Blue Voodoo: A Romantic Retelling of Bluebeard (The Hidden Kingdom Series Book 2) (24 page)

“But surely we could discuss the matter, decide which of us will bond with him?” Esther suggested.

Fabienne rolled her eyes. “All right, fine. We will discuss it.” She plucked at her skirts, hardened with dried blood. “I want to get cleaned up anyway. Narcisse should be in place by now with our new clothes.”

Gaelle perked up. “Oh, yes, I forgot about Narcisse.” Her head swiveled, searching the clearing like a baby bird seeking its mother. “Where did he go?”

“He is getting the house ready for us. It is our rebirth celebration, remember?” Fabienne looked out over the forest as if seeing far beyond the trees. “I hope we weren’t wrong to count on him being able to handle whatever servants remained behind.”

“I’m sure most of them went to the Midsummer Celebration.” Esther tried to smooth her hair into place, foiled by the coppery residue clinging to the black strands. “And Narcisse can be so convincing when he wants to be.”

Gaelle clapped her hands, then suddenly tilted her head at Julien. “You won’t be too hurt if we take another husband, will you, Julien? After all, you will have three wives.” She closed the distance between them, and  brought her lips close to his ear. “We will make certain you stay…satisfied.”

Julien closed his hand around Gaelle’s neck. Her pulse—her
pulse
—fluttered against his palm, but it was the excitement of arousal, not the panicked beat of fear. His hold worsened around her throat, but she only pressed closer.

“Dominique, remove Julien’s hand from Gaelle’s throat.”

The blood in his veins chilled to ice water, painful, biting frost flowing down his limbs. He stared over his shoulder as Dominique’s  body lurched like she’d been jolted with a stray streak of lightning. She doubled up and shambled to her feet behind him. He wheeled around, dragging Gaelle with him, horrified when Dominique did as she was commanded and sledged toward him, reaching for his arm.

Panic fluttered in his chest, and he surprised himself by dipping to catch her blind eyes. They were glossy. Unfocused. Gone. “Dominique. Dominique, you have to fight it.”

She wasn’t strong enough to force him to let go if he didn’t want to, but that hadn’t been the point.

A hoarse chortling came from Gaelle, the air wheezing past his grip. Julien ignored her. Yes, he was well aware Fabienne was demonstrating what she could do, showing him that she controlled Dominique completely. It was a threat. “Dominique, please, you have to fight.” His gaze slid to the bottle Fabienne held, the bottle Dominique’s spark had vanished inside. “Give it back.” His voice came out low, more of a death threat than a request.

“Such a dire look for someone in your position,” Fabienne commented lightly. “Perhaps it would improve your focus if I simply removed the other half of her soul as well? She could have a new home in our crypt, now that we won’t be needing it anymore…”

“You don’t need her, let her go!”

Julien tried to keep his eyes on Fabienne. There had to be some way to get that bottle away from her, some way to free Dominique. She tugged at his hand, trying to make him let go of Gaelle’s throat. He gritted his teeth, but released the wench, not wanting to hurt Dominique. He had to stay calm, keep his temper until releasing it could do him some good.

Gaelle sucked in a breath, swaying slightly. Still she smiled at him. “I forgive you, love.”

Dominique stood there, motionless now without orders. Bile burned the back of Julien’s throat again.

“I don’t suppose you bothered to try
asking
Dominique to mentor you.”

Fabienne bared her teeth. “Mentor us? She knows nothing of the true ways of
voudun
. Her craft has been tainted by immersion in Sanguennay, twisted by influences outside the true land of our ancestors.” She dropped the bottle with Dominique’s spirit so that it thumped against her chest. “I’m done answering questions, done, having a conversation with a man who knows less of us than he does himself—if such a thing is possible.” Pointing at Dominique, she barked, “Bring him to the house.”

Dominique’s body moved again, pulling at Julien’s arm, trying to follow the sisters as they paraded back to the house—his house. Dominique’s house. Their house. He swept her off her feet, cradled her in his arms, and lurched to the side in preparation to make a run for it. He would get her away from here. Maybe Drust would know a way to save her.

“Dominique, scratch out your eyes if Julien leaves this property.”

