Warlocks: The Creole Coven (The Laveau Coven)

by Latrivia Welch

  “I’m…fine.” She sucked at her bottom lip, refusing to allow one ounce of him to go to waste.

  “Just fine?” Jericho asked with a raised brow. A playfulness danced through his tone as a smile crossed his lips.

  God, he was sexy when he let his guard down.

  She couldn’t lie. With a stretch of her long arms, she yawned and shrugged. “Okay. Maybe that wasn’t the best choice of words. I’m great, actually,” she said, exposing a bigger smile. “I slept like a baby. This bed is the devil.”

  “Funny, I was thinking the same thing about you,” he said, moving to her side.

  Cocking up a leg, he exposed his powerful, hairy thighs and the half-mast member begging to join the conversation.

  Toni tried to ignore it for a moment longer. “About last night…”

  Jericho turned his head toward her and felt his breath catch in his chest.

  Toni tried to smile. “I appreciate what you and your family did to help me.”

  “Of course,” he said, waiting for the gut punch he expected. Toni wasn’t exactly predictable.

  “And about the other…” Her smile dropped.

  Jericho stopped breathing all together.

  “It means more to me than you have any idea,” Toni admitted. “I just hope us sleeping together so fast didn’t change how you initially felt about me.”

  Jericho sat up against the headboard and took her hand. “Just the opposite. It made me know for sure.”

  Toni was afraid that now that he had sampled the goods, he might not ever say the words again.

  But Jericho wasn’t one for games.

  “I know that I love you,” he said, gripping her hands in his. “I hope you can learn to love me too, despite my shortcomings.”

  He wasn’t a fool. He didn’t expect her feelings to mirror his so soon, especially since she had been tortured with the knowledge of what had happened to her family. But he did hope she would give him an adequate chance to prove himself.

  “For all your smarts, you sure are dumb at times,” Toni said flatly.

  Jericho gave a hearty laugh at that.

  “Whatever do you mean?” he asked, knowing full well.

  Toni could not bring herself to say too much too quickly. If he loved her, he’d have to wait. There were levels to unlocking her heart. He couldn’t have it all at once. He’d have to work for it. But the look on his face let her know that despite her reservations, she needed to explain herself in some way.

  She took his face in her hands and smiled at him. “I’ve never felt so close to anyone in my life. I feel a connection to you that is beyond words. So, I’m putting that trust in you. Trust that I’ve never given a man before, and I’m asking you to not misplace it.”

  Her sincerity warmed him, filled him with a possessiveness that might have scared her if she knew the fullness of it.

  “I won’t abuse your trust. In time, I will reveal everything about myself and hopefully to your utmost approval,” he promised. With a quirk to his lips, he lightened the mood. “Just don’t abuse me.”

  Toni laughed at that. “I got the feeling you like a little abuse.”

  The twinkle in his eye let her know that last night’s theatrics were not lost on him. “Well, you know, occasionally, a man likes it rough. You definitely can oblige.”

  Now that that was out of the way, Toni felt a little more comfortable talking about the elephant in the room.

  “So,” she bit her lip. “It’s morning and while we didn’t sleep the night away, we can’t let the day get away from us either. I still have a story to write.”

  Jericho was trying his best not to arrive at that conversation too fast, but he knew it was coming.

  Toni cringed. “This is the part where we have to be adults about the situation. I live in New York and you live here and…”

  Jericho’s left eye twitched. Putting a finger over her lips, he silenced her. “In my vast experience as an adult, the one thing that I’ve learned is to have patience. It has always amazed me how things, no matter how complicated, can work themselves out in time. So, let’s put a pin in the conversation about geographical constraints until after we’ve figured out what’s going on here first.”

  Toni was relieved, honestly, that he had stopped her. She didn’t want to be a negative Nancy, but it had become a habit in relationships to state the obvious before the other party could.

  Nodding, she rested her head in his chest against the tattoo that somehow gave her chills from certain vantage points.

