Page 1 of Witch's Dawn
Prologue
DEJA
"So you've finally foundtheplace."
Raum, the one with the shoulder-length dark hair and a raven tattoo on his forearm spoke first. His eyes, dark and deep as a midnight lake, gleamed mischievously. He was the troublemaker, the one I really had to watch outfor.
"I take it you've learned some things," he added as he slid his lithe, powerful body into the barstool next to mine, much like a lion would sneak up on itsprey.
"I only found out last night," Isaid.
Yeah, the reality of learning my supernatural status was slowly sinking in. The tension in the air when I first saw these three men suddenly made sense. They were like me, or at least something similar. That was obvious enough by the four of us sitting in this bar, disguised by magic to look like a dilapidated building on the outside to any unsuspectinghumans.
Sal, the one with stunning green eyes and auburn hair took the seat on the other side of me. His power was the most volatile, ready to strike at any moment. The aura surrounding him crackled with energy that felt like a mixture of simmering rage warning me to stay away, and fiery passion daring me to comecloser.
Only Ash remained standing, the quiet, aloof leader of the bunch. He regarded me with icy-blue eyes that burned with curiosity and seemed to take in every detail of me. A hand stroked his short blond beard thoughtfully. The motion made him look like some wise Viking scholar who also happened to be tall and broad enough to go intobattle.
All of them hot as sin and definitely badnews.
With one on either side of me, Ash in front, and the bar against my back, I was effectively trapped. A fledgling witch cornered by three men who carried more power in one of their pinky fingers. And I still had no idea what they wanted from me, or why I saw them in my dreams. But either from naivete or something else unknown, I didn't feel like I was indanger.
Instead, I felt the opposite.Protected.
"So I take this to mean you three are witches, too?" I asked, swiveling in my bar stool to make eye contact with all of them. "Or warlocks or wizards? Whatever the male titlesare."
A collective chuckle of amusement rose from all of them and I wondered what was sofunny.
The answer came from Sal, his mouth intimately close to myear.
"Notexactly."
1
DEJA
The chilly airbit at my skin like an invisible entity with sharpteeth.
I pulled my scarf over my mouth and nose and released a harsh, open-mouthed breath to warm my nose andhands.
At the same time, my butt and thigh muscles burned from the effort of walking uphill on concrete. Soon enough, I'd be in a warm room with my ass in a chair and a drink in myhand.
At least that's what I kept tellingmyself.
"What's that Mark Twain quote?" I grumbled to Nona, who kept a steady pace next to me on our uphill trek. "The coldest winter I ever experienced was a summer in San Francisco or something likethat."
Technically, it wasn't summer yet but even rare sunny days in my new hometown came with a chilly, Pacific breeze. And that was only if the fog hadn't rolled in and made it feel like winter again, as it did several times a day in myneighborhood.
Clearly, as a southern California native, I had no idea whatrealweather waslike.
"He never actually said that," Nona piped cheerfully. "That quote is commonly misattributed tohim."
She, a San Francisco native, did not seem nearly as distressed by the chilly air or the uphillclimb.
"Little Miss Smarty Pants strikes again," I teased, cracking asmile.
Honestly, I was beyond grateful for Nona being not only a wealth of information, but a hard worker and the most genuine, kind-hearted person I ever met. As the only employee at my tiny, hole-in-the-wall tea shop,Witch's Brew, she was worth at least five mediocreemployees.
I didn't really believe in blessings anymore, but whatever little faith I had left was due toher.
