Chapter 8

Cole

Central Business District, New Orleans, Louisiana

C ole clicked the end call button in the videoconferencing software, pinching the bridge of his nose in irritation. Calls like that made him want to walk into Canal Street traffic at rush hour or consider retiring at thirty-five. He already had more money than he could ever need or spend, even if his fated wife only believed in shopping ’til she dropped, and each passing day made him question his commitment to career. His clients just seemed to get more brainless with every damn day, and his satisfaction with his job plummeted whenever someone helped him discover the new lows of their stupidity. Times like these, he hated the advent of the internet with a fiery passion; there was just something deeply satisfying about slamming a phone back into the cradle or smashing a physical button to end a call when the person on the other end was that fucking moronic. Somehow, it just lost the effect when he was clicking a mouse button.

It had been a stupendously shitty day. Charles’ unsolicited visit and Cole’s realization that he had to go trampling through a forest—probably at midnight because he had hearings and calls until well after the sun set—to find a wife he didn’t want to claim a mythological throne that would fuck up his entire lifestyle were just the beginning. Chief Executive Officers of multi-billion dollar companies were calling him every hour, acting like the world was going to end if he didn’t answer a question he had already addressed. The number of times he had muttered, “Stop breaking the law, asshole,” under his breath was, at last count, somewhere around the 200 mark. He got sideswiped by a bike messenger on his way to lunch. His most recent hookup, a barista named Lila (or was it Lana?) had thrown a stapler at his head after he set boundaries with her, namely that it was not okay for her to tell his paralegal to do anything, much less request that she clear his calendar so he could see his girlfriend, a role Lacey (maybe it was Laura?) most assuredly did not hold. Not to mention, the coffee shop had fucked up his standard order, which was a black coffee, the easiest option they had available on their fancy ass menu. He realized that last thing was more annoying than anything else, but dammit, it counted after the day he’d had.

On top of it all, he was still working at 2:00 am. His cell vibrated on the desk as if to prove that this was not his fucking day. Rolling his eyes in frustration, he tapped the answer button, picking up the phone and walking into the private bathroom of his office where he had spare clothes stashed. “Yes?” he snapped, not caring who was on the other end. As luck would have it, it was the owner of a local casino chain, a man so sleazy that he made politicians look genuine. The man got out about two words before Cole realized that there was no way he was getting out of this call without telling his client to fuck off if he didn’t hang up now. “Listen,” he broke into his client’s ramblings, something about questionable conduct with a minor. “Go ahead and call the office in the morning to get a meeting set up.”

The man stammered in rage, but the phone call was disconnected before he even finished threatening to take his business elsewhere.

Apparently, he was in the “piss off clients” stage of his day. He glanced down just in time to see the client’s name pop up on his screen. With a swipe of his thumb, he declined the call and pulled up his text message chain with his business partner.

Just pissed off Landry. Your turn to deal with him.

After clicking send, he toed off his oxfords and pulled off his suit jacket, letting out a loud sigh of relief as he draped it over the bathroom vanity. Finally able to get comfortable. His black dress shirt and suit pants met the same fate. He had just pulled on a pair of jeans and was tugging a soft long-sleeve Henley over his head when his phone vibrated on the vanity. As soon as his head popped through the shirt's neck, Cole picked up his cell.

The fuck did you do this time?

Cole chuckled, his thumbs flying over the keyboard as he typed up his response.

At 2:00 in the morning? I hung up on him while he was trying to tell me it’s not statutory rape if the girl looks like she’s in her twenties.

Silence followed by a straightforward response.

Fuck my life.

Cole’s chuckle grew into a full-blown laugh of happiness that he wouldn't be the one handling Landry’s bullshit as he pulled on a pair of tattered Converses that he refused to get rid of because they were perfectly broken in. When his phone vibrated again, showing Landry’s name on the screen, he declined the call and powered down his cell, stuffing it and his wallet in his back pocket and heading towards the garage. On his way out of the office, a clean, modern-looking space that occupied the top two floors of one of the tallest skyscrapers in the CBD, he passed through the empty hallways into a dark, open-concept room lined with windows. The lights of New Orleans lit up the area around him, vibrant reds and pinks and whites of the city's night life radiating in through the thick glass.

He stopped in his tracks and glanced out at the city he had been born and raised in. His mother and father had fallen on the poor side of middle class and were too proud to accept money from his uncle, who wanted nothing more than to help them out, especially once they had Cole. Despite their tight budget, they made sure that he had wanted for nothing, adoring and spoiling their only son. Their small cottage in Gentilly, which seemed so grand after they moved out of their Tremé shotgun house when Cole was three, had been filled with love and warmth. It was an area where the neighbors all knew each other, and it wasn’t unusual for people to head out to their porches after dinner and share whatever leftovers they had with Ava and Noah Aidoneus’ little boy. His mother taught him her native French on that porch; his father educated him on the importance of community in that old house. They never let him forget his roots, though, taking him back to their old stomping grounds in Tremé so he could grow up knowing the friends they were so close to that they were practically family. Through it all, he fell in love with New Orleans. No matter how far he traveled for work, he always came back to the city that had his heart.

Watching the bustle of the French Quarter nightlife just a few blocks away from the darkness of his firm’s offices, Cole realized just how far he had come from being that little boy to the man he was today. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and strode to the elevator. During the short ride to the garage, he wondered whether his parents would be proud of who he was today. They died when he was so young. As he got into his car and toggled in the address to a small town with a good entrance to the preserve and parking, a small niggling thought told him that they would probably be proud of what he had accomplished professionally and for New Orleans but not so much with his romantic life. Cole and his best friend had built a multi-billion dollar business through sheer grit and perseverance. He gave back to the community, volunteering his time whenever he could and donating to causes that helped people. But he had never wanted to settle down with any one woman, instead jumping from casual hookups to one-night stands and back again. He liked sex. Fucking sue him. Deep down, though, he knew why he had never pursued anybody long term.