  “Okay, I can do that,” she said in a soft voice.

  Rubbing a hand over her bare shoulder, Jericho bent and kissed the top of her head. “I can think of one thing we can do before we get started with the day…” A clever grin crossed his face as he slipped the sheet from her body. He was growing hard just looking at her.

  Toni grinned as well. “Just one thing?”

  Chapter Eleven

  “And he will dominate his wife through great wealth and power and offer her revenge to hide his misgivings. And in return, she will shed her past, give him shelter from wrongdoings and offer a future of greatness.”

  The Prophecy

  W hen the new lovers finally emerged from Jericho’s private quarters and came downstairs, locked hand-in-hand, the dining formal room was stocked with a buffet of foods.

  It was a very decadent room, painted the color of red wine with thick white antique molding at the base of the tall ceilings and fitted with a large crystal chandelier that hung proudly above a dark wooden formal dining table with seats for ten.

  Each place setting was adorned with fine bone china and silver flatware.

  Huge bouquets of fresh flowers popped with color around the room.

  And grand drapes of elegant black and gold fabric covered two long windows facing the front of the property were pulled to let in the sunlight.

  Tall crystal candelabras were planted like anchors on either side of the dining table with black, hand-made candles. The sunlight hit against them reflecting across the room in the spectrum of rainbows.

  A black antique fireplace was carved in the wall across the dining table and above it a baroque 24-gold mirror.

  On the other side of the room, Martha hummed as she dusted the china cabinet, in a chipper mood as always.

  Her eyes lit up when she saw Toni dressed in the same yellow sundress from the day before.

  Bònn nui!

  While the rumblings about the night before suggesting that the mysterious young woman had been rather upset by the end of her visit, the bright, translucent emanation around her this morning suggested otherwise.

  It was quite a shock to know that Jericho had brought a woman to the house and had her stay overnight, considering he had never done it before in all the years that she had known him.

  It was known that no one was ever asked to stay the night with the elusive Jericho Laveau, either here or at his place in town. In fact, he had often grumbled over the years of women’s requests to do so.

  But the most obvious thing that seemed to render Martha nearly speechless was the fact that Toni was shining like a new star today. She was otherworldly in her beauty.

  Her eyes were bright as freshly polished, chocolate-colored diamonds, her black as night hair flowed like silk, cascading over her shoulders and her skin was dewy fresh and flawless.

  Glowing.

  Yesterday, Toni was beautiful. Today, she was a goddess.

  That only meant one thing…

  Jericho and Toni had bonded on a celestial level.

  “Good morning, you two,” Martha said gleefully. She put down her rag and turned toward them. “I’ve taken the liberty of preparing breakfast for you. You must eat before you leave.”

  “We’re really tight for time,” Jericho tried to explain as he looked at his watch.

  Martha wouldn’t hear a word of his babbling. “Nonsense. I’ve slaved over the stove for hours, and you will eat.” She put her hands on her hips
and glared at both of them like a scolding mother.

  Jericho gave a derisive snort. “You mean you ordered from the local caterer and had it put out by the staff,” he corrected.

  “That is neither here nor there.” Martha went to the table and pulled out a seat. “Jericho, where are your manners? You will feed your guest before you leave.” She smiled at Toni and motioned for her to sit. “Your tasks can wait. Your stomach cannot.”

  Jericho’s hand rested on Toni’s lower back as he huffed and whispered in her ear. “If you don’t eat something, I’ll never hear the end of it. So, please, we insist,” he said, walking her over to the table.

  Just then, a refreshed Lafayette breezed in from the kitchen doors wearing jeans and a T-shirt.

  Without a word, he strode straight over and hugged Toni warmly, then nodded toward his son. “I trust that you two slept well,” he said, southern accent humming in her ears.

  Toni blushed. Last night, she didn’t do much sleeping, but that was no one’s business. “Very well, thank you.”

  She sat down at the table in front of the beautiful antique china setting and looked across the wide spread of food. “I don’t know where to begin.”

