He came through the door with a fork still clutched in his hand and residue from his beef au jus on his mouth. His newly blonde hair was striking, taking Toni off guard until she remembered what had happened. But the same old feeling rushed through her – unconditional, unimaginable, untamable love.
“I felt you wake,” he explained, stopping only when he arrived beside Nadia at the side of the bed. Bending, he kissed Toni’s lips, inhaling her scent as he clenched his eyes closed. “Thank God.”
“The fever is gone,” Nadia said, clapping Jericho on his shoulder. “She’s all yours now.” Smiling once more at Toni, she excused herself and closed the door, leaving the new couple to lick each other’s wounds.
“So that’s Nadia,” Toni said, raising a brow. “She’s stunning.”
“Yes, she is,” he replied absently. Jericho wasn’t interested in introductions or compliments at the moment. He just wanted to make sure that Toni was alright. Sitting on the bed beside her, he leaned an arm over her body. “You scared the hell out of me, woman. Don’t you ever do that again.” His voice was stern now, determined to make his point. But his face was awash with endearment.
Moving the wild strands of hair from her face, he marveled at how beautiful she was. Trailing a thumb over her cheek, he recalled the pain he felt when he thought she might never come out of her slumber.
“Cross my heart.” Toni reached out and touched his face. It was good to see him again. While the time had gone by without her knowing, it had been far too long since she had laid eyes on him.
Jericho intertwined his fingers in hers and shook his head. “I have so much to say.”
“So do I.” She pushed up against the headboard. “But I imagine we have all the time in the world to say what we need to say now.”
“Some things cannot wait.” Jericho sat up and released her hand. He had promised God that if He reunited the two of them, he’d come clean. Now, it was time to keep that promise. “I did something, Toni. Something I’m not proud of, because I didn’t tell you.”
She watched him as he battled with how to explain himself. Everything about him was tense. His blonde brows knitted, his muscles knotted.
Needing a little space, he stood up and went over to pour her a glass of water. Bringing the glass back to her, he watched her quench her thirst.
“Thank you,” Toni muttered, adjusting in bed. “I think I know what you’re going to say.”
“Oh, trust me. You don’t.”
Toni rubbed her stomach. She had a clue. “How is he?” She trailed her gaze from her abdomen up to him.
Jericho nodded his head like at any moment he might shed a tear. “He’s fine. He’s safe. No harm was done.” Frowning, he got on his knees beside the bed and pushed his elbows down in the cushion of the mattress. “How…how did you know?” His guilt had consumed him while she was resting. In his mind, he went over and over how to explain himself, praying that his explanation would be good enough to keep her from leaving him.
“Ophelia told me,” Toni said, rolling her neck. “But I’m glad that you did too. It sounds much better from your lips.” She could see that a weight was lifted from his broad shoulders. “When did you know?”
Jericho felt the explanation leap from his lips. “When I left you back at the hotel and came back here, my father told me. He could sense the child when he first saw you at breakfast. He told me it was imperative that I tell you at once. Our kind gestate faster than humans. We are only carried in the womb for six months. If we are born in the hospital, the doctor just assumes we are healthy preemies. But I promise you, it was not my intention to impregnate you without your knowledge. When we made love, I felt something powerful. I knew that I had released myself into you, joined with you, married my flesh to yours, and I did so without making my intentions plain. But you have to understand that I could not control myself. I tried. I truly, honestly, tried.” He took Toni’s hand again and clenched his jaw tight. Drawing in a long, deep breath that made his chest swell, he looked into her eyes and faced her. “I never meant to deceive you, Antonia. I love you, even though it has only been a short period of time since I met you, you have to believe that I’ve waited for 300 years to be with you and I would never do anything to purposefully hurt you. I was stupid. I was selfish. I was negligent, but I promise, I did not set out maliciously to bond with you without your knowledge.” The thud of his heart, had it been audible, would have boomed in the room like a drum. He waited for her verdict – guilty or not guilty. Knowing Toni and her objection to submission in any form, he could just about imagine her response.
