Luck of the Dragon

tomorrow after the ceremony.” He gave a short bow to both of them and left the room.

“I didn’t mean to be rude,” Lucy said.

“He’ll survive.” Alec surveyed the doctor’s work. The gash was sewn shut with ten tiny black stitches. “You’ll probably have a scar.”

Lucy glanced at her shoulder. “It looks like I was bitten by a dragon.” She closed her eyes. “I can’t think. My brain is fluffy. Could I have some new clothes? I’d like to get up and walk around a bit. Maybe look at the jewels in your vault again.”

Alex raised his brows. “You sure you are up to it?”

When Lucy nodded, he picked up the house phone and asked Jane to bring up some comfortable clothing.

“I really want to see the Padma sapphire again.” Lucy seemed to be focusing on her speech, making it sound clipped and precise.

“The sapphire?” Alec returned to sit by her, picked up her hand, and kissed the knuckles.

“Yes.”

“Hmm. Maybe later when you’re feeling better.”

“Why not now?”

“Well, for one, I don’t think you can walk. For two, I believe you have a small bit of magic that surfaces around gems. It is best to explore something like that when you’re completely well.” At Lucy’s disappointed look, he added, “If you want, we can go together tomorrow, after the ceremony.”

“You think the sapphire might hurt me? More than your dragons?”

Alec fought down his aggravation at her continued refusal to accept the dragons. “Not hurt, exactly. It’s just unpredictable how you might react to it now that you’re coming into your magic.” Alec kissed her slowly, trying to convey to her that she was cherished and safe. He rested his forehead on hers. “If you give us a chance, we can be very happy together.”

Lucy wiggled out from under him. “What will happen to you if I leave?”

“Leave?” Dragon fire flashed through Alec, and his hands tightened on her arms. Deliberately, he let her go. “It doesn’t matter. It’s your choice whether you stay or not.”

Lucy chewed on her lip. “I just don’t know anymore…”

“Do you remember, before, when I told you about my black opal? How I feel a melding when I touch it?”

“Yes.”

“I feel the same way when I touch you.” Alec brushed his palm down her hip. Sensation shot from his fingers to his groin. “I know you feel it, too.”

Lucy looked away from him, denying the connection with her silence.

Alec fisted his hand and reminded himself that the Fates were never wrong when they brought two souls together. Lucy was stubborn. She would need to come to the decision on her own. He didn’t want her to feel like she had no choice, like Mei and Darius.

Besides, he knew the power of the ceremony. Lucy wouldn’t be able to deny him any more than he would be able to deny her.

“The choice is yours,” he said with a confident smile.

Chapter Sixteen

Lucy paused to examine the painting of St. George and the Dragon in Alec’s entry. Alec had said she could leave, and then left himself, as if he needed some space from her decision-making. Even though she was alone in his penthouse, she knew there were guards in the hall outside the door. Guarding or restraining, their presence was still up for interpretation.

After a few hours sleep, her mind was still fuzzy but clearer on her priorities. There was no way Alec-the- dragon was sane. No way could he mean to have a life with her, a human. She was just a passing frivolity, something for the Dragon King of Las Vegas to play with. She was a shiny new object for his vast collection.

But her heart hurt when she considered leaving Alec-the-man. Their physical connection was otherworldly, a transformation and melding of two people into one. She was as changed with him as the solder she used to form a jewel setting. The gold coil wasn’t much sitting on her shelf, but when she fashioned it around a priceless jewel, it was a foil and a protector. An object of beauty in its own right.

Lucy sighed heavily. Was she doing the right thing? She would yearn for Alec for the rest of her life. But the black dragon he had turned into in the gem exhibit was another story. No way was she, a human, going to make it with a bunch of dragons. Eventually, she would be their lunch, no matter what Alec said.

But she could save Joey with the sapphire. It would have to be enough.

Lucy eyed the painting. Alec had moved the right edge to open the vault. Her trained eye caught on the aged brushstrokes of the Renaissance-style painting and moved over the artist’s famous signature across the horse’s leather harness. A demure pink-clothed maiden picnicked to the side while St. George killed an ugly, undersized dragon at the point of his spear. The original was supposed to be in the National Archives, but she would bet her new cutting set that this copy was real—just another priceless objet de art in Alec’s possession.

The death of a dragon seemed an odd subject choice, given what she now knew about Alec and his people. On George’s boot garter, the single word “Honi” was scrolled, the beginning of the Latin motto for the chivalrous Order of the Garter: disgraced is he who thinks evil of it…

She remembered from Art History class that the meaning of the “evil” was a matter of much scholarly debate. Some believed it referred to rude and unchivalrous actions toward a lady. Others argued that the evil was those who killed dragons or even the dragons themselves. One thing seemed certain though—at one time, there was an order of English knights ordained to slay dragons.

Lucy had always reasoned that the dragons they slew were figurative. Now, she had to wonder if the slayings, like the dragons themselves, were real. Did Alec and the dragons have human enemies? Was that why the other dragons were disdainful of her, a human being as his supposed mate?

Lucy stepped back from the lure of the puzzle. The scholarly questions were easier than her real-life problems. If she let herself, she knew she could find a computer and immerse herself for hours researching dragons and the archaic order of knights. Unfortunately, the mind-sucking task wouldn’t solve her troubles.

Resolve back in place, she tilted the painting to the right, as Alec had, and walked toward the opening vault staircase. The stone walls were rough and cool under her hands, and she felt like she was stepping back in time.

At the vault door, she replayed the sound of Alec’s code in her head: La-la-la-la- la.

Five numbers.

Most security systems allowed three tries. If the alarm went off, she would just act confused by the pain pills, say she wanted to get her cutting set. It was a likely excuse. Plan in place, she traced the three-by-four columned keypad with her finger. The code replayed in her mind: La, low, high, higher, lower.

Most people chose one of the right-hand numbers for their first number, so nine, six, or three. But nine left no higher key sounds, and three left no lower sounds. The first number had to be a six. She studied the other numbers with steady-eyed concentration.

Six-la-la-la-la. Six, low, high, higher, lower.

In her mind, she worked out the sound intervals with the closest-spaced permutations. People, and apparently dragons, too, had lazy code-making habits.

Sweat pooled at her lower back, but she broke the code on her third try: Six, three, eight, nine, two. BINGO.

As the thousand-pound vault door disengaged and opened, the thrill of conquest swept through her in an undeniable jolt. She bit her lower lip to keep from fist pumping and shouting in victory.

Once inside, she stepped to the aged table, but her cutting set and the Padma Sapphire were nowhere in