Katelyn was going to die.
Sick children died every day. Tobias should have faced the inevitability of human death and dealt with it as all doctors did, with grace and acceptance. Instead, he’d done something unforgivable by dragon standards. He’d helped a witch, his brother’s forbidden mate, to enter the kingdom of Paragon, all in exchange for a way to save Katelyn: the one-of-a-kind, ancient healing amulet in his pocket now.
By the Mountain, he was pitiful.
Looking both ways, he confirmed the hall was empty and slipped into her room. Katelyn slept curled on her side, the tubes and machines she was wired to lording over her tiny body like the appendages of a mechanical monster. Her pale blond hair curled against the pillow, her eyelashes softly feathering against her alabaster cheeks. He frowned at the dusky-blue rim of her bottom lip. Silently, he removed the amulet from his pocket and positioned it around her neck.
Her eyes blinked open, and she drew a heavy breath through her nose. The oxygen tube there cut a line across her cheeks, and the air bubbled in the humidifying chamber with her effort.
“Hi, Dr. Toby,” she said in her tiny, child’s voice. Her giant blue eyes locked onto him. Total trust. Total innocence. She did not question what he was doing even though he and the nurses had poked her tiny limbs with needles and performed every manner of painful procedures on her over the past several months. She showed no fear. The brave girl only thought to say hello. No tears. No complaints.
“Shh,” he said. “I didn’t mean to wake you. I need you to wear this special necklace for a few hours. I’ll be back to get it later.”
“Why?” She looked down at the pearlescent white disk against her skin.
“It’s a secret.”
“Where did you get it?”
“What do you think?”
“It looks like a seashell. I think you got it from a mermaid,” she said between breaths.
Who was he to deny a sick little girl a fantasy?
“Our secret,” he responded, placing a finger over his lips. “I’ll be back later to retrieve it. The mermaid king loaned it to me for one night only.”
“Okay.” She strained to smile.
“Close your eyes, Katelyn,” he said. He was relieved when she obeyed. “Good girl. Now, dream of a mermaid kingdom. I’ll check on you later.” He tucked the blankets around her.
A few hours with the amulet should heal her if experience could be trusted, although he had no memory of its use on an illness like this. If memory served, Maiara, the native healer who had created the amulet, had used it mostly on injuries, not illness. It didn’t matter. Indeed, he had no other choice but to try. His own magic wasn’t right for this situation. Dragons could heal but only by binding, and binding one so young would be unforgivable. No. This was his last hope to save her using magic, something he was sure broke all sorts of ethical boundaries.
It was not like Tobias to break the rules. He wasn’t proud of his newfound flirtation with rebellion. Not one bit.
With a sigh he left the room, completely distracted by his conflicting emotions on the issue, and slammed right into a blur of red and surgical green careening down the hall. Coffee splashed on her scrubs, and the box she carried dropped and skimmed across the floor. He squatted down to retrieve it.
“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t see you.” When he handed the box back to her, he did a double take. Sabrina Bishop. He didn’t work with the nurse often, but when he did, the experience was memorable. She always reminded him of cherry pie—fresh, sweet, warm. She was the type who always asked about a patient’s feelings, who held a parent’s hand during a procedure, who spent way too much time talking to the hospital chaplain. Her hair, which was the bright red of maple leaves, and her milky complexion didn’t hurt the comparison either. He frowned at the coffee stain on her scrubs. “Let me get you something for that.”
“Never mind. I’ve got it.” Tossing the box he’d handed her onto the counter, she rounded the corner, took a seat behind the desk, and grabbed a fistful of tissues. She dabbed at the spill.
“Animal crackers?” Tobias eyed the red box he’d retrieved, the corner of his mouth twitching. “Are those for you or a patient?”
She flashed him a smile. “For me. Why?”
“It’s just I haven’t seen anyone over the age of five eat animal crackers in a while… like ever.”
Leaning back in the chair, she raised her chin and stared down her nose at him. “I’ll have you know I do it as a mental health exercise.”
