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“Alley—” I motioned to the back door. “—and my storeroom.”
“Secure?” Phoenix questioned.
Affronted, I crossed my arms and cocked a brow.
In the light of the back room, I could see the man clearer than in the dim bar. He wasn’t just handsome. He was rugged but stunning—gorgeous. Tattoos covered his right arm from his hand up until they disappeared under the sleeve of his black T-shirt. His left arm had what appeared to be a crown that wrapped around his wrist, filled with a mosaic of skulls and things I couldn’t make out. A web covered his elbow.
Voodoo clearing his throat broke me out of my perusal that had obviously gone on longer than I’d meant it to. Phoenix’s smirk was both knowing and teasing until Voodoo spoke, and it disappeared.
“Perhaps we should start with introductions. As you know, I’m Voodoo—Ogun Dupré. This is Phoenix. He’s my brother and friend.” At his announcement, I was startled. My spine stiffened, and my breath caught in my chest.Holy shit, had I just made out with my fucking brother? I didn’t remember seeing anything about him in my mother’s notes and files. Gross! Fuck! Hopefully, it was a brother on his mother’s side. Ugh!
As if he could read my mind, Phoenix chuckled. “Not brother by blood—through our club.”
Relief was a wave that washed over me, and my shoulders drooped.
“Brother enough that you’ll keep it in your fucking pants.” Voodoo practically growled the directive at Phoenix.
Indignation snapped my spine straight again. “First of all, you do not get to dictate who I fuck or what I do. Especially since it is still unclear whether you and I are indeed related. I’m going by my mother’s notes and files that may or maynotbe accurate. Wait… howdidyou find me?Whydid you find me?” I had only found the hidden compartment a few days ago.
Which really hit me. A fewdaysago, I didn’t know I had a possible brother. Suspicion seeped into my veins, and I glanced to Niara. Her expression showed as much doubt as I was feeling.
“Full disclosure?” Voodoo asked as he rested his forearms on the edge of the table.
“Absolutely.”
“You’re sure this area is secure?”
“Didn’t I say it was?”
He sighed and momentarily dropped his head before returning his attention to me. “Yes, you did.”
“Then I guess we both need to take a chance and put a little trust in the other.”
“Very well. I come from a long line of seers. Precognition. I also have the ability of psychokinesis, though it tends to be more when my emotions get the best of me.”
Phoenix coughed and said, “Understatement.”
Voodoo glared at him, then continued, “My grandmother is a Voodoo Priestess. She had a vision that I needed to be here. It was urgent and imperative that I get down here. I don’t know what triggered it now when neither she nor I ever saw anything about you before. Nor had we seen anything to do with you. In twenty-three years, not a blip on her radar, and thenbam, here you are.”
My gaze darted to Niara, silently asking her how much I should reveal. She looked closely at both men, then nodded. With a sigh, I prepared to tell a near-stranger something I had told no other human before.
“Probably because my mother wove a protective spell around me as a child. She’s very ill now. Her powers are likely diminishing as she weakens.” I had to swallow around the lump in my throat at the thought of my mother’s condition. “I’m a witch. My genetics predate the Salem witch trials, though my ancestors escaped them. It was my very distant grandmother that left Salem and carefully made her way to the bayous of Louisiana. She raised her daughter, who raised her daughter, who raised her daughter, and on and on until my mother, who raised me.” Proudly, I announced my heritage. Something I’d never done outside of my mother and my friend.
Honestly, despite everything he had revealed, I expected them to laugh. At the very least, I expected them to think I was some crazy bitch who thought she was a witch or dabbled in witchcraft. Instead, neither of them so much as batted an eye.
“Speaking of siblings and heritage,” I began. Niara and I glanced at each other. I took a deep breath and pulled one of the files out of my bag. Then I slid it across the table to Voodoo. His brow furrowed and he looked at it then hesitantly pulled it closer. When he opened the folder, his eyes went wide.
“Is this verified?” he questioned as he continued to scan the pages.
“No, not yet, but you’re in there and here you are,” I replied with a shrug.
“True,” he agreed with a sigh.
We were interrupted by the vibration of Voodoo’s phone. He cast a quick glance at the screen before he held up a finger and answered. The call was brief. He ended it and motioned for Phoenix to go up front. Within a moment, he was returning with a tall and slightly scary-looking dude. His hair was a bit shaggy, as if it had been shorn and had been allowed to simply grow. Tattoos covered nearly every exposed inch of his skin. When he looked at me, I did a double take. His eyes that initially appeared brown seemed to shimmer and turn green, but then he moved, and his eyes were bright gold.
“Sloane, Niara, this is Raptor. He’s our vice president,” Voodoo explained as an introduction.
The imposing man gave a chin lift, and I offered a small wave. He leaned a shoulder against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest. Niara was practically drooling.
