Greyson

Etti was shaking so hard Grey had to carry Izzi as they hiked through the stifling bayou. They’d tried to convince Cali and Wes to stay at the hotel, but Wes wasn’t having it. He’d insisted on driving them to the Barataria Preserve so he could be close if anything went wrong with their meeting with Esme. But as Grey and Etti weaved further into the swamp on the creaking labyrinth of boardwalks, he doubted having an army close by would help in a place like this. No one would ever find them out here. No wonder Esme chose it as a place to hide from the hunt.

It bothered Grey immensely to have so little control. He had no idea where this Keeper’s Cottage was, but Etti said she’d been feeling pulled toward things all day, and he trusted his mate to find the cottage.

As they slipped through the eerie silence of the bayou, Grey glanced down at his daughter. Izzi was nestled in her sling on his chest, gazing around at the lush green surroundings. She blinked her grey eyes curiously and Grey bent to kiss the top of her head, praying for the strength to protect the two women who owned his heart.

The boardwalk split ahead. Etti stopped, seeming to listen to something Grey couldn’t hear. The only sounds he discerned were the low whispers coming from the dry moss that hung from every tree. Each time a breeze kicked up, the sound made him shiver and clutch Izzi tighter.

“This way,” Etti said veering onto an even narrower boardwalk.

“Are you sure?” Grey asked, hating the way the boards groaned under his weight. They were only a few feet above the swamp and he had no desire to join the creatures hidden in the black waters below.

Etti turned back to look at him. “Yes. We’re close. I can feel it.”

Etti

Etti wished she wasn’t right about their course, but she knew they were almost at the Keeper’s Cottage. Her entire body was being called deeper into the bayou—as if her bones were hewn from the very place itself. They rounded another bend and suddenly a lone shack came into view.

There was no doubt that the dilapidated shanty was the Keeper’s Cottage. It was the only building they’d seen for miles and it was the perfect place to hide from the hunt. No one would come to such a forsaken place. And if they did, something told Etti they never returned. The bayou seemed to wait with a silent hunger for any mistake she might make.

Etti reached back to take Grey’s hand. They didn’t speak. They didn’t have to. They both knew what was riding on this meeting—their lives and more importantly, their daughter’s. Etti only prayed she was strong enough to pay whatever price Esme Laveau would charge for her protection.

On queue, a voice spoke it Etti’s mind. “Come in, child.”

It was the same voice from the cemetery and her body reacted with fear as goose bumps raced up her arms.

“Everything okay?” Grey asked, sensing her fear.

Etti nodded. “She invited us in.”

* * *

Etti didn’t know what she’d been expecting of Esme Laveau, but the unassuming elderly creole woman was not it. She had dark, wrinkled skin that sagged beneath her blue floral dress. She smiled up at Etti from under a homemade straw hat, her teeth yellow and gummy.

“Welcome, my child,” she said with a voice much more powerful than seemed possible. Her milky eyes skimmed over Grey and landed hungrily on Izzi, making Etti’s heart hammer nervously in her chest.

Etti stepped between her daughter and the old woman’s stare “Are you Esme Laveau?”

The woman gave a rasping laugh that filled the tiny cottage with the prickling energy of her power. “You know I am.”

Etti swallowed. “Then you know why I’m here.”

Esme nodded. “I heard your plea, child. But as I said, there is a price.” Again the old woman’s eyes landed on Izzi.

“Tell me,” Etti demanded, wanting to get this over with as quickly as possible.

Esme rose to her feet from the spindly chair she’d been sitting it. She stood surprisingly tall as she held out her hand motioning for Izzi. Grey didn’t move and Esme grinned. “I only ask out of courtesy, boy. But make no mistake that I get what I desire.”

With a flick of Esme’s wrist, Grey slid across the floor like he was on tracks, stopping inches from the old crone. She raised a hand to touch Izzi with a sneer.

“Wait!” Etti snapped.

Esme paused her hand and met Etti’s gaze.

Desperation filled Etti’s voice. “My mother said you wouldn’t hurt my daughter.”

“You should listen to your mother, Etu. Ama is a wise woman,” Esme crooned. “I will not hurt your daughter. She is my own flesh and blood, you see. And I’ve been waiting a very long time to meet her.”

“So you’ll help us?” Grey asked.

Esme slowly shook her head. “It is your daughter who will help us all.”

Etti started. “But you said—”

“I said I would protect your family,” Esme interrupted with anger. “And I will, but the price is that you may never go home.”

“What?” Grey asked, looking between Etti and Esme. “We have to live here? With you?” Terror filled his eyes.

But Esme only laughed, a horrible rasping sound. “Not in the Keeper’s Cottage, boy, but in New Orleans. The French Quarter to be exact.”

“Why?” Etti asked.

“Because I want to protect my investment.”

“My daughter?” Etti asked.

Esme nodded. “Like you, I am trapped by the hunt. And I need your daughter to break the curse the hunt has placed on me. I can practice magic, but not inside the French Quarter. The hunt has banished all Laveau witches from our ancestral home. That is why I reside here, where my magic is strongest. In exchange for my protection, you must stay where I can watch your daughter grow. I will require you to return here with each full moon so I may weave my cloak over you three. Then you will reside in the Quarter, where my coven will watch over you and feed the cloaking spell with their own powers, while teaching your daughter how to harness her own.”

“Her own?” Grey asked.

“You must know that she is more than a shifter. She has been prophesized by the witches too. Our ancestors have passed their magic to her. And that is how she will break the curse and unite our species.”