  Lafayette sat down at the head of the table, a place only reserved for him, and pushed his seat up. Taking his napkin from the table and placing it on his lap, he rolled his wide shoulders. “It’s very simple, my dear. Start at one end of the table and work your way down to the other side. Stop when you are so full that you can’t eat another bite.”

  Toni appreciated the hospitality and didn’t want to offend anyone, so she did as he said.

  Picking up a croissant, she placed it on her plate while Jericho took a seat beside her.

  It was hard to know how to start a civilized conversation after last night. This man had seen her naked. Afterward, he had seen her freak out and run out of his house. To ask how the weather was would be just as out of place as asking him how old he was.

  At least Jonas wasn’t here to hear her thoughts. She didn’t know with all that her mind was mulling over if she’d be good company in his presence.

  But Lafayette was a gentleman and no stranger to breaking the ice.

  After he filled his plate, he looked over at Toni and gave a wide knowing grin. “So, you’re from the Dauphine clan. Hell of a family. I knew your father when he was much younger, way before you were born. He was a very complicated man event then.”

  Toni slowly pulled her gaze over to Lafayette. “It would seem that way, yes.” She poured herself a cup of coffee. “It’s still all very confusing to me.”

  “Trust me, Toni. I understand your confusion,” Lafayette sympathized. “No one is meant to be thrust into this life so quickly, but it could not be helped, as you are already aware. Time waits for no one. We must simply do the best we can with what we have.”

  “It’s crazy. You know. I’m just a lowly reporter hoping to one day get a Pulitzer Prize for being nosy. All I wanted was to write a good piece, and now I’ve found myself in the middle of something that is completely out of my depths.”

  “Your kind typically are drawn to professions of spreading information. Your mother was a messenger of God once before she fell. It’s only sensible that you would find your niche in being a messenger of some sort, as well. Some of the most renown communicators throughout the history of man were born to families like yours. Witches. Warlocks. Angels.”

  Toni felt like a grown woman sitting in her first day of Kindergarten. Talk about being a late bloomer. “I don’t even know what being a natural-born witch means.”

  Everything she knew about witches was hats, green skin, and Halloween. This experience had been nothing like her preconceived notions.

  In the simplest terms, he tried to explain. “What does being a human mean? You ask any person and they will give you a different explanation.” Lafayette raised a brow at her, not waiting on a response. “It’s all about what you make of the life that you are given, not what life makes of you. In my eons on this earth, I’ve never seen two people or two witches exactly alike. And God made them both. I assume that He did so because He wanted us all to experience His gift in our own way.”

  “Eons?” Toni blew out a breath. Well, that answered at least one of her questions. He was old as dirt, older even.

  “Give or take a few thousand years. You really don’t want to count after a few millenniums. One society after another. One war after another. It just sort moves past you in a blur.” He put more food on his plate and marveled at his breakfast as Toni marveled at him like the relic he was. “But in all my years here, I never lost my hefty appetite or my lust for life.”

  Jericho watched the exchange between them in silence. If it had been up to him, he would have slowly inched her into all of this, but it seemed his father thought the best approach was to start with the hard truths.

  Toni’s brows knitted as she frowned. “Well, no matter how I arrived here, things have changed for me forever. Before yesterday, I was just chasing a story that landed on my desk. Now, I must find the people responsible for my family’s death. They can’t just get away with this.” She swallowed hard. “I mean, they are here in Louisiana. I know that. I just don’t know where. I saw a vision of them all together around the same sort of pentagram as yours. I saw the people who did it, who killed my mother, my father and my sisters. I just have to find them.”

  “And do what?” Lafayette asked seriously. His white eyes blazed at her.

  “I don’t know,” Toni answered truthfully. Her voice lowered. “I haven’t exactly figured that out yet.”

  “I applaud your heroic ideals, but this is one war that won’t be won without a plan, Toni,” Lafayette advised with a pinch of sobering reality.

