Page 45 of Bewitched By the Voodoo King (The Bewitching Hour #7)

The bread squished beneath my hands as I watched the clock above the stove.

Rune had been gone for hours, and there was no way I was going to sleep knowing he wasn’t back and was out there alone.

I’d thought he would have at least taken Louis with him, but nope, Louis was currently munching—quite loudly —on chips in the corner of the kitchen.

Adelle was scrolling through social media on her phone, and I was back to ignoring mine.

Maggie had trained her eye on me most of the night until she gave up and threatened me if I left shit all in her kitchen. I would definitely be cleaning up after myself.

At least with this loaf of bread, I could pretend I was in control of something. I took another deep breath as someone burst into the kitchen. Louis sprang to his feet and assumed a warrior pose—I supposed, though I wasn’t really sure, considering he was wearing pajamas.

The small woman looked at us with wide eyes. “We have visitors.”

Adelle straightened where she was slumped over the counter and frowned. “What do you mean?”

The woman looked me up and down before her gaze snapped between Louis and Adelle. “They said they’re the parents of the Voodoo Queen. Which is odd because I didn’t think Rune had married Maple… Didn’t they just start dating?”

Adelle’s lips formed an O, and she snapped to attention, all while I was rooted in place. Rune was gone, but somehow my parents were here.

“They’re in the courtyard.”

“What perfect timing,” Louis chuckled.

Adelle rolled her eyes. “This is very bad. How can you laugh at a time like this?”

Louis shrugged as he led the way out of the kitchen, but all I could do was stare down at my dough-covered hands. My parents were here, and they’d told people I was the queen of this coven when the coven didn’t even know we were married. This was not good, not good at all.

Adelle wrapped her fingers around one of my dough-less wrists and led me to the sink to wash up, all while Louis waited in the doorway with his eyebrows at his hairline.

Even though my heart ached from everything they had done to me, I couldn’t stop myself from rushing into their arms. “Papa!” I sobbed as he wrapped his arms around me and kissed my hairline.

He smelled like home, and somehow, it made the moisture in my eyes only worse.

I couldn’t believe they were here. My mother rubbed circles on my back as they both held onto me like they were my lifeline…

like they hadn’t lied to me my entire life.

My body still stayed rigid under their attention.

“We tried calling, but when you never answered, we grew worried,” Papa murmured into my hair.

I sniffled into his worn flannel shirt and almost laughed at how they were dressed.

Definitely not the appropriate attire for the south, even though we were in November now.

Some of the days were chilly, but it only lasted for a few hours before you regretted the long sleeves you donned in the morning.

The air was still heavy with humidity, but at least it wasn’t blazing hot out.

My dad pulled back and his warm brown eyes searched my face. “Are you okay? Did we make a mistake?”

My heart only ached worse with his words.

I shook my head. I would never say coming here was a mistake.

I’d learned more about myself here in such a short period of time than I had in my entire life back at home.

Even though this wasn’t a mistake , I still felt the urge to scream in their faces. How could they ?

Before I could say anything, two people stepped into the courtyard behind my parents.

Two people I hadn’t seen in a very long time.

They’d hardly aged a day, which was funny considering they’d sworn off their magic.

My stomach plummeted as I really looked at my grandparents for the first time since I was nine years old.

The two people who had left me to a life of shame and whispers.

Oh, Ancestors, where was Rune?

“Hello, Maple,” my grandmother was the first to speak. “It’s been a long time.”

“Was it you?” There was no point in pleasantries; I was past that. I wanted answers. I deserved answers. “The one that stole my magic away.”

Her shoulders slumped under my brutal scrutiny.

“There are so many things I want to say. There were so many things I needed to say back then.” She licked her lips and closed her eyes.

“Locking your magic up was the last thing I wanted to do, but after your mother’s vision, we thought we had no other choice. ”

My gaze left my grandmother and jumped to my mom.

The woman that held me through most of my heartache and despair growing up, all the while she’d known.

Not only had she known, but she’d been a part of the problem.

My papa gripped the back of my neck and rubbed circles there.

Once in my childhood, it would have relaxed me; now all it did was make me sadder.

“That last thing you wanted to do? Had no other choice? How about telling me instead of letting me grow up feeling hollow? I wondered every single moment why I was the outcast, why I was broken.” I let out a bitter laugh.

“And you both escaped from having to watch what you did. All the while, I wasn’t really an outcast; instead, I was just an experiment to you all. ”

Adelle shifted on her feet behind me, and I knew she wanted to come to my rescue. I took a deep breath as all of their faces fell.

“I want to know why.” Another harsh laugh passed my lips. “I deserve to know why, and then you can all go back to the one place I never want to see again.”

There was so much to unpack with them standing before me, but I didn’t have time when I wanted answers myself. Closure would have to come later.

My mom took a step forward and tried to pick my hand up in hers. I pulled away from her touch and my father's while I crossed my arms in defiance. I wasn’t going to be placated by them any longer. The only comfort I wanted was in the arms of the Voodoo King, and I didn’t even know if he was okay.

