“Like a witch?” she asked.
He nodded. “I cannot control the elements as a witch can, but I can execute some spells and rituals similarly, and my magic will make them effective.”
She moved to the first shelf, examining the spines. “You don’t look like a dragon.”
He leaned against the shelf. “I can change my appearance, but it would be too destructive to show you my natural form now, not to mention dangerous. I don’t have the control I do in this form. I could hurt you without really knowing what I was doing.”
“You seemed to do a pretty good job hurting those men last night. They’re dead, you know.”
He shifted uneasily. “They were alive when I left them. I gave the paramedics their location.”
She frowned. “They didn’t make it.” Needing to move, she walked down the row to the next shelf.
“Does it bother you that they’re dead?” he asked darkly.
She thought about it. “I’m having trouble mustering sympathy for men who definitely would have raped me and probably would have killed me if they’d had the chance.”
“Then we don’t have a problem.”
She stopped and looked at him. “Only that now I know I’m working for a murderer who wants to punish me. Will you kill me if I don’t do what you say?”
His face darkened, and he gave her a wry grin. “Let’s not find out.”
A chill ran through her. Gabriel had been kind to her. Unmistakably kind and gentle. He’d looked at her as sweetly as any man had. But she could see it now. He was also dangerous. And what he’d said downstairs had been downright possessive.
“So, what do you want me to do in here?” she asked.
“I need you to examine each page of each of these grimoires.”
She glanced at him curiously. “Grimoires?”
“Books of magic. Each of these books was written by someone who had and exercised the magic contained within. A grimoire is a personal book of magic and the contents of these rare editions are in most cases original and entirely unique.”
Raven stared at the books. There were thousands. She was a fast reader, but it would take her years to get through every book in this room. “What are we looking for?”
“A countercurse to break the hex on my ring.” He held up his right hand. The emerald seemed to give off its own light in the dim and dusty room. “I have spent the past year procuring these texts from every corner of the world at great personal cost. This room contains a comprehensive encyclopedia of magical knowledge. Something here has to be strong enough to do the trick.”
She ran her finger along one leather spine. “How long do we have?”
“Mardi Gras. The curse will completely destroy the magic of my ring at midnight on Fat Tuesday.”
“Mardi Gras is February thirteenth this year. It’s January seventh. That’s just over a month away. It would take me a year to get through all these.”
“You don’t have to read all of them,” Gabriel said. He gestured for her to follow him toward the back of the room.
There was a ledger open on a massive library desk. He tugged the chain on a green banker’s lamp in the corner, and it glowed to life, spilling a circle of light over the pages.
“My previous employee, Kristina, kept excellent records. Start where she left off. She has already analyzed the first half of the shelves. Everything is cataloged here.”
Raven examined the tight handwriting and neat notes. “What happened to Kristina?”
“She has moved on,” he said, his eyes slipping away from hers.
“Some of these aren’t in English.” She could see one spine on the shelf in front of her that appeared to be in Korean.
“Few of them are in English,” he confirmed.
“I can only read English.”
He huffed. “Don’t limit yourself to examining them with your eyes, Raven. Use your abilities. The same psychic abilities you used to warn your parents about the fire. It is why I chose you.”
“But—” How did she explain that her former vision was just a fluke? A product of the cancer he had cured? “I’m not actually psychic. I don’t know how I did it before. It’s not like I can hold these books against my forehead and tell you what’s inside.”
A slow grin spread across his face. “Is that a Johnny Carson reference?”
“Carnac the Magnificent.”
“Wasn’t he before your time?”
“I watched reruns in the hospital.”
“Carnac you may not be, but I believe you are enough.” The way he said it made her chest warm. He believed she could do this. He really did. Gabriel retrieved a volume from the shelf and opened it to a random page, then grabbed her wrist and positioned her palm flat over the words. “Anything?”
Raven tried not to laugh. She felt something all right: his strange heat running the course of her body, straight to her core. Her tongue felt thick as she answered, “Uh, no.”
He released her. “Hmm. Well. There will be when you come upon something useful.” His fingers tapped against the desk. Tap-tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap. The rhythm she’d noticed before had started again, more violently this time.
“Can I ask you a personal question?” Raven toyed with the corner of the catalog.
He gave her a small nod.
“Do you have OCD? Because I know a doctor who can help you with that.” She gestured toward his fingers.
He pulled his hand away, tucking it into his pocket. “OCD?”
“Obsessive-compulsive disorder. Like there are certain things you have to do to feel normal. Reoccurring thoughts or behaviors.”
“It’s not OCD. It’s a side effect of the curse,” Gabriel said.
“Hmm. It’s similar to OCD.” Raven fell silent when it became clear by the hardening of his jaw that she was making him self-conscious.
He pointed toward a room to her right. “Bathroom and break room are through there. I will leave you now. Get started.”
“Wait, what if I have questions?”
“Write them down. I’ll check in this afternoon.”
“But—”
She was too late. Gabriel had turned on his heel and left the room, leaving Raven alone in the strange library.
“Okay then, have a nice day to you too, mysterious, sexy dragon man,” she muttered under her breath. Her eyes fell on the books. She lowered herself slowly into the chair behind the desk.
