The Dragon of New Orleans

by Genevieve Jack

  “Raven, say something.”

  She chewed her lip. “Can you read this grimoire?”

  He stood and looked down at the book. “Haitian creole. Yes.” He marked the page with his finger and closed the cover, then opened it again. “The title means ‘The Spirit of Voodoo.’ This is a book about summoning spirits.”

  “And what is this spell?” She pointed to the page she’d been perusing.

  It had been a long time since he’d read the language, and it took him a few minutes to translate the page, but once he had, he smiled. “This is a spell to make the unseen visible. This is a spell to allow you to see demons.”

  Raven held up her hands. “I felt it enter my fingers.”

  “You felt the spell—”

  “Gabriel, what if the symbols on my arms aren’t magic that is in me coming to the surface? What if it’s magic I’m absorbing?”

  “The longer you’ve been in this room, the more it’s spread.”

  She nodded, looking excited now. “What if every spell I touch becomes… a part of me?”

  The implications barreled into him, and he wished he had a chair to land his own ass in, because his knees felt like they could give out at any moment. He settled for using the bookshelf to hold himself up. “You absorb any spell you touch.”

  Her mouth gaped. “Saturday, in the swamp, when I touched the stump to keep myself from capsizing, I saw a woman in the water. I think it was Julia.”

  “The alligators and the wind.”

  “I absorbed her magic from the swamp.”

  Gabriel’s eyes widened. “I wonder…” Intently, he searched the titles on the shelf along the far wall and flipped to a page at the center. He held the book out to her. “Try this.”

  The grimoire was written in Romanian, one Gabriel had collected long ago when he’d visited Budapest. Raven wouldn’t be able to read it or understand it, but if her power held the qualities they thought it did, he’d know soon enough. He watched, breathless, as she placed her fingertips on the page.

  “It tickles,” she said. “Whoa.” The look on her face was pure wonderment as she levitated off her chair, floating higher above the desk.

  “How do I get down?” she asked with a laugh as she drew closer to the ceiling. Gabriel quickly read the spell on the next page.

  “Think about your feet,” he said.

  Slowly she sank to the floor. “This is real,” she said. “We’ve figured it out. I absorb magic. That’s what I do. The reason it took me so long to notice is I was in the potions section.”

  “Yes.” He nodded. “This is a very powerful gift. The possibilities are endless.”

  Her face was brimming with excitement as she squealed and waved her hands at him. “Bring me another! Something good.”

  Gabriel scanned the shelves and nabbed a smaller leather volume from the front of the library. He flipped to the spell he was looking for and placed it in front of her. “Try this.”

  She placed her hand on it. “Oooh, it’s cold.”

  Gabriel turned his palm up and caught a snowflake as it fell from the ceiling. Awestruck, Raven traced her fingers through the cold and damp in his palm, and then her gaze climbed to the ceiling, which was now spitting out snowflakes like a Hollywood machine.

  He pulled her out of the chair and whirled her down the aisle, dipping her, elated at the pure joy in her eyes. Big, fluffy flakes of snow drifted from the ceiling and caught on her lashes. She giggled.

  “It’s all you,” he said. “You’re making this happen.”

  “How?” She sounded breathless. “All I did was touch a page.”

  The snow tapered, then stopped altogether. He set her on her feet. “Every spell you come in contact with, you soak up. I’ve only heard of one other witch like you, and she lived in Paragon. The truth is I’m not sure of the extent of your abilities. But you are powerful, Raven. Truly remarkable.”

  She moved closer to him, and he thought she looked… happy. The anxiety had drained from her face and a shallow smile graced her lips. There was hope and joy in her expression, like she’d opened a new toy. Gabriel understood he’d broken one of Paragon’s oldest and most serious laws by saving her, but he didn’t care. The way his body was responding to the sight of her told him he would have done it all over again, even if he’d known in advance she was a witch.

  She swept her hands through her hair. “Let me touch your ring.” She reached for his hand.