  “We won’t let them get away with this,” Jericho offered. He reached over and took her hand, sensing the distress she was feeling. “I made a promise to you. We will find them, and we will make them pay.”

  That wasn’t good enough for Toni though she wanted it to be. She had to know more. “When?” she asked. “No disrespect to you or your family, but a thousand years from now to exact justice for murder is just not good enough for me. I have to do something now.”

  Lafayette could also sense Toni’s urgency, but revenge was a dish best served cold. “Soon. We won’t be waiting a thousand years to make our move. But you must crawl before you walk and walk before you run. I know it is in the human side of your nature to want to run in with both barrels blazing, but you’re smarter than that,” he said calmly. “For now, enjoy your breakfast, and let’s have a long conversation about your origins. You can’t win the war if you don’t know what you’re fighting or for that matter, why you are fighting.”

  Toni navigated through the barrage of cliché sayings to the core of his meaning. “Well, if you saw everything that I saw, if you knew my father, and if you’ve been here for eons, then you have to know the witches responsible for this. I mean, the circles in the supernatural world can’t be that big.”

  It was not that Lafayette didn’t have an answer, it was that he knew it would shock her.

  “The people you are seeking are the Laveau coven.” Lafayette said the name as if uttering it made him physically ill. He glanced over at Toni to find her face wrought with more confusion.

  “But I thought that you were the Laveau coven?” Toni swallowed hard.

  “They are the other Laveau coven. Our family was very powerful once, especially considering our origin. You see, before our great divide, we were many in number. We were also the only coven like ours in the country, so we had a monopoly on control. But like many covens all over the world, after thousands of years together, we splintered, weakening our presence and our strength.”

  “What did you have a falling out about?” Toni asked, picking through the food on her plate.

  “Direction, power, and money. We had been a part of many wars as you can imagine. But during the American Civil War, one family took on the light,
the other side of the family took on the dark.” He remembered his time serving in the Confederacy and then leaving it to help free slaves.

  Toni frowned. “So, you broke from your family during the Civil War over money? By then you had to be filthy rich with plenty to go around.”

  “When it comes to wealth, there is never enough to go around for those hungry for more. Greed is not just a human condition. Had it been, the war in heaven would have never happened.”

  Lafayette stabbed his food with his fork. “I’ve been here for eons. I’ve had many families, many wives, many sons.” He raised a hand before she could speak. “I know that sounds cold, but it’s not. It’s the way things are. Down through the years, my families have perished because of one thing or the other. My last six sons, the ones I have now, are all that I have left from my long legacy on this earth. And I treasure them with my entire heart.”

  “And we didn’t fall out with the coven over just money. My mother was the catalyst for our family feud,” Jericho answered, feeling the need to step into the conversation. “She died at the hand of my father’s sister, the blonde woman you saw in your vision at the very end. She also killed the house servant, who happened to be my mother’s sister.”

  House servant? Toni put the pieces together slowly. “So, your aunt on your mother’s side was African-American?”

  “Yes, she was what was referred to back then as mulatto. Of course, now, that term is offensive.” Lafayette explained, wanting Toni to understand that despite his history he had evolved. “She was my wife’s half-sister. Her father was…”

  “A slave owner,” Toni said, eyes narrowing. She could already tell that she was not going to like this story very much.

  “Yes, and her mother a slave from the old country…came over during the Middle Passage from the Ivory Coast,” Lafayette explained. “When I married Jericho’s mother, my sweet Elizabeth, her sister, Charlotte, was given to us a gift in hopes that we might be able to keep her safe and out of harm’s way. A beautiful woman back then, especially one of color, was not exactly safe on her own. Even though she came from a wealthy family, she could not own property or do anything that would allow her independence. So, their father made me swear to keep her here and keep her safe until we could find a suitable match for her to marry. But after Elizabeth and Charlotte’s father was murdered, Charlotte wasn’t interested in marrying. She stayed here with Elizabeth, happy to be with family, and we never pushed the issue again.”