Avery was never going to believe this.
Chapter Seven
Raven flipped pages all morning. The book she’d chosen from the list, the next on the shelf that Kristina had abandoned, was written in fine German calligraphy. She had no idea what it said. Dutifully, her eyes traced over the words and symbols ordered down the page like a recipe. It was boring as hell. With her head resting against her fist, she had to work to stay awake.
At nine a.m. she stood and did jumping jacks to keep her blood flowing. She finished the first book, logged it in the catalog, and slid it back onto the shelf. The next book, she was relieved to learn, was in English. Blakemore wasn’t lying about these books being grimoires.
“Spell to remove a demon from an infant,” she read. “Locator charm. Summoning of the spirit. Incantation to release inner power.” She mumbled the words to herself and scratched a growing itch on the inside of her arm. She turned the page, gaining interest when one of the spells called for the “urine of a newborn boy” and the “placenta of a goat.”
“Ew,” she whispered to herself. As she read, she had the passing thought that she’d caught some type of skin infection. The patch of itchy skin on the inside of her arm seemed to be getting bigger. The back of her neck had begun to itch as well, and she scratched the base of her hairline. Come to think of it, she felt itchy in a few places: the side of her calf, under her ribs. She wondered if she might be allergic to something in the room.
It was almost eleven when she heard the tinkle of a bell from the break room Gabriel had pointed out to her.
“Perfect time for a break,” she said, rising from the desk and stretching her arms above her head. Her stomach growled and she needed to use the restroom.
“Hello?” she called. No answer came. A small sitting room was attached to the library with a kitchenette and, through another door, a bathroom. Someone had left her a tray on the coffee table with tea, toast, and hard-boiled eggs. “Is anyone here?” she called. The tea was steaming hot. Whoever had left it had done so recently.
She used the bathroom. As she washed her hands, she took in the art on the walls. If she wasn’t mistaken, the piece hanging above the toilet was an Emelia Beldroit. She’d just read an article on the young local artist. Her paintings were selling for $50,000 and up. She pulled out her phone and snapped a picture.
“Avery is never going to believe I peed under this thing.” She giggled, then eyed the paintings on the other three walls. Three. There was no other door to this room besides the one through which she’d entered.
Eyes narrowing, she reentered the sitting room with the kitchenette. There was no other way in here either. Whoever had delivered the tea would have had to walk past where she’d been working. How had she missed them?
Her temples throbbed. Men with healing teeth who say they are dragons. Tea that appears out of nowhere. A room full of magical texts. Was this her new normal? It was too much. She needed air.
Walking back through the stacks, she speculated that she’d missed the tea being brought in because she’d fallen asleep reading. It was possible. The books were about as exciting as insurance contracts. A short walk outside was what she needed. Some fresh air would invigorate her.
She tugged on the door to the library. It wouldn’t budge. Examining the lock, she saw a keyhole. She tugged the knob again. It didn’t give. She was locked in. She rattled the knob, banging on the door with her open palm.
“Hey!” she yelled. “Someone let me out!”
No one answered.
“Hey!” she yelled again, this time as loud as she could. A terrifying thought gripped her like a vise. Had she been locked inside on purpose? When Gabriel said she was his, was it in a Silence of the Lambs sort of way? Was she locked in here for good? Forced to work for him while food dropped out of the sky?
Her heart sprinted in her chest and her breath came in pants. “No. No. No. I can’t do this. I can’t do this,” she screamed at the door. She shook her hands, but the panic attack revved up another notch. In the blink of an eye, she was back in that bed in the hospital, a prisoner to the tubes and the illness. She couldn’t go back there. She couldn’t live in a cage. Not again. Not ever again.
She grabbed her head. The room was spinning, books flying by her as the walls wavered, dipping toward her and back out again. Bending at the waist, she tried to breathe deeply with her head between her knees. It didn’t help. If she didn’t get out of this room, she would lose her mind.
Her gaze caught on the window at the back of the library. She rushed to it and rolled up the shades. The sun poured in across the ancient texts. It would be folly to expose them to the elements. If she opened the window, the humid air and sunlight could damage the fragile pages. Another wave of anxiety punched her, and she decided she didn’t care. All she cared about was getting out, getting free.
She turned the lock on the window and lifted. Clearly it hadn’t been opened in years, and it took muscle and a curse to jimmy it up one inch, then two, then as wide as it would go. She hung her head out and gasped for air. There was no balcony below her, just a straight drop to Royal Street. Only three stories. The fall wouldn’t kill her, although if she landed wrong she might break her legs. She placed a hand on each side of the window and stepped up onto the sill.
Her heart raced like a jackrabbit’s and sweat dripped down her temples. Her anxiety yelled jump while her self-preservation begged her to wait. Body and mind in this state of war, she dug her nails into the window trim.
She was still fighting herself when Gabriel’s voice, soft, kind and desperate, spoke to her from the doorway.
“Raven, what are you doing?”