While Toni enjoyed watching a man who was normally so smug grovel, she had to stop him. “Jericho, I believe you. It’s okay. Really.” She said so freely and without conflict.
Toni’s perspective on life had changed dramatically over the last week, and there was a lot that she was confused about, but he was not one of those things. “I think I released myself to you as well that night. I just didn’t know what was happening. I love you very much, and you are pigheaded, but you’re no monster. I believe you were just as lost in this as I was. And I couldn’t imagine being married to anyone else now that you’ve gone and ruined it for everyone on the planet.”
“Are you only saying that because it’s already done?” Jericho asked.
“No,” she answered quickly. Seeing his guilt still lingering on his tattered edges, she gave him a little more insight. “Before I met you, I thought I couldn’t have kids. I’d never had a pregnancy scare, never missed a cycle, never used birth control except to protect against other stuff. I thought kids were out of my reach.”
Jericho imagined that was torturous for her. “As the chosen one, you can’t…mate with a human. Even if you had tried, it would never have worked.” He was glad of it, though he dared not show.
“Well, I didn’t know that, but it explains a hell of a lot,” she said sarcastically. Shrugging, she smiled at him. “Regardless, I don’t regret it. And I don’t regret this baby,” she assured. “But it is comforting to know that you are willing to be honest with me no matter the outcome.”
“I’ll always be honest with you. I’ll never lie to you,” he promised sincerely.
“And just because we are married by your warlock standards, doesn’t meant that you stop courting me. You still have to do all the traditional stuff – propose, help plan a wedding…”
Jericho cut her off in his excitement. “Whatever you want. However you want it. You’re my wife now – a Laveau. Everything I own, everything I am, is yours…forever.” His vision still showed her in a white wedding gown, but at that moment, it was no longer at this house. He quickly pushed the thought out of his head. Who cared about semantics? She had forgiven him. That was all that mattered. Pulling her hand to him, he kissed it. “I have to admit, I had imagined it going much worse than this.”
“Well, if you ever keep anything from me again it will,” she warned with the same serious tone he had given her earlier. “But this one time, I’ll give you a pass.”
“Oh, you will?” he asked, playfully.
“Yeah, this once. I can be gracious when I want to.” Her smile faded. “And plus, you did sort of save my life back at the hotel. I was drowning in that room. God only knows what would have happened if you didn’t burst through the door with your family.”
“Our family,” he corrected. “I have every faith in you that even if we had not arrived, you would have prevailed. You are much stronger than you know. And over time, you’ll only get stronger.”
“How did you know I was there?” she asked, remembering the fear that she experienced when she realized she was alone.
“I felt you.” Jericho touched his chest. “In here. The pull was unexplainable. I had never felt it before. It was like someone pumped pure adrenaline straight through my heart. I was here at the house with the family when I felt you cross the threshold of your hotel room. I tried ringing your cell. I called to the room. And then I called the
front desk to see if they knew anything. Anna told me you had come down and gotten a key less than a half hour before I called. By then, we were already in route. Then I felt another pull, this one was even stronger. It paralyzed me. Thank God I wasn’t driving. My father pressed the gas, and we hightailed it to the hotel. Jules was casting spells from the back seat left and right to keep the police from pulling us over and to keep us from killing someone on the way. I just prayed that I could get to you in time.”
She was ashamed that she had put everyone in peril. Hearing what she had put him through only made her feel worse. “Jericho, I’m so sorry. I know you told me not to leave, but I saw the pentagram in my vision, and I went to make sure…”
Jericho put a finger over her lips to silence her. His voice was tender. “You did what you had to do…that time. If you had not, Ophelia might have slipped through our fingers or cost someone else their life. She might have been able to hurt the baby. What happened was meant to happen.”
“I guess that prophecy stuff is real.”