It was his dream girl. The girl he started dreaming about when he was a preteen, a petite thing with big eyes and wild hair. She kept him company and made him feel normal, had become one of his best friends through every conversation they had while he slept. At the time, he had a crush on her because he was a young boy, and she was cute and looked to be his age. Then one dream, she showed up, and she had filled out into a woman that knocked him on his ass. Big grey eyes that looked lavender in the right light, auburn curls that would look incredible wrapped around his fist, beautiful curves that drove him crazy. She was everything he ever wanted, and the worst part was that she didn’t fucking exist. So he fucked a path through New Orleans and everywhere else he went, enjoying himself while he fantasized about his dream woman and reminded himself that she didn’t exist outside of his head.

Or at least he though she didn’t. Until he looked down at that folder Charles handed him and saw that little girl’s eyes, the same stormy eyes that he had seen for most of his life. But the missing Dyeus girl couldn’t be his dream girl. She couldn’t. Right?

His musings kept him occupied as he followed the GPS directions, thankful that traffic was light because he was more or less on autopilot at this point. Even as the lights of the parkway flickered over his head, he felt certain that this would be a fool’s errand, doing his best to keep himself from getting too hopeful. Nothing to see, no fated wife to find, no coven to track. No dream girl who was actually real. Just a waste of time that he could otherwise be using to sleep since he had to be awake and in meetings in... he winced as he glanced at his watch. Six hours.

As soon as he drove up to the construction site that marked the closest point to the preserve with easy parking, though, his world went off its axis. The blood was pounding in his veins, hot and fast as goosebumps raised along the entirety of his body. He was somehow both too hot and too cold simultaneously. His heart was trying to beat out of his chest. His skin felt two sizes too small. What the fuck is this? He pushed the car’s power button, the barely audible buzz of the electric engine cutting off, and swung his long legs out, cracking his back as he raised to his full 6’5” stature. Outside, the wind whistled through the night, the humidity making the chill feel even more brittle. He felt a bit like a serial killer just standing at an inactive construction site in the middle of the night. Actually. Amend that to “pervert” because the tension he had felt in the car had ratcheted up to excitement, which his body interpreted as arousal, the second he got out. And now he was fully erect while chilling in the middle of a dark construction site at 2:30 am. Fucking great .

He stepped forward cautiously. Was there an exposed electric line somewhere? Some form of radiation? A massive environmental accident was one of the only things that could explain the fact that he was now harder than he had ever been in his life when there was nobody around. He moved deeper into the construction site, centering himself as he began drawing on the magic deep inside of him, preparing to cast a searcher spell to find the Barataria Coven within the forest. His source of power was death; there was plenty here with the uprooted trees and animal corpses littering the area, so his magic flowed easily.

Wait. His eyes popped open. Somebody was here. He could feel them, skirting the edges of his magic. They were powerful , the heft of their own magic floating on the air around him, teasing his heated skin. Cole looked around as he walked further into the site, closer to the tree line. He couldn’t see anybody, but he wanted—no, he needed —to see this person. Where were they?

A squirrel darted in front of him, chittering softly as it raced towards the trees. “Good call, buddy,” he muttered to it softly. “Nothing here for you but death.” Chuckling at his terrible joke, he followed its progress towards the forest but froze before he could see the rest of its journey.

In front of him stood a petite woman, pale as the moonlight that surrounded her, wearing a sheer white dress that barely covered her mouthwatering curves. Her big eyes, such an intense grey they were almost purple, observed him warily. Auburn curls tangled around her slim shoulders. The vibrations he had felt in the car, the sense of arousal that even now was crawling all over his skin, all of it was coming from her. From this absolute fucking vision in front of him.

She has to be a hallucination , he thought madly. A hallucination brought on by lack of sleep, stress, too much caffeine, something, because it was too much to believe that the woman he had only seen in his dreams —some of them extremely pornographic—was standing in front of him. This theory conveniently ignored the fact that he had never once shown so much as a hint of mental illness, but he was perfectly fine accepting that lapse in logic.

He had never told anyone besides his uncle and his best friend about his dream woman, although he supposed he should have. His family had been searching for his fated wife since his birth. The woman who appeared to him in dreams for most of his life could maybe, just maybe, be a clue to that little mystery. He couldn’t bear to share her with anyone, though; she was his and his alone. Nobody else deserved to know about his dream woman: what she sounded like, what she looked like, what she felt like, what she tasted like.

In the minute it took his brain to cycle through his rapid-fire thoughts, she crossed the divide between them gracefully but quickly, coming to a halt less than five feet away from him. He couldn’t stop himself. He had to touch her, see if she was real. Lifting his arm, he was surprised to see that his hand wasn’t shaking. It felt like it should be because everything inside of him was screaming in excitement.

She watched him without fear. Gods, she looked like a mythological warrior in the darkness. Absently, he noted that she wasn’t wearing shoes. It felt like that wasn’t a good idea, but he couldn’t think clearly enough to figure out why. Doesn’t matter .

He wrapped a strand of her thick hair around his ring finger. It was silky against his skin, softer than he had expected given that he was almost sure she lived in the forest. He drew her closer, using only his grip on that one auburn curl. In an instant, a single breath, he knew who this was. He had to confirm, though. He cleared his throat, but it made no difference. When he spoke, his voice still sounded like he had recently taken up gargling gravel. Didn’t matter. She could still hear him as that one earth-shattering word left his mouth. “Evangeline?”