He snorted. “How is eating animal crackers a mental health exercise?”
“Have you heard the saying ‘How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time’?”
“Sure.”
“Well, how do you eat animal crackers? One elephant at a time.” She tore open the box and popped a cracker into her mouth. “It makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something.”
He narrowed his eyes and shook his head. “That makes no logical sense.”
“Logic is highly overrated, Doctor. You should ditch the logic in favor of magic.”
Her use of the word magic unsettled him. It hit too close to his open wound, as if she could see through his facade to who he actually was, not human but dragon. As if she suspected what he’d done, putting a healing amulet around the neck of a dying girl.
He pushed off the counter. “I should continue my rounds.”
“Sad case, huh?” She gestured toward Katelyn’s room with her head.
“We work in a pediatric hospital, Sabrina.” He cracked his neck. Sinking his hands into the pockets of his lab coat, he shrugged. “All cases are sad. Children do not belong in hospitals.”
She popped another cracker in her mouth and stared at him with a piercing green gaze that seemed to cut straight to his soul. Was she assessing him? He drew back and turned to leave. He didn’t need this right now. The look on her face was strange, unreadable. If a woman like her pulled the right string, he might unravel like an old, worn sweater.
“Well, I should, er—” He moved away from her.
“Doctor, can I talk to you for a moment in private?” Sabrina blurted, gesturing over her shoulder with her thumb.
He gave her a confused look. “We are alone.”
“It’s important. I need to show you something.” Sabrina pointed toward the corner stairwell. She led the way, holding the door open for him. Reluctantly, he followed her, trying to avoid noticing the way her scrubs hugged her backside. The tips of his fingers itched to stroke the silken red length of her hair. This was probably not a good idea.
He hurried after her.
Only when they were both in the stairwell and the door closed behind them did she address him. “You don’t have to pretend with me,” she said, walking toward him.
He retreated, keeping space between them until his back hit the wall and he could go no farther. “What are we talking about?”
“You don’t have to act like you don’t care about these kids or that you’re some kind of medical machine.”
“Miss Bishop—”
“I watch you, Tobias. I see how much you love these kids, how much it kills you each and every time you can’t fix a patient’s heart. You say it’s all part of the job, but I can see that it’s just an act. The more you deny it, the more it’s going to eat away at you.” She stepped in closer. By the Mountain, she smelled good, like honey and moonlight.
Tobias’s body responded. It had been decades since he’d been with a woman. Decades since he’d trusted anyone enough to be intimate. Trust was difficult when you were an immortal living among humans. Relationships brought with them complications, the risk of exposure, the reality that he could never truly share who or what he was with anyone. How could you have intimacy when the other person wasn’t just a different gender but a different species?
“Thank you,” he said curtly. “If I ever need a shoulder to cry on, yours will be the one.” He shifted to the side to walk around her but halted when her hand la
nded firmly on his chest. Her eyes searched his, a circle of heat blooming where she touched him.
“Nothing rattles you, does it?” she said softly. “Nothing raises your blood pressure. Sometimes I wonder if you’re a robot. Do you have a beating heart, Tobias, or are you made of chips and wires?”
“I am not a robot,” Tobias said firmly. His pulse quickened. Could she feel that? He had no control over it or his growing erection. He needed to get out of this stairwell. “Sabrina, this is—”
Without warning, her lips slammed into his. The kiss was hard, searching. He didn’t have the strength to stop her even if he’d wanted to. Something primal and urgent caused his hand to tangle in her hair and his tongue to sweep into her mouth. By the Mountain, she tasted good. His mouth melded with hers and he forgot where he was, forgot who he was.
All too soon, she planted both hands on his chest and pushed him away. “Not a robot.” She panted, wiping under her bottom lip.
He opened his mouth to say something, anything, but his mind had gone completely blank. Should he tell her the kiss was inappropriate? How could he when he desperately wanted to kiss her again? She placed a finger over his lips before he could say a word.