Mom stepped away from me and sighed. “I had a vision that you would destroy not only an entire coven but also an entire wolf pack. There was blood and devastation everywhere. Your magic ripped through the entire town. I’d never seen anything like it before.

I was terrified of what you might become and what we would have to do if you did such a thing. ”

I blinked at her, unsure of what to say.

Instead, my grandfather spoke for the first time.

“We knew about curses that would lock magic away, and we knew what it would cost for us, but we couldn’t let your magic not only destroy you but also an entire town.

If we’d allowed that, then we would have had to lock you up.

Visions, though, they aren’t set in stone…

they must be taken as fact. If we hadn’t locked your magic away, then we would have had to have locked you away to prevent the vision from coming true. ”

“And when you knew the vision might still come true when they called for aid?” How did this make any sense?

My papa’s shoulders slumped even further.

“We thought that you growing up without magic was better than being jailed for something you might never do. When this coven called requesting aid, we knew that it would be okay. The curse would prevent you from harming anyone, and your magic would stay locked up.”

“Until it didn’t,” I whispered, mostly to myself.

My grandmother nodded. “Until it didn’t because you needed your magic more, and it knew that. There wasn’t a force in this universe that would keep it from you.”

“So let me get this straight. You saw one possible version of me—a monster—and instead of trusting me, you made me one. You stole my life, my magic, and my choices. You didn’t save me. You destroyed me long before that vision ever could.”

“No one destroyed you, Maple,” Rune’s voice had me whipping around so quickly I stumbled over my own feet.

He was covered in swamp muck and sweat, but none of that mattered.

Relief slammed into my chest as I ran as quickly as I could to him.

My family didn’t matter. The answers I’d been so desperate for didn’t matter.

Nothing mattered but him. His arms snaked around me, and I clung to him like my life depended on it, and it probably did.

The hurricane raging in my soul quieted with his body wrapped around mine.

“You’re okay,” I breathed into his shoulder.

“I would tear apart the swamp to get back to you,” he said into my hair before he addressed my family over my head.

“Though I don’t agree with your methods and I want to wage a war for what you’ve done to the woman I’ve fallen in love with, I can’t help but thank you because the woman in my arms is everything I never knew I needed.

She is strong, fierce, loyal, funny, and so many other things that would take me all night to list. I hate that she had to experience all of the heartache she did, but all of that brought her here to me. ”

The golden warmth inside of my chest reached out to the tendrils of shadow and smoke wrapping around us, and I knew that the place I’d once called home was that no longer. My home was here, wherever Rune was.

My mom’s face broke as she fought her composure, and my father’s eyes shone with unshed tears. My grandparents held onto each other with a mixture of pride and regret in their features.

“We never wanted to break you; we wanted to do the opposite. We wanted you to have a life with the coven, even if you couldn’t be a part of it.

We are so sorry that we had to be a part of the bad parts in your story.

We will accept the fate of being a villain, knowing that we kept you safe.

” A single tear slid down my grandmother’s cheek.

“You let fear write her story when you should have given her the pen. Maple is strong and kind; she would have never destroyed anyone.” Rune’s arms tightened around me.

“This is our first time on this earth, and we are learning as we go. We thought we were doing the best we could. Please, forgive us.” My papa’s voice broke, and something in my chest cracked at the sound.

The pillar of my childhood was breaking in front of me.

They were right, this was their first time doing things, and they were just doing the best they could with what they knew.

I hoped that I would never be put in that position with my own children some day, but I knew one thing was for certain: I would never take the choices away from my kids. I was better than that.

I untangled myself from Rune’s arms and stared at my family with new eyes.

I didn’t like what they did, but for the first time, I could see why they thought they had to.

I could understand, even if I couldn’t accept it fully.

Forgiveness wouldn’t come all at once—it would take time—but maybe there was a path toward it.

I opened my arms, and my parents rushed into them like they’d been waiting a lifetime.

My papa’s voice broke against my ear. “Every moment of every day as we watched you buckle under the pressure, we fought to tell you. We kept our distance so we didn’t hurt you further.

We hoped we’d give it back someday—after the wolves, after the war—but you did it yourself. ”

“We underestimated you,” Mama whispered, her fingers trembling against my back. “We should have known better. You were always stronger than a vision. We only wanted to save you from being burned— from being destroyed. We couldn’t bear the thought of being the ones to stop you if it came true.”

Papa buried his face in my hair. “But look at you now. You found something better here. You found a family that accepted you—even when our coven couldn’t.”

Tears burned my eyes, but I nodded into their embrace. “That was the best gift out of all of this,” I said softly.

Behind me, Rune’s shadows stirred, brushing warm along my ankles as if to remind me he was still there. I didn’t have to look at him to know what his eyes said—that no matter where this conversation ended, I belonged here, with him and with them.

My grandparents stepped closer, unsure of what to do with themselves, and I opened my arms to them, too.

They stepped forward hesitantly, but when they were within my arms with my parents wrapped around me, I felt a peace in my chest that I only felt in Rune’s arms, and I knew everything would be okay.

“It’s getting late,” Rune said behind us, which was an understatement. “Louis will bring you all to your rooms. We will have a beignet breakfast, and I’ll show your family everything New Orleans has to offer.”