Haunted: Penance / After the Lightning / Seeing Red

Haunted: Penance / After the Lightning / Seeing Red
Debra Cowan

Sharon Sala

Janis Hudson Reams

Unleash the untamed passions of the underworld in these deliciously wicked tales of paranormal romance.Her saviour or her worst nightmare? Ariel Cooper sees ghosts. She has kept her gift secret from her powerful, brooding fiancé David, terrified he wouldn’t understand. Twenty years ago, she and her two sisters were separated to protect them from a man bent on revenge. Now someone has resumed the hunt and Ariel must find her sisters and warn them.The closer Ariel comes to her sisters, the more secretive David becomes. Can she trust the man she plans to spend eternity with? Or has he been waiting for the perfect moment to destroy her? Witch Hunt Three sisters – magic in their blood and a killer on their trail!

Lisa Childs

Haunted

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

To Tara Gavin, Jennifer Green and Jenny Bent—

working with such awesome, inspiring ladies

has been a wonderful gift!

To Paul, Ashley and Chloe—my family—

the greatest blessing in my life!

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Epilogue

Coming Next Month

Prologue

Europe, 1655

Strong hands closed over her shoulders, shaking her awake. Elena Durikken blinked her eyes open, but the darkness remained, thick, impenetrable.

“Child, awaken. Quickly.”

“Mama?” She blinked again, bringing a shadow into focus. A shadow with long, curly hair. “Mama.”

“Rise up. Hurry. You have to go.” Her mother’s strong hands dragged back the blankets, letting the cold air steal across Elena’s skin.

“Go? Where are we going?” She couldn’t remember being awake in such blackness before. Usually a fire glowed in the hearth, the dying embers casting a glow over their small home. Or her mother burned candles, chanting to herself as she fixed her potions from the dried herbs and flowers strung from the rafters.

“Only you, child. You must go alone.” Mama’s words, the final way she spoke, chilled Elena more than the cold night air.

“Mama…” Tears burned her eyes and ran down her face.

“There’s no time. They will come soon. For me. And if you are still here, they will take you, too.”

“Mama, you are scaring me.” It was not the first time. She had scared Elena many times before, with the things she saw, the things she knew were coming before they ever happened.

Like the fire.

“Is this…is this because of the fire, Mama?”

Mama didn’t answer, just pulled a cape over Elena’s head, lifting the hood over her hair. Then she slid Elena’s feet into her boots, lacing them up as if she were a small, dependent child, not a thirteen-year-old girl she was sending alone into the night. Mama pressed the neck of a satchel against Elena’s palm. “Ration the food and water. Keep to the woods, child. Run. Keep running….”

“How can they blame you for the fire?” she cried. “You warned them.”

Even before the sky had darkened or the wind had picked up, her mother had told them the storm was coming. That the lightning would strike in the night, while the women slept. And that they would die in a horrible fire. Mama had seen it all happen….

Elena didn’t know how her mother’s visions worked, but she knew that Mama was always right. More tears fell from her eyes. “You asked them to leave.”

But the woman of the house, along with her sister-in-law whose family was staying with her, had thought that with their men away for work, that Mama was tricking them. That she, a desperate woman raising a child alone, would rob their deserted house. She’d been trying to save their lives.

Mama shook her head, her hair swirling around her shoulders. “The villagers think I cast a spell. That I brought the lightning.”

Elena heard the frightened murmurs and saw the downward glances as her mother walked through the village. Everyone thought her a witch because of the potions she made. But when the townspeople were sick, they came to Mama for help even though they feared her. How could they think she would do them harm? “No, Mama…”