Blue Voodoo: A Romantic Retelling of Bluebeard (The Hidden Kingdom Series Book 2) (6 page)

“I saw it with my own eyes,” Julien continued, warming to his tale and wishing he had a pint of rum handy. “She laid her hands on it and commanded it to stop, to leave the child alone. Parlangua released the child, then whirled on Madame Laveau.” He angled Dominique’s body to flash them her bloodied clothes, satisfied when they sucked in a breath. “I saw the beast flee and Madame Laveau collapsed to the ground. If the
loa
had not led me here…”

The father clasped his hands to his chest. “Is she all right?”

Julien cradled her carefully in his arms. “She will be. So will your son. I insist that you come with me to my home. My servants will care for Madame Laveau and your child. We must give thanks to the
loa
on this most blessed day.”

“We would be grateful for your help,” the father answered solemnly. “And yes, we must praise the
loa
on such a day.”

The woman struggled to her feet, her son clinging to her like a barnacle. The boy’s father tried to help, tried to take him, but the child screamed, his sobbing increasing. The woman held him closer to her, her thin body bowing under the additional weight. The strain showed in the lines on her face, but there was a determined set to her sharp jaw. Her husband stepped back, remaining close enough to help if she needed it.

 Julien glanced up at the sky. His sudden storm was all but gone, though a few dark wisps of cloud stubbornly remained. They served as reminders that he had called a storm and then abandoned it, something that left him jittery with the need to fly, the need to stretch his wings and revel in the wild energy of nature. It would be a small torture to resist that call now that he would have guests to keep him land bound. “Follow me.”

He led the way and the couple fell into line behind him. Despite his attempts to remain composed, irritation soon had Julien biting back a curse every few feet. Each step reminded him of how much he hated the bayou, the incessant sucking of mud at his boots, the trees that seemed childish in their delight for slapping him in the face. The fact that they miraculously avoided so much as brushing Dominique’s cheek only annoyed him further.

“Madame Laveau!”

Julien startled as a woman rushed in their direction. He hadn’t noticed they’d made it out of the bayou and now stood on solid land, not far from a large tent. The door flap still fluttered in the wake of the woman who was striding toward them with quick, long steps. She was slender, nearly as tall as he was, and had eyes like sunlight on golden wheat. Her simple white dress flowed around her legs as she scurried up to him, her gaze locked on Dominique’s unconscious form.

“What happened?” she gasped.

“Madame Laveau saved this boy from Parlangua,” Julien answered immediately.

The woman’s hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, my.”

“I’m taking her to my home where her injuries will be cared for. Hers and the boy’s.” He gestured with his chin behind him at the couple and their child. The boy had finally allowed his father to take him, and his mother looked as though she might fall over at any moment. “We need a carriage.”

The woman’s gaze lingered on his beard for a split second as if she’d only just noticed it. A question formed on her lips, already echoing in Julien’s head, a replay of a scenario he’d been forced to go through far too many times in the last decade.

He pressed his lips together, muffling the urge to say something unpleasant. “The carriage?”

“Of course, of course. Right away.”

She rushed off in a flair of white gauzy material, leaving behind a scent trail of cherries and incense. It didn’t take long for a carriage to be brought to them, not surprising considering the carriage was for an injured Dominique Laveau and the child she’d saved from Parlangua. The
ounsi
that had summoned the carriage for them also provided Julien with a bag of Dominique’s things, clean clothes as well as herbs, bottles, and odds and ends he could only guess at.

 The woman merely smiled at his befuddlement and assured him Dominique would be grateful to have them on hand. He shrugged and thanked her as the carriage pulled away. Air rushed in from the windows, reminding him his clothes were wet and caked with filth from the swamp. They clung to his body, adding to his general discomfort. Dominique’s clothes were no better, and her skirts weighed more than any clothing had a right to, the saturated material lying like a leaden blanket over his legs as he settled her across his lap.

