Scooping her up in both his arms, he carried her inside the hotel room and slammed the door shut behind him with his foot.
She was light as a feather in his muscular embrace. Her long hair swayed over his arm as he walked through the suite. Perky, pearled breasts thrusted upwards toward his view, continuing to torture him. The only light in the room was that from his fiery eyes, guiding them safely past the furniture.
Dutifully, he took her back to the large, master bedroom, laid her in the middle of the bed and pulled off her stilettos.
Setting the shoes neatly beside the bed, he rose up and admired how peaceful she looked as she slept.
This Toni woman was woefully out of her depths, and she was pulling him out into the abyss with her.
“Sleep well,” he said, standing over her as she drifted off into a deep dream world.
“Jericho,” she muttered as she turned to her side.
The small recognition only made him want her more.
Ignoring his agonizing erection, he checked the doors to the balcony to make sure that they were locked and then quietly left.
Chapter Three
“Their passion shall command them and their purpose lead them beyond the strength of their individual minds, making them bend to the will of the foretold. Agonizing will be their love and great their bond.”
The Prophecy
The New Bourbon Hotel
10:00 p.m.
A fter putting Toni to bed – something he had not counted on doing tonight, Jericho came back downstairs and went straight to the bar where Jules was waiting.
He needed to talk to someone, even if it was his irritating little brother.
Plopping down on the leather stool near the end of the bar where it was secluded and dark, he pulled off his suit jacket and threw it over the back of the seat beside him.
After kissing that woman, he literally felt disoriented.
Toni St. John had turned his libido on its ear and afterwards decided to sleep like a baby. How poetic?
Before the bar could get busy again, Jules slid a shot to his brother and made a motion over his mouth. “You’ve got a little something on your lips.”
Jericho rubbed a hand over his face and realized that on top of everything else, he had Toni’s lipstick all over him. He probably looked like a clown.
“Great,” Jericho said sarcastically. “I just passed like half the staff on the way in here.” He took one of the black napkins on the bar and thoroughly wiped his face, then balled up the paper and threw it in the garbage can behind his brother. “I’m sure they’ll be talking for days.”
“Who cares what they think? That’s the last of your worries.” Jules leaned against the bar and sucked his teeth. He was not about to let his brother pretend that what just happened, didn’t actually happen. “There is only one type of woman who can see the true color of our eyes, brother. It’s been that way for thousands of years. You know the rules as well as I do.”
Jericho raised his right hand in protest of Jules’ impending accusation. “She’s not a witch, okay. She’s a reporter.” His left eye twitched as he slouched in his chair. “She’s a clueless, nosy reporter, who has gotten in way over her head with this story she’s chasing.”
Jules countered quickly. “She’s a reporter. Yes. But she’s also a witch. A possible natural born-witch, not a made-one. Now, I don’t think that she knows it, but I’d love to be there when she finds out.”
Jules was honestly happy about the chain of events.
The only brother in their sacred family coven who didn’t have a wife was Jericho, and while his brother had played the eligible bachelor for many years much to their chagrin, even he knew that the circle could not be complete until Jericho married the natural born.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself, and do not get involved,” Jericho ordered.
“You mean, don’t get involved anymore than you’ve already involved me?” Jules asked snidely. He rolled his eyes. “You still have given no explanation for her being able to see us.”
“There could be a hundred explanations, and you stand here demanding just one,” Jericho said gruffly. “That’s preposterous.”
The idea of monogamy had never been his thing, so he could not help but deflect. “She could be playing us. She could be here to do a story on warlocks instead of the suicides. She could be a dark witch.”
“She could be all those things, or she could just be your mate. The oracle said that your wife would arrive on a full moon and that she’d bare the mark of the clover.” Jules smiled, wanting to hear all the dirty details. “Well, did she?” He wiggled his brows suggestively. “Did she bare the mark?”
Jericho’s cheeks went flush red. “I only kissed her, you hound. I didn’t get her undressed. I wasn’t even up there that long.” But it was not like he didn’t want to get her in bed. In fact, it was all that he could think about. “Speaking of which, did you put the right ingredients in that potion. She was supposed to stop caring about the story, let her guard down, but she went insane upstairs. Jules, seriously, did you put love potion in it?”
Jules shot upright. “No, nothing but the spell we agreed on. Anything outside of feeling sleepy and relaxed was the real deal.” He knew that his brother was scared. Hell, he was scared when it happened to him, but that was simply a part of who they were. “If she’s going for you, it’s no witchcraft.”
“Who said she was going for me? She was drunk. She’s sexy. It’s no different than any other woman.” He knew even as he said the words, he was lying. “Any man would be attracted to her. Half of the men in this room wanted her when she walked in here. To assume that she’s some natural-born witch because she’s built like a brick house and makes my nature rise is a bit much.”
Jules ignored the bit about his brother’s erection. “You heard her. She was born here. Her mother could be from any of the families.”
Jericho wouldn’t agree. “She could also just be what she says that she is, a reporter.”
