Page 6 of Bewitched By the Voodoo King (The Bewitching Hour #7)

Grief wasn’t a wave. It was a storm, relentless and battering, pressing against me from every side as I stared at my father’s lifeless form.

Suspended midair by the binding spells of the diviners, his body hung unnaturally still.

The three jagged slash marks across his chest were a brutal, final signature of the wolves’ violence.

His eyes had been closed before his body was brought in, sparing me the torment of seeing their vacant stare. But that small mercy did little to lessen the suffocating weight in my chest.

Cause of death? The wolves.

The cursed, ancestor-forsaken wolves.

I clenched my fists at my sides, my nails biting into my palms as I tried to block out the gruesome scene in front of me. The room reeked of magic—dense, oppressive, and searching.

But it was no use. His body was drained completely of blood, leaving only a hollow shell behind.

Without the essence of life to anchor the magic, we couldn’t find out anything.

I tried my hardest when his body was brought in.

My magic was now the strongest in the coven as he’d passed on his affinity to me before all of his blood was drained.

Thankfully that wasn’t common knowledge about our kind and our affinities or they might have made it impossible for him to do so.

“He fought them,” Adelle said quietly, her voice steady but laced with sorrow. She stood beside me, her silver braids brushing her shoulders as she studied the suspended form of our father. “He fought hard.”

“Not hard enough,” I ground out, my voice harsh in the heavy silence.

Her gaze flicked to me, sharp and cutting. “That’s your grief talking, Rune. He was one of the strongest leaders we’ve ever had. Don’t dishonor him with self-pity.”

I flinched but didn’t respond. She was right, of course. My father had been powerful, a leader who had carried the weight of this coven with unyielding strength. But even he had been no match for the wolves.

And now, he was gone.

I stalked down the dimly lit corridor, my boots echoing against the stone floor. The weight of my father’s death pressed against me with every step, but I forced it down, shoving it into the growing pit of anger in my chest. Grief could wait. Questions could wait. But she couldn’t.

The girl—Maple—was an absurd twist in a situation that already felt like a cruel joke. I could still see her standing there, defiant and ridiculous in her bunny slippers, holding that damn vase like it was a weapon. A sharp tongue in a tiny package. That’s what my father had seen as our salvation.

I stopped at the end of the hall, pressing my palms flat against the cold stone wall, trying to steady the storm brewing inside me.

He hadn’t even told us. Not about her. Not about the marriage contract. Not about his plan to meet the wolves. He’d left everything behind—responsibilities, secrets, a legacy —and now it was all on me.

And the transfer of power… I clenched my fists, remembering the sharp, almost violent surge of magic that had coursed through me when his soul departed. The coven’s power had shifted, binding itself to me in a way that felt foreign and suffocating.

I wasn’t ready for this.

But it didn’t matter. Ready or not, the coven was mine now. I was the Voodoo King, no matter how much I didn’t want it. The wolves were my war to fight. And the girl—this stranger dropped into my lap by my father’s inexplicable final act—was my responsibility.

I exhaled sharply and pushed off the wall. Brooding wouldn’t fix anything. Answers wouldn’t materialize out of thin air. And as much as I hated it, I had to face the absurd reality in front of me.

When I finally reached her quarters, I found myself pausing outside the door, my hand hovering over the handle. Part of me wanted to turn around, to let her sit there in silence until the Matriarch decided what to do with her. But that wasn’t an option.

With a resigned sigh, I knocked.

“Come in!” came her voice, overly bright and edged with sarcasm.

I pushed the door open to find her sitting cross-legged on the bed, her wild curls even more untamed than before.

She looked up from a book she’d clearly pilfered from the coven’s library, one eyebrow raised in a way that immediately set my teeth on edge.

For someone who had never been here before, she managed to find herself rather comfortable.

“Well, if it isn’t my fiancee ,” she said, her tone dripping with contempt. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

I stepped inside, closing the door behind me. “We need to talk.”

“About the part where I have no idea why I’m here or the part where you seem to hate my guts already?”

“Both,” I said flatly, folding my arms. “None of this was my idea.”

She rolled her brown eyes and I needed to take a deep breath to calm the anger storming through me. Her lips twitched like she was suppressing a smile. “Really? I couldn’t tell from the death glare you’ve been giving me since I got here.”

I ignored the jab, focusing instead on the frustration bubbling under my skin. “My father believed you were important—essential, even—to stopping what’s happening with the wolves. I don’t see it and I have zero way of asking my father what he saw before his untimely demise.”

Her expression softened slightly, but the edge in her voice remained. “And now you’re stuck with me. Guess we’re both thrilled about this arrangement.”

I let out a humorless laugh. “Thrilled doesn’t begin to cover it.”

For a moment, silence stretched between us, the weight of everything unsaid settling heavily in the room.

“What happens now?” she asked, her voice quieter.

I studied her, trying to reconcile the sharp-tongued girl in front of me with the supposed savior my father had placed his final hope in.

“Now,” I said slowly, “you meet the Matriarch. She’ll explain more about why you’re here.”

“And you?” she asked, tilting her head. “What’s your role in all this?”

“ I am the Voodoo King. My role,” I said, my voice hardening, “is to lead this coven, protect my people, and stop the wolves before they tear apart everything my father built. And apparently, that includes keeping you alive long enough to figure out why the ancestors think you’re so important.”

Her eyes narrowed, and I saw a spark of defiance that made me pause.

“I don’t need protecting,” she said firmly.

“Ugh,” I groaned. “This is going to be a very long day.”

“It wouldn’t be that long for you if you would just leave me alone. I’m sure I can find it all on my own.” She waved her stolen library book around. “After all, I found the library with very little issues!”

If I kept grinding my teeth like I was, there would be nothing left.

My patience was hanging by a thread and Maple’s casual wave of her stolen library book didn’t help matters.

She sat there, a mix of defiance and na?veté, completely oblivious to the weight of what was happening around her.

She could have been taken right out from under our noses, there was a reason she wasn’t given a tour.

There was a reason I was worried about her getting lost.

“You think this is some kind of adventure?” I asked, my voice low, barely restrained.

“That you can just waltz into this coven, skim a few books, and magically solve problems even the most powerful among us can’t?

This isn’t a game, Maple. Every second we waste, the wolves gain ground.

If you’re going to be here, you need to understand how serious this is. ”

“And if you’re going to make me stay,” she shot back, her tone razor-sharp, “you need to understand that I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t ask to be dragged out of my life, thrown into some ancient marriage contract, or forced to play savior for a coven I’ve never met.”

“Get. Over. Yourself.” My body shook with my unchecked anger. I couldn’t do this. She had never been through anything in her life and she was parading around here like we hadn’t lost witches almost every single day. Like nothing mattered in the world.

She blinked and my eyes zeroed in on her bottom lip trembling. If she started crying I was going to give up. I couldn’t handle another thing to fall apart. Not here, not now. My sigh deflated my shoulders. “It’s time for you to meet the Matriarch. My mother.”