“There’s time, Raven,” he whispered in her ear. “Remember, you promised me your presence. It is soothing to me.”
She was feeling soothed herself at the moment. Raven opened her mouth and ate every last bite.
Chapter Eleven
Dragons, Raven thought, were mythical beasts with scales and bony ridges, huge clamping teeth. They breathed fire. Their reptilian brains focused on few things other than hunger and violence, and if books were to be believed, they had hearts of stone.
Gabriel challenged everything she thought she knew about dragons. While she reviewed grimoire after grimoire over the days that followed, flipping through books like her life depended on it, which, of course, it did, her mind lingered on him. He walked like a man and spoke like a man, but now that she’d spent time with him, that was where the similarities ended. Gabriel wore his magic like a cloak. His physical body was larger than most, a size that would fit in among professional wrestlers or NFL players, but when he entered a room, he was far bigger than the boundaries of his skin. Raven could feel him like an invisible force when she was near. She could smell him like a raging bonfire. She could sense him, a connection that lingered deep within her even now. Shouldn’t she be afraid?
A deep itch ran the back of Raven’s neck, and she scratched it lightly. She was perusing a Russian grimoire, its pages stained with something suspiciously blood-like. When she flipped the page, it felt like a swarm of tiny spiders were raiding her skin. Raven brushed the back of her arms and the top of her thighs, but there was nothing there. It was all in her head. She flipped through the rest of the book quickly and was never happier than the moment she returned it to the shelf.
Kristina had left her no further clues regarding why she’d sketched the family crest. The Tanglewood tree, if that was indeed what she’d been drawing and not some random and coincidentally similar version of the tree of life, was an enigma. Raven checked every page of Kristina’s notes and did not a find a single reference to it anywhere.
Engrossed in her work, she lost track of time and didn’t notice at first when Gabriel appeared in the doorway later that week. She was surprised it was as late as it was. Where had the time gone?
“I brought you something,” he said. He strode into the room, drawing a blooming plant from behind his back. An African violet. A mound of deep amethyst flowers smiled up at her from a glazed blue clay pot. “You said you missed the outdoors. I thought it might help to have something living in here.”
Raven gazed up at his face. “They’re gorgeous, thank you.” She positioned the pot on the corner of the desk. “Careful, Gabriel. How can I take you seriously as a deadly dragon when you woo me with such gentle charms?” She laughed.
Abruptly, he was beside her, his face close, his arms caging her in as his hands gripped the arms of her chair. There was nothing but fire in his eyes. She stopped breathing.
“Don’t be fooled, little one. A few flowers are a simple thing. When I woo you, if I woo you, you’ll know. Dragons do not mate lightly.” His lips brushed her cheek as he whispered in her ear, and Raven trembled. She actually trembled with desire that made her knees turn to water. Eyes wide, she realized how long it had been since she’d felt like a sexual creature. If he touched her right now in the right place, the simple trail of his fingers would make her shatter.
She forced herself to take a breath. Forced her brain to think the words your boss. Playing with fire. His lips were close, so close.
He drew back, a breath of air working its way between them. “That friend I wanted you to visit about the symbols on your arms, she can see you tonight. Be ready in an hour.”
He was out the door before she could agree.
Precisely an hour later, a horn honked from below the window. Duncan. Raven marked her place in her work, locked the door to the library, and joined Gabriel in the waiting car. To Raven’s surprise, Duncan whisked them away to the Old Ursuline Convent. The building was the oldest in New Orleans and, according to one of her past professors, one of the best examples of French Colonial architecture in the country. She’d toured the place before. It was a quintessential part of New Orleans history and the last place she expected Gabriel to take her.
“Are your friends meeting us here?” she asked as they made their way toward the front of the building.
“They live here.”
“No one lives here, Gabriel.” Raven pointed at the copper plaque on the door. “This place hasn’t been a residence since 1899.”
He gave her a dark look and led her around the side of the building. The door he knocked on looked ancient, like it might disintegrate under the pressure of his knuckles. Raven stared at it, her brain trying to figure out how the door could be there. She didn’t remember it from before, and it looked completely out of place.