“It’s all very real,” Jericho said with conviction. “Now that we have joined and are married, all the things we talked about will happen. You’ll never age beyond the day you came into your full power. Never gain weight. Never get sick. Never grow old. A new era has been ushered in. My brothers and their wives will have children now…finally. And we will have our own.”
Toni realized he was trying to bring out the good points, but she still remembered the flip side to the coin. “We won one battle. The circle is complete, and we have this new power as the reigning coven, but that doesn’t stop the bad one from being born, does it?”
“Afraid not. It just gives us the upper hand.” Jericho knew their future would be filled with great and terrible things, but he didn’t want to concentrate on the bad things now. “Let’s just hope that it takes a while for Ophelia’s last son to find his mate. By then, we should be long gone, off in another country, somewhere where our children can grow up safely.”
Toni had her thinking cap on now. “She said last night that she felt it the exact moment when we bonded. Will we feel the same when her son bonds with his mate?”
“We’ll feel the last bond. Because they are of the dark, it will be a catastrophic event. According to the prophecy, the sky will go black and the earth will separate.”
Toni sniffed. “Talk about dramatic. Why didn’t we get fireworks when we bonded?”
“We did, you just didn’t know it,” he said, blushing a little. “You were more than a little occupied.”
Wanting to move beyond that conversation, she turned to something lighter. “You look a mess,” she said, noting his wrinkled shirt and jeans.
“Well, I haven’t exactly been interested in hitting the spa,” he joked. “But if my odor offends you, I’ll wash it off.”
Toni laughed. “Only if you wash mine off too.” She scrubbed a hand over her face and noted her less-than-sexy morning breath. “How long was I out exactly?”
“This is your third day.”
“So, much for the story. My boss is going to fire me anyway when he finds out that I have nothing to report after being in New Orleans for a week. I might as well just quit.” Somehow, it wasn’t the important thing in her life anymore.
“Are you sure that you want to quit?” he asked, relieved that she was finally putting things into perspective.
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure. I’ll call him today and face the music. But for now, I want to get out of this bed.” Waving for him, she reached out her hand. “Here, help me up,” she said, pulling the covers from her legs.
“Are you sure?” Jericho asked, not wanting to push her to move to fast. He stood up and helped her.
“I’m absolutely sure.” Toni caught his hand and pulled her legs over the side of the bed. Wiggling her toes, she stretched. “That feels better already.”
Jericho had a thought. “Well, the entire family is downstairs eating lunch. You want to go down and see them? The wives are all dying to meet you.”
Toni looked toward the bathroom door. She was dying for hot water to stream over her aching parts and wash away the funk of Ophelia. “I think it best to tidy up first. Witches. Warlocks. Angels. Humans. No matter the being, first impressions still matter.”
***
Family had never been Toni’s strong suit. Over the years, even though her adopted parents had showered her with an abundance of love and affection, she had grown apart from them, especially after they told her that she was not biologically theirs, when she was ten years old.
They had tried hard with her, but she had been indelibly broken.
Not having kids of their own and being late in life when they started to try to make a family, Toni had been their only child, their only chance, but for her, she always felt like a guest in their home, which created a divide – them vs. her.
It was never an intention by Toni to do so; it just naturally happened – mostly due to her own anger and confusion.
She wanted answers and was always ready to ask why, but they didn’t have answers.
No one did.
Her adopted mother would always marvel at how Toni didn’t remember anything before the adoption, considering that she was in elementary school when she came to live with them. But Toni couldn’t remember a thing and would often be reduced to tears and tantrums when anyone asked her about her mental gap.
After years of battling with the child, her adopted mother chalked it up to the psychological trauma of being put up for adoption by her mother. The files were sealed on the adoption, and there was no way to trace the biological mother or her origins, which left more questions for the bright, young child and even more disenchantment.
In an effort to help ease her pain, Toni was sent to a shrink for several years as a pre-teen and teenager. Still, nothing seemed to help her – nothing except writing. She turned her journals into a love for journalism and never looked back, because at least there in that world, she could seek out answers to other people’s questions and give closure to those who needed it.
