Claiming the Voodoo Princess Read online

  CLAIMING

  THE

  VOODOO PRINCESS

  WHAT PHARAOH WANTS SPINOFF

  A VERY SHORT STORY BY

  MARCELLE SIXX

  www.afterhourspublications.com

  All rights reserved.

  Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage without express permission by the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Contains explicit language & adult themes suitable for ages 17+

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  “For Stephanie Christopher…”

  Keep scrolling after “The End” to enjoy the first look inside the next installment of the highly anticipated Lycan King/ Prince series exclusively!

  A WORD FROM THE AUTHOR

  Greetings, Sixxers!

  It was brought to my attention several times that readers wanted to see what life was like for some of our characters after the successful mash-up Riker’s: Academy for Misfit Beasts. A weird thought popped into my head among the millions of spinoff ideas I could bring centerstage. A grown-up Annalissa Pharaoh. In What Pharaoh Wants book 4, we get to see her as an older sister until all of their timeline is properly pieced back together. Then, we see her little tomboyish self in Riker’s, where we get to see how hard she loves, a little of her soft spot for her brother, how eager she is to prove herself to her father, and her lack of control when it comes to her anger. All of these factors pour into this handsome feature I provide for you, yet it pegs the question of how we let things from our past sit and rot, and we have to ask ourselves how we went from being one way to another. Well, Annalissa is going to learn the hard way and teach us a few lessons. Also, I did tie in another book from that same universe. It didn’t feel quite right without it. We mashed up the What Pharaoh Wants, Loving the Predator/ Prey series, plus Jovan’s Room, but we left out the book that launched the Marcelle Sixx brand. The Grey House. In this piece, if you read carefully, there is a particular mention as a nod to that work. Does Cooper’s Bayou sound familiar? It should. It was the bayou right outside young Tyler’s window where her “lived in” house sat. She was unfortunate to not only inherit the home, but the land and the bayou. It was only right. Lastly, this work of fiction has to be the shortest I’ve ever written, but I couldn’t leave the Sixxers without a great Halloween read. With that said…

  Happy reading!

  Chapter

  One

  With bated breath, Annalissa waited on the roof of an old plantation home with her feet dangling over the edge. One look at her brown boots and she instantly hated them. Without a blink, she changed her footwear to a pair of Cookies and Cream Nike Metcons. A satisfied smile graced her fare face.

  This wasn’t an unusual event for her in the past seven years. To wait every Friday to watch as what looked like footprints to grace the lavender and neon orange skies, all the while her palms grew sweaty and the rhythm of her heart escalated. It was almost time.

  The trees on the ground seemed to part, allowing her the slightest view of a shimmering cloud that approached the porch. Lisa’s smile grew wider.

  The glowing orb stopped just shy of the stairs and dimmed until she could see who came for a weekly visit.

  His smooth Nestle complexion was one made of dreams. Tonight, he wore his hair pulled back in a thick, fluffy ponytail, the way she liked it, so that she could touch the waves in his tresses before his actual ponytail itself. When he looked up at her and smiled, Annalissa melted. Her cheeks had become rosy.

  “You gonna come down?” he asked in a voice that wasn’t at all demanding, keeping his smile intact.

  “Why don’t you come up?” she shared in an equal southern twang.

  Without an argument to be had, he marched up thin air as if there were solid, concrete stairs underneath his feet.

  She met him halfway, merely floating toward him.

  They closed their space with a hug that she ravished.

  He placed a gentle kiss on her cheek. “Now, out of all the Fridays, why’d you have to look this gorgeous?”

  The twenty-one-year-old giggled the loudest she’d ever, batting at his chest. “You say that every Friday.”

  “And every Friday, I’m honest.”

  Over the course of seven years, the two met up and wallowed in their own personal land, time, and existence. They’d bathe in chocolate waterfalls, eat from Gummy Bear trees, and bounce in marshmallow fields. This land for children was just for them. Inside Annalissa’s dreams.

  Meeting was an accident.

  After an argument between Lisa and her father, she had what she thought was a horrible nightmare. She’d never disclose these events to her family because she was supposed to be able to control things as such, or at least be able to analyze them for meaning. But this one dream was horrid.

  She was being chased by the dead, and no matter how badly she wanted to take control of what was going on behind her lids, her magic seemed to be ineffective. All until she heard a whisper.

  “This way.”

  With her heart pounding out of control, her head whipped left and right until there was another whisper in the darkened bayou.

  “In here.”

  Annalissa found her solace in a home stashed inside a small hill. The first time she laid eyes on Him, it almost frightened her. She hadn’t conjured him, even without using magic. She hadn’t seen him around, imagined him or even knew who he was from another realm.

  His whole foot difference in height towered over her as he handed her a dampened cloth. “I have nightmares sometimes, too,” he said. “I done seen people’s deepest fears in their dreams and have sometimes helped them find a way out of them. Don’t know how I ended up in yours, though.”

  “You’re a Dreamwalker,” she muttered, all too surprised. She’d heard of them, but never knew them to exist. Her family practiced the art of dream-walking, but had never met someone who was born with the gift and purpose of doing so.

