Persecuted

But Elena had already known about the witch hunt because of her dreams. She’d fought so hard to suppress her visions, to convince herself that they weren’t real. When her sister had found her, Elena had had to admit to the truth, if only to herself.

The visions were why Elena was cursed, not the three-hundred-and-fifty-year-old vendetta that had started the first witch hunt. One of Elena’s Durikken ancestors had been accused of killing the female members of the McGregor family and was burned at the stake. But like Elena, she’d seen her future and urged her daughter to run. That child, for whom Elena was named, had found safety, and she’d continued the Durikken legacy, passing on to her children the special abilities that people mistook for witchcraft.

Now someone else had resurrected the vendetta that Eli McGregor had begun three and a half centuries ago, of ritualistically killing all witches. Elena had dreamed, sleeping and awake, of his murders. While she saw his victims, she hadn’t seen the killer; she couldn’t identify him. Helplessness and frustration churned in her stomach, gnawing at the lining like ulcers.

“I don’t want this!” she insisted to the empty room, as she had for so many years.

Leaning over, she wrapped her fingers around the handle of the nightstand drawer and pulled with such force that the drawer dropped onto the floor. Papers flew out, scattering across the thick beige carpet. Her copy of the divorce papers. Her husband refused to sign his. She couldn’t continue their farce of a marriage, which had been over long ago and was past time to officially end. If only she was a witch, like the legend claimed, then she could cast a spell on Kirk and make him go away forever. Somehow she suspected that a big check would do the job.

Elena rolled out of bed and dropped to her knees on the floor. Instead of picking up the papers, she pushed them aside. In the dim light, she couldn’t see what she sought. Blindly she ran her fingertips through the carpet, raking it, until her nails grazed warm metal. She dug the pewter charm from the thick fibers, then dropped the little star, the tips dulled with age, into her palm. Twenty years ago her mother had pressed the star upon her, telling Elena that as well as keeping her safe, the charm would ensure that she never forgot who or what she was.

Images flashed in her mind like snapshots. A woman hanging. Another woman crushed beneath rocks. Another woman burning. Pain knotted her stomach and pounded at her temples. Her hands fisted, the points of the star digging into her palm.

She didn’t want to remember those horrifying images.

She didn’t want to be a witch.

She lurched to her feet and staggered to the bathroom. She lifted the lid to the toilet and dropped the little pewter charm into the water. Drops splashed up from inside the bowl, spattering the rim, as the star bobbed. Hand trembling, she reached for the handle. Maybe flushing the charm would stop the visions and make Elena normal. Her fingers closed around the metal handle, which was cool unlike the charm. The little star radiated warmth, always.

Her sister believed the charms held some special power to protect them, that if all three sisters united with the charms, they could stop the witch hunt. Elena’s fingers slipped away from the handle. Then she reached into the bowl and pulled the star from the water. She’d held on to the charm too long to get rid of it now. Even though Elena didn’t share Ariel’s beliefs, she didn’t want to shatter her sister’s hope.

Her breath coming in shallow pants, she moved to the sink, turning on the gold-plated faucets to wash off the charm and her hands. Because of the soap, she kept a firm hold on the piece of metal, careful not to lose the star down the drain. She glanced at her image in the mirror, the disheveled blond hair, the wild light blue eyes, the silk chemise nightgown baring her shoulders.

“Liar,” she called herself. She hadn’t just lied to her sister when she’d claimed that the charms held no power; she had lied to herself, about so many things.

The marble floor cold beneath her bare feet, Elena walked from the bathroom. With one hand, she fitted the drawer back into the nightstand, then laid the star inside. The charm’s warmth had already dried it, so it glistened in the soft glow of the Tiffany lamp.

Over the years Elena had many times considered tossing out the charm, but she always refrained. No matter how hard she’d tried to forget her past, a part of her had been unwilling to let go. With the witch hunt resurrected, that part would either prove her salvation…or her demise.