He leaned her head against his shoulder so she could rest comfortably against him and a few strands of her hair tickled his jaw. The curls had escaped the wrap, the cloth now hanging around her like a scarf, leaving her hair wild and free. The luscious brown bounty poured over his shoulder and forearms like a textured curtain of coffee spirals. He lifted his fingers, ready to give in to temptation and brush a few curls back from her face, but then remembered himself and closed his hand, forcing it back to his side.
Do not complicate things any further.

Very soon, they were taken past the city limits by way of a small wooden bridge and emerged on his property. He’d given strict orders that only the house was to be opened, cleaned, and readied for company. The land itself was to be left alone, left to grow as it would, wild and untamed. Un-trespassed on.

Uninvestigated.

Julien studied the trees and bushes,  satisfied to see that his orders had apparently been followed. After only a brief resistance, his gaze traveled to the west, ghosting over the center of his property, hidden by the overgrowth of trees. It was only a trick of the mind that convinced him he could see what lay there, see the solid stone nestled in a natural clearing amidst all that greenery. The mausoleum that held the reminders of what happened if he allowed himself to be pulled from his solitary path. What happened when someone tried to force a fate on him that had befallen far too many of his kind. The bodies of the women who had thought he could be tamed.

Slowly, his gaze fell to Dominique, one of the few women who’d tried and survived to tell the tale. In all the dreams he’d had of her, all the fantasies that forced themselves on his imagination, none of them had been entirely accurate. Dominique was not simply a woman—she was a magic wielder. A voodoo priestess—a voodoo
queen.
To be with her, truly be with her, would seal his fate, subject him to the bonds that were the hallmark of his people. The besotted fools who ran headlong into what was no more than a lifetime of servitude.

That will never be me.

“Master, is everything all right?”

Julien tore his mind away from the gruesome secret in the forest and focused on the servant who had come to meet the carriage. Guillaume’s eyes were brimming with curiosity, though he stood straight at full attention. A curl of blond hair threatened to escape the severe knot at his nape as he craned his head to see all the carriage’s occupants.

“Everything is fine, but the child requires a healer’s attention. Have one sent for immediately and show the boy and his family to a room. They are to be treated as respected guests.”

Guillaume nodded, then gave Dominique’s body a questioning look.

“I will take care of Madame Laveau.” Julien gathered her in his arms, freezing as she stirred. His nerves sizzled and he quickly leapt from the carriage. “Have clean towels and bandages sent to my room.”

He threw the words over his shoulder, trusting the servant to do as he’d instructed. She shifted in his arms again, the small moan of pain falling from her lips urging him to move faster. If she woke here instead of in the relative privacy of his chambers, his guests would get an unfortunate view of the realities of their current relationship.

Dominique’s eyes fluttered open as Julien kicked the door shut behind him, closing them in the privacy of his chambers. Breathing easier now that they were safely away from prying eyes, he carried her to his bed.

“Don’t try to move, Dominique. You’ve been hurt. I’m going to take care of you.”

For a split second, she smiled at him. A real smile that softened her features and lit up her eyes. It took ten years off her, reminded him of the first moment he’d ever laid eyes on her. Before she’d been the voodoo queen of Sanguennay. When she’d been his.

And then reality shattered the illusion. A hiss of pain slid past her lips as he eased her onto the bed, despite his attempts to be as gentle as possible. He stepped back as her brown eyes sharpened, mouth tightening into a hard line.

“Where am I?”

Her voice was hard and painfully detached. The warm tendrils of the past evaporated and Julien firmed his face into a mask of calm confidence and inclined his head.

“You are in my home. You were injured in the swamp and I brought you here to rest.”

The skin around Dominique’s eyes tightened and her breath caught. She glared at him, breathing slowly for several moments as though desperately trying to hold on to her temper.

“Your house. From the swamp. So you brought me through the town, did you? Paraded my unconscious, injured body for all to see? Painted yourself as a knight in shining armor?”

Pain in his palms alerted him to the fact that he was digging his nails into his own hands, his fists clenched so tight they trembled. He’d taken a step in Dominique’s direction and hadn’t even realized it. Slowly, he uncurled his fingers, muscles screaming in protest, pain pricking his skin where blood had swelled to the surface.