  He pulled it out of her reach. “What if you absorb the curse?”

  “Do you think that would happen? I don’t think so. I made it snow today; I didn’t turn into snow. I’ll simply soak up the magic behind the curse. Maybe I’ll understand it and then be able to break it.”

  “It’s too risky. We don’t know how your magic works yet.”

  “Stop fighting me. It’s not going to—” She sprang forward and grabbed the emerald before he could protest.

  Although he hastily drew his hand away, it was too late. The smile faded from her face.

  “What’s wrong? Did it hurt you?” he asked.

  “Not as much as your pulling the damned jewel from my grip did.” She rubbed her palm. “I felt something, but I don’t think it’s the curse. Let me touch it again.”

  He raised an eyebrow at her. “Begging to touch me? I think I like these new powers.”

  Expression flat and clearly annoyed, she held out her hand and didn’t say another word. Reluctantly, he placed his fingers in hers. Her thumb stroked over the stone, her focus going blank, then distant. She shook her head.

  “I can sense the curse, but it isn’t like touching the books. It’s like a black hole. It doesn’t give me anything.”

  “Or your natural abilities are smart enough not to ingest poison,” he said. “You said you felt something.”

  “I see a door.” She waved a hand dismissively, her eyes focused on the wall. “Not an actual door, an… opening. Through the opening is an island. Red rock… a volcano… jungle.”

  “That is Paragon.”

  Her gaze met his. “I think I could use this ring to send you back. You wouldn’t need the ring’s magic if you were back there, right?”

  He frowned and looked way from her.

  “You already knew that. You’ve known all along you could go back.”

  “Yes.”

  She dropped her hand. “So you can survive! If we run out of time and we haven’t broken your curse, you can go back.”

  He shook his head. “No, I can never go back.”

  “Why not? Gabriel, this is life or death.”

  “I told you, there was a political uprising—”

  “So go back with your tail between your legs and toe the line. A new regime is better than turning to stone.”

  “You don’t understand. It wasn’t a new regime.”

  “Help me understand.”

  It had been a long time since he’d talked openly about Paragon. He didn’t welcome revisiting the old memories. Still, she deserved an explanation.

  “Over coffee. Come.”

  As Raven had come to expect, a coffee service was already in place when she entered Gabriel’s apartment. An urn of coffee, cream and sugar, along with a plate of warm blueberry scones waited for them in the dining room. The oreads seemed to anticipate Gabriel’s every need. She wondered again what they must look like, but she’d never seen one.

  Gabriel filled her mug. “Cream or sugar?”

  “Just cream. One.”

  He did the honors, then handed her the mug. She took a long, fortifying drink.

  “You were saying, about Paragon.”

  He stirred his coffee. “Dragons have ruled Paragon since the dawn of time. Our citizens are made up of a variety of supernatural beings: witches, vampires, fairies, elves, and other dragons of mixed blood. But my family has ruled from the Mountain since Paragon’s earliest days. We were installed as rulers by the Goddess of the Mountain herself.”

  “Your family? Are you saying
you are Paragon royalty?” She had to set down her mug so that she wouldn’t drop it.

  He leveled a sober stare on her. “The goddess left us a tablet of laws, ancient magic that directed my family’s rule. The first and most important law was that no individual dragon was allowed to rule for more than two thousand years.”

  She snorted. “Two thousand years?”

  “Purebred dragons are immortal.”

  Raven blinked, suddenly breathless. “I guess I knew that on some level, but I can’t wrap my head around it. Wouldn’t there be too many dragons if all of them lived forever?”

  He sipped his coffee. “You are a smart woman, Raven. Yes, there would be. If not for two simple facts. First, dragon offspring are rare. And second, immortal or not, we can be killed.”

  She chose a scone from the pile and took a bite, hopeful that if she remained quiet, he would fill the empty space with additional explanation. She was not disappointed.

  “Dragon females are rare in our population. Precious. Even if a female dragon succeeds in laying an egg—”

  “Wait, you hatched from an egg?” Raven felt her jaw pop open like she was a cartoon character.