* * *

Elena had no idea how long she’d been asleep when moist lips touched her shoulder, gliding over the bare skin. Her pulse quickening, she murmured and shifted against the bed, struggling to awaken. She dragged in a deep breath, the scent of citrus soap and musk.

This was not her husband joining her in bed. He wasn’t even down the hall tonight; he was out of town. But when he’d been around, he hadn’t touched her, not for a long time. From the way he’d started looking at her, with uneasiness and a trace of fear, he might have figured out that his wife wasn’t normal. Perhaps he’d picked up clues from her nightmares, or from the things she knew before he told her.

The lips moved, nibbling along her shoulder to her neck. The brush of moist, hot breath raised goose bumps along her skin. The blanket lowered, pushed aside by impatient hands. Then those strong, clever hands ran over her body, skimming down her arms, then around her waist and over her hips. Sometime during the night, even though the air blowing through her windows was cool in mid-May in western Michigan, she had removed her nightgown. Nothing separated her skin from his as his body brushed against hers.

“Elena,” a deep voice whispered in her ear, his hot breath stirring her hair and her senses. “You’re ready for me.”

Excitement pulsed in her veins, and she opened her eyes, staring up into his face as he leaned over her. Desire had darkened his eyes so that only a thin circle of green rimmed his enlarged pupils. A muscle jumped in his cheek, shadowed with the beard clinging to his square jaw.

“Elena, I want you.” His biceps bulged as he braced his arms on the mattress on either side of her, trapping her beneath the long, hard length of his body. His voice deepened to a throaty growl as he told her, “I want to bury myself so deep inside you that you’ll feel me forever as a part of you.”

“You’re already part of me,” she murmured.

His were the arms she’d instinctively sought earlier, when the horrifying dream had awakened her. She turned to him for comfort and protection. And for this, for the passion that pounded like a drum in her heart, heating her skin and melting her muscles so that she flowed beneath him, fitting herself to the hard lines of his body.

His chest tempted her, wide and muscular with soft, black hair that grew thinner as it arrowed down, over his washboard stomach. Some of the hair dusted his muscular legs, tickling hers, as he entwined them.

He was naked and ready. And so was she.

Her stomach quivering with anticipation, she reached up, twining her arms around his back, pulling him closer. But his weight didn’t settle hot and heavy against her. Her arms moved through empty space, flailing the covers aside as she moved restlessly in her bed, empty but for her.

For the second time that night she bolted upright, panting for breath, her lungs burning with the struggle for air, as she awakened from a dream.

Just a dream.

This was no vision of the future, for there could be no future between Elena and her dream lover. Unlike the killer, she’d seen this man’s face; she knew him, and wished she didn’t.

He might not be the killer, but to Elena, he was just as big a threat, if not to her life, to her heart. His were the last arms in which she would find comfort or protection. With a man like him, she’d only find more heartache and danger.

Elena hadn’t been to this wing of the house in six months, not since her father died. Each step on the Oriental runner that covered the wide corridor brought back more memories. Painful ones. That was one reason why she hadn’t been back to this part of the Tudor mansion. She never wanted to relive those last weeks spent at her father’s bedside, listening to his feverish ramblings as she watched him die.

Unlike the many times he’d taken ill before, this time the pneumonia had killed him. Maybe because he’d gotten it so many times before, or maybe because, as his mother had feared twenty years ago, he’d given up fighting for his life.

As with her visions, Elena had been helpless to stop his death. During his last days, half the time he’d thought she was her mother, so the fever had blinded him before killing him. She looked nothing like Myra Cooper with her wild curly black hair and big, dark gypsy eyes; eyes that had seen so much, like Elena’s, through her visions. She might not have resembled her mother in looks, but Elena had taken after her in other ways.

The other half of the time, her father had thought she was his mother, which probably made more sense. She did resemble Thora Jones physically but in no other way. Elena still had her soul, even though she sometimes felt it slipping away… like when she had a vision of murder and didn’t know how to prevent the killing.