“No. I brought you here in a carriage with an injured child and his parents. I told everyone you saved the boy from Parlangua and the
loa
sent me to you to bring you back. I claimed no credit for the battle.”

“The child…” Dominique frowned. “What child?”

“The child Parlangua intended to consume in order to regain the energy it needed to heal.”

Her eyebrows knitted so tightly the skin between them paled. “I don’t understand.”

“There was a child in the swamp with his parents. Parlangua attacked him and I saved him. Then I told the child’s parents that it had been you that saved the child, that I had merely come after the fact.”

He spoke slowly, and as plainly as he could, but the furrow between her eyebrows remained, her eyes still clouded with confusion. “What is troubling you?”

“Parlangua. I don’t… What really harmed the child?”

“
Parlangua
harmed the child.” Julien sat on the bed, refusing to acknowledge the way she leaned away from him. “I injured it after it attacked you and it needed to eat to regain the strength to heal.”

“Parlangua didn’t attack me.” Dominique’s eyes sparked with fresh ire, soft brown irises darkening to the shade of logs burning in the center of a great fire. “That was an accident. An accident that happened because
you
wouldn’t let me go.”

Julien’s mouth opened and closed, words failing him in the face of such blatant naiveté. Perhaps he had been wrong about the young girl hardening into a jaded voodoo queen. At least something of that girl was obviously alive and well.

Perhaps that is not the only part of that girl that survived the years.

He planted a hand on the supple sheets of the bed, now damp from the moisture leeched from Dominique’s skirts.

“Ten years and still so innocent.” He leaned closer, deliberately invading her personal space. “You really believe Parlangua is incapable of harming a child?”

Dominique sank backward but then she mirrored his position, leaning closer to him as she clutched at the sheets to keep her balance. “Parlangua has never harmed me. It has been a friend of my family for generations.”

“You are a priestess,” Julien scoffed. “You come from a powerful family. Of course Parlangua would make an attempt to ally itself with you. The child on the other hand is just a child. Parlangua was injured, it needed food.”

“Parlangua eats deer, birds, fish.”

“Yes, but it found the child
first
.” He studied her as if he could see past her skin, to the soul beneath. Her reputation had spread far beyond Sanguennay, carried by sailors and merchants across the seven seas. Surely a woman with such a fierce reputation could not truly be this misguided? The stubborn set remained in her jaw, her tone final, unhesitating. Awed, Julien sat back. “What is it like to live in your black and white world? To see no grey, for everyone around you to be good or evil with no betwixt or between?”

“Do not talk to me as though I were a child.” She shoved at him as if she had every intention of climbing off the bed, but she halted, her fingers clinging to his shirt as she choked back a gasp of pain.

“If you do not wish to be treated as a child, then stop acting like one.” Julien firmly grasped her by the shoulders and guided her to roll over and lie on her stomach. “Parlangua can be your friend and still be a creature that will eat a human child if circumstances warrant. There was no malice on the part of Parlangua, no evil. When will you learn that sometimes food is just food, and—”

Chapter Five

“And sex is just sex?” Dominique finished. The pain in her back lessened, her mind distracted from her physical discomfort by the sharp spike of pain in her heart. Pain she had no business feeling at her age, pain that belonged to a younger woman, a foolish woman. A woman who’d given in to a fantasy and had suffered the consequences of that capitulation far after the act itself had ended.

Humiliation burned Dominique’s face, but she resisted the urge to push it away. Instead, she forced herself to feel it, to wallow in it. She needed this, this reminder of what foolish emotions brought. What happened to a woman who put too much value on a pretty face and physical attraction.

Julien’s hands faltered, the bandages he’d been plucking at sagging briefly in his hands. “Dominique…”

There was a knock at the door, sparing Julien from finishing his sentence. He practically fell off the bed in a mad dash for the door. His servant jumped as he ripped the door open, the basket in his left hand jerked, rattling the bottles of healing ointment until they tumbled to their sides against a nest of clean bandages. The deep bowl he held in his other hand tilted, splashing water onto the floor. Julien accepted the basket and the bowl and quickly kicked the door shut.