by Vivian Wood
Who knew that Courland’s biggest playboy would take so kindly to fatherhood?
“We can go scope out the school in the morning, yeah?” I ask, shading my eyes against the brilliant orange sunset. “I think the cook’s got something good on for dinner.”
“I can’t believe you’ve got almost a hundred students now!” Camille says as I escort her inside. “Rex’s been sending me photos. He’s a doting brother all the sudden, now that we’re on different continents.”
I lead them into the huge kitchen, where our cook is bustling around, making some kind of huge stew. She’s got piles of vegetables and herbs all over the place, in some haphazard fashion that makes sense to her.
I’ve learned not to question Mama Oduya when she’s cooking.
“Mama Oduya,” I call over the sound of the radio. She’s listening to some kind of funky Congolese pop music on full blast, and she grins at us when she realizes we’re in the kitchen.
“Ay! Beef stew, very very nutritious,” she shouts. “The girls will like it!”
I glance at Camille and Bernard.
“We’re feeding a lot of our students, some twice a day,” Rex explains.
“Sounds expensive,” Camille says.
I wink at her, and she laughs.
“It’s nice to see you guys here,” I say. “Let’s sit at the big dining room table.”
“We’re impressed with you,” Bernard says, glancing around. “Both of you, equally. I can’t believe you two found each other and ran off into the sunset, as it were. Caused quite a stir in Courtland, you know.”
“Two years ago, if you’d told me we’d all be here… I wouldn’t have believed it,” Rex admits.
“Well, we all have a lot more in common now, don’t we?” I ask as I pour us all some water from our private filtration system. “Growing families, plus Camille’s foundation has supported us in building the school.”
“Dad misses you,” Camille says to Rex.
Rex arches a brow. “He knows where I am, I should think.”
“And granddad is ailing, wants to know when you two are returning to the fold.”
Rex looks at me as I drop into a wooden chair, eyeing my belly.
“Rather soon, I think. Within the month.”
“It’ll be nice to have you back, then,” Bernard says. “Glad we came and visited when we did. It was murder trying to pry Cam away from the twins.”
“It was tough,” Camille says with a shrug. “You’ll soon see, it’s hard to leave them home long enough just to go get takeout.”
“I have to say, I don’t want anyone getting… expectations,” I tell Camille. “I’ve been trying to explain this to my mum, we are staying in Courtland long enough for the baby to develop his or her immune system. Then we’re starting a new project.”
“And what’s going to happen here, with the school?” asks Bernard.
“Would you be willing to believe that Bramford has gotten his act together and gotten clean? He and his mother are coming over to run things for the next year. Then… we’ll see. It will stay in the Westwood family, I hope,” Rex says.
“No idea what your own next step is yet, then?” Camille asks.
“Not yet,” Rex says, winking at me.
The scoundrel. He knows we’re going to be working to provide vaccinations to newborns in Central America, he just wants to keep it a secret for a while longer.
“Well, I suppose that calls for a toast, then,” Camille says, raising her water glass. “To the future!”
“To the future!” we all echo, clinking our glasses and laughing.
Rex comes over and gives me a kiss, and I grin at him. Our life has changed in a thousand ways, large and small, but I wouldn’t give up a single one.
The future looks bright, indeed.
If You Loved Bad Boy Prince…
Vivian loves swaggering men, fierce femmes, and fast-paced plots. If you loved this novel, we think you’ll also like the two FREE novellas that follow!
We’ve included the first three books in Vivian’s sexy alpha male shape shifter series: Evil Abounds: Bear Rising, See No Evil: Bear Rebel, and Hear No Evil: .
Turn the page to start a sexy, thrilling new romance!
Evil Abounds: Bear Rising
Historical Notes
Dear Reader,
As a New Orleans resident, I am always inspired by the rich history, vibrant culture, and haunting beauty of my city. I have certainly drawn on many of the stories and famous figures from the interwoven tapestry of New Orleans myths, legends, and history. I would like to make a point of saying that I have taken bits and pieces of all of these things, mixed them all together, and come up with a work of fiction.
