9781618851307WitchsBrewShayNC Read online

  Attention Readers:

  There’s a glossary in the back of the book.

  Have fun learning the witch and waken language.

  It was great fun creating new words.

  Happy Reading,

  Tabitha Shay

  WITCH'S BREW

  Book 1 of the Winslow Witch's

  Of Salem

  (Saylym Winslow’s Story)

  Tabitha Shay

  EROTIC ROMANCE

  Secret Cravings Publishing

  www.secretcravingspublishing.com

  ABOUT THE E-BOOK YOU HAVE PURCHASED: Your non-refundable purchase of this e-book allows you to only ONE LEGAL copy for your own personal reading on your own personal computer or device. You do not have resell or distribution rights without the prior written permission of both the publisher and the copyright owner of this book. This book cannot be copied in any format, sold, or otherwise transferred from your computer to another through upload to a file sharing peer to peer program, for free or for a fee, or as a prize in any contest. Such action is illegal and in violation of the U.S. Copyright Law. Distribution of this e-book, in whole or in part, online, offline, in print or in any way or any other method currently known or yet to be invented, is forbidden. If you do not want this book anymore, you must delete it from your computer.

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  A Secret Cravings Publishing Book

  Erotic Romance

  WITCH'S BREW

  Copyright © 2012 by Tabitha Shay

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-61885-130-7

  First E-book Publication: January 2012

  Cover design by Dawné Dominique

  Edited by Colleen McSpirit

  Proof read by Ariana Gaynor

  All cover art and logo copyright © 2011 by Secret Cravings Publishing

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  PUBLISHER

  Secret Cravings Publishing

  www.secretcravingspublishing.com

  Dedication

  To my mom, who never once laughed at my dreams, but only ever wished me the best of luck. To my children, Tracy, Tammy, Michael, Casey and Shayne, for all the hours you lost with me while I was writing. To my husband, Earl, who has more patience than any man should be required to have and for always being there for me and taking care of me when I couldn’t take care of myself. I love you all very much. And last, to Kathy Pilkington, a friend for more years than either of us wants to remember, a lady who loves books as much as I do, and the first to fall in love with Topaz and Celine.

  Acknowledgement

  Special thanks to Dawne Dominque for her lovely art work.

  Thanks to my editor, Colleen McSpirit, and proof reader, Ariana Gaynor.

  Thanks to my online paranormal critique group, Laura, Ruby, Nicki, Stacey,

  Kayelle, Aleta, Anna, Amber, Sherri, Rachel and Bonnie. I couldn’t have

  done it without your help and advice. Thanks to my local writing club,

  the Green Country Ruff Riter’s, Paula Gorgas, Rebecca Billy and Janet

  Short for your support, advice and help. Amber Harp, you’re a special

  lady and thank you for always being there and for the many unselfish

  hours you listened to “Witch’s Brew” in its early stages of creation and

  always saying, “I love it!” Paula LaFevers for all the hours you read it

  aloud and kept us entertained with your wild sense of humor. Thank you

  Jo Jansen and the Out There gang from Beerwah, Queensland, Australia.

  Special thanks goes out to Regina Richardson from New Mexico,

  Anita Humphries from Texas and Debra Casey from Louisiana, three of

  my loyal fans. I love you, ladies!

  And last, thank you, Secret Cravings Publishing for being willing to put

  this book out there for a second go around.

  WITCH'S BREW

  Book 1 of the Wislow Witch's

  Of Salem

  Tabitha Shay

  Copyright © 2011

  I will not plead

  If I deny, I am condemned already

  In courts where ghosts appear as witnesses

  And swear men’s lives away. If I confess,

  Then I confess a lie, to buy a life,

  Which is not life, but only death in life.

  ~William Wadsworth Longfellow

  Prologue

  Nine-year-old Elizabeth Parris and eleven-year-old Abigail Williams began to exhibit strange behavior, such as blasphemous screaming, convulsive seizures, trance-like states and mysterious spells. Shortly after this, several other Salem girls began to demonstrate similar behavior.

  ~Salem Witch Trials

  January 20, 1692

  The Time of Bron Trogain

  Salem Village

  1692

  “Elsbeth Winslow, you are under arrest for the vile crime of witchcraft!”

  Elsbeth dropped the large wooden spoon in the bubbling pot of stew hanging from the hob in the hearth. Gasping, she whirled to face her husband as he entered their tiny cottage.

  “Oh, John, not you,” she said, her voice breathless with defeat.

  The warmth inside the room that had soothed earlier and made the tiny room cheerful and welcoming, suddenly felt dank, cold and hostile. The delicious aroma of the stew turned sour, fouling the air. Elsbeth wrapped a protective arm around her mid-section and scrunched her nose. Disbelief settled in her breasts. How could her husband, who’d always had common sense, go along with the insanity eating Salem Village alive?

  His six foot frame blocked the late evening sunlight from streaming through the open doorway of their cottage. Thick, dark brows beetled over eyes grown mad with heightened emotion. His once precious mouth, a hard slash across his face, brooked no disobedience. He’d come for her and he expected her compliance.

