Spells (Bayou Magic 2)

I shake my head, thinking of my mother.

“Anyway, I’d written down many of the recipes from memory and went searching for a coven as soon as I could. That’s when I found Miss Sophia. It was as if it was always meant to be.”

“Because it was,” he replies with a soft smile. “And when I saw you walk into our circle during that Samhain ritual you spoke of earlier, it was as if the final piece of a puzzle snapped into place. I knew you immediately. But it didn’t scare me at all.”

“Lucky,” I murmur. “I’ve been scared literally all of my life, Lucien. It’s exhausting.”

“I hate that for you.”

I don’t know what to say to that, so I reach for the knife and continue slicing the bread. Suddenly, Lucien covers my hand with his.

“Why are you so nervous around me, Millicent?”

I frown, ready to deny the statement, but then I change my mind.

“Because I think you could bring a lot of chaos to my life, Lucien. And I’ve done my best to avoid chaos since I left that miserable house half a lifetime ago.”

He cups my cheek, and the heat that stirs is undeniable.

“I’m not responsible for that chaos,” he says softly as his thumb makes small circles on the apple of my cheek. “And I can bring more than that if you let me.”

I sigh and lean into him. The magnetism between us is off the charts. It’s a longing that I can’t even begin to describe. I want to be near him, to care about him and have him with me. It’s as if I…miss him.

Though as far as I can remember, I’ve never been touched by him.

But this is as familiar as it gets for me. It’s as if I’m hugging my sister, as if I’ve done it hundreds of times.

Except I’ve never felt this kind of pull before, this kind of sexual energy.

Allowing myself to touch him, my hand glides up his side and over his shoulder. He turns me to face him fully and moves me so I’m flush against him, chest to knees.

“I’ve been waiting a long time for this.” The words are almost a growl before he lowers his lips to mine. The kiss is all heat, even from the first touch. His hands plunge into my hair, and I hold on tightly, my hands anchored to his shoulders as he tastes and explores.

When he pulls back, his ice-blue eyes have darkened to a deep indigo, and he breathes hard as he stares down at me.

“Wow,” I whisper and then frown. “Do you smell something burning?”

I blink rapidly, trying to clear the fog of lust from my brain, and see smoke coming out of my oven.

“Shit!”

Lucien and I work together, quickly taking the burnt lasagna from the oven and then out of the house altogether as we turn on fans and open windows.

I swirl the air, trying to get the stench out of the room.

When we’ve cleaned up the mess, we stare at each other for a heartbeat before dissolving into laughter.

“Well, that was a first,” I say, wiping a tear from my eye. “I guess we’re not having lasagna, after all.”

“Sure we are,” he says. “We’ll go out for it.”

“Good idea.”* * *“This is going to be so much fun,” Mallory Boudreaux, a friend of mine, says the following day. She and I are standing out on the sidewalk in front of Witches Brew with Dahlia, making plans for our Halloween street festival that’s coming up in just a couple of weeks.

With Black Dahlia just across the street from my business, and Bayou Botanicals, Mallory’s shop, just a block down, we always enjoy putting our heads together to organize a fantastic French Quarter Halloween party. We’re always the talk of the town.

“We’ll have our standard tents set up for vendors,” I say, picturing it all in my head. “And, of course, Brew will be open for cauldrons of hot chocolate.”

“You should serve blood,” Dahlia adds, earning weird looks from both Mallory and myself. “In the cauldrons.”

“Uh…ew,” Mallory says.

“Yeah, that’s disgusting.”

“And when the trick or treaters come through,” Dahlia continues, “we should give every other kid an eyeball.”

“What the heck is wrong with you?” Mallory asks, but Dahlia just laughs and shakes her head.

“You guys, it’s Halloween. They make candy eyeballs, and I’m quite certain you could add something to the punch or hot chocolate to make it look like blood. Come on, get in the holiday spirit here.”

“I don’t want to force any kid to seek out therapy,” I say, shaking my head. “So I’ll pass on that. Now, we’ll need at least thirty Jack-o-lanterns to line the sidewalk. I already spoke to the city, and we’ve been given permission to block the street to vehicle traffic. Dahlia, are you going to make black rose bouquets for the vendor tables again this year?”