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…
She paused by a carved antique dresser. On top of it sat a tray of jewel-studded cufflinks, most of which had no special abilities. There was one set of onyx cufflinks with some power in them, but they weren’t even that strong and they weren’t stolen. They had the ability to be mildly calming in stressful situations.Xanax onyx,she thought, stifling a giggle.
Anyway, didn’t matter. They were at home here. Passed down for generations. She could feel it.
After a few minutes, she was satisfied that there was nothing in her suite. She hadn’t thought it would be that easy, but then again, Gabriel struck her as someone with a perverse sense of humor, and she’d feel pretty stupid if it turned out he had hidden the Dragonsblood in a safe in her room. She really wished he had; she was a master at safe-cracking. If you wanted to defeat a crook, you had to think like a crook.
But no, there was definitely no ruby in her suite, so she left and walked into Gabriel’s room. Dear God, what a freaking huge room. Her townhouse in Seattle was pretty good-sized; she could fit the entire thing in here and then some.
The floor was flagstone, with richly colored Oriental carpets scattered across it. There were groupings of sofas and chairs and mahogany end tables. Some of them were gathered around a massive stone fireplace. There was a reading corner with shelves stocked with thousands of books. Somewhere a Barnes & Noble was jealous of Gabriel’s book collection.
“Big, scaly show-off,” she muttered to herself, sinking into an exquisitely comfortable chair and letting out a contented sigh as she plucked a book of poetry from a shelf. She stroked its glossy cover and tried not to imagine coming home to this room every night. Spending hours cushioned in this cloud-like chair, lost in in a book… Sprawling across that bed, naked… Gabriel kissing his way down her body…
“You stop that!” she scolded herself out loud. She quickly stood up and forced herself to concentrate, to open her mind back up and call out.
Come to me, Dragonsblood…and could you make it snappy before I start touching myself and humping Gabriel’s pillow?
She heard a noise coming from behind a door, which she was pretty sure led to Gabriel’s closet. She hesitated; had he come back in while she was in the shower?
“Gabriel?” she called out. There was no answer, but she heard a rattling noise.
“Winthrop?” she tried again. Still no answer.