Fabienne’s voice was calm, matter of fact. Dominique raised her hands to her face, fingers poised over her eyes as she hung limply in Julien’s grip. He froze, stomach rolling with such violent intensity he nearly vomited with the force of it.

“Put her down, Julien.” Esther clasped her hands together as if in prayer. “Please, stop fighting it. Everything will be all right, you’ll see.”

He put her down, half mad with the rage storming inside him with no way to let it out. The fury rose up inside him, higher and higher, burning away his fatigue. The echo of thunder rolled over his ears, followed by the distant sound of a bird’s scream. The promise of his own power. Ready inside him.

It was a fight to keep his triumph from his face. He was ready to shift. He could do it now. He put Dominique on her feet, following her easily now. After they got inside the manor, the three would likely lock him up while they had their celebration, or argued about which of them would bond with him. He shook off a shiver and clenched his teeth. When he was alone, he would shift.

And then he would kill them all.

He found the strength he needed to keep going, to look at Dominique without feeling his soul shrivel up inside him. As he’d expected, the three led him to a room on the uppermost level of his house. They all gestured for him to enter, shooing Dominique in as well. Fabienne met Julien’s gaze, looking from Dominique to him and then miming scratching out her eyes. Julien treated himself to a fantasy of listening to her scream as lightning reduced her mocking face to ashy ruins, smote by one of the oldest powers of the known world.

After they left, Julien wasted no time. He held his arms out to the sides and tilted his head up, calling his other form.

Nothing happened.

He tried again, harder this time, feeding his rage to his other half, taunting it, screaming at it to come to his call so they could have their revenge. Pain exploded around him, the sensation of metal wrapped around him, squeezing and choking. His skin buzzed painfully as though hot embers had been cast over him like fairy dust.

Bound. They had bound him to this form. And he hadn’t felt it.

The world spun and Julien collapsed to his knees. He stared at the floor, unable to raise his eyes, let alone his head. If they had that kind of power… If they could bind his form without him feeling it, without him knowing… What chance did he have?

None
.

Dominique’s feet caught his peripheral vision and he forced himself to look at her, to see the damage he’d done. It was his fault she was like this, his fault her beautiful brown eyes were empty, her sienna face expressionless. He had led the three to her. And now her body was empty, a lifeless shell. Vacant.

Available.

The thought came to him suddenly, startling in its simplicity. Dominique was a vessel for the
loa’s
power, that’s what she’d always preached to him. What if…

The plan formed in his mind and Julien moved with it as it took on a life of its own. There was no time to think, indeed it would be better if he didn’t. Dominique would think nothing of allowing the
loa
to possess her, even if the situation weren’t so dire, but still. Even though it wasn’t him being possessed, the idea still turned his stomach. Possessed. It was a fate worse than being bonded, and the gods knew being bonded was bad enough.

Julien shifted uncomfortably, gaze darting around, up. He finally knelt on the ground, wincing as Dominique fell down beside him—guarding him. He tried to calm his racing heart as he fixed his eyes on the ground, willing himself to be a picture of respect.

“
Loa
,” he started hesitantly. The word tasted strange on his tongue and he wished he’d been a more pious man before tonight. Perhaps then he wouldn’t feel like such a charlatan now. “I ask for your help. Not for me, but for your loyal servant, Dominique.” He looked at his wife, saw her beautiful face slack, her eyes empty of all awareness. “I ask that you possess her, make her your vessel so that she may fight to get her life back.”

Laughter. Laughter around him, inside him. Amusement.

Suddenly Tenoch stood in front of him. The laughter continued, a mocking echo, but it wasn’t coming from the native of Mu. He appeared as he always did, an apparition of some red-skinned hunter with bottomless black eyes.

“You would offer her body to the
loa,
but not yours?”

“Where did you come from?” Julien scrabbled off the ground, adrenaline flooding his veins with renewed hope. “You have to help me get Dominique out of here. Take her—”

“I am not here,” Tenoch broke in gently. “What you see is an astral projection.”

The native stopped speaking as Julien thrust a hand into his chest. His fingers passed through the other man’s form as though it had no more substance than smoke. Julien’s heart clenched, his throat tightening. The brief flare of hope he’d had snuffed out in a second.

“You offer the
loa
your wife’s body, but not your own,” Tenoch reminded him.