  Never had the topic come up of how he could’ve invaded her sleep. It wasn’t voluntary on either of their behalf’s. He figured it was an accident. One he didn’t regret. It wasn’t like he could’ve fallen asleep and thought of someone so he could enter their dreams. No. As it was known between the two, he had to be awake and in the distance of someone sleeping for him to pull something so skillful.

  Though Annalissa awoke after that nightmare turned pleasant dream, she was late for her weekend chores. Beforehand, they made a pact to meet up every Friday, per their own tradition, as soon as their heads hit their pillows after midnight. Names were kept out of the equation in case something happened. They didn’t want to disappoint one another, or hold a grudge. Where they lived wasn’t spoken of. They knew what each other liked to do for fun, their favorite colors, and how old each other was. He was now twenty-three, and she was twenty-one.

  Annalissa groaned as she sun was rising once again. They made sure that it never set in their universe. It always remained the perfect shade.

  “Don’t do that, now,” he said with a chuckle.

  She hid her face inside his chubby arm. “Do we have to wake up?”

  “Unfortunately, work calls, Baby Doll.”

  “It’s Saturday,” she whined. “Why does this day even have to be here? Now, we have to wait a whole
other week.”

  “I know, but it’s worth it, don’t you think?”

  “For you? Yes.”

  He cradled her chin within his hand, all to turn her face toward the sparkling rainbow river mere feet away from where they sat on the bank. “I ain’t ever had somethin’ this beautiful. You, and all of this, is something I look forward to. With what we do for a living, and for our families, I suppose we’ll never have somethin’ like this again, ‘less we create it for ourselves like we do every Friday night, Saturday mornin’. If it’s just six days, I’m willin’ to wait.”

  Slowly, a smile pulled across her face. “I guess, I can—”

  Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!

  “Noooooooo!” Lisa screamed as she leaned off her mound of pillows. She beat the mattress with her fist, angry at her alarm clock. She knew for certain that she hadn’t set it, so she narrowed her lids at the mirror with vengeance on her mind for her older brother.

  ***

  With haste, she wrapped her dark brown and gold dreads inside a bun and scurried off to her 1962, roofless Cadillac DeVille. Moses was getting married in a month, finally, so it was important that everyone pitched in as much as they could. She’d heard of Bridezillas, but Moses proved that men could be just as mean.

  Today, she had to make it into the hair salon she owned and where she worked part-time, then head off to a final taste-testing for her brother’s cake. She knew that grooms didn’t traditionally have a cake, but Moses wanted to enjoy the events just as much as his bride-to-be.

  “Lisa, why the long face?” Angela, the manager, asked as soon as Annalissa marched over the threshold of the old townhome.

  “You don’t want to know,” she groaned.

  To make matters worse, there was a crystal vase of black roses waiting at her station when she tossed her backpack into the salon chair. She sneered at it. Without attempting to read the card that was attached, she snatched the vase, barreled through the shop, and smashed the vase on the side of the steps. After re-entering, she barked, “I told y’all to stop lettin’ him in here!”

  Angela stopped braiding her client’s hair and threw her hands up at shoulder-length. “Lisa, I promise you that man ain’t been in here. I showed up at six this morning to do finish some Sister Locs, and I ain’t so much as went to the restroom yet. I witnessed every stylist stroll in, and every client. He ain’t set foot in here.”

  Slowly, Annalissa nodded. “He didn’t walk in?”

  “Not a single foot.”

  “Okay.”

  She tore away from the workspace, barreling into her office. From underneath a loose floorboard below her desk, she grabbed a bag made of loin cloth and took it to the steps of her shop. She mumbled her spell as she made small hills at each of the corners of her property to keep her stalker away.

  She didn’t have time to keep thinking of the man who swore to make her love him. She had to get to her money and her family.

  ***

  After a long, tiring day, she settled at The White Shack for a glass of Bourbon on the rocks and a cigar the size of a cigarette. She didn’t know how her brother Moses had the ability to keep up with all his duties and was still able to lead what looked like a normal life. She admired him for that but was thankful that she didn’t have his responsibilities. Even more so, she was grateful that after her great-aunt Winnie died, her mother kept the shack, spruced it up only a little, and kept it open for business.

  Her cousin Jazmine wiped the counter in front of her with her gorgeous green eyes on her towel. “Honey, you got to stop destroying yourself,” she said over the Blues music playing from the classic jukebox. “I know things are hard, but just confide in Robyn. You got a mama for a reason.”

  “Miss Perfect isn’t going to listen to me.” Lisa pulled from her cigar and held it, hoping that the smoke and the Bourbon would do something to take some of her doubt and stress away.

  “She’s your mama, baby. She knows how to speak to her kids.”

  “We’re grown, Cousin.” Lisa looked up at her with uncaring eyes and a snarl. “She’s not going to know how to talk to an adult, and she most certainly isn’t going to understand. Besides, she has other responsibilities in this fucked up world.”

  “M’kay,” Jazmine sang as she finished up her duties. “I’m just saying that I wished one of my sons would’ve spoken to me instead of taking on his personal problem the way he did.”

