Page 11 of Bewitched By the Voodoo King (The Bewitching Hour #7)

Piles of paperwork were stacked high on my desk.

Couldn’t it all be magic and that be it?

Why did I have to make sure the water bill was still paid or ensure people got salaries from their shops in town?

I scrubbed my hands down my face as I looked over everything that needed to be done before the weekend was over.

I sat back in the leather desk chair and weighed my options.

Louis tapped on the door before he entered the room. “What has you all up in knots?”

“Where do I start?” I sighed. “We could start with the marriage contract that I didn’t know about until my father’s death.

The one that states our marriage was binding the moment it was signed.

The fact that the coven will lose its mind if they find out that this is a contract .

But I just broke up with Babette two weeks before I technically got married. ”

Louis took a seat across from me and kicked one ankle over his knee. “The sooner you tell the coven you’re married, the better, but it won’t look good. It will look like you were cheating on Babette.”

I pulled my hands down my face. “I know, so that’s why I’m trying to keep all of this a secret. She’s new here, maybe the more I hang around her, the rumor will start that we are dating.”

Louis rolled his eyes. “You know the coven is already wondering why she’s here. They aren’t going to believe you just started dating out of the blue.”

I leaned forward against my desk. “Then I guess we better start a new rumor.”

Louis’ brows jumped on his forehead and it pulled the skin around the scar that stretched across his face. “Tell me what you need me to do.”

“I’m thinking we start a rumor that is centered around the truth. She’s here to help with the wolves, she has an affinity or her magic can help.”

“What is her magic?” Louis frowned.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “We haven’t exactly spoken much.”

I leaned back in my chair, the leather creaking beneath the weight of my exhaustion.

Louis shook his head. “You can’t afford to not know, Rune.”

Anger fizzled under my skin. “You think I don’t know that? I’m well aware of what is at stake here.”

Louis held his hands up in surrender and rose from his chair. “I’m just trying to help you. There’s no reason for you to do this alone.”

“My father did it alone,” I muttered.

Louis looked at the portrait of my father on the wall. “And look where all of that got him.”

My jaw clenched. “He did what he had to do.”

“And so will you,” Louis said, his voice softer now. “But don’t make the mistake of thinking you have to do it the same way. You have people. Use them.”

I let out a slow breath. “I just need more time.”

“You don’t have time,” Louis said flatly.

“The wolves are moving faster, the coven’s growing restless, and now we’ve got a girl in a silk skirt and combat boots being whispered about in every hallway.

” He gave me a pointed look. “People want answers. You can either give them the ones you choose or wait until someone else starts making up their own.”

I didn’t respond. I couldn’t. Because he was right. Again.

Louis lingered by the door for a moment, then added, “If you’re not going to talk to her like a husband, then at least talk to her like a leader. She’s not stupid. She’ll know what’s at stake.”

Talk to her like her husband? She didn’t even know we were actually married.

I’d managed to make all of this harder and worse on myself when I should have come clean from the beginning but admitting we were already married meant she would have to be in my quarters, taking up my space and I didn’t know how I could keep her away when she was that close.

I shoved away from the desk and stood up. I rolled my shoulders back as I thought about everything that needed my attention. I’d written the checks and signed off on paperwork, now all I needed to do was find Maple.

Maple wasn’t in her room, the kitchen, the library, or even Adelle’s room. Adelle was also nowhere to be found, which meant only one thing… Trouble.

I didn’t like using my death magic. I’d never been fond of speaking to the ancestors or calling on spirits but tonight I needed to.

It could have been life or death. I stalked to my quarters and yanked an old worn grimoire off of the shelf in my living room.

The pages of the old grimoire cracked as I opened it, the scent of age and ash curling up like a whisper.

My fingertips brushed across the ink-stained runes, each one vibrating faintly with power long asleep.

My father had given me this book though I wasn’t sure it had ever been used by him as he was a diviner and didn’t have death magic in his blood.

I’d only used it twice—both during moments when the veil between life and death was too thin for comfort.

Tonight the veil between life and death wasn’t thin but I needed the ancestors anyway.

The runes pulsed beneath my touch, like they were waking up just as reluctantly as I was to use them. I muttered the old words under my breath, the language unfamiliar on my tongue but buried deep in my bones. Death magic wasn’t about light shows or dramatic bursts of power. It was quiet and cold.

I dropped to my knees before the stone hearth in the center of the room, the only place in this entire compound where my magic ever felt like it truly belonged.

The shadows bent toward me, curling like fingers across the floor.

I grabbed the chalk from the box tucked inside the grimoire’s cover and began drawing the summoning circle with careful precision.

“I seek what is mine,” I said calmly, though my jaw clenched tight. “Where is she?”

The smoke twisted violently, forming an outline—two figures in the dark. One unmistakably Maple. The other... Adelle? It was hard to tell. It shifted again, but this time the outline was male.

She tastes spirits not of the dead.

I let out a breath. “Is she in the Quarter?”

Would you like us to lead you to her?

“Yes.”

The figures in shadows before me twisted and turned before they began crawling across the floor. No one else would be able to see them but me.

I stood and grabbed my father’s cane from behind the door. It had helped him harness and wield his diviner’s magic. It did nothing for my death magic, but it gave me a soothing comfort. On top of that, it also stated my status within New Orleans and the Quarter.

Wherever Maple was, I was going to find her. And if Adelle had dragged her into the Quarter, to the one place where spirits didn’t sleep, where power was unruly and wild…

She and I were going to have a very long conversation.