  Gabriel shrugged. “Dragons are similar to your reptiles when it comes to reproductive biology.”

  She closed her mouth. It opened again.

  “As I was saying, dragon eggs are rare, and many eggs never develop properly, so dragon children are even more rare. Too, although we are naturally immortal, we can be killed by unnatural means. Magic”—he held up his hand and wiggled his ring—“certain types of enchanted metal. There are five kingdoms of Paragon, all five ruled by dragons who make their home in and around the Obsidian Mountain. This area is called the kingdom of Paragon, the dragon kingdom. Over the centuries, we’ve warred with Darnuith, the kingdom of the witches; Everfield, the fae kingdom; and Nochtbend, the kingdom of vampires. Although we’ve always maintained control, dragons have died in these wars. So, you see, the dragon population has held steady at a few thousand individuals for tens of thousands of years.”

  Raven pondered his description, wishing she had a map. “What’s the fifth kingdom?” she asked. “You said there were five, but you only named four: Paragon, Darnuith, Everfield, and Nochtbend.”

  He broke off a corner of scone and popped it between his teeth. “The fifth is Rogos, the land of elves. Elves are wise creatures and have never in their entire history gone to war. They keep to themselves. As far as I know, they’ve never killed anything.”

  “So every two thousand years the current king and queen step down from their rule.” Raven tried to put it all together.

  “Yes. This is what has always come to pass. At the coronation of the eldest son of either the king or queen—”

  Raven waved a hand. “Hold up. Wouldn’t a son be from both king and queen? You do need a male and a female to reproduce, don’t you?”

  Gabriel chuckled. “Of course we do, but a king and a queen of Paragon would never mate with each other. It would be an abomination.”

  “Why?”

  “They are brother and sister.”

  Raven dropped her scone and leaned back in her chair. “Go on.”

  He sighed. “I forget that kings and queens in your world were also lovers. In my world, as I mentioned, dragon children are rare. The king and queen are always brother and sister, and each of them takes a consort, a husband or wife from the dragon community. Both are of royal blood, and thus both can produce heirs to the throne. This gives our ruling class double the chance of producing another male and female heir, the oldest of which will inherit the throne.”

  It made sense when he put it that way. She raised an eyebrow. “Were you the oldest?”

  He shook his head. “No. My brother Marius was the oldest of my siblings. There are nine of us, the largest number of eggs to be successfully incubated by a dragon. My mother was Eleanor, the queen; my father was Killian, her consort. Our uncle Brynhoff never took a consort, but the council of elders didn’t push it because there were nine of us: eight males and a female. The crown was safe.

  “Over three hundred years ago, the scheduled coronation of my older brother Marius was to mark his transition to king. The next day, my sister Rowan’s coronation would install her as queen. But instead of stepping down as the goddess demanded, my uncle murdered my brother in cold blood. We believe he also murdered Killian and our mother. We don’t know for sure because our mother used magic to send the remaining eight of us here, but all indications are that they died as well that day.”

  “Dear Lord. Gabriel, I’m so sorry. That’s horrible. Your own uncle betrayed you, and you’ve been forced to hide here all these centuries?”

  He nodded. “The worst part is that our mother sent a message with us, warning us to stay apart in this world for our safety. We don’t even have each other anymore.”

  Her heart felt heavy and her mind immediately jumped to Avery. What a cruel fate to have family but to never enjoy their company.

  “So you see, I can’t go back to Paragon. Not now. Not ever. Because my murderous uncle is still in power and I am now the eldest offspring. There is a price on my head. If he ever found out where I was, he would devote all his resources to ending me.”

  “You’re now the heir to Paragon.” The implication made her mouth go dry. “You’re… you’re a prince!”

  He bowed formally. “I was. Now I’m a purveyor of antiquities. A dragon with an expiration date.” He tapped his ring.

  Her breath caught. “So, where do we go from here?”

