“Is he looking?” she asked, voice strained.
Jules coughed.
Toni raised a hand before Jules could answer. “Wait. Don’t answer that. I don’t know why I even asked. Must be the shot, or the stress, or the damn heat…” Or the dream, she thought to herself.
“He is looking,” Jules said, lowering his voice. “He just doesn’t know it yet. We’ve been brothers a long time, and when you know a man as well as I know my brother, you understand that he wants badly not to wake up in his bed alone, but he just doesn’t want to wake up with the wrong woman. I mean, that’s worse than waking up with a damn horse head in your bed.”
Toni laughed at his Godfather reference then trailed her gaze down to the intricate gold band on his marriage hand. “Have you been married a long time?”
“Not long enough,” he said, thinking of his lovely wife. He ran his thumb over his band. “I wish I had met her years ago. I was just like Jericho…blind to the light till it was shining in my face.” He smirked. “My wife was the best thing that ever happened to me. God’s honest truth. She made me understand the meaning of life and love and everything in between.”
Toni looked around the room at all the single women who seemed to be flocking to Jules, even with his wide back turned to their attention. Their eyes couldn’t be pried from the sexiest guy in the bar, hoping that he might notice them. But he didn’t seem to notice, because he was in love. It was written all over his face. Without saying her name, his wife was still tattooed all over him.
“Must be one hell of a lady,” she said, happy for him.
“Oh, she’s definitely that.” Jules looked up just in time to see a young brunette wink at him from across the room. He quickly glanced back to Toni, avoiding the unwanted advance. “Makes the rest of this shit boring. Why chase the appetizers when you’ve got the main course at home?”
“Maybe I need to move to New Orleans,” Toni joked.
“So, there is no one back home?”
“No,” Toni said emphatically. “Not even a fucking cat. The most loyal thing I have in my life is my subscription to Hulu.”
“No Netflix?” he asked, sure that she would grasp his meaning.
“Afraid not. It requires chill, and I don’t have time to invite guys over for meaningless sex just because I’m too busy to commit.” She shrugged and smirked. “I don’t know, Jules. A part of me is still old fashioned. I want a guy to chase me, adore me, love me unconditionally.” She looked up at him. “Does that sound crazy?”
“No, the right man will chase you happily. No reason to waste your time on the wrong sort. Like casting your pearls to swine.”
Toni laughed at his Biblical reference. She would have never pegged him the type. “Careful, pretty boy, you’re starting to sound like my mother.” She toyed with her glass. “Is Jericho seeing anyone now?
“No.” Jules said, hoping to ease her spirit.
There was a silence in the room. Toni wasn’t sure why she had asked that question either, but it was better sitting around wondering for the rest of the day.
Jules knew better than to open a line of questioning that was too broad about his brother’s personal life with a reporter, even if he felt comfortable with her; so, he quickly changed the subject now that her beak was wet.
“Enough about Jericho Laveau, for goodness sake. How’s work going, or did you go out and see the sights today?” He poured a glass of water to help with her apparent dehydration. He could feel her thirst, and it made his throat itch. Her cheeks were red, and her skin had darkened from the evening sun. If she had stayed out in the weather much longer, she might have needed a little medical care.
“I got to see some sights while I worked.” But she had not had time to appreciate any of them. Taking the shot beside the glass of water, she shivered as it went down – hot and strong again. She sat the glass down and pushed it toward him. “After the day that I’ve had, I’m going to need a third one of those.”
He pushed the glass of water toward her. “Not until you drink this,” he insisted.
Toni did as he commanded. Drinking down the cold, delicious water in five gulps, she wiped her face and pointed toward the shot glass.
Jules complied. He poured her another drink.
Looking down at her notes lined up in front of her, she shook her head. What was she missing?
“What’d you find out?” Jules pried. He knew that she more than likely would not tell him, but in his experience, it never hurt to ask.
However, Toni opened right up. “Let’s see. I found out a few interesting things, but the most interesting is this…all four women were adopted.” There… she had said it. Her big break in the case. Nothing to be proud of in comparison to her other pieces.
The scary part for her was that they all had been adopted through the same agency that she had come through.
And the bartender from the first club was right.
They did look like her.
She had a picture of each of them, but before Manny’s statement earlier, she had never seen it. However, after he had linked them to her, she couldn’t get it out of her mind.
And when she came into each of the four houses to ask the families questions, they all marveled at her and the resemblance she shared with their daughters.
Like Manny said…spooky.
“Adopted?” Jules asked with interest.
“Yeah. It’s very weird. Ranging in age from 20 to 30, all of the women came from Our Mother Catherine Adoption Agency. You ever heard of it?” She looked up into his eyes.
“No,” Jules lied, blinking fast.
“I also stopped over to see the detective who did the investigations to see if I could get a copy of more of the coroner’s photos, but he wasn’t there. So, I’m hoping that he gets in touch with me tomorrow.” She wasn’t sure why she was gabbing like a school girl to a guy who could clearly be a suspect in all of this, but she felt so incredibly comfortable with him, until she ignored her first mind.