“Look me in the eye,” she commanded. He did and was surprised when her green eyes glowed a bright, silvery blue. “You will not remember this. If anyone asks what we did in here today, you will say we talked about Katelyn. We never kissed. You will wait here for five minutes and then go about your business.” Her eyes stopped glowing, and she smiled sweetly up at him, her cheeks rosy. Was it his imagination, or did her skin look more vibrant than a moment before? “Thank you, Dr. Winthrop. I find our talks incredibly refreshing. You have a good heart.”
She turned on her heel and strode from the staircase with a new pep in her step. Tobias blinked once, twice, three times. He pressed two fingers into his lips and chuckled under his breath. Was she a witch? No. He would have smelled her if she was. But she was something. Something that didn’t realize her mind control did not affect him.
He wiped a thumb over his lips and grinned, striding for the door. “Miss Bishop?” he called as he opened it. She was gone, but there was someone else at the end of the hall, someone he hadn’t been sure he’d ever see again, and the sight of him was a bucket of ice water on his libido. He stopped in the center of the hall and made no attempt to disguise his scowl.
“Hello, brother,” Gabriel said. “Aren’t you going to welcome me to the Windy City?”
One click WINDY CITY DRAGON …
Acknowledgments
Every once in a while, I am reminded that it takes a village to release a book. Sure, as an author, I write the stories, but my tribe and editorial team make those stories better. The idea for The Dragon of New Orleans came to me in my sister’s hospital room. She was at Northwestern in Chicago being treated for Acute Myeloid Leukemia, a disease likely brought on by her previous radiation treatment for breast cancer. To cure her, doctors would slowly kill off her bone marrow, meaning she was without much of an immune system until they could grow it back. She spent over thirty days confined to a special ward at Northwestern. That’s where she named her IV pole “Mr. Drippy”.
Visiting Sue in the hospital, I desperately wanted magic to be real, and if I’d had a wand, I would have waved it. She did endure chemo and the resulting loss of her hair and even having an ill-timed root canal while going through everything else. And when she got better, I swore I’d put Mr. Drippy and stupid cancer and magic into a book. This is that book.
A big thank you to Kathryn Lynn Davis for her help line-editing this story and to Anne Victory for her mad proofreading skills. Both of these women are superstars as far as I’m concerned. This book is far better for their attention and encouragement.
Also, you may have noticed that a ton of research on New Orleans went into this book. Thank you to author Deanna Chase for beta reading an early version. Deanna lives in NOLA and helped me stay true to the location.
Finally, thanks to authors TM Cromer, KC Bateman, Brenda Rothert, Suzan Tisdale, Laurie Larsen, and Sara Netzley for being my writing tribe. Releasing a new book is a lot like giving birth. Good friends help you breathe through the pain and give you the confidence that what you’re putting out will be loved as much as you love it. Thank you all for being there for this one.
Finally, to my dear readers, thank you for coming on this journey with me. I hope you know that although many things bring me inspiration, in the end, I write for you.
About the Author
USA Today bestselling author Genevieve Jack writes weird, witty, and wicked-hot paranormal romance and fantasy. Coffee and wine are her biofuel, the love lives of witches, shifters, and vampires her favorite topic of conversation. She harbors a passion for old cemeteries and ghost tours, thanks to her years attending a high school rumored to be haunted. Although originally from the Midwest, she now adores the beaches of the southeast where she spends her days with her laptop and one lazy dog. Learn more at GenevieveJack.com.
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Books By Genevieve Jack
GENEVIEVE JACK
* * *
Knight Games Series
The Ghost and The Graveyard, Book 1
Kick the Candle, Book 2
Queen of the Hill, Book 3
Mother May I, Book 4
Logan, Book 5
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Fireborn Wolves Series
(Knight World Novels)
Vice, Book 1
Virtue, Book 2
Vengeance, Book 3
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The Treasure of Paragon
The Dragon of New Orleans, Book 1
Windy City Dragon, Book 2,
The Serpent of Soho, Book 3 (Coming Soon)
The Dragon of New Orleans Page 29