Unease rolled through Julien like an oily tide and he leaned back as if Tenoch would somehow reach out for him, try to force him into the bargain he was suggesting. “My soul is quite comfortable in my body, and I am not the one who needs—”

“You are asking for help and offering no sacrifice. What chance do you think you have of gaining such help?”

“Sacrifice… ” Julien raised empty hands. “I have nothing to sacrifice. Let them ask for something, I will get it.”

Tenoch absentmindedly touched his fingers to the scars on his chest. “That is not the sacrifice they want. And I think you know that.”

The hairs rose on the back of Julien’s neck. “What is this? You’re a servant to a god and you seek to make me one as well?”

Pity softened Tenoch’s features. “No one will force you to do this. But you know what must be done. Deep down, you know.”

“I am not a man of faith.” Julien blurted the words out, his desperation glaringly obvious even to him. “I never have been. I am…out of my depth here. This,” Julien gestured vaguely toward the ceiling, “is the act of a desperate man. I have no idea how to ask the gods for help.”

“The
loa
,” Tenoch supplied.

“Yes, that’s the word Dominique always used. The
loa
.” He pressed his knuckles into his thighs as he leaned forward. “She’s served them for so long, surely they’ll help her?”

“The
loa
get involved when they are invited to do so. And
you
are the one asking for help, not Dominique.”

“But she is the one who
needs
help!”

“Be that as it may, you have never served the
loa,
have shown very little respect for them even at the best of times. If you want their help, they will want something from you. Something significant. Something harder for you to give than a sacrifice of blood and flesh.”

He forced the question past the sudden lump of dread threatening to choke him. “What do they want?”

“What all gods want—loyalty, service, and a demonstration of faith.”

Julien’s mouth went dry and it took him two tries to swallow. All of his nightmares seemed doomed to come true this night. “You’re saying I should offer my body for them to use to save Dominique.”

“It was your refusal to bond with Dominique—to stay bonded with Dominique—that led to this chaos,” Tenoch pointed out. “If you and she were bonded, the three could not have taken her soul so easily. It is also your greatest fear, and so allowing yourself to be possessed would be a great sign of faith. And a pledge of service… That is payment.”

“Serve you? I serve no one.”

His own words came back to haunt him. Against his will, Julien’s attention was drawn to Dominique. Beautiful, strong Dominique, the woman who riled him like no other, the woman who was the biggest thorn in his side and without a doubt the most unforgettable female—the most unforgettable
person
—he’d ever met. If he left her now, if he didn’t do everything in his power to save her, then those empty eyes would haunt him for the rest of his days.

“I will fix this, Dominique.” Before he could think too closely on what he was about to do, he lifted his chin and met Tenoch’s gaze. “What do I do?”

Chapter Nineteen

“Narcisse!”

Gaelle’s squeal was the only warning Narcisse had. He turned in a smooth pivot as she launched herself at him, catching his enthusiastic bride to be and continuing the spin, holding her up in the air. As he remembered, she was the most gorgeous of the three sisters. Even covered in blood and soiled in soot, she’d been beautiful.  Now that she’d bathed and dressed for the festivities, she was to die for. The fine dress was imported from her favorite dressmaker, pristine white taffeta Bordeaux and bell-sleeves lined with gold trimming.  He clung to the vivacious hips outlined in the formfitting garment, her beautiful doe-eyes shining with an appetite for all of life’s pleasures. “My beautiful Gaelle, it has been an eternity.”

She pushed back a wavy ocean of damp, lavender-scented black hair and stuck out her ripe bottom lip. “You left so quickly, I didn’t even get to greet you properly.”

Narcisse chuckled. “I had so much to do to get ready for you. After all, it isn’t every day a woman as beautiful as yourself becomes a queen. I wouldn’t have your initiation celebration be anything short of perfection.”

He pointedly swept his eyes over the ballroom he’d spent the better part of the evening setting up. Well, helping set up. Thanks to a little white lie about being sent by Dominique, he’d managed to get most of the servants to help him before sending them on to the Midsummer Celebration. The fact that many of the decorations were painted with
verves
and very clearly held ritual significance had given weight to the lie, and none of the servants had been overly keen to ask questions. Even the family with the injured boy had been easily dismissed, the child oddly excited to get into the village and show off his peg leg.