The Satyr's Curse (The Satyr's Curse Series Book 1) (18 page)

Chapter 16

The singing of birds from the towering oaks outside of Jazzmyn’s bedroom window woke her from a fitful sleep. She had been dreaming of being chased by something through the darkness and tripping over tombstones. As she stretched she felt for Julian next to her, but the bed was empty. When she glanced about the bedroom, she saw that his clothes were gone, but her blue silk robe was still on the floor where she had left it the night before. As she slipped the robe about her shoulders, her body rebelled at the exertion; every fiber of her being ached, and as she slowly walked to the bedroom door, the discomfort between her legs was even more painful than the previous night.

“That’s what you get for screwing a man built like a horse,” she softly chided.

After stepping from the bedroom door, the aroma of freshly brewed coffee hit her. She made her way down the stairs and around to the hallway leading to the kitchen. The coffee in the air blended with the smell of pancakes on the griddle. Driven on by curiosity and hunger, Jazzmyn quickened her pace until she stood at the entrance to her yellow kitchen.

At the old stove, next to the sink, she saw Julian, his back to her, flipping pancakes on the griddle. He was wearing his dark gray slacks from the night before with his pale blue shirt casually shrugged over his shoulders and left unbuttoned over his chest. On the floor next to him, starring up at his thick body, was Mr. JP.

“Are you two friends now?” Jazzmyn called from the doorway.

Julian turned to her. “I fed him some milk, and now he’s what I believe is called my new BFF.”

Jazzmyn laughed as she leaned against the kitchen doorway. “Is that for me?”

Julian went back to his pancakes. “For us,” he corrected. “I woke up this morning starving, and figured I would make us some breakfast.”

She came closer and examined the pancakes on the griddle. “From scratch?”

He leaned over and kissed her cheek. “Of course. My very best eggless whole wheat pancakes.” He nodded to the coffee maker on the white-tiled counter by the sink. “I was going to bring you a cup of coffee, but now that you’re up….” He picked up a pancake from the griddle with his spatula and flipped it onto a plate.

She went to the coffee maker and retrieved two mugs from the cabinet above it. “How do you take your coffee?”

“Don’t drink any,” he told her. “Used to love the stuff when I was mortal, but my system can’t tolerate it.”

Jazzmyn stopped for a moment as his words registered. “When you were mortal?” She placed the mugs down on the counter and turned to him. “Do you know how weird that sounds?”

Julian removed the last pancake from the griddle and stacked it on the plate. “Try living this way for a hundred and fifty-seven years. It took me years just to realize I had to eat like a goat in order to not feel sick all the time. That’s why I’m a vegetarian. Greens and whole wheat products are the only things that agree with me. That and red wine.” He poured the remnants of the batter on the hot griddle. “I’ve had to change my diet, leave all the people I knew behind, and learn how to manipulate the changing legal system in order to hide my identity, like with the records department at city hall. I’ve had to do the same thing in several other countries. Then there are the added burdens of my physical changes. I have to have all my clothes and underwear tailored to accommodate my added size.”

Jazzmyn rolled her dark green eyes at him. “Because of your added size, I’m going to be walking like a bowlegged cowboy for a few days.”

His joyful laughter filled the air. “I didn’t hear you complaining last night.”

“After the fourth time I think I lost all sensation down there.”

“Not all sensation, I assure you,” he added, and then he gave her a wicked smile.

She picked up one of the mugs on the counter and reached for the coffee pot. “I still find it hard to believe that you are what you say you are,” she conceded as she filled her mug with coffee.

He flipped a pancake on the griddle. “It wasn’t my choice, Jazzmyn. Eve was trying to show me the error of my ways. I have had several lifetimes to come to terms with the kind of man I was.”

“What kind of man were you?” she asked, cradling her cup of coffee in her hands.

