Free Bride Of The Dragon by Georgette St. Clair

there; eavesdropping was like wandering through the United Nations.
    The jewelry was exquisite; each piece was a tiny work of art worthy of display in a museum. Each section was dedicated to a different designer; there were about a dozen. Whatever style of jewelry design you wanted, you could find here. Art nouveau, industrial chic, nature-inspired, holiday-themed, wedding rings of every description…
    Wait, why had Gabriel steered her towards the wedding ring section?
    She gave him a dirty look, and he rewarded her with a charming smile.
    “What?” he said innocently. “You should search the entire store. Every single section. For all you know, the Dragonsblood Ruby might be tucked in amongst the wedding rings. You should look very carefully through all the display cases.”
    She shook her head. “I’m pretty sure that a heart-shaped ruby the size of a baseball would be pretty hard to hide in a wedding ring case.” She watched him carefully as she said that, to see how he’d react.
    “Don’t be ridiculous. When I stole the Dragonsblood…” he paused dramatically as her eyes widened in shock “…I quite clearly remember it being diamond-shaped, and the size of a football.”
    Oh, very funny. The Dragonsblood was the size of a golf ball, and it wasn’t diamond shaped, it was spherical.
    Of course she couldn’t trick him that easily.
    “Your face right now.” Gabriel chuckled. “I wish you could see it. Oh, there’s a mirror – do you want to look?”
    “I hate you,” she informed him loftily, and stalked off to search the store.
    “There’s an excellent selection of rubies in the room off to your left!” he called out after her. She refused to dignify that with an answer; she just raised her middle finger and held it high. Customers were staring at her and murmuring; she didn’t care.
    Gabriel headed for the door, carrying his canvas sack, and gave her a friendly wave. “I’ll be back soon,” he said.
    Seriously, what the heck was he up to with that sack? she wondered. She wandered through the store, opening her mind and letting the energy of the jewels flow through her body.
    It wasn’t that she thought he’d be insane enough to have the ruby on sale in a display case in his family’s store, but he certainly might have it somewhere here in a safe. There were security guards in the store, video cameras, an alarm system…it would be as safe here as anywhere.
    A thorough sweep of the store didn’t yield any results.
    There were, however, several jewels in the display cases that she was surprised to find there. There were some small healing rubies set in a bracelet that she would have thought would have been sent off to a dragon clinic for use, there was a pair of malachite earrings that would be extremely dangerous if they got into the wrong hands, because they could amplify dragon aggression…
    As she moved through the store, she was even more surprised to see a man she recognized, who was standing there talking to a sales associate. A human. Marvin Ackermann. He was tall and lean, with pale skin and thick shock of dark hair. He had changed since she’d last seen him a few years ago – he used to wear his hair close-clipped, and he also used to wear glasses. And he’d shaved off his goatee and mustache. It was his expression that caught her attention; sour and disapproving, as if he’d just sucked on a lemon.
    She’d gone to school with him at the Gemological Institute for Empaths.
    “Marvin?” she said. He gave her a startled glance, then turned and hurried to the back of the store and vanished through a door. She wasn’t surprised that he didn’t want to be seen by her; it was illegal for him to be working there, at least in the capacity of an empath, and why else would he be there?
    Human law forbade empaths from working for dragon shifters; humans didn’t want dragons to be able to gain control of power gems. Human-dragon relations were always uneasy, and humans did everything