Elena stood outside the door to her grandmother’s rooms, hesitant to knock. She was the other reason Elena had stayed away from this wing of the house. No good ever came out of contact with Thora Jones. The first time Elena met her paternal grandmother she’d been twelve and ripped away from her mom and sisters because of Thora’s manipulations. Thora had sworn out the complaint that had declared Myra Cooper an unfit mother, causing the authorities to take away her children.

But Myra hadn’t fought to keep Elena. She’d signed away her parental rights. Until Ariel had found her, Elena had thought she’d been the only one their mother had given up, because of who and what she was. But Myra hadn’t kept any of her three daughters. Ariel believed it was because of the McGregor vendetta, that she’d been trying to protect them. Elena wasn’t convinced. She was a mother; she couldn’t imagine giving up her child for any reason but most especially if Stacia were in danger. No one would fight harder to keep a child safe than her mother.

That was why Thora had found Elena twenty years ago and brought her to this house, to give her son a reason to fight for his life. After a car accident paralyzed him, he’d wanted to die…until he’d met his daughter. He hadn’t known about her existence until that day, but he’d immediately loved her. If not for her father, Elena wouldn’t have stayed. She would have run away the first chance she got.

Growing up in this mausoleum had made Elena feel like a grasshopper trapped under a glass, powerless to escape and totally at the mercy of the person who held her captive. When she’d left for college, she had never intended to come back, but then her father had had one of his bouts with pneumonia. Thora had made certain Elena knew just how sick he was and how much he needed his daughter. So she’d been sucked back under the glass.

She curled her fingers into a fist but didn’t lift it to knock. Not yet. Before she could, the door opened.

“Elena.”

Although she closed her eyes, she recognized the deep voice and wished for many reasons that she could disappear. Joseph Dolce wasn’t her favorite person, probably because since her father died, he was her grandmother’s favorite. Thora had trusted him enough, despite his relative youth and inexperience, to make him CEO of her corporation, stepping down herself from the position of power she had held since her husband died, from a heart attack, over twenty-five years ago.

Rumor was that Thora owned most of Barrett, the midsized city in the southwestern section of Michigan. Elena knew the rumor to be fact; she’d seen the business records since inheriting her father’s shares of the company. Jones Inc. owned car dealerships, trucking companies, hotels and restaurants.

Now a thirty-five-year-old who’d grown up on the streets was in charge of the multimillion-dollar corporation. To his credit, Joseph had managed, despite some juvenile scrapes with the law, to go to college instead of prison. He’d also run a couple of those businesses under the Jones umbrella before running the whole thing. As Thora’s CEO Joseph was at the house often, far too often for Elena’s peace of mind.

“Mr. Dolce,” she finally acknowledged him.

“Joseph,” he corrected her. He’d been telling her to use his first name for the year since he’d become CEO, and she had yet to use it.

She probably never would. She didn’t respect anyone who worked for her grandmother, even though at one time she’d used business to try to gain Thora’s acceptance. When her father’s health had compelled her to return, she’d asked Thora for a favor, the chance for some respect. But despite her MBA, her grandmother had refused to give her anything, let alone the role Elena had wanted running the company. She realized now that she’d been foolish to even ask, to give her grandmother more leverage with which to hurt her.

Her husband worked for Jones Inc., though, far beneath Thora and Joseph’s level. Is that what had changed him from the sweet, fun-loving boy she’d met in college eleven years ago? Elena doubted anyone could stay sweet and fun loving around Thora, least of all someone as weak as Kirk. Because he was weak, she couldn’t fathom why he had chosen to fight the divorce. Why now, when she wanted him gone, did he refuse to leave?

She closed her eyes, as a headache nagged at her temples. Her divorce was the least of her concerns in light of her visions. The dissolution of her marriage was trivial in comparison to someone’s life. Irina? Had her baby sister been the woman in the fire in Elena’s first dream the previous night?

She refused to think about her second, trying to wipe it from her mind even as her body pulsed with frustration in the way it had ended. Too soon.