tossed her the stolen velvet drawstring purse, and she felt relief rushing through her. On the one hand, her cell phone would be in there, which sucked, because she’d have to call the office soon. But on the other hand…if she could just get the truthstone pressed against Gabriel’s flesh, this whole trip might be a lot shorter than he’d expected.

She headed to her suite and slammed the door shut. She quickly rummaged through the bag…and her heart sank. Cell-phone: check. Wallet: check. Truthstone…gone.

Chapter Five

She heard footsteps pounding towards her, and then Gabriel swung the door open.

“Oh, were you looking for this?” he called out. He was holding up the truthstone – and he’d put on a glove so it wouldn’t touch his skin. That sneaky bastard.

“Give me that!” she yelled, reaching for it.

He held it up over her head. It was a big, beautiful chunk of brown crystal that glittered with gold flecks. Quite distinctive looking. And apparently Gabriel had recognized it for what it was, damn the luck.

She jumped and tried to get it, but he was a good ten inches taller than her.

“I don’t think dragonkind wants to see this kind of stone in the hands of a human,” he said, with a maddeningly smug smile. “And isn’t it technically illegal to for you to use this stone without a court order?”

She flushed self-consciously at that. “It’s a gray area,” she muttered. If she’d forced him to admit what he’d done with the Dragonsblood Ruby, her quasi-legal use of the truthstone would have been overlooked.

“Hmm,” he mused. “For someone who sees things as so black and white, you’re suddenly okay with a gray area?”

“I was doing it for the greater good,” she said defiantly.

“That’s a slippery slope, babe.” Then he looked her over thoughtfully. “Interesting that you’re able to use a truthstone, though. Not everybody could.”

“Interesting that you know what one is. They’re quite rare.” She narrowed her eyes at him.

“Yes, well, given that my family are dragons and we’re in the jewelry business, we make it a practice to study any gems that might have power over our species. And you’re trying to change the subject. You have powers.”

She shrugged. No point in denying it now. “Yes, I do have powers,” she said. “I’m a gem empath.” That meant she could sense those special jewels that had latent powers, and manipulate and amplify them.

In an odd twist of fate, only humans – some very few, special humans – had the ability to sense and manipulate those gems that were imbued with mystic powers. And only dragons were affected by power gems. Kelly believed that it was a balance of nature kind of thing – dragons were already so incredibly powerful, maybe nature had tipped the scales back in humans’ favor a little bit.

“Well, that explains a lot,” Gabriel said. “Good to know. Want a job working for my family? We could use a good gem empath.”

“No, it’s illegal for a gem empath to work for dragons, and you know it. I want my truthstone back. Give it to me or else.”

“Or else?” He quirked one perfect brow and waited for her threat.

She glared at him and tried to look intimidating, which was hard to do to a man who was almost a foot taller than her and who could turn into a giant fire-breathing beast. “Or I’ll turn you in for stealing it.”

“Really?” He raised an eyebrow. “Even though you were going to use it for illegal purposes?”

Damn it. He had her there.

“I’ll just go put this somewhere safe while you freshen up and change; I think the festival organizers need their Fair Maiden costume back.”

“Did you know about this all along?” she asked. “Those ladies who grabbed me and dragged me to the stage…I saw them up here at the party. They work for you, don’t they? You know everyone in the valley…the hotel must have notified you when I checked in this morning. You set up that person to steal my purse, didn’t you?”

“Moi?”

“Hey, he tried to punch my sister!” Kelly said furiously. She glared at Gabriel, fists clenched. She wasn’t above socking a dragon right in his perfect kisser. “She may be a snarky, annoying bitch – okay, she definitely is – but punching her is going way too far!”

“If I had employed someone to mug you, I might also have encouraged him to throw a fake punch at your sister in order to start a fight and ensure that the centurions took them both into custody. But this is all pure speculation.”

“How did you even know I’d be coming to town?”

He smiled and blinked his eyes at her, giving a fake impression of wide-eyed innocence. “Who, me?”