  Ignoring the stew she’d put on to heat, Elsbeth straightened to her full height of five foot two and glanced toward the single window. Would the sun never set on this terrible day? Her heart sank. All hope seeped from her body. What made her think tomorrow would be a better day? There’d be more arrests, more questions, more sentences and more hangings. Terror reigned. Families were being ripped apart, some sick and dying in the crowded jails before they could be brought to trial.

  With charges now brought against her, she knew there was only one thing she could do–flee Salem Village. Take her daughters and leave as quickly as possible. But first, she had to get past her husband, no easy feat.

  John closed the door behind him and drew closer. Her heart pounded. Elsbeth backed up a step, but the hearth stood behind her. She could retreat no further.

  “Do not be a part of this evil thing,” she pleaded. “I’m taking our daughters and leaving Salem. Do not try to stop me.”

  The firelight from the hearth flickered, revealing John’s eyes clearly for the first time since he’d entered the dimly lit cottage. An ebony hue, dark and evil, had replaced the warm brown of his once gentle eyes. They were now flat, without the sparkle of life that had always t
winkled in the whiskey-colored depths.

  Bewitched! Her husband was bewitched.

  Elsbeth barely stifled a gasp. “John.” Her voice escaped on a whispery thread, filled with shock and hurt for him. “Oh great goddess of the moon and earth,” she breathed. “Help me! Help us!”

  Her throat turned dry as a leaf in fall. A wave of cold sweat broke over her. Her chest tightened as if the evil magic poisoning John’s soul squeezed the life from her heart. Nausea roiled and threatened to clog her throat. Her breath locked inside her lungs. A veil of blackness slid over her vision. Elsbeth shook her head to keep from swooning.

  Someone had recently used Black Magick on her husband. The evil enslaving his mind reeked of the foulness such magick carried. Her eyes burned from the noxious, rotten egg scent enveloping him. Nostrils flaring, Elsbeth recognized the foul stench of evil mixed with the unmistakable whiff of recent sex and the spicy aroma of another witch’s scent rising from John’s close-fitting doublet and baggy breeches.

  Even though she’d suspected his infidelity, her heart had refused to accept the truth…until now. The jagged splinters of pain piercing her soul at this final betrayal could feel no worse than if she’d been stabbed through the heart with a dagger. She prayed silently to the goddess to remove her anguish. She could not bear his disloyalty.

  John was lost to her now, as surely as if Death had lifted his skeletal fingers and plucked her husband away to the Underworld. There was no undoing another witch’s Black Magic. And even if she could, she’d never find forgiveness in her heart for John’s unfaithfulness.

  Elsbeth blinked. Her eyes stung with the acridity of unshed tears. A sob as big as a toad’s banyan lodged in her throat. ‘Twas too bad full blooded witches were incapable of tears. She wanted nothing more than to fall to the floor in a sobbing heap like the illumrof females.

  Instead, her heart bled crimson droplets of sorrow. She wept for what had once been and would be no more. Her mind screamed an urgent warning. Go. Hasten. Run. Fleeing with her daughters to the safety of her realm was the only choice left to her now.

  Cautiously, she stepped to the end of the table, but John grabbed her arm, twisting her to face him, face his wrath.

  “Do not consider leaving, Beth. There’s nowhere for you to hide.” He tightened his fingers on her wrist. “You’ll come with me. Magistrates Hathorne and Corwin are waiting to examine you this night.”

  Her slippers skidded across the dirt floor as he tugged her toward the door. Terror jittered down her spine. Her pulse fought against the thickness of her chilled blood. Gods, she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think with the scent of that other witch all over him. How long had he been involved with her? Since he hadn’t touched her in months, she suspected his involvement had been going on for some time. Who was this other witch?

  Elsbeth drew a deep, soothing breath, slowly exhaled, and told herself to remain calm. She mustn’t panic. “Let go of me, John.”

  “You are guilty of casting spells,” he replied, a cruelty in his voice she’d never heard before. “You must be punished for thy crimes.”

  “I’ve cast no spells. I’m innocent of witchcraft.” She clawed at his hands, trying to free her wrists from his painful grip. Her nails broke with the fullness of his warm flesh. He yelped like the coward she now considered him to be.

  John grabbed her by the upper arms, shaking her. She winced when his fingers bit into her flesh.

  “You conspired with the Devil. Slut. Spawn of Satan! You slept with a demon,” he yelled.”

  She hung her head in mortal shame. She should never have confessed her sin to him. “Yes,” she whispered, too ashamed to meet his angry gaze. “You left me no choice.” Elsbeth drew a shaky breath and lifted her head, prepared to face his scorn. She refused to sink to his level and voice her own accusations. “It’s Beltane. My breeding time, but you refused to touch me. You understand the irresitable pull of my mating season. You wronged me, John, in every way possible there is to wrong a witch, long before I slept with the demon. He, at least, knew what I needed. You can’t condemn me for the things you made happen. Let me go!”

  “Cease fighting or I will drag you to the hangman,” he warned.

