Chapter 2
Death stood at the end of Raven’s bed, looming and dark, and she welcomed him with open arms. Open arm. Only her right was under her control. Oh, how she longed to be free of her broken body.
If any part of her had questioned the true identity of her visitor, the skepticism was short-lived.
The aura of the supernatural surrounded him.
Raven’s first clue was his suit, or rather that he wasn’t wearing scrubs.
An eternity had passed since someone who wasn’t a medical professional or close family had entered her hospice room.
Her own father didn’t come anymore. It was too sad. A lost cause.
Death’s miraculous presence aside, there were stranger things about his visit.
Her IV had stopped dripping. Mr. Drippy’s digital face was frozen, the impossibly full belly of her next drop of morphine hovering by a silver thread at the center of the machine’s plastic chamber.
She shot a glance toward her mother, hoping for an explanation, but the woman was motionless and rigid, staring, catatonic, toward the darkened hospital windows. The clock had stopped. Midnight.
Raven’s time had finally come.
She took stock of the man who must be Death, the new growth of her hair rustling against the scratchy pillowcase as she turned her head.
It was the only sound in an otherwise silent room.
Under the fluorescent lights, she studied him.
This was the one who would carry her home? He wasn’t what she’d expected.
Death was a babe.
Dark. Brooding. Heavy boned and unshaven.
There was something handsome about him nonetheless, alluring enough for her failing body to send her a flicker of desire, something she hadn’t felt in over a year.
It was the eyes, black eyes that seemed to burn into her, with flecks of red and mahogany that radiated from pitch-black pupils.
His substantial eyebrows were too full to be considered conventionally attractive, but they balanced a generous nose and lower jaw that had no use for frivolity.
He was olive-skinned, full-lipped, and big.
Really big. Professional wrestler big. Although, based on his sunken cheeks and long, tapered fingers, she got the sense he could be bigger, like he was perpetually hungry.
“Ravenna Tanglewood?” he asked, his voice lined with charcoal and grit.
A Clint Eastwood voice. A burning voice.
Was he taking her to hell? A whiff of campfire drifted past her nose as he neared.
That was one thing cancer hadn’t taken from her, her sense of smell.
And he smelled like the fall, like oak leaves and pumpkin pie, like smoke and old print.
“Yes.” Her voice was nonexistent, mostly lips and breath doing the work.
“You are this Ravenna Tanglewood.” He removed a folded newspaper from his breast pocket. The pages crinkled in his grip. He thrust it toward her.
A large emerald ring on his right pointer finger glinted in the light, and she had trouble looking away from it to focus on what he was asking her.
Eventually though, she zeroed in on the story he was showing her.
It was an article by a reporter from the Tulane Hullabaloo.
Psychic Student Saves Family. She blinked slowly, confused.
Why would Death care about a piece of gossipy journalism?
Before the doctors had discovered her brain tumor, she had experienced a premonition.
She’d been doing laundry when a vision of her parents’ pub completely engulfed in flames brought her to her knees.
Neither her father nor mother took her vision seriously, but for some reason, her sister Avery did.
Avery’s resulting tantrum led to the purchase of a brand-new fire extinguisher.
A few nights later, an inexperienced cook set his apron down too close to the grill and the strings caught fire.
Her father reached for the old extinguisher first. It didn’t work.
Thankfully the new one did, and consequently her father was able to save the pub and the people in it.
It didn’t mean Raven was psychic. Dr. Freemont had explained that the tumor in her brain, with its octopus-like tentacles infiltrating her gray matter, was connecting different areas of her mind, making her exceptionally intuitive.
She’d subconsciously noticed the expiration date on the extinguisher, and her brain had produced the vision accordingly.
It was the cancer, not anything weird or unusual.
The newspaper story was a bit of flamboyant reporting by a friend who hoped to use the piece to attract readers to a fund-raiser meant to help with her medical expenses, nothing more.
Death tapped his finger against the newspaper impatiently, the massive green emerald glowing like a star. “Well, is this you?”
She licked her lower lip and nodded. He slid the paper back inside his jacket. Exhausted from the effort of responding, she closed her eyes and prayed silently, Take me. Please take me.
Gabriel stood at the end of the hospital bed, using every ounce of willpower he had to restrain himself.
When Richard had suggested the girl was a long shot, he wasn’t kidding.
She was more dead than alive, a porcelain doll he was afraid to startle for fear of breaking her.
Still, there was something… alluring about her, the same as when he’d seen her picture.
Deep within his chest, a primal urge to heal and protect demanded his attention.
He hadn’t felt anything like it in his five hundred years. Not for a human anyway. Perhaps the feeling bore a close resemblance to when he found a rare and priceless item for his collection. Yes, that was it.
She appeared nothing like the picture he’d seen.