“Stop that,” she said, wincing. “That is not a good look for you.”

“Nonsense,” he said with a wink. “Everything’s a good look for me.” And he strolled out of the room.

Bastard. Unfortunately, he was right. It was impossible for that man to look ugly.

She glowered after him as he left. He’d just walked off with her most useful tool – and one that would be incredibly hard to replace.

The truthstone gems only existed in Alforia, a small country in northern Africa. If she couldn’t get that back from him, she would have to go to that tiny mine, trekking through about fifty miles of jungle, pay a fortune for the right to enter the mine and hunt for the vein where the gems were… Damn him.

And truthstones weren’t easy to work with, either. They required special handling to unlock their powers. It wouldn’t be easy to get a new one to work for her. It would take weeks or months to get the gem attuned to her vibrations.

Cursing under her breath, she went to take a shower and change.

* * * * *

As soon as the truthstone was locked away safely, Gabriel headed down the hall towards the elevator that led to the south tower. Once he’d reached the top, he stepped out – and saw his brother walking towards him. Gabriel felt a wave of red-hot anger rush through his veins.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded.

“I came to visit Alexandra. As a member of this family, I have that right.” Calder glanced down the hallway at a large metal door.

“You’re a member in name only.” Gabriel glowered at him. “It’s your fault she’s still here.”

Calder snorted. “Keep telling yourself that. By the way, congratulations on your lovely new bride-to-be. You could have gotten rid of her, of course, but then you’d have been stuck with Pandora. So I assume you picked her because she’s the lesser of two evils?”

Rage roared through Gabriel. He knew Calder was spoiling for a fight, provoking him on purpose… Well, if he wanted a fight, he’d get one.

“How dare you?” he shouted, and he let out a blast of flame that enveloped his brother from head to toe and burned the clothes right off him. Calder responded with an answering blast, and Gabriel felt the air around him go warm and his hair started to singe. A human would have been instantly reduced to a blackened skeleton, but a dragon could withstand another dragon’s fire for a short time.

“Stop that at once! I said stop it!” Their mother’s voice rang through the air, and then Tabitha stepped between them.

The flaming stopped.

Gabriel and Calder stood there, panting with rage and exertion, fists clenched, and their mother stood there, stark naked and furious, between them.

“You two idiots just burned my favorite dress. That was a Dior, I’ll have you know,” Tabitha snapped, but, as was her custom, she only looked at Gabriel.

“What are you doing here?” Gabriel asked her. “Why aren’t you downstairs with the guests?”

Tabitha’s mouth twitched into a sad smile. “I came to deliver your happy news to Alexandra,” she said, glancing at the big door. Then her face fell. “But even here, I get no peace.” She gave a rare glance at Calder, her eyes brimming with tears, lip quivering.

As if she hadn’t suffered enough. Gabriel drew his breath in to blast his brother with a fireball he couldn’t recover from, but Calder merely shot her a look of annoyance. “We all know you were a theatre major in college, mother – or should I say, Tabitha,” he said coldly. “So save it.”

Tabitha’s tears vanished instantly, and she turned and stalked off, holding up her hand and extending her middle finger at her older – by five minutes – son.

“I curse the day you hatched!” she yelled at him, then leaned in to let the retinal scanner scan her eye. The door opened for her, and she paused as if to brace herself, then walked into the room, leaving her two sons alone.

Calder flashed Gabriel an annoyingly superior look, as if to say, “She suckered you, as usual,” then turned and walked away. Gabriel was even angrier because his brother was right.

And unfortunately, family tradition required that Calder remain in the valley until Gabriel was married. It would be a miracle if they could get through the next thirty days without killing each other.

He climbed onto the elevator and took it downstairs, then strode through the great hall that led back to the main area of the castle. He was determined not to let his asshole ex-brother ruin his good mood. The universe was clearly smiling on him today. For the past year, he’d been crushing on Kelly Henderson. More than that – dreaming about the stubborn spitfire brunette. Lusting after her. Struggling to banish her from his thoughts. Enjoying himself far too much every time she showed up and tried to interrogate him.