  She couldn’t bring herself to obey or even to look into the eyes that had once been clear and brown as a rom’s wing and filled with love. There was no mistaking it was John’s voice but the icy tone was unnatural. Once, he would never have hurt her in any way.

  He yanked harder on her arms. “Move, Beth. Now,” he snarled, shoving her toward the door.

  Elsbeth cried out as she lost her balance and stumbled toward him. She bit her lip, dragging her broken nails across his wrist. The children. She had to get to her children. She wrenched free and put distance between her and John–what little distance the crowded room allowed.

  He moved, sudden and unexpected. John stepped squarely in front of the ladder that rose to the loft where the children slept the sleep of the innocent. Consciously or unconsciously, he’d blocked her path, preventing her from reaching her babies.

  Slowly, she slid her hand across her aching breasts, a useless attempt to soothe the heaviness weighing there. It would not be soothed, not as long as her babies were in danger.

  Elsbeth closed her eyes and focused her mind on the room in an attempt to quiet the chaos raging through her thoughts. To reach trance state, she needed to visualize the once peaceful haven of her home–John’s love, the low fire crackling in the hearth, the kettle hooked on the hob whistling a merry tune while steam shot from its spout in a vaporous hiss. She imagined the weak flame of the tallow candle–nearly burned to a stub, merrily flickering on the long table where they broke their fasts.

  “Beth! Stop this witch’s trickery. Thy devil’s games will not work with me. I have no fear of you. I can take you anytime I please.”

  Her eyes snapped open. Uneasy shadows danced on the rough log walls. Chills snaked up her spine. “Flickering shadows, ‘tis a bad omen,” she whispered, “a sign of things yet to come.”

  She thrust wispy strands of hair under her mobcap and fought the weariness seeping into her bones. Gingerly, she wiped her sweaty palms down the sides of her long, white apron.

  His face set, John took a step toward her. “’Tis nothing but foolish gibberish you mutter.”

  She heaved a sigh. At last, he’d moved out of her way. Without pause or consideration of the danger she placed herself in, she scooted around John and headed to the rickety ladder propped against the wall below the loft. Her daughters slept up there and she was determined to get them to safety.

  Elsbeth muttered a prayer to the gods asking for forgiveness. She’d thought her girls were safe in the mortal world, safe from the soul-stealers of her realm, safe from witch assassins. But she was wrong and her mistake cost the soul of her husband.

  Even the villagers were not protected from the vile accusations of power hungry illumrofs or ill-met witches who sold their souls to gain knowledge of Black Magick. Those who were innocent of practicing the Black Arts were tried, convicted, and executed alongside the guilty.

  Of a sudden, John’s burning anger over her mating with a demon slammed into her with the driving force of an evil spell. Her bosom heaved. Elsbeth struggled to keep from revealing her panic. ‘Twas unjustified, his fury, if anyone had the right to be enraged, ‘twas she. Someone hated her enough to destroy her marriage by driving this wedge between them. Who? The accusing girls? She’d done nothing to them. They were not witches, just unwise girls who’d swept the village into panic with their foolish lies and vile acts of convulsive seizures.

  Elsbeth shivered. It should have been warm and toasty inside the room but a chill pervaded her bones. Ice settled like a cold lump of congealed porridge in her belly. She stiffened under the onslaught of an evil presence that closed around her like a heavy cloak. Dark and venomous, the putrid Black Magick surged into the room, filling it, surrounding them and twisting her husband into a stranger.

  John
stared at his hands as if he didn’t know they belonged to him. He looked up, his expression dark and thunderous and filled with hatred.

  Desperate, she whirled, searching for something, anything that’d make a weapon to defend herself and her children. Her gaze fell upon the ax leaning against the wall by the ladder. She grabbed it, clenching it between her hands. “Stay back, John,” she yelled.

  He watched her, his stare unflinching and lifeless as a slab of marble. Spittle flecked his lips. His eyes bulged, wild and horrific. He charged toward her like a wild bull.

  “Stop,” she screamed. She raised the ax in warning. “I swear I’ll use it.”

  He stilled, his big body shaking with convulsive rage. “You’re evil, witch!”

  “I’m evil?” Elsbeth tossed back her head, rage soaring through her blood. “‘Tis a heinous thing thy people are doing, hanging innocents and crushing them with stones.” Elsbeth raised the ax higher. “I’m taking my babies and leaving this wicked realm.”

  “Put down the ax, Beth. You’re coming with me.”

  She shook her head. “Move to the other side of the table. Stay there or I’ll turn you into a legless lizard.”

  Elsbeth knew she’d stunned him. She’d stunned herself. Always the obedient wife, he’d cast away his right to give her orders when he’d taken another witch. Her lips trembled. Dread lurched in her heart. She couldn’t face this alone. She needed help.

  Hesitating but a second, John put the table between them as she’d ordered. Elsbeth lowered the ax to the floor and raising her arms in a graceful arc above her head, she swayed from side to side. Outside the wind rose, howling fiercely through the trees. The window panes rattled. Sparks crackled and leapt up the chimney.