Etti’s heart was pounding. She knew it. She’d always felt a strong pulsing power in her daughter. Her pregnancy had filled Etti with an overwhelming sensation she hadn’t been able to describe. But hearing it put to words, she realized that she’d always known what it was. It resided in her own veins as well. It was how she heard Esme’s voice and found the Keeper’s Cottage. Blood calls to blood—just like her mother said.

Etti glanced at her mate as he struggled to accept that magic ran in his child’s blood. But she didn’t want to give Esme a chance to change her mind about helping them. She needed to keep the negotiations moving.

“So, that’s it?” Etti asked, unable to believe the cost for Esme’s protection was so minimal. So what if she couldn’t go back to Blue Creek? That didn’t matter to Etti. She’d never really loved it there. If anything it was full of bad memories. There had to be some other catch—something she was missing. This was too simple. “So, you’ll just protect us and all we have to do is live in the French Quarter?” Etti asked.

Esme nodded.

“What’s the catch?” Grey asked, his voice wary.

The smile that spread across Esme’s mouth sent chills to Etti’s very core. “The spell is simple. You require that I protect three lives that you love from the hunt. If you agree to the terms of the bargain, three lives will be protected. If you break the bargain, for any reason, three lives you love will be owed, and I will chose the three to take.

“Take?” Grey repeatd.

“Magic requires balance, boy,” Esme purred. “Can you live with these terms?”

Etti swallowed, prepared to agree, but Grey pulled her aside whispering rapidly in her ear. “Etti, this means we can’t step a toe out of the Quarter . . . ever. Not to help our family or friends if the hunt tries to hurt them to get to us, not to go to funerals, or weddings, or births, not even to escape if this town is destroyed. We can never leave. Our daughter will grow up living a sheltered life, just like you did.”

“I know,” Etti whispered. “But at least she’ll grow up. I don’t think we have another choice.”

“We always have a choice,” Grey hissed. “We can still take our chances and run.”

“What kind of life would running give Izzi? At least with this we know she’ll be safe. Even if you or I have to leave for some reason, even if it’s against our will, Izzi will still be safe. Esme needs her to break the curse. She wouldn’t risk taking her life.”

“No, just yours and mine, leaving our daughter an orphan to be raised by witches. Is that what you want?” Grey hissed.

“No. I want her to be safe. I want a life with you and my daughter. And if that means it has to be confined to a few ancient blocks in New Orleans then so be it. I can live with that if it means we get to have a life.”

“Do we have a deal?” Esme interrupted.

Etti looked pleadingly at Grey. She could sense his unease, but he nodded. “If you think this is our best option, then I’m with you.”

Cali’s words came floating back to Etti. Before she and Wes let Etti march into the bayou, she’d warned Etti that magic had many loopholes and witches were cunning with their words. “Make Esme spell out the rules before you agree to anything,” Cali had cautioned.

When Etti turned to face Esme, she squared her shoulders, ready to sign her life away to save her daughter and mate. “I will agree to your terms only after you state them clearly, including any loopholes.”

Esme smiled. “Ama raised a wise child,” she said. “The terms are these. Return here on the full moon and I will cloak you, your child and your mate. Until then and there after, you are confined to the French Quarter, where my coven will watch over you, and teach your daughter to wield her powers. The only time you may ever leave the Quarter is to return here each full moon. This spell is binding until your daughter is of age and can break the curse that has confined our ancestors for centuries and take her rightful place as heir to the hunt, where she will dismantle it, freeing us all. Should you break the terms of this agreement in any way, I will take the lives of three you love in exchange for the lives I’ve protected for you.”

“And there’s nothing you’re leaving out?” Etti asked.

“I speak the truth. You will live a protected life here. No one will be able to find you so long as you obey the rules.”

Alarms went off in Etti’s mind. No one would find them? “What does this spell do exactly?” Etti asked.

“It erases you from the supernatural world.”

Grey’s face fell. “So our family, our friends . . . they won’t be able to contact us?”

“Don’t fret dear boy,” Esme crooned. “They won’t miss you. It will be as though you never existed.”

Etti paled, looking longing at Grey and then her daughter. How could she ask him to make this sacrifice?

He pulled her aside again. “Etti. We’ll lose everyone,” he pleaded.

“Not everyone,” she whispered, taking his face in her hands. “We’ll have each other.”

“What about Wes? Cali? My family?”

“This is our family now,” Etti said, stroking Izzi’s silken hair.

Tears crested his eyes, but he nodded.

Etti turned back to face Esme. “Swear it on your blood. Swear that you will protect the three of us and that we will remain together, our bond and love intact.”

Esme’s eyes twinkled but she pulled a slender knife from her pocket and slit her palm, dripping it into a wooden bowl. “I swear it on my blood,” Esme purred.

“Then we have a deal,” Etti replied.

Esme handed her the knife. “Swear it on your blood.”

Etti, Grey, and Izzi added their blood to the bowl until it bubbled to a hissing boil as Esme chanted words over it. When she was done, she dipped her finger in the bloody mixture and painted a tiny X on the wall.

Etti shivered as she suddenly noticed the strange pattern on the walls of the cottage was made up of thousands of the same bloody marks, making her wonder how many fates her ancestor controlled. And how many had not worked in the favor of those who were foolish enough to seek Esme’s help.

Once the bargain was sealed, Etti took Grey’s hand and marched from the cottage as quickly as her feet would carry her, not allowing herself to look back, or second-guess her choice. She’d done what she set out to do. Her family was safe and she would deal with the consequences.