Spells (Bayou Magic 2)

I’ve just finished filling my basket when the darkness descends, leaving me completely blind.

“You can’t fool me,” I say aloud, my voice perfectly calm despite the quick pulse in my neck. The taunts have come more often of late, just as Lucien said they would.

Lucien’s just inside, and I try to talk to him through our special door. We cast the spell three years ago and never closed it.

I need you in the garden.

I feel the words slam against the side of my mind as if they’re stuck there. How did he close our door?

“Lucien!” I yell but am met with only an evil laugh.

“Millicent, you know the only man that can protect you is me. Not that pitiful excuse you married. Only me. When are you going to learn? When will you see?”

I start to chant, the words Lucien made me promise to memorize for moments just like this one.

He’s not laughing now.

“You dumb bitch! You can’t escape me. You can’t escape your destiny. I’ll show you.”

The blackness clears, and I’m once again in the garden with Tarot, weaving between my legs and meowing, and Sabrina sleeping soundly in her carriage.

What in the hell is happening?

I hear Lucien’s voice now, and I know he’s running through the house to the back door. I turn just as he slams out of the house and runs down the steps to me.

“He was here,” I say, immediately relieved when he wraps me in his strong arms. “He tried to confuse me again. I used the spell you gave me, and he left. Angry.”

“I’m sure he did.” Lucien’s voice is hard. “He grows stronger, Mill. We need the others. The six.”

“I know,” I reply, feeling helpless. “But I can’t make my sisters understand or even want to help us.”

“He’s managed to block their gifts in this life,” my dear one says in frustration. “It could lead to our defeat.”

“Don’t say that.”

I sit up, gasping for breath, and find that I’m safe and in bed at Lucien’s house.

Our house.

The house from my dream.

It’s a beautiful historic home in the Garden District of New Orleans that wasn’t even new when we bought it in the last lifetime. It’s old. If I remember correctly, it was built in about 1850, predating the civil war. But it’s been lovingly cared for and updated. A person would never know that it’s almost two hundred years old.

I feel Lucien shift next to me, and suddenly, a single candle springs to life at the side of the bed, casting us in a soft glow.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

“Yeah, I just had a dream. Or a memory, I guess.” I fill him in and turn onto my stomach, bracing my head on my hands as I watch his handsome face, his eyes still filled with a little sleep. “I loved this house then.”

“Yes, you did.”

“You made me feel like a queen when you bought it for me.”

He smiles and drags his finger down my cheek. “Good. I hope you still love it. If you don’t, we can move.”

“I mean, the real estate must be worth a fortune now,” I say as if I would ever consider selling this house. “Much more than the twenty-six thousand dollars you paid for it once upon a time.”

He shifts closer. “You are remembering more.”

“Yeah, it’s coming in little bits here and there. I don’t want to leave this house, Lucien. It’s beautiful. Big, but gorgeous.”

“Well, just let me know if you get tired of it.”

“Aren’t you attached to it? I mean, you bought it back.”

“It’s only sentimental to me because you loved it so much. I don’t need a house this big just for me.”

I lean in and kiss him, then slide my body over his in one fluid motion, needing the connection that only comes from making love with him. I let the dream slide away until it’s only this.

Only us.* * *“So, are you guys, like, gonna get married?” Daphne asks me a few days later. Witches Brew closes soon for the day, and I’m sitting in the reading area with my sisters, enjoying some needed time with them while Esme closes up the dining room.

I owe Esme a raise. She’s been kicking ass this week.

“He hasn’t asked me,” I admit with a shrug.

“If he does ask?” Brielle inquires.

“Sure, I’ll marry him. Again.”

“It’s so weird,” Daphne says, shaking her head. “If we’ve all lived throughout all these different lifetimes over the past thousand years, why don’t Brielle and I remember, too?”

“Because that’s not how it’s meant to be for us,” Brielle answers. “Because this part of the journey is for Millie and Lucien.”

“Which means I’m next.” Daphne sighs.

“We’ve been told since this began that there will be six of us,” I remind her. “Cash and Brielle, Lucien and me, and you and someone.”

“I don’t know who,” she says, exasperation almost pouring out of her.