None of the names, places, or persons in this story are meant to be taken literally — that’s part of the fun of a story like this. Everything in this story is a work of fiction, a figment of my imagination, and is meant to be interpreted as such.
Please enjoy this story, with my compliments.
Sincerely,
Vivian Wood
1
Chapter One
Mere Marie
New Orleans, Louisiana — 2015
Mere Marie was roused from a light doze near midnight, though she wasn’t sure what had disturbed her rest. A flicker of icy air against her skin perhaps, or a shifting of the deep shadows cast by the last few candles she’d left burning. Though it was the 21st century, some 220-plus years since Mere Marie’s birth, and modern conveniences abounded, she still preferred some of the more romantic notions from her early life. Candles were always lit after dark at Maison Laveau, and dark always seemed to come early in the sultry New Orleans summer nights.
Pulling her shawl more snugly around her shoulders, Mere Marie rose from the comfortable leather armchair she preferred for resting. An immortal, a member of the Kith, as the paranormal community were often called, Mere Marie had no need for true sleep. Not the way humans did. But, like the candles, it was an old habit that she simply kept for the sake of keeping. She followed many of the old ways, worshiped her ancestral spirits, lived in the same house where her mother and her mother’s mother worked as maids, her New Orleans lineage going all the way back to the city’s foundations. Back to Haiti, even, if she summoned her ancestral spirits and asked for a glimpse into the much more distant past.
The age of her beautiful house, added to its location in the vibrant, thriving Vieux Carre, meant that Mere Marie might simply have heard a muffled sound, some distant shout of celebratory joy from a tourist experiencing the French Quarter’s charm for the first time. Her bedroom window faced the quieter side of Vieux Carre, but she still got occasional bits and pieces of late night revelry.
When Mere Marie turned toward the window, intending to open first the glass pane and then the tightly-shut wooden storm shutter in order to peer out into the street, she stilled. The candlelight turned the window into a murky mirror, and the hazy reflection told Mere Marie that she was not alone in the room. Mere Marie saw herself of first, a diminutive Creole woman appearing about sixty years age. Her long, dark hair was neatly braided and wound around her head, her white night rail rumpled. Her high, proud cheekbones, her broad, flat nose, and her distinctive cafe au lait skin tone showed Mere Marie’s mixed ancestry, common in women from the class into which Mere Marie had been born - Gens de Couleur Libres, or Free People of Color.
Such classes were supposedly a thing of the past, but Mere Marie wasn’t the type to forget her roots. No practicioner of Voodoo was likely to get far without respecting the past or the spirits of their ancestors. Family magic, people sometimes called it.
Mere Marie studied the window again. Standing only a foot behind her was a fiercely tall, finely turned-out gentleman of proud African heritage. His presence made every hair on Mere Marie’s body stand on end. What in the world was Le Medcin doing in her house? During the witching hour, no less.
“Monsieur,” Mere Marie said, watching his reflection. She knew
better than to try to turn around and face him, but she couldn’t stop staring at him, her fascination only increasing with each passing moment. She wasn’t sure if he was a god, an ancient spirit, or something else entirely, but Le Medcin’s power was such that it drew one in, even someone as old and powerful as Mere Marie. All she knew was that Le Medcin worked for the highest of higher powers, a distant sort of benefactor to humankind and Kith, the final authority in all matters both in this world and the next.
On the surface, Le Medcin was nothing but a handsome, well-to-do Free Person of Color, wearing an elegant if outmoded black suit with tails and a sky-high top hat. He clutched a gold-tipped cane. His dark skin seemed to be stretched a little too tightly over his bones, and when he moved or spoke Mere Marie had the distinct impression that she could see right through to his skeleton. She’d dealt with him perhaps a dozen times in the last hundred years, and each time had been just as off-putting as the last.
Le Medcin rarely came to the human world. He presided over the world of spirits, those who had passed through the human world and continued on. It was easy enough for Mere Marie to contact a spirit, but to reach out from beyond the grave and communicate with a living being, Kith or no… the power needed was unthinkable.
