âDonât,â she murmured. âDonâtpresume to know what I think. Or what I feel, Ty McIntyre.â
Sheâd read his thoughts; she knew his fear. He nodded. âYouâre right. I donât have a gift, not like you.â But he was cursed all the same.
Placing her slim hands on his shoulders, she pushed him down so he sat on the edge of the rusted tub. Then she ran her fingers through his hair and over his scalp. He didnât notice the pain, only the heat of her touch. Like her kiss, it branded him.
Sucking her bottom lip between her teeth, she murmured, âYou have a few deep cuts. You could probably use some stitches. Let me clean them, at least.â
âIrinaâ¦â
âYouâve asked me to trust you. You need to trust me.â
More than once heâd requested her trust, and sheâd given it. Trust didnât come as easily for Ty.
âYou think it comes easy for me?â she asked. âI donât even trust myself.â
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Award-winning author Lisa Childs wrote her first book when she was six, a biographyâ¦of the family dog. Now she writes romantic suspense, paranormal romance and womenâs fiction. The youngest of seven siblings, she holds family very dear in real life and in her fiction, often infusing her books with compelling family dynamics. She lives in west Michigan with her husband, two daughters and a twenty-pound Siamese cat. For the latest on Lisaâs spine-tingling suspense and heartwarming womenâs fiction, check out her website at www.lisachilds.com. She loves hearing from readers, who can also reach her at PO Box 139, Marne, MI 49435, USA.
Dear Reader,
Damned is the conclusion of my WITCH HUNT trilogy for NOCTURNE. Iâve loved writing about all the âgiftedâ Cooper sisters, but I couldnât wait to tell Irinaâs story, partly because, as the youngest of my family, I can identify with her, but mostly because Damned is also Ty McIntyreâs story. The witch hunt has put Ty through a lot of physical and emotional trauma. Heâs lost his job and a chance with the woman he thought he could love. He deserves to find the true love of his life, and he deserves to make sure justice is finally served. I hope you enjoy reading Ty and Irinaâs story as much as I enjoyed writing it!
Happy reading!
Lisa
Acknowledgement
To the Grand Rapids Police Department,
thank you for allowing me to participate in the Citizens Police Academy, and thank you most of all for your selfless service to our city.
Dedication
To my family, for your constant love
and support!
This was home: the street. Where she slept. Where she ateâif she remembered to eat. Where she drankâif she could scrounge up enough money for a bottle. And the drugsâthey were easier to score.
But even here she couldnât hide from the voices, couldnât drown them out. They kept whispering⦠in her head, the voices echoing in her mind. And it didnât matterâ¦what she did.
She couldnât shut them out.
Cardboard shifted and crumpled beneath her as she curled into a ball against the wall of a brick building. The stench of moldy food and dirty diapers drifted from the Dumpster behind which she lay, but she hardly noticed. She hardly noticed anythingâ¦outside her head.
She pressed her hands against her ears, trying to block out the noise. Not the rumble of traffic from the street, nor the murmured conversation drifting from the other end of the alley where shadows crouched around a barrel with flames lapping up the rusted rim.
The noise she tried to block was already inside her head, and her efforts were futile. As the voices rose, her vision dimmed, the stars, the street lamps and the fire at the end of the alley reduced to sparks in a sea of black. Blinded, her hearing sharpened.
âWhere could Irina be?â
The sparks glittered and danced against the black backdrop as she struggled to recognize the voice.
âWe have to find her before he does!â
Although she didnât think sheâd ever heard either of the two soft feminine voices before, in person, they were oddly familiar. Despite the anxiety in these adult voices, each of them resonated with the echo of a childâs laughter.
Her sistersâ¦
Sheâd had sisters, hadnât she? Her parents had told her no, that sheâd been an only child. That she was only theirs. But there was another life to which she belongedâ¦and it was calling her back.
âIrinaâ¦â
âIrina!â
Sheâd once been called Irina, twenty years ago, before sheâd been taken away from her mother and her sisters. Before sheâd been adopted by a couple who had wanted her to forget who sheâd once been. Theyâd tried to convince her that sheâd been born to them, that sheâd been born Heather Bowers. But they hadnât adopted her until she was nearly five. She remembered. And even if she hadnât, sheâd heard their thoughts; she knew the truth.
She wasnât theirs, and because of her uncanny ability to read their minds, they didnât want her to be. They couldnât love her. But theyâd tried.
The way her sisters were trying to find her now. Why after all these years?