Hello Readers,
I know some of you have been waiting a long time for this book. For some reason, this was one of the most difficult books I've written to date. Enjoy this first chapter and get a feeling for the beautiful Nyra Winslow. Her hero, Dym, the sexy Prince of Death will arrive at her door shortly.
BLURB:
Death takes an unscheduled holiday…
Giver
of Life—Nyra Winters has two abilities that no witch before her has ever
possessed—the power to heal and restore life. However, her constant
interference in Death’s plans makes her a target of the angry god, King Titan,
ruler of the Underworld.
Seeker
of Death—Dym Satarius, Prince of Death, is sent to the magical realm of Ru-Noc
to collect Nyra Winters. Devoid of all emotion, Dym believes this assignment
will be no different than any other—collect the witch’s soul and return to
hell—job done—but something goes terribly wrong and he is stranded in Nyra’s
world without his powers or the ability to return to his realm.
Witch’s Touch―Where life and Death
collide…
CHAPTER ONE
The
Present
“Don’t die, Mama.
Don’t die, please.” Nyra
Winters gasped and jerked out of the trance she’d sank into. Blinking, she
tried to focus on the dimly lit room, but everything remained a blur. She
knuckled her eyes hoping it’d speed up the return of her normal vision.
It didn’t help.
Gods, these spells were occurring way too often.
It wasn’t so much
that she deliberately broke the coven’s laws to stay out of bygone times, but
more like something or someone
summoned her, taking charge of her mind and plunging her into the events that
went on before.
But who?
She knew of no one
who wanted her to dwell on the past.
Slowly, her vision
cleared. As she grew more aware of her surroundings, Nyra’s nose twitched at
the pleasant fragrances of lavender, lemon balm, and sage, filtering beneath
her nostrils. Her precious potted herbs. She’d be lost without them.
The soft crackles
from the dying coals in the fireplace filled the room. The tortured sound of
her strangled sobs drifted away like wisps of smoke. Samhain. She hated
it when she journeyed to the night her mother was shot. In her mind, she still
saw her father holding the gun, his hand unsteady, eyes dark as onyx from the
Black Magick sludge that coated his brain.
Nyra rubbed the
dampness from her eyes and shuddered as recollections of that terrible night
gripped her soul. She resented the fact that someone took away her control and
forced her to remember a past she’d rather forget.
When it happened,
the darkness blanketed her mind like a black shroud. At those moments, her
vision narrowed until all she saw was a long, dark, endless tunnel to the past—and
the unfamiliar voice of a male calling her, urging her to remember—but remember
what?
From experience,
she knew when she was summoned, she slipped into a deep, catatonic state where
she couldn’t see or hear anything in the present. Each cross-over took her back
to the night Elsbeth died. Every return to the present left her shaken and
floundering in a sea of daunting pain, confusion, and unanswered questions—and always,
always the awareness of the dim
outline of a dark stranger who insisted she find him, free him, and bring him
to her world.
Who-who-who?
Nyra smothered a
scream of frustration. So many unanswered questions.
Who was the
stranger?
What did he want
from her?
Why hadn’t her
mother’s soul returned and claimed the body it belonged to?
Was her mother’s
spirit too weak to travel from one plane to the next?
Or had her
mother’s spirit simply been in too bad a shape to survive? To return?
She had no ready
answers. As the centuries passed, Nyra feared Elsbeth might never return from
the dead side.
Flinging back the faded quilts, she scooted to the edge of
the old-fashioned iron-rail bed and pressed a trembling hand to her heart.
And the male who called to her—was he waken, demon, or warlock? Why was he so insistent she remember him
when she knew well she’d never laid eyes upon him? The salty tang of tears
touched her lips, startling her to the fact she was crying. Annoyed, she
sniffed. Nyra couldn’t remember the last time she’d wept. Full-blooded witches
couldn’t cry. Instead, their hearts bled when they felt sorrow, but she was an Impure,
half-human, and as such, she shed tears, but she rarely let herself lose
control and give into the urge to cry.
“I’m a healer, Mama. I can save…you.” Inwardly, Nyra
flinched. Her shoulders shook with grief. The painful memory of watching her
mother fade into the Realm of Souls
left a hollow ache in her heart. Icy sweat dampened her body and left her skin
chilled and slick. Her thin flannel gown felt clammy against her thighs. “I’m
sorry, Mama.” A sob tore from her throat before she could suppress it.