After graduating from high school, Toni saw everyone different, trusted no one but herself, and had an even harder time connecting with people on an intimate level.
The doctors tested her for autism and diagnosed her with Asperger Syndrome, but Toni never believed the diagnosis. Neither did her adopted parents.
Eventually after years of toiling over the infertile soil of their relationship, Toni just stopped trying all together, and when her adopted parents were killed by a drunk driver while vacationing in Texas while she was in graduate school, Toni put to bed any hopes of having a family.
Personal relationships became even more strained after that.
If she didn’t purposefully ruin a relationship with a lover on her own, she didn’t lament when the other person did it. It was just an easy out, a reason to wipe her hands and move on.
Now, she had come full circle.
By a miraculous chain of events, she was being offered a family again. This time, they provided answers to her questions and closure for her open wounds.
This time, she wouldn’t muck it up.
When she came downstairs, holding on to Jericho, she found the dining table set with fine foods and the entire family around it. The leaf had been added to extend the space and there they awaited upon hearing that the newest member of their family had finally awakened.
They all stood to greet her. Forming a line, they hugged her tight and introduced themselves one by one.
Jules and his wife Nadia, Jonas and his Asian wife Akemi, Jacob and his Mexican wife Maria, John and his Jewish wife Ella and Joshua and his Jordanian wife Hala and at the end of the line was Lafayette, who greeted her with the biggest hug of all.
“Talk about a family reunion,” Toni said as they laughed.
Taking their seats around the table, she was set beside her husband, feeling for the first time truly a part of something.
The jovial mood of the
house was electric. Everyone was full of smiles and love. They kissed their mates and held hands, told stories of how they first met and asked a thousand questions of Toni.
She noticed in the middle of the spread was the book that Jericho had in his bedroom the morning after her extraordinary vision.
Jericho caught her eyeing it and winked at her. Wiping his mouth with a napkin, he rose up and grabbed the book with both hands. Placing the leather-bound treasure beside her on the table, he unlocked and offered it up to her.
“Everything you want to know is in there,” he said as the room fell silent.
Toni looked over at Lafayette, who urged her to open it.
“Go on. It won’t bite you,” he said, putting down his fork and knife.
Slowly, Toni opened the book to the first page and saw the inscription. It was in red ink or blood. She rubbed her hand over it.
From your brother, Gabriel.
“Is this who I think it is?” she asked Lafayette.
“It is,” Lafayette answered, knitting his hands together.
Toni’s breath caught in her chest. “I can’t believe I’m reading this.” Turning the gold leafed parchment pages carefully, she read the ancient text, unable to determine its origins.
“Out loud, Souer!” Nadia cheered Toni on with clasped hands. “After all, not many can ever say that they have read words written by the archangel Gabriel.”
“You’ve got a point,” Toni said, turning to a page in the middle of the book. She didn’t know why she went to it, but it just called to her. When she focused on the words, they magically pulled off the pages in gold waves. The tingling in her fingers as she rubbed over the pages was invigorating.
“Does it always feel like this?” she asked Jericho.
“Holy texts always do,” he said, rubbing her back.
Toni looked around at everyone waiting for her to read her first words from the Prophecy and experience yet another divine phenomenon. “Okay, here goes.” Clearing her throat, she raised her voice. “And the old fallen, who still loved God and had spilled no blood of other messengers, had one more blessing bestowed upon them after the conception of the dark heir. When the earth split, they who had once been shunned, were given black wings to ascend. No more did they bind to themselves to earthly families. No more did they care about earthly treasures. They were called to the highest mountain on Earth, where each was given an edict from their brethren still in grace with God in order to prepare for the final war, which would take place on soils of blood for the souls of man. For in this war, they would prove themselves worthy of His love and find eternal grace again.”
Warlocks_The Creole Coven Page 18