“I was arrogant and selfish,” he confessed, keeping his eyes on the griddle. “My father owned an export company that shipped sugar and cotton all over the world. We were very well off and had houses in the French Quarter and the family sugar cane plantation in St. Charles Parish. I had a core group of friends, sons of other wealthy men in the city. We drank, gambled, and bedded the most beautiful women we could find. My father was grooming me to take over his business, and that was why he arranged the marriage with the Livaudais family. He wanted us to be accepted socially to help grow our fortune. But after this happened,” he motioned down his body, “everything changed. My two younger brothers were killed in the Civil War, and after a time I had to cut all ties with my family. I had to become a recluse so no one would ask any questions about my unchanging appearance.” He carefully slid a pancake from the griddle to the top of the stack on the plate. “After my father died, I sold off the family business and most of the assets. I took the cash and built my home. The rest I invested.”

“What is it like to live so long and see so much?” Jazzmyn took a quick sip from her black coffee.

He picked up the plate of pancakes and brought it to the round table in the corner of the kitchen. The table had been set for two with the everyday, mismatched china Jazzmyn kept in the kitchen cabinets.

Julian put the plate down on the table and had a seat. “It fills you with a lot of regret. If you live long enough, Jazzmyn, you learn to regret a great deal.” He rested his arms on the table. “I watched my mother die of yellow fever, only to live long enough to see it cured. I watched my two brothers die in a war that eventually everyone wanted to forget. I had a younger sister, Penelope, who I adored, die in the pains of childbirth. I have lived long enough to see childbirth become pain-free and something a woman checks into a hospital for, like checking into a hotel. My hometown has become almost unrecognizable, yet every street corner, every home, holds a wealth of memories. I have lived to see all of my friends die and my entire family laid to rest in our crypt that used to be at the edge of town. But the edge of town these days marks the beginning of a whole new world, the suburbs. I have seen children born, grow up, grow old, and die. I have lived too long for the heavy burdens I have had to bear. I have been forced to commit too many atrocities that will forever haunt me and for which I am truly ashamed. I want to be free of the beast that lingers within me. I’m tired of immortality. I want to be human. I want to grow old. I want to die one day and be remembered, not be the one left remembering.”

Jazzmyn’s heart broke as she listened to his words. Never before had she realized the depth of what this curse had done to him. It was more than the physical changes that had made him suffer; it was the emotional upheaval that had tortured him through the years. For the first time she felt his pain, sensed the absolute despair he must have carried with him from that first day he had been transformed.

She walked to the breakfast table and took the seat across from him. “I promise to do whatever I can to help you, Julian.”

An invisible weight appeared to lift from his wide shoulders as the edges of his mouth curled into a heartfelt smile. “Thank you, Jazzmyn.”

She put her coffee down on the table and sat back in her chair. “What is going to happen at this voodoo ceremony you spoke of?”

Julian reached for his fork and stabbed at the stack of pancakes. “We must stand together before Odette’s tomb and pledge our love to each other. Once we are married by a voodoo priestess, I should be as I was.” He placed a pile of pancakes on his plate.

Jazzmyn picked up her fork. “Do you know a voodoo priestess who will marry us?”

He nodded. “I’ve got a few names; people who have come highly recommended.” He picked up his knife and started slicing into his pancakes.

Jazzmyn retrieved two of the pancakes from the stack in the middle of the table. “What will be the first thing you do when you become mortal?” she asked, placing the pancakes on her plate and reaching for the bottle of syrup next to her.

“What do you mean?” Julian forked a wedge of pancakes into his mouth.

She drizzled the syrup over her pancakes. “Well, after people do something big, like win the Super Bowl, they go to Disney World to celebrate. What do you want to do to celebrate being human?”

Julian looked down at his plain pancakes and sighed. “Eat a steak. I still dream of steak,” he replied with a touch of longing in his voice.

“All right.” Jazzmyn picked up her knife. “After you become mortal, we’ll go to the restaurant and I’ll have Carl cook you the best steak in town.”

Julian chewed on his pancakes. ”Do you have any preference for an engagement ring? I thought I would go out today and get you one to make it official.”