“He summoned ye again?”
Nyra nodded, though she knew the three-foot Futhar
rabbit couldn’t see her in the shadows cast by the lit candles scattered around
the room. Even the fire glowing from the stone fireplace appeared to have lost
its enchanted spell and barely flickered.
However, there was no hiding her despair from Karma. The
familiar’s magical senses were much stronger than a witch’s, and Karma knew her
well.
“Does he seek to lay blame on ye, Nyra?”
“I don’t know,” she replied. “I don’t know what he wants. I
don’t get the feeling I’m in danger. It’s almost as if he wants me to recall
something from that night. I have no idea what it is he wants me to remember.
He never mentions blame. His voice is gentle and encouraging.”
“Good. It wasn’t yer fault, Nyra.” Karma held up a bent and
twisted wand made from the branch of a magical Black Willow tree. She waved it
around drawing sparkling green symbols in the air, and muttering words only a Futhar
understood. “There now, yer bound to feel better soon.”
Magical waves of warm sympathy floated around Nyra. As the
warmth circled and engulfed her, Nyra smiled in spite of the sorrow wrenching
her heart. After all the speech lessons she’d provided for the rabbit, the Futhar
still retained a bit of her familiar accent. She surmised Karma always would.
Futhars had a way of hanging onto a part of their past, and it was
usually most prevalent in their speech patterns. Their accents were as varied
as their personalities. The one thing all Futhars
had in common was a fixation with mating. Their fascination wasn’t always
focused on their own sexual needs. Quite frequently, their obsession was with
the subject centered on the witch they claimed.
The single most important thing to the familiar was to make
certain the witch mated with the right male or female. If there was any
question in the Futhar’s mind
concerning the male for the female, then their fixation turned into a contest
of wills with the witch’s chosen mate. A waken’s
Futhar was just as difficult and
unmanageable. However, one could hardly fault their loyalty and love.
With unsteady hands, Nyra thrust strands of hair behind her
ears. “I tried hard to save her, Karma, but the past returns like a
punishment.”
“Humph! Yer conscience is yer punishment. It eats at ya and
there’s no reason fer it.”
“It was a long time ago, I know, so why does it haunt me?”
Nyra drew a long shaky breath and slowly exhaled. Her heart was soothed by the Futhar’s
touch of warm magic, but the ache remained in her voice, beyond the familiar’s
control. “The passage of time means nothing. The waning of centuries doesn’t
help lessen my feelings of guilt. I can still hear Papa ranting. I try
desperately to warn Mama, but I never get the words past my lips.”
“Ya were a child of six, Nyra, yer magic unskilled. Yer
mama knew that. She didn’t expect ya to save her.”
“I expected me to save
her. I’m a healer!”
Some healer she’d turned out to be.
“Sweet child, as powerful as yer magic may be, ya cannot allow
this man to keep taking ya to such a painful place. He might mean ya no harm but,
no matter what, ya cannot change history. Yer burning yer self out, my Nyra,
like a dying star, I see you fading before my very eyes. It’s time to let go,
child.”
Nyra flopped back on the mattress and flung her arms over
her eyes. “I don’t think he means me harm. He just wants me to remember him for
some reason, but I don’t, I can’t. I
never see his face, so how can I? Papa was the only male I was around in those
days.”
“What do you see?” Karma asked. “When he summons you to
him? What do you see?” Her voice quivered with curiosity.
“His hands. Rather,
the top of his hands, and his shoulders. He has a tattoo on top of his left
hand, a pentagram, so I have to think he’s…maybe a witch, but not waken. He never wears a shirt. His chest
is broad, shoulders wide and roped with muscle. He’s so mysterious.”
“Humph! Sounds like a pervert to me. The man summons ya and hasn’t
the decency to put on a shirt?”
Nyra couldn’t keep from grinning. “He’s not perverted. I
think he’s just awakened. He’s on the side of a bed, his head bowed, dark hair
falling around his face and I see —”
“What?” Karma exclaimed excitedly.
“Markings on his right shoulder.”
“Markings? What kind of markings?”
“I don’t know.” Nyra shrugged. “A bird…I think.”
“A bird?” Karma sounded puzzled. “Ya mean like a blue
bird?”