“You came to me some time ago, seeking the power to seed a protectorate for the city,” Le Medcin said at last. His voice was an unearthly baritone, so deep that hearing it made Mere Marie shiver with a mixture of pleasure and fear.
She couldn’t stop watching his mouth as he spoke, his paper-thin flesh giving her glimpses of his teeth and jaws. His nose was there one moment, gone the next, revealing a gaping black hole for a few seconds, blinking in and out. It was like watching a very old movie, seeing the frames as they flickered by.
“Oui,” Mere Marie said, thinking it best to keep her answers brief.
“You may have it,” Le Medcin said. He paused, then grinned. For a moment, his skin on his head was completely gone, leaving him a skeleton. “On one condition.”
“Which would be?” Mere Marie asked, keeping her tone polite.
Le Medcin raised a bony hand and pointed at Mere Marie’s writing desk. Her ink pen rose, the tip touching down on a blank piece of stationery, and thick swirls of ink bloomed on the page. Twelve names, most unfamiliar to Mere Marie.
“You may have three from this list. Choose those in the most immediate need.” Le Medcin lowered his hand and pinned her with a gaze. The skeleton disappeared, flesh returning to his form, and Mere Marie was startled to find that Le Medcin had eyes green as emeralds. “You’ll choose wisely, I’m sure.”
“Oui, Monsieur,” Mere Marie said, bowing her head a few inches.
“I leave what you need to complete the ritual,” Le Medcin said, nodding his head at the corner of Mere Marie’s desk. To her astonishment, a thin leather-bound book, a large flat mirror, and an ornate silver dagger appeared on the desk. Her mouth opened to ask how could Le Medcin bring forth physical objects from the other side of the Veil, but she was too late.
With an impish wiggle of his fingers, Le Medcin simply vanished from the window. Mere Marie turned her head on impulse, but of course she already knew that the room was empty. She sucked in a deep breath, stepping over to her desk to examine the objects that Le Medcin had left her. She was nearly afraid to touch the inexplicably summoned items, a subtle reminder that though Mere Marie might run the Kith in the Vieux Carre, Le Medcin was infinitely more powerful.
She picked up the dagger first, gingerly turning it over. The hilt was smooth and unremarkable, except for its obvious age. The blade, though… every inch of the dagger’s blade was covered with dense, intricately etched whorls. Mere Marie felt that they were some kind of text, rather than merely a beautiful design, but it was hard to be certain.
Setting the dagger aside, she examined the book. It was bound in crisp black leather with bright gold filigree. Its spine was perfect and uncracked, as if it had never been opened, but Mere Marie’s senses told her that the book was much, much older than she herself. With the lightest touch she could manage, Mere Marie opened the book to the first page. Thin lines of ink blossomed there, forming two elegantly-scrawled words:
Mere Marie waited to see if the book had anything else to tell her, but it seemed that nothing more was forthcoming. It did seem that she now had a name for her warriors, though. She supposed that it would be a waste of time to wonder who had chosen that name, but it did suit her purposes perfectly.
Last, she turned to the mirror. She picked it up, her touch causing ripples to float across the surface. Frowning, she peered at the reflection.
Several scenes flashed in quick succession — Mere Marie as a human child, holding her mother’s hand and eating a piece of sorghum candy, her chubby cheeks working as she stared up at her mother. Mere Marie lighting a candle on an ancestor’s grave, hands shaking as she initiated her first solo contact with those beyond the Veil. Mere Marie in her current incarnation, examining herself in a full-length mirror after she’d completed the incantations that shed her human life and rendered her Kith, forever immortal and paranormal.
Back in her room, the mirror’s surface shimmered and went still, reflecting nothing more than her own surprised face. She had the strangest feeling that the mirror had been reading her, trying to understand her, and now it seemed to accept her ownership. Or possession, at least. She set the mirror down, her fingertips tingling where she’d held the thing.