The only way to describe her now was haunting.
The bones of her cheeks protruded as if her skeleton was battling her skin for rights to the surface.
Ravenna Tanglewood was death, propped in a bed like a body on display.
Above thin lips and a gently curved nose, her blue eyes bulged from her skull, dull and rheumy.
Those damned eyes were nothing short of pleading.
His chest ached. If she refused his offer, it would haunt him the rest of his days.
He stepped closer to her. Was that night-blooming jasmine? The scent was faint, but he could smell it on her skin. “Is it true you were an anthropology major with a minor in history? Honors student?”
A grunt came from deep within her throat, a warm wet trail of saliva coursing down her lower cheek. Her throat contracted and relaxed, but she seemed unable to form words. He hissed. Damn human hospitals. This was torture. What type of creatures left their females to die like this?
He could wait no more. Already the curse on his ring was weakening his magic.
His skin felt thick, like he might turn to stone from the inside out at any moment.
He tapped his fingers, exactly three times each against his thumb.
Tap-tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap. It was the only thing that helped, the only thing that reminded him he could still move.
His magic wasn’t completely gone. Not yet.
Still, if he was to save her, he must do so soon.
“I see,” he said. “I would like to offer you a job, Ms. Tanglewood. It is hard work. You’ll have to learn quickly and take the initiative.”
She stared at him blankly. He wondered what she must be thinking, if she could think at all.
It was possible her brain was as wasted as her body.
From what he’d read, she had brain cancer.
Even with magical intervention, there might not be enough left in her head for her to consent.
And she must consent. He would not bind her if she didn’t.
To do so would be to divest himself of any remaining honor he still bore in his wasting body.
He approached her bedside and gently laid his hand on her chest. Those too-big eyes locked onto him. Her heart pounded against his palm. Her expression pleaded for death, but her heart begged for life.
“Ravenna, do you consent? Do you agree to work for me?”
Her eyebrows dipped and her chin twitched as if she didn’t quite understand what he was proposing. A tear escaped the corner of her eye. He wiped it away.
“Say yes, little one,” he said. “I cannot bear to see you like this a moment more.”
Her eyes widened. “Yes,” she mouthed.
He smiled weakly. “Praise the Mountain.”
As he held her stare, he removed his hand from her chest, the storm of magic brewing within him.
His ring glowed brighter as he drew his power to the surface, the dragon within barely contained inside his human form.
Opening his jaw wide, he reached deep into his mouth, his large hand wedging itself between his teeth.
He heard her gasp as the sound of tearing flesh filled the room.
Gabriel grunted. He was likely scaring her, but it could not be avoided.
This was part of the transition. The faster she came to terms with what was happening here, the better.
A spurt of crimson blood beaded on his bottom lip as the tooth materialized, clutched between his fingers.
He tugged a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at the blood, then held the tooth up to the light.
It was thin. Pointed. With a long root still bloody from the extraction. Clearly not a human tooth.
“Never gets easier,” he murmured.
Beside him, Ravenna trembled. Her arms were covered in gooseflesh. He had to soothe her, to do something to comfort her before she had a heart attack. He closed his hand and drew on the magic of the ring. When he opened it again in front of her mouth, there was no tooth, only a slim white pill.
“Swallow,” he commanded.
She must do this now. They were running out of time, her life fading in front of him, his magic sputtering under the weight of the curse.
He scooped an arm behind her shoulders and lifted.
Her lips parted like a baby bird’s, and he dropped the pill to the back of her throat.
She gurgled, coughed. He raised her head higher.
Her throat bobbed and the choking stopped.
Oh, how beautiful it was shining through her stomach.
The red light spread through her torso and to the ends of her limbs, warming her flesh from within.
And all the time, she lay helpless against his arm, staring at him with unrestrained wonder, that jasmine scent of hers growing stronger.
It made him feel like a god to hold her like this, to know that he’d given her what she needed to heal, to survive.
He watched her chest rise and fall with the first deep breath she’d taken since he’d arrived.
“What did you give me?” she asked, and this time the words were strong and true, more than the breathy whispers he’d gotten before. Good.
His shoulders slumped. The magic had taken its toll. He must get home to rest.
He brought his face close to hers. “Rest. Recover. You’re no use to me like this. We are bound now. I will know when you are ready.” He pressed his lips to her forehead and lowered her to the bed.
Her mouth worked soundlessly, as if she couldn’t find the words for all the questions she longed to ask.
The rhythmic beep of her heart monitor started again, and a drop of morphine fell within the chamber of her IV. As he left her side and the room, he prayed to the Mountain that he’d chosen wisely. Ravenna Tanglewood was his last chance.
Thank you for reading this excerpt of The Dragon of New Orleans. Visit me at to continue the story.