  At the thought of it, no one liked Cousin Maurice, and he did put them all in jeopardy. But that wasn’t Annalissa. That wasn’t her style to disrupt others’ happiness and lives just because she had issues.

  “Lisa, did you get my flowers?”

  Her snarl tightened when she heard that voice.

  “Baby, calm down,” Jazmine told her. “You look just like your daddy when you make that face.”

  She whirled around on the barstool to face a man who was six inches taller, four shades darker, and had the neatest taper fade of all the men she’d come in contact with. His mouth full of gold teeth were on full display when he smiled at her, but it made her feel so dirty. So angry.

  “What the fuck are you doing here, Dossier?” she asked through closed teeth.

  “I came out with some friends.” He nodded over his shoulder at a table full of hoodlums that were amateurs at magic. The wrong kind of magic. “I saw you over here by yourself, looking all sad and—”

  “You came to my shop today. I don’t know how the hell you did it when I told you that the shit you’re doing will have you hanged, but you did. So, yes, I got your flowers and I threw those shits away. Just like I did that heart of yours.”

  His smile faded. His fat, dark top lip quivered. “You what?”

  “I said I threw them the fuck out, Dossier! Now, you and your little wannabe wizards get the fuck out of my family’s place of business before I hand all of you over to the Witches Council.”

  “You would do that to me, baby?”

  She pulled him by the gold rope chain he wore around his neck, so that he could hear her loud and clear. “You either take that, or me turning your ass into a frog. And, believe me, baby, it’ll take more than me kissing you for you to ever hold or use your dick again.”

  Closely, he eyed her, knowing that she was telling the truth. His heart was turning cold by the millisecond. “You know, they say Pharaohs only look out for themselves. I was wondering when it would’ve shown up in you.”

  Lisa pushed him away and pulled from her cigar. “Pharaohs protect the birds of our feather from punishment or worst.” Slowly, she blew her smoke with her tint of gold shimmering vibrantly in her eyes. “But, bird…” Cinders flew out of her mouth with every word. “You ain’t of my fucking feather. Now, get!”

  “You ain’t got to love me, Lisa. That’s cool. But you will never get the chance to disrespect me again.”

  This time when blowing her smoke, a string of crackling, roaring fire ushered it. Dossier’s white t-shirt was almost singed.

  He jumped back with bewildered eyes. “You’re a crazy bitch to breathe fire at me. Do you know who I am?”

  “To them?” She pointed at his friends with her cigar. “Or to the rest of the world? Because to me, you only laid in my bed just to say that you were able to nab a Pharaoh. At least, that’s what you told that cockeyed bitch Brenda. That was right after you got naked pictures from that the bowlegged hoe Sheneth, which was right after I was told by the crooked-foot motherfucker Lika that you paid to get her an abortion. So, don’t you stand there and act innocent, Dossier. You really could’ve had something great, had you not gotten greedy and blabbed about it to the whores you were dipping into behind my back. Lastly, you will never speak ill of my family in my presence. We don’t take too kindly to threats or posers.”

  “You know why I cheated on you, Lisa? It was because you just wouldn’t be right. Here I am, trying to make peace with you, but you want to spit fire at me?”

  “It’s the least you deserve for making me look stupid.�
�

  “No. And greedy for what? Compared to your daddy, mama and brother, you’re nothing. You’ll always be at the bottom of the totem pole. Look at you. Everybody give her a round of applause. The confused, drunk bitch at the counter that’s supposed to have infinite power. Everybody else got somethin’ to do ‘cept you. Come down off your high horse before that motherfucker fatally tips over with you on his back. ‘Cause that’s what happens to all your clients. Nobody ever gets what they need from you. They always end up in a grave, or worst. Fuck you, Lisa. You ain’t nobody, and you never will be.” Dossier fingered for his band of men to rise from the table so they could leave.

  Jazmine placed her hand on her cousin’s bare shoulder, only for Lisa to snatch away from it.

  She raced out to the SUV where the men were piling inside and stared at it.

  Just as Dossier took out his keys, the truck exploded, sending all of them flying backward. After they recouped and were settled on their feet, every shard of metal reconnected.

  Dossier looked back at her with knitted brows.

  “Watch yourself, Dossier,” she said seriously.

  He opened his mouth to say something, but it was molded shut. His white Nike AirMax sparked until they were engulfed in flames. His friends scrambled to stomp out the fire, but to no avail. Dossier couldn’t move.

  “I’m a nobody?” she asked. The toes of her pointed boots drug in the dirt as she floated over to him. “I’m a nobody?” she screamed.

  All the sound, including the screams of his scurrying friends muted. She’d gone as far as removing the sound to flex her power.

  He stared at the slit she had for lids, fearing that on this day, he was sure to die.

  A tinge of gold sparked at the ends of her blowing, gray peasant skirt, but it wasn’t from Annalissa or what she was doing.

  Her eyes were burning so brightly that they looked like her irises were hot, molted gold. “Answer me, motherfucker. I’m nothing!”