“No.” Nyra shook her head. “I think it’s a blackbird, a
crow, maybe. I swear he acts like I’m the one who has summoned him, instead of
him calling to me.”
“Hmm.” Karma wiggled her ears and twitched her tiny nose.
“Curious.”
“He needs my help, Karma.”
“Ya can’t help him. Ya don’t even know where he is, let
alone who he is. Ya can’t change
things, Nyra.”
Nyra sighed. “I wish I could change one thing, Karma. I
want to prevent Mama’s death. You’re right though, something inside me dies
each time I fail to save her.”
“It’s wrong, child,” Karma said gently. “King Titan never
gives back that which he has claimed, nor will he stand for ya to take what he
legally possesses. There are rules in which we all must live by. What about
this male? Can ya recall his looks?”
Nyra frowned. “Only that he’s dark and has long, dark hair.
He has to be waken, yet, I sense
something different about him. Oooh, I don’t know. It’s driving me crazy.”
Karma sniffed her disapproval. “No matter. Ya allow this…this
person to draw ya into the past. I know as well as ya know that the only reason
ya risk going back is ya think to find yer mother’s soul and help it rejoin her
body. If ya persist in breaking King Titan’s rules, he will send Death on swift
wings fer ya.”
“I don’t care. I–I wake up sometimes and I–I think I see
her.” Nyra’s throat tightened. She felt as if she was strangling on emotion.
“He–her blonde hair lifts in the summer breeze. Her smiles, I–I see her smile,
Karma…hear her sing. The sound of her laughter dances on the wind.”
The Futhar stepped out of the deep shadows of the
room and moved closer to Nyra. Anyone not accustomed to their magical world
would be shocked to see a three foot rabbit wearing a long blue flannel gown,
purple ruffled sleeping cap, and wire-rimmed glasses perched on the end of her
tiny pink nose, and walking on two legs.
Nyra sat up, her hands unsteady, and lifted the rabbit onto
the bed beside her. “Mama always smelled like daffodils and sunshine,” she
ended with a shaky sob. “Oh, Karma, she’s been gone for so long, so many
centuries, I don’t think her soul will ever find her body.”
She knew she sounded like a little girl, but at the moment,
she felt like the little girl she’d once been.
Karma slipped the wand beneath the pillow beside her and
produced a tissue from the air. She shoved it into Nyra’s hands. “There, there.”
She patted Nyra’s slender shoulders. “Yer still grieving, my Nyra. Ya couldn’t
save her. No one could. Sometimes…it’s a witch’s time to go. When it is, her
soul seeks eternal rest. I highly suspect where yer mama’s soul is involved,
that’s the case. Elsbeth would not be happy without yer father. He was her one
true love.”
“He–he shot her, Karma. My papa. Th–the blood…so much red,
the color…so vivid, it stands out in my mind and I can’t bear it.” Nyra whimpered
and used the tissue to wipe away the fresh tears splotching her face.
“That just shows ya, Nyra. Yer mama’s heart was pure that
night or her blood wouldn’t have been scarlet. It would have been thick as the Styx River
and dark with the evil in that room, but she was untouched by it.”
Nyra nodded and tried to breathe, but it was hard when her
spirit felt so crushed. “Dark blood doesn’t always signify evil. You know a waken’s blood is darker than others, so
are some witches’. Sometimes, it’s the way it is…”
Her words trailed away with a sob. Nyra’s fingers trembled.
To steady them, she dug them into the blanket twisted about her hips. “Papa
just…he stood there, wild-eyed, the pistol belching smoke. The look on his face…Samhain,
his eyes were so dead and blank…but for a moment, there was a spark of life. It
was as if he couldn’t believe he’d hurt Mama. He ran, Karma. He flung down the
gun…an–and ran…out the door, into the night. With…her!”
Karma squeezed Nyra’s icy hands. “There. There. It was a
long time ago, over three hundred years. Don’t think about it, Nyra. Troubled
times, they were. Ya know yer papa was hexed, yer only tormenting yerself.”
“I know.” Nyra crawled beneath the covers. “I know it
happened a long time ago, but when I see it, when I return there in my mind,
the pain, the sorrow, it’s all fresh. It feels like it happened yesterday.”
