was a balcony outside her window and when she opened the doors to step outside, she noticed the garden below. The roar of the waves slamming into the cliffs sounded like the heartbeat of a giant and set her own into a fastpaced rhythm.
“Where the hell am I and how did I get here?” She couldn’t think. Couldn’t recall what had happened to her. Then suddenly, in a rush, images poured into her mind and she remembered feeling the heat surround her. Flames jumping into the air, flashing across her skin. The strong arms around her middle. The deep voice ringing in her ears.
This was so much worse than she’d thought.
Whoever-whatever-had taken her from the parking lot was probably close by. Which meant what, exactly? Clearly she wasn’t in jail or in one of the internment camps set up across the country. She’d heard enough whispers about those places to know they were hardly this luxurious. Clearly the MPs hadn’t captured her. So who was it who had taken her? And to where?
The ocean told her nothing. It was a big coast, after all. She looked over the edge of the balcony and considered clambering out over the rail, hanging by her hands and dropping down. The bushes would break her fall. Probably. She could do it. It wasn’t that far.
“You won’t jump.”
Shea jolted and spun around at the sound of the voice. A man stood in the middle of the room. Well over six feet tall, he looked tough, dangerous and too damn good. But it wasn’t just the raw sexual energy shimmering off of him in thick waves that drew her attention. It was the sense of… familiarity she felt. As if she knew him. Had known him. His black hair hung to his shoulders, his broad chest was covered by a bloodred shirt and his faded black jeans clung to muscular thighs. His arms were folded across his chest and his pale gray eyes were fixed on her.
“It’s you,” she said, remembering now how the reflection of the flames engulfing her had danced in his eyes. That explained the familiarity, she told herself. “You were there. You got me away from that mob.”
“I did.”
“Why? Not that I’m not grateful, but why would you do that for a stranger?”
“You’re not a stranger,” he said, his deep voice rumbling through the room with all the power of the crashing waves below.
“But I don’t know you.”
He took a step toward her and Shea instinctively backed up until she felt the cold, damp balcony railing slam into the small of her back.
“You do,” he insisted, never taking his mesmerizing eyes off her. “Your body recognizes mine even if your mind is still closed to me.”
Shea was forced to admit that he was right about that much, anyway. The sense of recognition she felt toward him went deeper than just the incident from that afternoon. She couldn’t understand it. She was sure she’d never seen him before, and yet there was… something. The closer he came, the more her body practically hummed with anticipation. But she deliberately ignored it. Sex wasn’t the first thing on her mind at the moment. Terror was superseding everything else.
Shea swallowed hard and asked, “Who are you?”
“Torin.”
“That tells me nothing,” she said. “Your name doesn’t explain who you are or why and how I’m here.”
“You know how. I brought you here.”
“Yeah, you did,” she said, remembering the flames surrounding her. “But why?”
He shoved his hands into the back pockets of his jeans and shrugged. “It was that or let the crowd kill you. Would you have preferred that?”
“No. No, I wouldn’t.” Shea inhaled slowly and then let the air slide from her lungs. She remembered the mob circling her-and he was right. They would have killed her-with the blessing of the MPs. After all, a dead witch meant no paperwork.
“You have nothing to fear from me,” he said. “Surely you know that.”
“How would I know that?” She shook her head and concentrated on the chill dampness seeping into her body from the balcony railing. At least that was tangible. Real. Nothing else seemed that way at the moment. “One minute I’m about to get stoned to death or something and the next I’m standing in fire and you’re…” She scrubbed her hands up and down her upper arms in a futile attempt to rid herself of the bone-deep cold that permeated her body. “Oh, God. You were in that fire.”
“Yes.”
“So was I! But you’re not burned.” She looked down at her hands as if to reassure herself again that her skin wasn’t blistered and charred. “Neither am I. How is that possible?”
“Long story,” he said. “But we’ll have time for it all. Now that you’re here-”
“Wherever ‘here’ is,” she muttered.
“My home. You’re in Malibu. You’re safe.”
“And I should take your word for that?”
“I saved you, didn’t I?” His mouth tipped briefly to one side in a smile that lived and died in an instant. “I should get points for that.”
“If a hungry tiger saved me from a bear, should I be relieved?” Shaking her head, she said, “No, I don’t think so. And what happened to the man who grabbed me in the parking lot and-” Her memory dredged up the horrifying images. “I-I-”
“Set him on fire,” he finished for her.
“Oh, God, I did…” She caught her breath, then locked her gaze with his. “Like Aunt Mairi. But I didn’t mean to. Didn’t even try to. How could I have known that would happen?”
“You’ve had the dreams,” he said, moving closer still until she was no more than an arm’s reach away. “You felt changes rippling through your body. I know you have because the Awakening is on you.”
“Awakening?” She knew that word. But how? And was that really the most important consideration at the moment?
“The Awakening was foretold centuries ago. When the last great coven cast a spell of atonement.”
Atonement. She shivered as he spoke, his words creating images in her mind. Images that were at once foreign and familiar.
“Each witch was to live without magic through many lifetimes until this year. This time.”
“No,” she whispered, though everything in her said yes.
“Each of you will awaken in turn,” he continued. His voice was impossible to ignore; his pale eyes somehow swirled with power. “One every thirty days until the atonement is complete and your tasks fulfilled.”
“Tasks?” Shea shook her head-this was crazy. All of it. Then why, something in her asked, did it feel so right?
“You are the first, Shea. You are the hope of the coven.”
“You’re wrong. This is a trick. The MPs are trying to make me look guilty and you’re in it somehow.”
His features went cold and hard and his voice dropped several notches. “I do not work with the Magic Police. You think I would hand over a woman to them?”
“Maybe,” Shea argued, though something was telling her she was wrong about him. That she should trust him. Still, trusting people these days was a dangerous business.
And what he had told her couldn’t be true. This had to be an elaborate plot. Machinations from the feds.
It was the Salem witch trials all over again. Only this time the hysteria had spread until it circled the globe. Every country in the world was actively pursuing women who “might” be witches. And God help the ones who actually were.
“None of this makes sense,” she whispered, more to herself than to him. “I’m not a witch. I’m not.”
“Denial alters nothing. You are who you were always meant to be.”
She threw her head back and glared at him. “And what’s that?”
“Mine,” he said.
Yes, her body answered. Her blood felt thick and hot in her veins and her heartbeat was jittering crazily in her chest. Staring up into those pale gray eyes unsettled her and she wondered if he knew that and played on it. How many other women had he brought here? How many others before her had he swept in and carried off?
“I’m not yours. I’m not anyone’s,” she argued as she eased to one side, trying to put some distance between
