Witches Read Free

through the underbrush. Vermilion eyes glared at them from the gloom. Watching. Waiting.
    Suddenly, they remembered who they’d killed. If the rumors were true, she was a powerful witch. She’d cursed them. Cursed all of them .
    An unnatural chill settled on the air, burrowing under their clothes and skin, deep into the marrow of their bones.
    One by one, torches held high to keep the darkness at bay, they climbed into their saddles, and slunk home to their families.
    All except Sebastien, who, taking some of the men back to a poorly made thatched cottage on the edge of the forest, found the witch’s children, and put them both to the knife.
    Then, after a good night’s rest, he rode on to the next town to find, and execute, the next witch, and the next. Never looking back, never feeling the least bit of remorse for what he’d done. He never did.
    The townspeople, though, as time went on, grew ashamed, not so much for what they’d done—they all believed she’d been guilty—but for the brutal way they had done it.
    For as long as any of them lived, nothing was ever said again about the night they murdered the witch, Rachel. It remained their shameful secret until the day they died.
    Though none of them ever forgot.

Chapter One
    A small cabin outside of Canaan
    The present
    Amanda knelt on the floor before the hearth, shivering, weak from lack of sleep and food. Her hands shook as she laid the wood.
    Stacking the kindling carefully, she witched a bright flame from her hand to the wood, fanning the first fragile flames with her breath until it caught. Then she added the bigger logs, and the fire roared. She searched its blue heart, trying not to dwell on what she was actually doing.
    Outside, the storm grew in fury, thundering at the doors and windows as if it knew what she was going to do.
    The wind moaned. Sacrilege...sacrilege...
    Something thumped persistently against the door. She’d locked Amadeus, her familiar, out. He didn’t like it. He knew she was up to no good.
    In silence, she prepared for the rest of the ritual. With chalk, she drew a five-pointed star with alternate points connected by a continuous line—the pentagram. She painstakingly finished the preparations for the ancient incantation she’d begun earlier in the day. A spell that a white witch should never invoke.
    Don’t do this.
    The flames whispered. Jake…Jake.
    A tortured, lonely heart ignored her inner voice. The truth.
    She sighed, pushing her hair back from her face. It was tangled and greasy. When was the last time she’d washed it, or taken a bath, for that matter? Weeks? What a sight she must be now, she thought. She must truly look like the witches of the old myths. Smiling wistfully, she tugged the frayed sweater tighter around her.
    Since Jake, her husband of ten years, had died, she’d had no time for anything except for anger, self-pity, and tears.
    Her conscience kept warning her not to go on, but she refused to listen.
    You can’t call Jake back from the dead. It breaks all the laws of white witchcraft...and you’re not a black witch. You’ll never be able to pay the price.
    There was a price to pay for every spell a witch wove, every favor she asked from her magic. The bigger the favor, the higher the price. The more precious, or forbidden the request, the higher the final payment, gotten one way or another. For every push, there was a pull.
    Amanda, if you do this, you could damn your soul to hell. Her inner voice warned her again. Don’t go to the dark side.
    Not to mention the danger.
    All the same, another night without Jake? Another night alone? To have Jake back, wouldn’t that be worth it? Her inner voice was mute.
    Even witches got lonely. She frowned in the crowding shadows as she crouched before the fire, her haunted green eyes obsessed. Even witches fell in love. Even she, who’d once believed she never would.
    She did...with Jake.
    She remembered the first time they met ten years ago, the way he’d