  He leaned across the table. “You keep taking in what magic you can from the library. You and I will practice using it.”

  “All right.” It was all so overwhelming. She had so many questions they crowded each other to get to the front of her mind. But when she opened her mouth to ask them, all she could think was that he suddenly looked exhausted. “Are you feeling okay?”

  “I need to rest. The curse draws my energy.”

  She wrapped her hand around his, the warmth from his skin seeping into hers. Their eyes caught and held. His stare traveled all the way to her toes and everywhere in between. “I’ll get back to work. Thank you for this.” She forced herself to look away, toward the tray.

  The corner of his mouth twitched. “I didn’t make the coffee.”

  “No.” She drew a deep breath. “Thank you for giving me another chance at life. For helping me discover who I am… what I am.”

  “Raven, there is so much more to you than this. You can thank me for the tooth, but I didn’t make you who you are.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  It took all Raven’s willpower to leave Gabriel and return to the library. She’d never in her life experienced a stronger attraction. Her body was alive with it. And then it dawned on her. As a dragon shifter, Gabriel was magic. Was her desire to be near him and the tingling when he touched her the result of her growing affection for him or simply a side effect of her power?

  And what of her previous vow to keep her distance until she knew for sure what had happened to Kristina? Damn, she was a mess. Her heart had set its sights on Gabriel, and the damned organ was far louder than her brain. She loved the way he watched over her and the way he listened when she spoke, as if the entire world revolved around her. She loved that he was powerful enough to save her when needed, yet had obeyed her wishes to stay away when she’d asked. Her attraction to him was intense enough to be almost painful. Yet he never used that attraction against her. He was honorable and loyal, she supposed. But there was something more; she felt connected to him, as if that little piece of him inside her was the last piece to an intricate puzzle, the key to becoming something greater than she’d ever expected.

  She hurried back to her desk and the grimoire open on it.

  She heard his door open and his footsteps descend the stairwell outside the library. Where did he go every afternoon? He always needed to rest around the same time each day, but he never did so in his apartment.
He simply disappeared, reappearing in the early evening. While he was gone, Agnes and Richard ran the shop. Neither of them said much about his absence, other than “He’s resting to counteract the curse.” Was he truly napping the entire time in some secret room somewhere?

  She flipped the pages of the grimoire, the same one with instructions on how to make it snow. The next spell she absorbed made a gale-force wind blow through the room. It knocked books from their shelves and scattered papers everywhere. She slammed the cover closed. The wind stopped. She cleaned up the mess.

  She was tidying the last corner of the room when it dawned on her that Gabriel would be asleep all afternoon. She paused, the spine of a grimoire in her hand. Delphine had said that the antidote for Gabriel’s curse must be made from the venom of the snake that’d bit him. The grimoires in this room might not hold the answer, but Crimson’s magic did, and Raven was a witch who absorbed magic. She grabbed her purse and cardigan, locking the library behind her.

  Richard and Agnes were both with customers, and she thought she could slip out the front door without being noticed, but Richard’s hand landed on her shoulder even as he smiled at the man he was helping and excused himself.

  “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “Having lunch with my sister,” Raven lied. It was better if he didn’t know the truth.

  “Have Duncan drive you,” he said.

  “It’s close. I can walk.”

  Richard frowned. “Gabriel won’t like you going out unprotected.”

  She tipped her head and pecked him on the cheek. “Then don’t tell him, silly. You know what? If I’m not back in an hour, you can send out the cavalry.”

  He scowled, but when she strode quickly toward the door, he didn’t stop her.

  Crimson’s shop was called Hexpectations Voodoo Emporium and was on Dumaine Street, about four and a half blocks from Blakemore’s. Raven rushed toward it on foot, hoping it wouldn’t rain. The sky was overcast and there was a chill in the air—winter in New Orleans. She pulled on her sweater and wrapped her arms around herself against the chill. The idea of calling an Uber crossed her mind, but with traffic the way it was, it would be faster to walk.