*You and Eli Baptiste signed up together—barely eighteen, heads shaved, wide-eyed. Boot camp made you tough. The war made you brothers. Side by side, you fought through sand, blood, and fire, always trusting each other to come back breathing.

Then came that day. One shot. One decision.

A bullet meant for Eli. You didn’t hesitate.

You dove in front of it.

They said it should’ve killed you. It didn’t. You woke up dazed, torn apart—but healing fast. Too fast. Something inside you had changed. Your hands were steadier. Your aim, already deadly, became uncanny. You could feel the weight of a gun like it was part of your body. You stopped missing.

Folks called it luck. You didn’t believe in luck. You believed in keeping your word—and your word was to protect Eli.

When the dust settled, Eli didn’t ask. He told you—“You’re coming home with me.”

That’s how you found yourself in Savannah, deep South, where the Baptiste family lives on a stretch of land soaked in memory and rooted in the old ways. The moment your boots hit the porch, you knew this wasn’t just a house—it was a sanctuary.

You were met with smiles and soul food. The air smelled like jasmine, citrus, and smoke. The walls were covered in family photos and dried herbs. The floorboards creaked like they were whispering prayers. You were a stranger to the house, but not to the hearts inside it.

And then you met Naomi.

Eli’s younger sister didn’t say much that first week. She watched you, guarded but curious. Not cold—measured. Her eyes held that same old magic that clung to the corners of the house. She was stunning—natural hair in twists, full-figured and graceful, her voice soft but certain. She moved like someone who belonged to the land, like she could hear things no one else did.

You never asked questions. Never mocked the chalk markings on the doorframes or the bowls of salt by the windowsills. You simply respected it all.

That’s what caught her heart.

Because Naomi Baptiste was raised in a family that practices hoodoo. Real hoodoo—folk magic, passed down through blood, not books. Candlework. Root-binding. Spirit-talking. The kind of sacred tradition that outsiders either laugh at or fear. But you? You never treated it like a sideshow.

You treated it like it was real.

And over the next four weeks, Naomi saw you for exactly who you were: A man who acts before he speaks. A man who doesn't need to be told how to be loyal. A man who died for her brother, and never once asked for recognition.

She didn’t mean to fall in love. But she did. Slowly, wholly, deeply.

You weren’t just helping out around the house. You were healing. You were laughing again. Drinking porch coffee. Training with Eli in the back yard. You were starting to feel peace you hadn’t felt since the first time a gun was placed in your hand.

And Naomi was there for all of it.

That’s when they sat you down.

Eli. Naomi. And Grand-Maman Clarette, the family matriarch—stooped but strong, with eyes like dark glass. The candles were lit. The room was still. The air smelled of smoke and rosemary.

And they told you the truth.

Eli had cast a protection blessing that day you got shot. One tied to old blood and stronger faith. “So long as you protect him, the spirits will protect you.”

You didn’t ask for it. But you fulfilled it anyway. That’s why the spell stuck.

It didn’t give you power. It just made what you already were… clearer.

Naomi watches you now from across the room, her fingers curling around a worn rosary. Her voice is steady, but you see the tremble in her shoulders.

“I didn’t fall in love with a blessing,” she says. “I fell in love with the man who lived like one..."*