Jazzmyn frowned at him. “Is it official when a voodoo priestess marries you?”

He shook his head, but never looked up from his pancakes. “Official enough for our purposes, but not legal. We can have a big ceremony when we make it legal, if you wish. Anything you want.”

Jazzmyn was taken off guard by his statement. “You really want to marry me? Not just because of some curse requirement?”

Julian glanced up at her. “I really want to marry you. I’ve been around a long time, Jazzmyn; long enough to know you are the woman for me. I want to marry you not because of some curse or your family history, but because you are you.” He eagerly sliced into his stack of pancakes.

As Jazzmyn watched Julian eat his breakfast, her nagging sense of reason returned. She was more than willing to help the man with his dilemma, but marriage? Marriage was difficult enough without throwing voodoo, murder, and curses into the mix. Jazzmyn knew she would do whatever was needed to put an end to the killings; but was she willing to marry someone with such a disturbing past? After everything he had done and all that he had been through, how would he adjust to turning back into an ordinary man? She could not help but wonder if the man Julian Devereau was about to become would be the kind of individual she was willing to spend a lifetime loving.

***

Julian dropped her off at the restaurant an hour later, kissing her good-bye and vowing to go in search of the perfect engagement ring. When Jazzmyn walked through the rear entrance of her business, a surreal feeling descended over her. Her world had changed overnight. All the impossibilities of life had become probabilities when a mythological creature could walk around her house and make pancakes in her kitchen.

“Goodness, child,” Ms. Helen cried out as she came around from the kitchen and spotted Jazzmyn in the hallway. “What have you been up to? You look like hell.”

Jazzmyn shook off her comment. “Just a long night.”

“Somethin’s different ‘bout you.” Ms. Helen inspected Jazzmyn from head to toe. “Your aura’s changed. You got his black on you now.” She paused and scrutinized Jazzmyn’s eyes. “You gave yourself to him, didn’t you? You’ve danced with that demon.”

“Really, Ms. Helen. I’m a grown woman and who I ‘dance’ with is my business.”

“You need to think ‘bout what you’re doin’. You can’t give yourself to him without payin’ a price.”

Jazzmyn felt her apprehension return. She could never tell anyone about Julian, not even Ms. Helen.

“He’s a wonderful man who cares for me, and I…I care deeply for him,” Jazzmyn proclaimed.

“You’re fibbin’, Jazzmyn. I could always tell. You’re in love with that crazy chef of yours, and not with the demon.”

“Ms. Helen, I’m not in love with Kyle, and would you please stop calling Julian a demon?” Jazzmyn turned from her and rummaged through her purse for the keys to her office.

“They’re in your front pocket,” Ms. Helen stated. “You put them in your pocket before you left the house.”

“How could you know that?” Jazzmyn felt the bulge of the keys in the right front pocket of her black pants. She pulled the keys out and raised her eyes to Ms. Helen.

“That’s how I know you’re lyin’, and that’s how I know you slept with him. I can see it. Just like I can see that he’ll put you in danger.”

Jazzmyn spied the keys in her hands. Attached to the key chain was a silver charm shaped like a musical note with the words “The Sweet Note” carved into it. She thought back to the day Kyle had given her the token to thank her for having faith in him as a chef. Wanting to blot out the memory, she closed her fist over the keepsake.

“Do you and Carl have lunch figured out?” Jazzmyn asked, turning to her office door.

“We got it figured out, but you’re gonna bring Kyle back, aren’t you?”

Jazzmyn put her key in the lock. “No, Ms. Helen. Kyle took a swing at a customer, and I can’t allow that kind of behavior in my establishment.”

“He took a swing at a demon. He wasn’t no customer,” Ms. Helen argued behind her.

Jazzmyn opened her office door and faced Ms. Helen. “He was a customer, a paying customer. It doesn’t matter if it was Julian or not. I can’t afford to have my chef attacking my customers. He’s a liability.”

“He’s your friend, and he needs your help,” Ms. Helen asserted.