Blue Voodoo: A Romantic Retelling of Bluebeard (The Hidden Kingdom Series Book 2) Read Online Free

snatch a handful of the fey’s hair—usually a sea foam green, but currently glamoured to a plain brown, damn him—and rip it from his scalp. “You got your invitation by false pretenses and I’ve told you our deal is off. You cannot fill the job you were hired for so you are no longer welcome on my ship.”
    The slender being sniffed. “I am the best at illusion. But you did not tell me at the time you inquired about my services that you wanted me to hide your beard.”
    “You didn’t have to hide it,” Julien bit out. “You simply had to change its color.”
    “Then you should have specified that.”
    “I did!”
    Several heads swiveled in Julien’s direction and he gritted his teeth, struggling to get his temper back under control. Drust brushed at an invisible speck from his thin leather gloves.
    “I told you I wanted my hair to be a normal shade.”
    “It is. I know many men with a beard such a color.”
    “Human men?”
    Drust frowned. “No. But you didn’t say a normal shade for human men specifically, did you?”
    Julien gripped the dock post, trying to avoid strangling his unwanted guest. The power inside of him licked its lips, hungry for destruction.
    “It is as I told you,” Drust explained patiently. “No one could hide that beard. It is not blue by some trick of birth or the whim of a confused hairdresser. It is blue because someone laid magic on it—powerful magic. Magic that is very specifically designed to make you stand out, to be seen.” He held up his palms. “The Queen of Air and Darkness herself would be challenged to hide something infused with that sort of magic.” His brows knitted. “Well, maybe not the Queen of Air and Darkness. She would probably, you know, make it dark. That would hide it. Unless of course it glows in the dark.” He slanted a glance at Julien, interest sparking in his green eyes. “ Does it glow in the dark?”
    “If you refuse to leave, then you will make yourself useful.” Julien jabbed a finger into the fey’s chest, momentarily appeased by the wince of pain on the other man’s face. “Use your supreme powers of illusion and make yourself look like me. Take the ship and draw our pursuers as far as you can.” He dropped his hand, but didn’t step back. “Do you think you can manage that?”
    Drust pursed his lips. “Yes.”
    Unwilling to wait and see what else the former member of the Unseelie Court might come up with, Julien whirled around and stomped down the dock. It was difficult to outrun his temper when his path was lined with people who stopped to stare, every one of them eyeing his beard with a question in their eyes if not on their lips. He ran a hand over his face, scrubbing at his beard as if he could wipe away the color. He almost pulled the sash from his waist to tie around him like a scarf, but experience suggested that would be an exercise in futility. Drust was right, the magic that had turned his beard blue was meant to be seen. The scarf would only loosen as if plucked at by some unseen hand. The power of the curse.
    Sending Drust off looking like him was a vain endeavor as well. He might draw off some bounty hunters and law men who knew Julien’s ship, but some of them would make it to Sanguennay and it would take them no time at all to learn Julien was here. But at least the task would get Drust off his back for a while. And it wouldn’t take long to put his plan into action.
    A chuckle rumbled in his chest. He’d arrived in port early this morning, and he’d spent the better part of that morning telling the chatty old biddies in the shops that he intended to take a wife this night. Not merely a wife—he intended to marry the Voodoo Queen herself. The old women had flown from their seats like chittering hens, moving with the speed of much younger women as they rushed to share their precious news with anyone who would hold still long enough to hear it.
    “Have you heard yet, lover?” Images of Dominique filled his