Wanting to get the sticky strands of long hair off her shoulders, Toni rifled a rubber band out of her pocket and pulled up her wild locks into a neat little ponytail, bringing more attention to her long, sleek neck, erect back and voluptuous bosom as she bit the cushion of her bottom lip.
The men around the room stopped what they were doing to watch her. It was a simple enough gesture and incredibly innocent, but oh so very sexy to the opposite sex.
Toni had no idea the energy she gave off or how it affected a normal man. While she was working on her pony tail, her perfect frame was working on every libido in the room.
Jules could see why his brother was going crazy for the woman. Had he not been bound, happy and married to Nadia, he would have been gunning for her also.
Toni was a real woman. Natural and confident – two things that drove any man wild – she commanded attention, even when she didn’t want it. Her beauty refused to go unnoticed, even when she downplayed all of her assets. Her smooth brown skin, her flawless face and pouty lips brought a man to his knees. But her sexual allure was not her fault. She didn’t even know the varied reaction she caused when she entered a room. The most beautiful of women never knew or cared to know how many men they commanded in their presence, because naturally, it was their mere presence that dominated their space. And that was what so sexy about her. She was just going about her business, fixing her little ponytail– all the while making slaves of them all.
Jericho had talked about her on and off all day, mostly complaining about her snooping around. But if Jericho had walked in this moment and seen the sweat running down her swan-like neck and the dew drops pooling in between her ample breasts, her face flush with blood from the heat and her lips glossed over from biting on them, he might have taken her right there on the bar.
Toni was completely oblivious to Jules and his admiration of her. Instead, she was entrenched in the pieces of the puzzle that needed to be placed together before she had a real story to send back to h
er editor and the thoughts of the man who tormented her with his brazen sensuality.
She picked up on the conversation, right where she had left off, after she had adjusted her hair.
“There were also some reports of this having something to do with the occult. The Summer Solstice or some shit.” Flipping her ponytail over her shoulder, she smacked her lips. “I just feel like a big important part of this is right here in front of me, but I’m missing it.” She ran a hand over her papers and shook her head, half expecting an answer from Jules, though she couldn’t understand why. He was just a bartender, an underling to his family. What could he possibly know.
Jules brought his attention from her energy back to her words.
He smirked at her.
So, she had gotten further than Jericho had given her credit. Jules had warned his brother the night before after meeting Toni that her investigative skills were more than amateur, but Jericho didn’t believe him.
How he loved to be right.
Somehow, in the last twenty-four hours – despite the spell, she had learned of Litha. And she even found out something that they did not know; all of the girls had been adopted.
Good for her.
Good for them.
Now, it was time to throw the little journalist a bone. Give her something for the greater good. But first he had to set the stage and see if she was really interested in going deeper.
“I can tell you’re not like most women, Toni,” he said nodding.
Toni twisted up her lip at him, wondering what he had up his sleeve. “No, I’m not.”
“See, I’m good at reading people. Truly, I should have a turban wrapped around my head and a little crystal ball in front of me.”
Toni laughed. “Oh, really.”
“Really. Do you mind if I read you?”
“My future?” She huffed.
“No. You,” he said playfully.
“Yeah, okay. Go ahead.”
Jules grinned. “I bet you’ve never been sick a day in your life. No colds. No flu. No pink eye. None of it. I also bet you’ve always been good with words. Always knew how to captivate people. Straight A’s in English and Literature. Top of your class.”
Toni frowned. She’d half-expected for him to guess her sign, but this was truly insightful. “How did you know that?”
“I know things,” he said cryptically.
“What I really want to know is how to crack this story open. If you’ve got an answer to that, I’m all ears,” Toni said, brushing him off. She chalked his guess up to the fact that she was a journalist, but the chronic wellness was a harder thing to explain away.
“Well, if you really want to solve this mystery of yours, you just have to open your mind a little more to figure out what you’re missing,” Jules offered, eyes locked on her every move. He could see, though she tried to hide it, that he made her nervous. “Often, all the keys to any question are laid out in front of us. The universe wants us to always find the answers to our questions. We simply have to move out of our own way to see them.”
“Open my mind?” Toni was not amused. It had been a long day. If he knew something that she didn’t, she wished that he would just say so.
Jules could instantly see her apprehension. She was a cynic. Many were.
Trailing a circle on the bar, he pressed his finger down on the wood. “There is a spot in the mind that most humans can’t see beyond. You have to remove it to see the bigger picture, to see how everything in this world works together. And trust me, Toni, it all works together.”
Toni laughed. “You sound like a hippie.”
“You don’t believe me?”
“No, I don’t believe you,” Toni inhaled with mock indignation.
After her long list of interviews, she didn’t need to hear one more hocus pocus theory. She needed something concrete – something real. “It’s hard to believe that I’m just not seeing it because of a spot on my brain…in my mind, to use your exact words.”
Jules knew that he could get in trouble for telling her even as much as he already had, but he liked Toni. She was different, a breath of fresh air. And she might even be the key to closing their coven’s circle. So, in that spirit, he was willing to break the rules just this once.