“Ah,” she said, understanding. “To research the candidates. Very thoughtful.”
She picked up the list of names and focused on the first, then touched the mirror. Instantly a wealth of images sprung to life in the mirror’s surface. It took Mere Marie some minutes to realize that the mirror showed her images from both the past and the present, sometimes going hundreds of years back or more. Each man’s story unfolded before her at her command, each tugging at her heartstrings in a different way.
She immersed herself in the task for some time, whiling away the day’s earliest hours by trying to narrow down the list to a few candidates. The first one that caught her attention was a fierce, rugged 18th century Scottish Highlander. Mere Marie scried for him and was surprised to find that the intimidating name Rhys was pronounced Reece, easy enough. She watched him sparring with other soldiers near a massive castle, grinning and jesting as he worked up a sweat. Impossibly tall and broad, Rhys was pure muscle mixed with practiced grace, wielding his sword and shield with deadly precision. His close-cropped hair was a russet brown, but his full, unruly beard was a rich auburn that made his bright green eyes stand out like emerald beacons. He was beyond handsome, even to Mere Marie’s jaded senses, but it was his fiercely determined expression that made her want to know more. Mere Marie willed the mirror to show her his struggle, and her interest soon turned to something more like pity. The fierce warrior was in a bitter struggle with a fate from which he could not turn back, and his end was tragic indeed. A complete waste of such a fine fighter, in Mere Marie’s opinion.
Shaking her head, she moved on. A few names later, she came to a young magician by the name of Gabriel. Gabriel’s head of sable curls and midnight blue eyes were every bit as arresting as Rhys’s had been, though less rugged. Gabriel was tall and broad-shouldered, but more slimly built. There was an ethereal quality to him, perhaps a side effect of his magical inclinations. It took Mere Marie only a handful of minutes to skim Gabriel’s life story, and she ached for him. No one should have such an upbringing, nor such a swift and violent end to their life. He was also intelligent and graceful, and could no doubt be trained into an excellent swordsman.
Pressing her lips into a thin line, she continued down the list. All the men of Le Medcin’s choosing were compelling, though none rivaled Rhys or Gabriel until she reached the last.
“That can’t be right,” Mere Marie muttered to herself as she gazed in the mirror, then back at the list of names.
Aeric Drekkon. No, she hadn’t made an error. She watched th
e gorgeous dark blond Viking in the mirror’s reflection, her eyes widening. Could he truly be…
“Mercy…” she whispered aloud.
Rhys and Gabriel had made the final cut by their formidable physiques and heart-rending personal stories, but Aeric was a true treasure. Mere Marie was no fool. She would never pass on the opportunity to bring one such as he to her side. No protector could be more fierce, more brutal, more intelligent, more loyal.
At the end of her scrying, she sat back and considered Le Medcin’s words. Choose those in the most immediate need, he’d said. Mere Marie pulled out another piece of stationery and picked up her pen, hesitating for long moments before writing three names on the page.
Satisfied that she’d done as Le Medcin had asked, she tucked the full list of names inside the black book, thinking she might need it at a future date. Tomorrow, she would have to figure out how she was going to actually contact her three choices. Not to mention bringing them here, which would be nearly as difficult as Le Medcin bringing objects through the Veil. Time travel was possible, but…
Sighing, Mere Marie set the problem aside for the morning. At the moment, she needed to find a safe place for the objects that Le Medcin had bestowed on her. The book she would keep close to hand, but the dagger and the mirror were teeming with power, and couldn’t be left lying around.
Worrying her lower lip, Mere Marie rose and went to her armoire, opening a drawer and shuffling things around until she found a well-worn length of black velvet. She turned to her desk once more, stacked the dagger atop the mirror, careful not to touch the mirror again as she wrapped both objects in the soft cloth. Once she was certain that they were neatly contained, she carried the bundle to the hall closet and buried it deep on the lowest shelf, under piles of linens. After a moment of hesitation, she fetched her key ring and locked the closet. Better safe than sorry.