The familiar settled on the pillow beside Nyra’s head. “I
can place a magic spell over ya,” she offered kindly. “Remove the terrible
history from yer memory.”
“No. No matter how painful, I want to remember what happened.
They tried to take it all away from me, erase my mind of the details, but I
fought them. I’ll never allow magic to steal my memories. I want to find the
witch who destroyed my parents.”
“They?”
“The coven,” Nyra whispered unsteadily. “They took my
sisters from me, separated us, and forced us to dwell in the world of humans.
No one would tell me where they’d taken my sisters.” Fierce anger heated her
blood. “I’ll never forgive the coven for keeping us apart.”
“Be kind to them, child. They meant well. They meant only
to protect the three of you from the evil witch.”
Nyra sniffed. “I wasn’t as lucky as Kirrah and Saylym. They
were so young, their memories easily manipulated. They forgot everything. They
forgot me, Karma. You have any idea how it feels to be forgotten? I didn’t
forget them.”
As a child, she’d heard the fight unfold between her
parents. Slipping from the bed in the loft she shared with Kirrah and Saylym,
she peeped over the edge to the floor below where her parents stood arguing. Her
innocence, a child’s innocence, was shattered that night as she secretly
watched, and listened to them quarrel.
Kirrah and Saylym slept through the terrible fight, until
the booming retort of the flintlock woke them. The three of them bounded down
the rickety ladder and ran screaming to their mama.
Soon after, the coven swooped in on their besoms. They took
her and her sisters into the night, wrenching them away from the appalling
scene inside the hut. Over three hundred years passed before she saw Kirrah and
Saylym again. Even when their memories started to return, they hadn’t
remembered that night, her, or even each other.
But she—she
remembered everything…she’d touched the blood on her mama’s breasts. In her
child’s eyes, it had been surreal, an unnatural red that crawled across
Elsbeth’s snowy white apron, scarlet, and evil, something loathsome and alive,
devouring her mama as she lay wounded and dying.
Nyra poured every bit of magic she possessed into healing
the injury that night, but the coven pulled her away, telling her it was too
late.
“No,” she screamed.
“I’m a healer. I can help her!”
For a six-year-old, the battle between her and the elder
witches raged hot and fierce. She’d fought them with everything she had,
screaming, crying, and clawing. She resisted their magical chants, argued, and
pleaded. The verbal dispute did her no good. She was a little girl, too young
to handle the fierce magic growing inside her. Too young to understand she
couldn’t save her mama, and too young to take on the powerful magic of the
older witches.
But her mind had been strong, and though the coven made
numerous attempts to erase her memories, they hadn’t been able to without
destroying her completely. No one wanted to see that happen, so they backed
away from inflicting too much damage to her mind—to her soul. Still, in her
heart, she’d never forgiven them, and never would.
No matter how long it had been, no matter the passing of
centuries, the grief always blindsided her. Just like her memories, the years
of loneliness couldn’t be erased. She hadn’t lost just her mama that night.
She’d lost her sisters and her papa, too, her entire family gone before she had
time to realize everything was tragically changing.
She’d stood there helpless, her mama’s blood dripping from
her fingertips, and the coven shuffling her away. They hustled her and her
sisters into the night, into a life none of them could have foreseen.
Living close to Salem
Village had been
dangerous for witches. After her mama’s death, and all the hangings, Nyra’s use
of magic was forbidden. The coven ordered her to leave the dead, dead. Her
magical powers were concealed from human eyes, unused in the mortal world.
Like a delicate flower strangled by a patch of weeds, Nyra choked by degrees in the illumrof realm,
alone, except for her Aunt Glorma, who wasn’t really her aunt, but a member of
the coven assigned the task of parenting her.
Nyra knew she’d never healed from all that happened that
terrible night. She’d never quite learned to trust anyone with her heart, soul,
or her life. She vowed no one would take control of her magic again or forbid
her the use of it.
She’d settled in Sanctuary now, back in the realm of
Ru-Noc. Back to the land of witches and wakens. Home. Nyra brandished
her magic as she saw fit, even though she knew it made her the target of some
very unsavory demons and worse.
But no one was ever telling her what she could or couldn’t
do with her skills again.
No one.
And if that meant King Titan got pissed at her, well then—what
was one old god’s wrath compared to her magical skills?
She’d handle him when the time came.
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