For the past month, since both his name and Pandora’s had been selected by the fair committee, he’d been plunged in gloom. Not only would he never be with Kelly, he’d be married to a horrible, viper-tongued, social-climbing phony who made his stomach roil.

He and his family’s lawyers had researched every possible angle to get him out of the nightmare that would be his fate, and had found nothing. They were positive she’d cheated and rigged the drawing so she’d be selected – and it didn’t even matter.

If he refused to marry the Fair Maiden, he would be in defiance of the Dragon Codicil, which meant that he and his family would forfeit everything they owned to Pandora’s family and would be banished from associating with their fellow dragons forever.

The Dragon Elders didn’t mess around.

And then the spyware that his family had recently used to infect Kelly’s laptop had paid off…shockingly well. They’d done it because they were still desperately hunting for a power gem with healing powers, and hoped that Kelly might have information about such a gem on her computer, and also because they wanted to keep abreast of Kelly’s investigation into them. But when he’d learned that Kelly planned to come to the Tri-Valley Dragon Festival and substitute herself for the Fair Maiden, it had been like a hurricane had blown away and the sun had beamed down on him from the heavens.

There could only be one reason that this had happened. Kelly was meant for him. He’d known it the moment he’d first laid eyes on her. And she would come to see it too, sooner or later. He hoped sooner, because looking at her made all the blood in his body rush to his dick, and he wanted nothing more than to taste every inch of her lusciousness.

As Gabriel headed for the staircase that led up to his bedchamber, he spotted his valet. Winthrop had changed out of his medieval garb into his suit, and was striding through the great hall carrying a tray full of dirty dishes.

“Do you believe in fate, my good man?” Gabriel asked him cheerfully.

Winthrop answered with exaggerated patience and his usual doleful expression. “No,” he said. “I believe in doing one’s duty and behaving and dressing appropriately to one’s station.”

It was just Gabriel’s luck to have inherited a valet who was painfully morally upright and continually horrified by the Kingsley family’s antics. Tradition said that Winthrop couldn’t leave the Kingsleys’ employ unless he got married. So far, there had been no takers. Gabriel glanced at his dour-looking valet and shook his head.

What a surprise.

But Gabriel wasn’t going to let Winthrop drag him down this afternoon, either. “Winthrop, you could suck the joy out of a billion-dollar lottery win – but not today, my friend!”

“Er…thank you?” Winthrop looked baffled. “Will that be all, sir?”

“For the time being, yes.” Gabriel headed for the stairs, humming to himself.

* * * * *

Kelly looked over the outfits that she’d just hung in her closet. She wasn’t really sure what she should wear. What was an appropriate outfit for dinner with the dragon who’d just kidnapped you? Finally, because it was hot out, she selected a light blue jersey tank dress with a lace hem, and a matching blue lace jacket.

She headed out of her bedroom to search the other rooms in her suite.

She managed a grim smile. Gabriel knew that she was a gem empath, but he didn’t know how powerful she was, or he’d never have agreed to bring her to his castle.

Most empaths needed to handle a gem to sense whether or not it had powers, and to be able to manipulate those powers.

Not Kelly. She could feel the vibrations of any jewels that had special properties without touching them, even through walls and safes. Nobody knew that outside the insurance agency where she worked; it was a closely guarded secret.

She did have to be within a few dozen feet of the jewel, which meant that she was literally going to have to search the castle from top to bottom. She also couldn’t just feel it by walking by; she had to concentrate really hard, putting herself almost in a trance state, if she wanted to sense the vibrations.

It had taken years of training to get her powers up to their current strength, and it was very draining to do it for more than a few minutes.

She’d still have to get extraordinarily lucky to be able to find it, but at least now she stood a chance.

She opened up her mind and listened for the jewel wavelengths. Once she felt her mental barriers relaxing, she began walking around the room. She stopped in each corner, paused, and let her mind sweep the area. Nothing. She kept moving, stopping, sweeping…