To Hell and Back by L.B. Gilbert
Chapter Twenty-Four
This time, Rhys took her down instead of up. They left the house and took a winding path, one that ran along the side of the mountain, not away from it.
At the end, there was another tunnel mouth, this one concealed by a large boulder Rhys moved effortlessly despite the fact it was bigger than he was.
“Is this under your balcony?” she asked, looking up at the deck high above.
“Yes,” he said, nudging her inside. The darkness engulfed them.
“No lights in here?” she asked, her voice higher than normal. “I take it you don’t need them?”
His large hand grasped her by the elbow. “Like most terrestrial shifters, I have excellent night vision.”
A few minutes later, he came to a stop. “Stand here for a moment.”
He moved away. A stream of flame shot out of his mouth, lighting another one of those big dish-like braziers.
The sight that met her eyes should not have been a surprise, given what Rhys was, but the reality of it knocked the breath from her lungs.
She was in the middle of her dragon’s hoard. Piles of gold coins, bars, and cups filled most of the space, with multi-faceted jewels and strings of pearls scattered over shelves.
Her host went around the cavern, lighting torches in wall sconces with nothing but the flames he breathed from his mouth.
“That’s handy,” she said when he was done, still not quite believing what she was seeing.
Chandeliers made of beaten silver hung overhead, but they weren’t lit. There were also paintings and fine china, including vases that must have been Ming dynasty because what else would they be?
Overwhelmed at the sight of so many glittering objects, she closed her eyes, but the vision didn’t disappear when she opened them. “I thought you preferred to be surrounded by your treasures.”
“Many of my favorite pieces are upstairs, but I have lived long enough to acquire more than I can tastefully display. They wouldn’t all fit in the house,” he explained. “Not without making the decor unseemly.”
That made her lips twitch.
“Also, when I made my pact with Aggie, I decided it would be prudent to have the main hoard nearby, but unconnected to the house.”
He bent over, picking up a handful of necklaces that had been dropped over a statue of Venus. “Her purview ends at the basement. This cavern is deep enough that it’s unconnected to the house. A separate entrance is required to keep her out of here.”
“I thought she wasn’t interested in gold.”
“She isn’t, but when I first met her, I took nothing at face value. I soon learned the error of my ways. She doesn’t value these things. My treasure is quite safe from her, but that has a downside as well. She’ll use a priceless ancient Greek bowl as a candy dish without blinking.”
“So, you value our antiquities as well? Not just precious metals and jewels?” she asked.
His eyes moved down her body. “I admire anything beautiful.”
Heat coursed through her cheeks, but then she saw something over his shoulder against the wall.
Valeria stiffened and rose to her feet. “That’s the necklace in the portrait.”
“Yes.” He walked up to the piece housed in its own special niche. “I gave it to Gabriella as a pre-engagement gift. In our one meeting after she was wed, she tried to return it. But I wouldn’t take it back.”
“And you had her portrait done with it?”
“No. Her family commissioned the work. I assume they meant to keep the necklace, as was their right. It was a gift freely given and not part of my bride price. However, after her death, her younger brother returned it to me. He said she never wanted to take it off.”
Her mouth tightened. “You didn’t find that strange?”
Rhys shrugged. “I suppose, in retrospect, yes, but I wasn’t thinking all that clearly at the time.”
He pivoted, his gaze going from her to the necklace, a little frown on his face. “Do you want to try it on?
“No,” she said quickly—too quickly.
“Of course,” he said, leading her further into his cave, picking out other individual pieces from his treasure trove and telling her its story.
First, there was an ancient Sumerian tablet that he picked up in Iraq after a successful dive for gold coins in the Persian Gulf at the turn of the century. Then there was a tiara of dubious provenance. Created out of real yellow, white, and, pink diamonds, it was meant to be a forgery for the Eye of Light tiara, part of the crown jewels of Iran.
“The forgers intended to create synthetic diamonds,” Rhys shared, enthusiastic about the tale. “But their technology failed to capture the precise shade of the Noor-ol-Ain, that central pink diamond. So, they cut one out of glass and hoped for the best.”
“I take it their forgery was detected.”
A corner of his mouth lifted. “Surprisingly, it came close to working. Unfortunately for the would-be thieves, the glass masquerading as the Noor-ol-Ain fell out and shattered on the floor. Everyone was arrested.”
He held up the tiara. “I found it amusing to take the tiara after the ruckus had died down.”
“So, you were there the night they were going to steal it?” Amusement lit her eyes. “Let me guess. You were going to steal it from the thieves, weren’t you?”
“I may have had a plan in place, had they succeeded.”
She arched a brow. “So, you wouldn’t have taken it if it had been in the royal family’s hands? Only from the thieves?”
“It’s not treasure hunting if someone owns the thing.” He nodded at the tiara. “I took that as a souvenir of a very interesting evening.”
“Mm-hmm.” She held up the diamond confection. The jewels glittered in the firelight with an unmistakable fire. “And yet, I’ll bet the rest of the gold in this room that these are real jewels in here.”
He beamed at her with pride, as if impressed she could tell genuine stones from fake. “Because they are—but these stones originated from my collection. It amused me to replace them with diamonds of higher quality than the ones in the original, which is why it’s not a perfect replica. I believe in cutting stones to maximize their potential, not their intended setting. It took some time to find the right ones.”
“Is there a master jeweler in your clan or…?”
“I did the work myself,” he confirmed. “You’ll be hard-pressed to find a dragon who would let another man or woman cut a stone for them. We all have our own tastes, and cutting gems is a skill we enjoy cultivating.”
“So, it’s a hobby?”
He leaned against a gold-tipped obelisk. “A rather competitive one. I upstaged Naveen with this tiara. His piece was a recreation of the Taylor-Burton diamond.”
Her brow puckered. “Taylor as in Elizabeth Taylor?”
“Yes.”
“So, it’s not just crown jewels you copy?”
“Anyone that argues that Elizabeth Taylor is not a queen is mad,” he said, making her laugh.
Leaning over, he plucked the tiara from her hand and set it on her head. It slipped over her eye.
“I didn’t mean to make you sad with my revelation upstairs,” he whispered in the sudden quiet.
Biting her lip, she looked behind him at the necklace on display. “Why did you show this to me?”
The painting she could understand. As long as she was staying here, she would have discovered it at some point. As it was, people were talking, dropping hints. This was a community that did not keep secrets. They had learned not to the hard way.
Rhys took a long time in answering. “I know you’re wondering what your place here is. The truth is that I don’t know what it is. But that doesn’t mean you don’t have one.”
The corner of her mouth turned up. “Even though I don’t smell like her?”
Rhys reached out and took her hand. He let her to a rectangular slab she thought was solid stone. Peeking underneath, she saw it was hollow, the interior lined with amethyst crystals.
She sat, a little surprised when he squeezed in next to her. “I don’t think you’re a reincarnation.”
Of course she wasn’t one. Rhys’ one and only was a gentle pure soul who had never stolen or hurt a soul in her life.
Except for him,her mind whispered snarkily.
“Everything about you is different,” he said finally. “It’s not just your scent or the things you can do, but even your smile. Yours is…unrestrained,” he continued. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I have never felt what I feel for you before…save with her.”
Moving slowly, the way one would reach out to a wild animal, Rhys took her hand. “I don’t want you to leave. Even if you decide against me—against us—I would prefer you to stay.”
She released a shaky breath. “For how long?”
“As long as you want.”