Jules raised another good point since Jericho wasn’t budging. “Well, did you feel the pull? There is always a pull. I felt it with my own wife. It’s like you try to control yourself but you can’t. Physically, it hurts not to take her. She draws you, and you do the same to her. I can’t explain it except to say you’re suddenly absorbed.”
Jericho knew that he felt it – the undeniable pull, but he couldn’t admit it prematurely. “I’m going to consult with father. He’ll help me figure this out. For now, I refuse to read too much into it, and you should not either. We’ve had two straight days of trying to hunt down the warlocks responsible for these fucking suicides with absolutely no leads. How am I to believe when she suddenly shows up here that she’s not a part of it?”
Jules pulled a USA News from behind the bar and threw it on the table. “One of her other articles is in last week’s paper. I found it while you were upstairs playing kissy face. She did a piece on some sleazy city councilmen in Georgia plotting to embezzle funds. Doesn’t sound like anything too witchy to me.” Jules had a good feeling about this one. It wasn’t just another false alarm, but he needed his pigheaded brother to see it too.
“Well, we both agree on one thing. She’s a reporter. And that alone means we can’t trust her motives.” Taking the shot, Jericho buried his head in his hands for a minute. “Remember the words of the prophecy. There will be great deceptions,” he quoted.
Jules smirked. “And we’ve had our share over the years. I’m not stupid, but the real one, the ONE can’t be denied either. And don’t quote the prophecy to me. I know it better than you.”
Jericho rubbed his angry temples.
Jules tried to control his glee, but still pressed the issue. “Oh, and that dizzy feeling you’re having right now…I had it too, right after I met Nadia. I’ll never forget that migraine. It’s like your head is splitting in two. And forget about casting a spell to get rid of it. Nothing masks the pain. You simply have to fight through the torture.
What I can tell you is that it eventually stops after you bond.”
Who was Jericho kidding? He couldn’t fight through a wet paper bag right now. All he could do was think about Toni. Rolling his eyes, he shook his head at his brother. “You know what I don’t like about you, every single event in our life is a sign in your eyes.”
“Tell that to the pain,” Jules winked.
Jericho picked up the paper and looked at Toni’s profile picture beside the article. She had that same confident smile and the same crystal clear brown eyes that had mesmerized him at the concierge desk.
Slumping in his seat, he rubbed his head and clenched his jaw tight. The vein in the middle of his forehead protruded in his agony.
“For the record, Nadia and I already have dibs on the name Elizabeth for our first child. We’ve waited long enough. It’s the least that we can be afforded in terms of privileges.” Jules said smugly.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, okay? The last thing I want is for you to run home to Nadia with this before we know for sure and get her hopes up.”
“Oh, don’t you dare pretend to be concerned with Nadia. It’s you who is afraid. I’m your brother. I can see straight through the bullshit.”
“Hey, I’m not afraid.” Jericho exhaled. “I’m…cautious. And you should be as well. I don’t want you doing anything to interfere with the flow of things.”
“What are you talking about? How could I do anything?”
“Jules, I know you. You’ve never been able to deny your meddling nature.”
“Says the man who had me spike the poor girl’s drink,” Jules reminded.
“It’s for her own good,” Jericho reasoned.
“If it doesn’t work, then what are you going to say? Somehow, we confused that part of the prophecy? Open your eyes, here, brother.”
“Open your eyes to what?” Jericho asked defensively. “I mean she’s ignorant to us, ignorant to all of this. She can’t possibly be her.”
Jules wiped off the table and shook his head at his brother. “And I thought I was the pigheaded one,” he said, before he turned and left his brother alone with his denial.
Jericho knew that more than likely this all was a false alarm, but if he was wrong and his brother was right, then he was in more danger than anyone knew…the danger of falling head over heels in love.
Chapter Four
“She will rise from her lifelong slumber awake with the thirst for the knowledge of her path, protected by the quest for truth and filled with the vengeance of her blood.”
The Prophecy
Day Two
5:00 p.m.
T he next day when Toni finally rolled over in the comfort of her plush king-sized bed and came to, she realized that her Egyptian sheets were covered in cold sweat and her silk panties were covered in gummy cream.
It was not a righteous feeling, especially waking up alone. Stuck to the bed, she pushed her pillow under her head and yawned.
What the hell had happened last night?
Lethargic, she looked out of the balcony windows to realize that the sun looked extremely odd for it to be morning…unless it wasn’t morning.
Immediately, she grabbed the little black clock off the nightstand to figure out how long she had been out. It could not have been more than a few hours, right?
“Oh my God. It’s five o’clock!” She sat up on the edge of the bed and tried to get her bearings.
What in the hell happened?
For nearly 19 hours straight, she had experienced the most erotic, realistic and explicit dream of her entire life, and it was all staged around the strange, sexy, mysterious Jericho Laveau.
In her dream, it started with an innocent, little kiss that he planted on her in the hallway and then led into them going inside the hotel room. What started innocently enough, quickly evolved into an untamed passion. He had stripped her of her clothes, kissed every inch of her body with his full lips, dropped to his knees and pleased her before stripping out of his own clothes and ravaging her in the middle of the bed.