Before long, it opened to reveal a small, wrinkled woman who wiped her hands on a filthy apron she wore over her floor-length skirt. She stared at the two of them with an unappreciative scowl.
“Gabriel Blakemore,” the crone said through tight, wrinkled lips. She had an unmistakably French accent and had to crane her neck to see his face, thanks to her hunched back. “What brings you to our door?”
It was no wonder her apron was filthy. The room behind her was something lost to time. Dust covered and decorated with cobwebs, every corner of the room displayed the bodies of dead insects, curled on their backs in the thick layer of grime. Raven stepped closer to Gabriel, her arms crossed in front of her lest she accidentally touch something. There was a fire burning and dried herbs and vegetables hanging from the rafters. It smelled of lavender, wood smoke, and possibly rat droppings.
“I need your help diagnosing a malady, Delphine,” Gabriel said.
She frowned. “I have told you before we cannot help you break your curse. Only the venom from the snake who bit you can counteract the poison.” The crone started to close the door. Raven’s eyes darted to Gabriel. Had she just confirmed the only one who could break the curse was Crimson herself?
Gabriel’s hand shot out, catching the door, forcing his way inside with his large body in a way that clearly threatened the old woman. The door closed behind them, making Raven jump.
“It is not my curse I have come for but this.” He grabbed Raven’s wrist and pulled her toward the old woman.
“Hey!” Raven protested, but her arm had already lit up with the strange markings. More than before, she realized. They were spreading. “Oh dear Lord. Gabriel, they’re everywhere.” Both arms were covered as well as her chest. The light glowed through her blouse.
“You have been a busy boy,” Delphine said.
Gabriel released Raven’s arm.
“The price is the same. Are you willing to pay it, darling?” the crone asked.
“Yes.”
“This one must be special for you to weaken yourself further.” Her rheumy eyes narrowed on Raven.
“She is.”
“I am?” Raven whispered under her breath. When she searched his profile, there was nothing flippant about his expression, but he did not turn his face toward her.
“Come upstairs. Antoinette has been bed bound since September. She’ll be excited for your visit.”
Antoinette? Who was Antoinette?
Delphine led them up two flights of stairs to a dim room that smelled even worse than the first floor. Raven breathed through her mouth and moved closer to Gabriel, hoping his smoky scent would mask the foul odor.
The old woman limped to the center of the room and appeared to pick up a tall tin from the floor. Raven couldn’t be sure because only an outline was visible in the moonlight that trickled in through slats in the two windows. The tin rattled, and then a match struck its side. A flame glowed to life, bathing the space in flickering light. With a whoosh, the flame multiplied and rose to the ceiling before leveling out. Fire danced within a great crystal cylinder, the likes of which Raven had never seen before. It reminded her of a chiminea like the one on the Three Sisters’ patio, but bigger and
entirely made of glass. The flames burned without the benefit of wood, but she noticed a pipe leading to the base. A massive gas lamp, she thought.
Raven moved out from behind Gabriel as the light spread across the room. What she saw in the previously darkened corners made her blood run cold. Delphine’s sisters were there all right, but they were dead. Really dead. She was in a room of corpses.
She opened her mouth to scream, but Gabriel’s hand clamped over it. His eyes came into view, and he placed a finger over his lips. “Shhh.” His touch calmed her, and she closed her mouth. There was no stopping the goose bumps though as they marched up her arms, or the chill that made her hug herself.
One of the sisters lay in a silk-lined coffin, nothing left but a shriveled corpse in an antique lace dress. The other looked fresher but still dead. Her body was propped in a rocking chair, her needlework still in her desiccated hands.
Delphine returned from the dark recesses of the room with a chalice that looked like it had come straight from the Vatican and a dagger that might have come straight from hell.
“Your flesh, dragon,” she said in her raspy French lilt.