If Gabriel’s power hadn’t been compromised, he might have drawn her from the window using the bond and forced her to run to him, whether she wanted to or not. Or he might have moved fast as a dark wind to catch an arm around her waist and save her from herself. As it was, he stood helpless in the aisle of the library with the door propped open behind him, tugging helplessly on the bond that connected them but was as good as useless. He cursed. There was no other choice. He couldn’t force her off the sill. If he was going to fix this, he’d need to find the right words to convince her to come to him.
But what could he say to make her stop when her emotional spectrum was riddled with anxiety like he’d never felt before? Her panic was what had drawn him out. He’d been sleeping in his dragon form, as he’d made a habit of doing to counteract the side effects of the curse, when a lightning bolt of fear had shot down his spine and rattled the bond he shared with Raven. The sheer terror, razor sharp and agonizingly real, had forced him to shift back into his human form. He’d finished dressing before his eyes were fully open.
It pained him to know he had caused that crippling terror. He’d locked her in this room without thinking, and right after she’d told him about her fear of captivity. He should have known better. He deeply regretted it now. An image of her fragile bones cracking like eggshells on the pavement below terrorized his thoughts. He couldn’t let that happen.
She turned her head.
“Please, don’t jump,” he said. There was no disguising the genuine pleading in his tone. He made no attempt to hide that he was positively wrecked. He’d shifted into his human form so quickly he felt newly born into the world, and he stumbled forward, his hands outstretched toward her.
“I can’t do this,” she cried. “I can’t stand it.” Her pupils were oversized, and her nails dug into the trim around the window.
What had he done? She was half crazed.
“You can leave,” he said, pointing one hand toward the propped-open door. “Please… through the front door. I don’t want you to hurt yourself. I won’t try to stop you. You can leave right now if you wish.” He took another step toward her but stopped when she leaned out the window.
“You locked me in.” Her voice cracked and tears began to flow. Gabriel sensed self-loathing in the tightness around her jaw. Did she hate herself for showing her panic? This tiny fireball of a human didn’t want him to see what he’d done to her. He respected that, even as he loathed himself for causing it.
“It was a mistake.”
“Bullshit. You sick, twisted bastard!”
“The books are priceless. For security reasons, the door locks when you close it. I didn’t think about it. I should have warned you. I should have given you the key.” Gabriel reached into his pocket. He held the key aloft like a talisman and stepped closer to her. This time she was more receptive to his nearness. Slowly, carefully, he set the key down on the desk. “You are not a prisoner here. You can leave at any time.”
She let out a shaky breath and glanced toward the door. “I can leave?”
“Yes. I can see you are afraid. The door is open now. You don’t have to jump out the window. I won’t hurt you. I would never hurt you.” He offered her his hand. Raven slipped her fingers into his, and the relief he experienced almost sent him to his knees.
Although his instinct was to sweep her into his arms, he hesitated, not wanting to scare her away. Instead, he helped her down onto her own two shaky legs. He was surprised when she collapsed against his chest, her tears soaking his shirt. Her hair smelled of vanilla and night-blooming jasmine, and he bent to place a kiss along her part. Strange, he felt as if he’d done it a dozen times, as natural as breathing. He heard her draw a long, deep inhale.
“Shhh. It’s okay. You’re safe now.” He stroked her back with long, comforting caresses.
“Gabriel?” Agnes called from the doorway.
Without thinking, Gabriel shifted to block Raven from view. It was a protective movement. Instinctual. That was odd. Agnes wasn’t a threat. Raven stepped back and met his gaze, wiping below her eyes.
“What do you want, Agnes?” he asked.
“Richard and I wanted to ask Raven to lunch. Our treat.”
“Would you like that?” he whispered to her. “Get some fresh air?”
She tucked her hair behind her ears and licked her lips. “Yes.”
“Go.”
He respected the hell out of how quickly she pulled herself together, straightening her dress and smoothing her hair. If he hadn’t known better, he’d never believe she’d been perched on the edge of insanity only moments before. She left his side and joined Agnes.
The older woman placed a hand on Raven’s shoulder and guided her from the room. Gabriel sensed the girl’s relief as the two made their way to the exit.
He frowned. What a sorry excuse for a dragon he’d turned out to be. He’d just let his last chance at survival walk out the door, and by the look on her face, she wasn’t coming back.
“He locked me in there,” Raven said over the table at the Green Goddess. She’d had half a mind to leave immediately and never look back, but Richard and Agnes had insisted she join them, and she was too flustered to say no. “I don’t believe his story for a second. It was no accident. Thank you for lunch, but I’m not going back.”
“Easy, Raven. I know you’re upset, but there are things about Gabriel you don’t understand.” Richard Parker held up one manicured hand. He was a lanky and sophisticated man who had introduced himself as Blakemore’s design consultant. Sitting between him and the sharply dressed Agnes, Raven felt positively frumpy. The two were striking, and even more so side-by-side.
Agnes removed her glasses and looked at Raven through small, sunken eyes. “Gabriel isn’t like you or me, as I’m sure you are aware.” She glanced toward Richard, who made an mm-hmm sound deep in his throat. “Gabriel gave you a gift, a gift that changed your life. Richard and I understand what you’re going through. We, too, were recipients of Gabriel’s generosity.”
The Dragon of New Orleans Page 6