Cursed

“Protecting you is my job. You’re a material witness. I have to keep you alive.”

Maria nodded. “Yes. Of course,” she agreed. “I know that you’re only doing your job.”

Finding her had never been just a job to him. She was so much more than that … So much more than he had ever realized before meeting her. Was Maria really what everyone claimed she was? Was she really a witch?

“I could do my job more easily if you stopped lying to me and told me everything you know.” He touched her again, tipping up her chin to make her meet his gaze.

Her thick black lashes fluttered as she blinked—as if trying to shield her thoughts and feelings from him. Could she sense his feelings?

Could she feel his desire for her? His madness …

LISA CHILDS writes paranormal and contemporary romance for Mills & Boon. She lives on thirty acres in Michigan with her two daughters, a talkative Siamese and a long-haired Chihuahua who thinks she’s a rottweiler. Lisa loves hearing from readers, who can contact her through her website, lisachilds.com, or snail-mail address, PO Box 139, Marne, MI 49435, USA.

Cursed

Lisa Childs

With great appreciation to

Tara Gavin and Ann Leslie Tuttle for letting me share Maria’s story and revisit The Witch Hunt series.

Thank you!

Contents

Cover

Excerpt

About the Author

Title Page

Dedication

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

Chapter 15

Extract

Copyright

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 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 flickered 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 stung 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 the men away for work, 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 had heard the frightened murmurs and seen 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...”

“No. The only spell cast is upon me, child. These visions I see, I have no control over them,” she said. “And I have no control over what will happen now. I need you to go. To run. And keep running, Elena. Never stop. Or they will catch you.”

Elena threw her arms around her mother’s neck, more scared than she had ever been. Even though she heard no one, saw no light in the blackness outside her window, she knew her mama was right. They were coming for her. The men who’d returned, who’d found their wives, sisters and daughters dead, burned.

“Come with me, Mama,” Elena beseeched her, holding tight.