Gabriel rolled up his sleeve and extended his arm. No, Raven thought, her every instinct rejecting the course of events. But she watched helplessly as the dagger sliced into Gabriel’s flesh, fast and deep. She gasped at the brutality and winced as his blood spurted into the chalice, dark red splattering against the gold sides of the cup. She needn’t have worried. Almost immediately, the flow slowed, and without any pressure or tending, the bleeding stopped completely, the two sides of the cut knitting together until the wound was nothing more than a memory.
Delphine dropped the dagger and it clattered across the floor, splattering blood. She cradled the chalice in both hands. “Soeurs, il y a du sang,” she whispered.
“What did she say?” Raven recognized the language as French and cursed herself for taking Spanish in high school.
“Shhh.” Gabriel placed a finger over his lips.
“Right. Wouldn’t want to tell the human what kind of supernatural hoodoo was going down.” Raven sneered at him.
Delphine raised the chalice to the lips of the dead woman in the rocker and poured blood into her mouth. A bit trickled out the corner of her lips, and Raven stifled a gag. Gabriel had to steady her when that shriveled corpse swallowed. Before their eyes, the dead woman transformed, growing taller and stretching out the wrinkles in her skin. Her breasts and hips plumped and her hair changed from its gray and brittle straggles to a full mane of mahogany waves. She lifted from the chair in a way that didn’t seem to use the strength of her legs, a thick cloud of dust billowing from her limbs. The ancient chair creaked, empty behind her. Arms extended like a ballerina, she twirled, sending the rest of the dust flying. When the filth settled, her rags had transformed into a flowing, knee-length blue gown that looked brand new.
Raven gulped, her gaze darting between Gabriel and the woman.
The sister curtsied. “Gabriel, always a pleasure.”
He gave a small bow. “Lucienne.”
“Help me with Antoinette, sister. She has let herself go.” Delphine walked to the coffin, and Lucienne joined her. Carefully they cupped the back of the skull within.
“No,” Raven mumbled under her breath. The thing was a skeleton. How could it swallow? It didn’t even have any lips.
“Slowly, sister,” Lucienne said.
Delphine dribbled the blood into the open jaw. It dripped onto the bones of the spine. Raven almost climbed into Gabriel’s arms when it swallowed. The damned bones undulated without aid of muscle or flesh. Raven pressed her back against Gabriel’s chest and was grateful when he wrapped his arms around her shoulders.
“It’s all right,” he whispered in her ear. “Perhaps you shouldn’t watch.”
Raven should have listened. What happened next was straight out of a horror movie. Cartilage and veins, tissue and skin formed over those bones in a reverse melting process that made her nauseous. Blood seeped from the wood beneath the corpse, hair grew, and gelatinous flesh became solid. When the process was done, a girl who couldn’t have been more than seventeen, with hair the color of ripe wheat, sat up and swung her legs over the side of the casket. She brushed the dust off her tea-length cotton dress and smoothed her long, straight hair.
“Oh Gabriel.” She clasped her hands in front of her heart. “You must visit us more often.” She started moving around the lamp, her arms swinging, her hips swaying. Lucienne fell into step behind her.
Delphine lifted the chalice and mumbled a few words, then drank deeply. Her throat bobbed, and before long her hunch was gone and she was tearing the handkerchief from her curly black hair. With a pirouette, she transformed, her dress altering into a long column of silver. Her youthful arms began to sway with her sisters’.
By the light of the fire, the three women, now young and full of life, began to dance in earnest, not for Gabriel and Raven but for the fire. They turned toward it, shimmying their shoulders and bending backward, kicking and spinning in the light. As weird as the whole thing was, Raven was fascinated by it. A strange perfume scented the air. Their black silhouettes writhed against the fiery glow. The air grew thick, and Raven closed her eyes against a sudden and unwelcome arousal that bloomed low in her body.
“What is it you want of us, dragon?” the three sisters asked at the same time in one melodious voice.
“What do the markings on this woman’s skin mean?” He ushered Raven forward gently. “Why do they glow when I touch her?”
