Название: Captivating The Witch
Автор: Michele Hauf
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Короткие любовные романы
Серия: Mills & Boon Nocturne
isbn: 9781474045056
isbn:
Swiping her hand over a sprinkling of dust on the top of a stack of books, she had to restrain herself from grabbing the feather duster. And then she couldn’t resist a quick touch-up. Tapping her littlest fingers together, which activated her air magic, she blew gently over a row of books. The dust swirled and lifted and dispersed into nothing.
With a satisfied nod, she said, “Always better than manual labor. So! Midnight. And a full moon tonight. This night promises a new beginning.”
Or so it had said in her horoscope that she’d read on the back of a stranger’s newspaper while taking the Métro to work this morning.
“Ha! Horoscopes,” she said with a laugh as she strolled down the dimly lit hallway to the elevator, her heels clicking brightly on the bare concrete floor. “I’ll take real astrology any day. And that says the full moon brings family and challenge to my life.”
Her only living family—her mother, Petrina—lived in Greece with her current lover. Petrina and Tamatha talked once a month. They had a great relationship. Unfortunately—or fortunately, depending on the degree of attachment—Petrina’s lover was dying. Again, the curse. Her mother wasn’t upset over it. Though she had mentioned something about perhaps giving him some belladonna to help him along so he didn’t have to suffer.
As for the challenge the horoscope had promised... “I like a good adventure.” But she wouldn’t admit that adventure was hard to come by with her nose stuck in a book all day. Her life was exciting. Mostly.
Maybe.
“Hardly.”
So she put a lot of focus and energy into her studies. She had mastered earth, air, water and even fire magic. The sigils tattooed on her fingers representing each of the four elements allowed for easy access to a specific elemental spell. She also practiced ornithomancy (divination by birds), alomancy (divination by salt) and pyromancy (fire divination). And her venture into diabology would eventually add demonomancy to that list. As far as witches went, Tamatha was quite powerful. But never powerful enough when the world offered so many opportunities to learn and expand her knowledge.
She stepped into the elevator and tugged at her gray pencil skirt with fingers beringed in lapis lazuli (for truth), amethyst (for grounding and balance) and bloodstone (for healing). The elevator moved laboriously up two floors. She’d left her reading glasses on, and she now tucked them into her purse. They were fabulous cat’s-eye frames bespangled with rhinestones at the corners of each eye. She was into the rockabilly look and was pleased it was actually making a style comeback with the humans. Easier to fit in when she resembled others.
On the other hand, she never wanted to conform. That was for uninteresting people who didn’t know themselves.
Once out of the elevator, she nodded goodbye to the hirsute night guard, who she suspected was a werewolf, but he never seemed to want to converse, barely looking up from his handheld television as she passed and never offering a vocal “au revoir” or even a confirming nod.
Ah well, she couldn’t befriend them all. And he was a shapeshifter, so yeah, nix that.
Located on the Right Bank in the 11th arrondissement, the Council headquarters opened into a dreary alleyway that was far from parking or any Métro station. Out of the way and unassuming. Tamatha could do without the ten-minute walk to the closest subway. She lived across the river in the 6th, near the Luxembourg Gardens. It was a fine walk on a sunny day, when she remembered to bring along walking flats. Not tonight, though, with the promise of rain thickening the air.
Muttering the words to the demon binding spell, she delighted in how easily she remembered things like Latin spells or even long ingredient lists for poultices and charms. If only her luck with men could be so simple and long lasting.
The curious thing about the family curse was that no one was really sure how it had originated, nor had anyone tried to vanquish it. Sure, the Bellerose women were independent and much preferred lovers to a more permanent husband. But Tamatha had already had her share of lost lovers since she’d started dating in her late teens in the 1930s. She was ready for some permanence. For a good old-fashioned love affair that might result in something more promising than death to the male party.
Warm summer raindrops spattered her cheek and she picked up into a sort-of run. The fastest she could manage in four-inch heels and with a tight skirt was a penguin waddle.
Touching her middle fingers together to ask for a rain-parting spell, she dodged left into a cobblestoned alleyway she knew was sheltered with close-spaced roof ledges—and she ran right into a man. He had been walking swiftly as well, and when they collided he let out an “ouff” and gripped her by the shoulders.
The first thing Tamatha noticed in the moon-shielded darkness was the glint of something shiny and black at his temples, beneath the hairline, and the barest scent of sulfur. Demon? A brief red glow ignited in his eyes.
She reacted. “Scatura, demonicus, vold!”
“Wait—”
It was too late for his protest. The man dropped her, his arms slapping to his sides and his body going rigid. He wore half gloves on his hands, and his exposed fingers crooked into ridged claws. His feet stiffened within his boots and he teetered, falling backward, his shoulders and head hitting the brick wall of the building but a foot behind him.
His eyes glowed red and he growled at her through tight jaws. “Witch!”
Edamite Thrash had been minding his own business, racing against the rain to get home, when he collided with a deliciously scented female with skin like ivory, hair the color of silvered snow and wide green eyes. It was as if entering another realm when he’d touched her and she had surrounded him with citrus, sensuality and softness, and then—
Damn it. He couldn’t move his limbs. And his veins felt as if ice flowed through them. The chill was moving down his thighs and toward his calves. Every muscle strung tightly. The witch had bound him.
“Get this...off me,” he hissed, thankful he could still speak. Though he clenched his jaw tighter. And his body leaned against the wall. How soon before his boots would slide on the wet pavement and he toppled? “Damn you! Witch!”
“Oh my goddess, it really worked!” she said with more enthusiasm than he thought appropriate.
The witch peered into his eyes as if looking for something she’d lost. Even in the darkness her giddy thrill showed in the gemstone gleam of her gaze. Stepping back, she looked him up and down. From the top of his slicked-back black hair, down his black suit and trousers, to his leather boots. Ed had never felt more humiliated. So inadequate. If he could lift a hand he would make her regret it. In his trouser pocket he felt his mobile phone vibrate. No one would call him at his private number unless it was important.
“I’ve always wanted to bind a demon,” she offered with a gleeful clasp of hands before her. Many crystal rings flashed in the moonlight and he noted the small tattoos on the midjoints of each of her fingers. Sigils of some sort. Nasty witch business, no doubt. “And I did it!”
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