She had been forced to call his name. Forced to give in to his desires. Forced to climax for him over and over again. Forced to fall in love.
It felt so real.
It felt so right.
Damn! She ran a hand over her bed hair and looked around the room for clues of the night before.
How had she ended up here?
Had he brought her inside?
Was it even a dream at all or was it flashes of a memory?
She checked her clothes and realized she was still wearing what she had on the night before, right down to the panty liner.
THANK GOD.
She had done a report last year on men using Rohypnol to rape women during first dates. Ever since then, she was a paranoid mess, but all signs this morning pointed to simply a vivid imagination.
19 hours! Geez.
She hadn’t slept that long since…ever, and had no idea what to attribute it to except the summer heat, that crazy drink that Jules made and serious jet lag.
Still, the entire day was nearly gone, and she had spent it in the bed. BIG WASTE. To make up for the lost time, she’d have to pull an all-nighter to catch up.
***
After a long shower, a change of clothes and a little much-needed room service, Toni headed out at near dusk into the heavy crowds of tourists to interview some of the businesses on Bourbon Street in the hopes that someone could tell her something about what they had seen the nights that these mysterious women had killed themselves on the balcony of the hotel.
Her first stop was the lively LGBTQ club directly across from the New Bourbon. Inside the purple club decorated in rainbow flags and hurricane drinks, she found a bartender, Manny, who had worked there for years.
With a big balding spot atop his head, a tropical button down to cover his enormous gut and an amazing tan, Manny wiped off the bar and served drinks while Toni asked her long list of questions.
“Sooo0,” her voice trailed off as she twisted up her lip, “you were here the night that each of the women jumped?” she asked, writing on her pad.
What were the odds of that?
Manny’s voice was deep and southern – meant for radio instead of taking orders. “Yeah, it was crazy. I didn’t see the first one jump, but the second one I did and every one after that. Everyone was screaming, and we all came out to the corner to see a young woman standing on the rail of her balcony. Then, she just jumped. We were all begging for someone to help her. One guy even tried to crawl up the side of the hotel to get to her. She was in her nightgown, no shoes, hair down. It looked like something pulled right out of a horror movie.” A chill still ran up his spine. He shuttered and put a hand against his chest. “It was horrifying.”
Toni wrote as fast as she could, but Manny was going a mile a minute. “And did she seem like she was lucid?”
“No, she seemed like she was in a dream state. It was as if she couldn’t hear us. Then all of a sudden, she jumped.” He clapped his hands together, startling Toni. “Her body jerked when her neck snapped. People were yelling and crying, but there was no helping her. Poor thing. She was dead before anyone could get to her. I believe the couple staying next to her finally came out on their balcony because of the ruckus, jumped over their side and tried to help get her down. Then the police came, and the area was closed off.”
Toni rested her elbows on the top of the bar and yawned, still feeling the effects of last night. “And the other women, did they do the same exact thing to your knowledge?”
“The same exact thing,” he repeated. “It was like watching the same suicide over and over again. So tragic? I’ve been going to my shrink ever since. Once you see something like that, you’re absolutely traumatized.” He finally stopped working and leaned over the bar to her. “So, you’re with USA News, huh?”
“Yeah,” she said, still seeing the woman on the balcony in her mind’s eye. “Why?” She was praying he wasn’t going to pitch a sto
ry to her like most people did when they found out who she was and where she worked.
Manny took deep breath. “It’s just that…and I don’t want to scare you, but you look a lot like those girls. Same color. Same face. That’s what I remember most. Four beautiful Black women. To me that seemed odd, you know? Black women.”
Toni raised a brow at the man. Black women committed suicide every year, but what was odd to her was their similarity. They all looked alike, according to this guy, unless all black women looked alike to him, but he didn’t seem the type. “They looked like me?” She had studied the pictures a hundred times and never seen the resemblance – not to her or each other. Had she missed something so valuable?
“Yes. Very much like you. Same color. Same face. Same damn eyes.” He shivered. “Spooky.”
“Anything else stick out to you? Anything else that you feel was odd?”
He slid a drink to a woman who was sitting just a few seats from her. To Toni, the tall, statuesque white woman with long, pale blonde hair was out of place. She wore an all-black demi dress in the summer heat and silver dangling earrings, very gothic, but what Toni found odd about the woman in her few deliberate stares was that she did not sweat despite the heat, and her eyes, like Jules and Jericho, were honey gold fire instead of a normal human color.
“Here you go. One whiskey straight,” Manny said, smiling at the strange woman. “You want to start a tab, Hun?” He put a hand on his hip.
“Not now, thank you,” the woman said, taking the drink. She avoided looking over at Toni again.
“Well, then give me a minute, and I’ll get your check,” the bartender said, redirecting his attention to Toni. “Let’s see. Anything else odd?” He thought back to that night. “I remember that I thought by the third jump that it sounded like something out of the occult. Witches, warlocks, voodoo and all that are big down here. And when those women killed themselves, we all thought it had something to do with the solstice.”
That was something Toni had not considered in her investigation, but when he mentioned it, all her senses suddenly came alive.
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