Night of the Raven
HE’D LANDED IN A TOWN STEEPED IN CURSES AND LEGENDS Ethan McVey was in Raven’s Hollow to fill in for the police chief, not get entangled in a decades-old legend. But one look into Amara Bellam’s striking gray eyes - eyes that had haunted his dreams for fifteen years - and he was helpless to turn his back on the vulnerable beauty. He vowed to keep her safe from the killer targeting her. Amara couldn’t deny the parallel between the recent murders and her family’s local lore[unknown-8230]nor could she ignore her undeniable attraction to her dark and mysterious protector. But as the danger to her life increased, Amara questioned if the killer was truly after her for her past, or was seeking to destroy something much closer to home.
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“Why the hell has your witchy face been in my head for the past fifteen years?”
McVey didn’t expect an answer. He wasn’t even sure why he’d asked the question. True, she looked very much like the woman in his recurring dream, but the longer he stared at her—couldn’t help that part, unfortunately—the more the differences added up.
On closer inspection, Amara’s hair really was more brown than red. Her features were also significantly finer than … whoever. Her gray eyes verged on charcoal, her slim curves were much better toned and her legs were the longest he’d seen on any woman anywhere.
He might have lingered on the last thing if she hadn’t slapped a hand to his chest, narrowed those beautiful eyes to slits and seared him with a glare.
“What the hell kind of question is that?”
JENNA RYAN started making up stories before she could read or write. As she grew up, romance always had a strong appeal, but romantic suspense was the perfect fit. She tried out a number of different careers, including modeling, interior design and travel, but writing has always been her one true love. That and her longtime partner, Rod.
Inspired from book to book by her sister Kathy, she lives in a rural setting fifteen minutes from the city of Victoria, British Columbia. It’s taken a lot of years, but she’s finally slowed the frantic pace and adopted a West Coast mind-set. Stay active, stay healthy, keep it simple. Enjoy the ride, enjoy the read. All of that works for her, but what she continues to enjoy most is writing stories she loves. She also loves reader feedback. E-mail her at [email protected] or visit Jenna Ryan on Facebook.
To Anne Stuart, who got the writing ball rolling for me. Thank you, Anne, for all the great books.
Contents
Los Angeles, California
Fifteen years ago
The scene felt so real, McVey figured this time it might not be unfolding in his head. His totally messed-up head, which wasn’t improving thanks to the dream that had haunted him every night for the past two weeks.
The moment he fell asleep, he found himself trapped in an attic room that smelled like old wood, wet dirt and something far more pungent than boiled cabbage. The air was muggy and strangely alive. Thunder crashed every few seconds and tongues of lightning flickered through a curtain of fetid gray smoke.
He knew he was hiding, hunkered down in some shadowy corner where the two people he watched—barely visible within the smoke—couldn’t see him.
The man’s fingers clenched and unclenched. The woman circled a small fire and muttered unintelligible words.
Two violent thunderbolts later, only the woman and the smoke remained. The man had vanished.
Okay, that couldn’t be good. McVey searched frantically for a way out of wherever he was before whoever she was saw him and made him eat the same black dripping thing she’d given the now-gone man.
With her eyes closed and her hair and clothes askew, she mumbled and swayed and breathed in choking fumes. Then suddenly she froze. In the next flash of lightning her head began to turn. Slowly, creepily, like a rusty weather vane in a bad horror film.
Her eyes locked on McVey’s hiding place. He heard the black thing in her hand plop to the floor. She raised a dripping finger and pointed it straight at him.
“You,” she accused in a voice that made him think of rusty nails soaked in whiskey. “You saw what passed between me and the one she would have you call Father.”
Whoa, McVey thought on an unnatural spurt of fear. That was a whole lot, what she’d just said. A whole lot of nothing he understood, or wanted to.
“You have no business here, child.” She started toward him. “Don’t you know I’m mad?”
Right. Mad. So why the hell couldn’t he move his—? He stopped the question abruptly, backpedaled and latched on to the other word. Child?
Shock, slick and icy, rolled through him when he looked down and saw his feet encased in tiny, shin-high boots.
Thunder rattled the house. His head shot up when he heard a low creak. Watching her smile, he realized with a horrified jolt that she was beautiful. He also realized he knew her, or at least he recognized her.
When she pointed at him again, the spell broke and he reached for his gun on the nightstand. Except there was no nightstand, and the next streak of lightning revealed a hand that wasn’t his. Couldn’t be. It was too small, too pale and far too delicate.
“Don’t be afraid, child.” Her voice became a silky croon. Her ugly clothes and hair melted into a watery blur of color. “I won’t harm you. I’ll only make what you think you’ve seen go away.”
McVey wanted to tell her that he had no idea what he’d seen and the only thought in his head right then was to get out of there before her finger—still dripping with something disgusting—touched him.