Jules dipped his head toward her. “Want me to show you?” he asked.
“Yes, Yoda, I want you to show me,” Toni answered equally parts facetious and playful. “I mean, come on. You can’t be a day over 25. Okay, I’m 32 years old. I think I’d know if there was a spot in my way.”
Jules’ left eye twitched. Dares had always been his weakness. “Don’t let the sweet, baby face fool you. I’m much older than I seem.” A small ounce of gratification came from admitting that.
“Please, Jules. I mean, you’re sweet. But you’re a kid,” she said, not realizing she was hitting all the right buttons to get him going.
He leaned in closer, predatory muscles flexing out of his cotton shirt as he did so. His voice was lower now, smooth and silky. “You didn’t answer me for real. Do you want me to show you?”
Toni leaned in closer, daring him to show her anything that was worth seeing. “And I don’t think you heard me when I answered you. Yes, show me.”
“Promise you’ll keep it between us?”
“Cross my heart and hope to die.” Toni crossed her heart and waited. “I swear to you that I won’t say a word.” Besides, who was she going to tell?
Jules’ eyes began to blaze so bright until it looked like fire would shoot out of his ocular cavities. With his back turned to the large crowd in the room, he moved toward her, hypnotizing and paralyzing her all at the same time.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said in a soothing voice.
“Don’t worry. I’m not,” Toni said in a monotone voice, unable to take her eyes from his.
Jules rubbed his hands together in mischief. “If I’m wrong about you, then you won’t feel anything at all. But if I’m right, and I’m normally right about these things then…” he shrugged, “you’ll be a little clearer in just a second. And from my experience, a little smarter, especially considering that you use more of your brain power – more like 35% instead of ten. But hey, who’s counting.”
Toni laughed at that. No one could use 35% of their brain. Still, she gave him the floor. “Well, do your worse,” she chided.
“How about my best?” Jules asked, stretching his hands out. He curled his hands, drawing in an invisible energy between the width of them. Glancing down, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
Suddenly, the loud music ceased, the people moved in slow motion and an aura of light surrounded him.
“Are you seeing this?” Toni asked, looking around.
“Shhh,” Jules whispered.
Reaching across the bar, Jules placed his index finger in the center of Toni’s forehead. When he did, she felt something akin to fire move through her frontal lobe to the back of her brain and then down her spinal cord and through her body down to her toes.
The surge of foreign energy shot through her nerve endings like she had just been electrocuted.
Falling back in her chair, she glanced up at the ceiling of the bar and released a breath.
DAMN…that felt good. It was orgasmic. A chill ran down her spine, pebbling her nipples and curling her toes.
“Was it as good for you as it was for me,” Jules joked with a wink.
“Shit!” she exclaimed, grabbing the end of the bar and gripping it with her fingers. Suddenly, her vision was clearer, the smells in the bar were more distinct, and then she could hear so very well until if a pin dropped in the loud, busy bar, she would have known.
It took a moment for her process all of her sensations. They were so vivid, so real. It was as if she was just suddenly reborn.
Jules watched in satisfaction. Like he said, he was normally right about these things.
Finally adjusted, she glanced back up at him. “Jules…what the hell did you just do?” her voice tr
ailed off as she looked around the bar. Did anyone else see that?
Everyone in the room seemed to be moving at normal speed, completely unaware that something supernatural had just occurred right under their noses.
Was it magic? Was it a cheap bar trick? Was she losing it?
Jules stood up straight, suddenly appearing taller and more beautiful. He rolled his neck and released a sigh. Witchcraft took it right out of him, but he couldn’t deny that it was always awesome to make a non-believer believe.
Besides, the confused look on Toni’s face was priceless. She went from swearing that the world was flat to orbiting its axis.
“I simply helped you see things better. I moved the spot, like I promised. And in return, you have to keep this a secret like you promised or my brother will kill me.” He pushed her notes to her with a sinister grin crossing his sun-tanned face. “Now, go upstairs, look at your notes again to see what you missed.”
Jules knew that he had crossed a line forbidden by his coven, and if Jericho found out, there would be hell to pay. But if it helped his family like he thought it might, then this would all be worth it.
Toni rubbed a hand through her hair and bit her lip. “What are you, Jules?” she asked, still feeling the waves of energy and heat run through her extremities. She wasn’t ready to just accept that he had shot fire through his fingertips into her body. She needed answers.
But there would be no answers tonight. At least, not from Jules.
“I’m a bartender,” Jules said, like he had not done anything at all.
“No, what are you really?” Toni asked, fascinated by him. She had a thousand questions now, not only about him but also about Jericho. Could they all do this special trick?
“I’m a great bartender,” Jules answered. “Remember, this is our little secret. Now, go.” The last thing he needed was his brother to come waltzing into the bar and notice that she was different.
All clues would lead to him.
So would all hell…
“Okay, I’m going,” she said, shuffling her notes into a pile. Pulling herself from the bar, she glared at him one last time.
Warlocks_The Creole Coven Page 6
