Chapter Fifteen
“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.