Lucienne twirled from the light and grabbed Raven’s wrists. Raven balked. The woman’s eyes had gone totally white, the pupil and iris gone. The whites glowed like incandescent bulbs.
Raven swallowed her fear.
“Let us see, girl,” Lucienne said, her sisters circling. They unbuttoned Raven’s blouse, pulling the tails from her waistband. She glanced back at Gabriel in a panic.
“It’s the only way. They have to see them. All of them. I’ll keep you safe,” he said.
She told herself that exposing a little skin was easier than bleeding into a chalice. She removed her blouse, then thanked the Lord above they did not attempt to remove her bra.
“Come, dragon,” Delphine said. “Touch her so that we may see.”
Raven looked down at herself. Nothing but smooth pale skin gleamed in the fire. She was still pallid and too thin. Her flesh gave off a faint sheen of sweat in the light. She blushed as Gabriel approached, her breath coming quicker and her sex throbbing with the anticipation of his touch. She couldn’t help it. The heat, the smell, the dancing. Her body was a raw nerve.
Gabriel positioned himself at her side and made eye contact. The fire leaped and crackled in his eyes. He’d touched her before, but this time was different. Although her bra was modest and she was still wearing her slacks, she felt naked beneath his gaze. He looked at her reverently, as if touching her was an exquisite privilege.
“May I?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said.
Delphine cried out, “Turn her this way so we can see.”
Gabriel slipped behind her again and shuffled her closer to the flames. His heat against her back warred with the heat of the fire. All the tiny hairs along her skin reached for him, anticipating his touch. It seemed to take a million years for him to do it, but when his hand landed on her shoulder at the base of her neck, her breathing quickened. Her nipples strained against her bra as tingles of pleasure traveled from his touch straight to their tips. Her lips parted.
His breath hitched in her ear, and she felt the hard length of him extend along her backside. So, he was not immune to this. She tipped her head back against his chest, and his hand slid over the length of her arm, trailed soft and slow across her belly before sweeping under her bra. His thumb grazed the underside of her breasts, coaxing a deep ache within her. When she thought she couldn’t stand it a moment longer, his coarse palm brushed over her belly again, his pinky slipping inside he
r waistband only to slowly circle back again.
Raven’s flesh ignited. The symbols glowed neon blue in the firelight, but she was having trouble remembering why that was important. Gabriel’s touch was exquisite torture. She ground her ass against him and writhed in his arms. Her hand slithered up, her nails scraping along the back of his scalp. She grabbed a thick handful of his hair and tugged, eliciting a sound from deep within his throat.
Delphine, Lucienne, and Antoinette chanted toward the fire, twirling and leaping with the melody. Raven could hardly hear it anymore. Gabriel’s hand kept circling, his pinky finger brushing even lower beneath her waistband. She moaned. Please. Every cell in her body wanted those fingers inside her. She slid her hand behind her back and stroked his erection through his jeans.
“Raven,” he hissed in her ear.
She breathed out a heavy sigh. Her hips undulated with the rhythm of the dancing. “Please,” she gasped.
A rumble started in his chest, a noise she’d never heard a man make before. She knew what it meant. She knew by the way he pressed himself against her, the way he trailed his lips from behind her ear to her shoulder. Up, over, down. He swept lower this time, brushing the top of her sex as his lips brushed her ear.
“Do you like that, Raven?”
“Yes,” she whispered. She ached for him, ached with a need she thought might kill her if it wasn’t quenched. Instead, the lamp went out. They were plunged into darkness, wisps of white smoke curling in the moonlight that broke through the one and only window.
“Sange interdit,” the women shouted in their singular voice, gasping as if they could hardly breathe. “Femme interdit!”
“What are you saying?” Gabriel snapped, tightening his hold on Raven’s stomach.
“She is forbidden, dragon. An abomination!” Delphine hissed like a snake and the air rattled with her menace.
“Why?” he demanded.
But Delphine had picked up the dagger she’d used to cut Gabriel’s arm. Her eyes glowed brighter in the darkness as she focused on Raven.
The Dragon of New Orleans Page 11