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This Strange Witchery
Michele Hauf
The last thing he wanted……was to fall for a witchAll Torsten Rindle wants is to be normal. As soon as he completes his last job, he’s done with the supernatural. Then Melissande Jones sashays into his life, and Tor finds that he can’t resist this sultry sorceress. He might be able to protect her from vampires and zombies, but can he leave the paranormal world behind after Mel has bewitched him?
The last thing he wanted...
...was to fall for a witch
All Torsten Rindle wants is to be normal. As soon as he completes his last job, he’s done with the supernatural. Then Melissande Jones sashays into his life, and Tor finds that he can’t resist this sultry sorceress. He might be able to protect her from vampires and zombies, but can he leave the paranormal world behind after Mel has bewitched him?
MICHELE HAUF is a USA TODAY bestselling author who has been writing romance, action-adventure and fantasy stories for more than twenty years. France, musketeers, vampires and faeries usually feature in her stories. And if Michele followed the adage “write what you know,” all her stories would have snow in them. Fortunately, she steps beyond her comfort zone and writes about countries and creatures she has never seen. Find her on Facebook, Twitter and at michelehauf.com (http://www.michelehauf.com).
Also by Michele Hauf (#u2c642c33-4ad2-5409-a129-4da84c389f75)
The Witch’s Quest
The Witch and the Werewolf
An American Witch in Paris
The Billionaire Werewolf’s Princess
Tempting the Dark
The Dark’s Mistress
Ghost Wolf
Moonlight and Diamonds
The Vampire’s Fall
Enchanted by the Wolf
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
This Strange Witchery
Michele Hauf
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-08220-4
THIS STRANGE WITCHERY
© 2018 Michele Hauf
Published in Great Britain 2018
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.
® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Here’s to you, Weirdo.
Contents
Cover (#u1046f95c-e949-58ce-8cc0-d84559cd9a71)
Back Cover Text (#ud9987072-dbf9-5a28-bdf4-81d2eb061061)
About the Author (#u31ec29bd-4ace-5fe0-8e62-a54031c1cbcd)
Booklist (#ueef0400a-2dbc-5bf1-8877-b6f45f7cdb59)
Title Page (#ucd1acc38-7e2c-5e59-a17f-a3c18db1f1bd)
Copyright (#udc319328-d513-5802-858a-4ad6bddcf462)
Dedication (#ud2be3dcb-becf-5b34-bc3f-9c6ca9eeabbe)
Chapter 1 (#ud8d6958b-cc74-5053-9f21-167d8e4a9402)
Chapter 2 (#u7a052c1d-feac-58ae-ac28-da83baf1a13a)
Chapter 3 (#u525df707-e8e7-5a05-9499-2ccdaa9c7a08)
Chapter 4 (#u95d960f3-5f98-56c2-b550-c4a3106f7aad)
Chapter 5 (#u6c804777-3267-50db-8300-43988250d803)
Chapter 6 (#ue22b06cf-fe64-518f-aa4c-853340d397cc)
Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 23 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 24 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 25 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 26 (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Author Note (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 1 (#u2c642c33-4ad2-5409-a129-4da84c389f75)
The key to disposing of a werewolf body was to get the flames burning quickly, yet to keep them as contained as possible. Torsten Rindle had been doing cleaner work for close to ten years. When a call came in about a dead paranormal found or deposited somewhere in Paris, he moved swiftly. Discreet cleanup was one of his many trades. Media spin was a talent he’d mastered for whenever he was too late to clean up and a human had stumbled upon the dead werewolf. He also dallied with protection work and the occasional vampire hunt.
It was good for a man to keep his business options fluid and to always expand his skills list. And if he had to choose a title for what he did, he’d go with Secret Keeper.
But some days...
Tor shook his head as the blue-red flames burned the furry body to ash before him. The use of eucalyptus in the mix masked the smell of burning dog. For the most part. The creature had been rabid, eluding the slayer until it had gotten trapped down a narrow alleyway that had ended in a brick wall. The slayer had taken it out not twenty minutes earlier, and then had immediately called Tor.
Those in the know carried Tor’s number. He was always the first choice when it came to keeping secrets from humans.
Thankful this had been an old wolf—werewolves shifted back to human form after death; the older ones took much longer, sometimes hours—so he hadn’t needed to deal with it in human form, Tor swiped a rubber-gloved hand over an itch on his cheek. Then he remembered the werewolf blood he’d touched.
Bollocks.
He was getting tired of this routine: receive a frantic call from someone in the know regarding a rabid werewolf who may be seen by humans. Dash to the scene. Assess the situation. Clean up the mess (if extinguishing the problem was essential), or talk to the police and/or media using one of his many alter-ego names and titles, such as Ichabod Sneed from the Fire Department’s Personal Relations. Then return home to his empty loft.
Eat. Crash. Repeat.
Tor knew... He knew too much. Monsters existed. Vampires, werewolves, witches, faeries, harpies, mermaids. They all existed. And yes, dragons were known to be real assholes if you could find one of them. A regular human guy like him shouldn’t have such knowledge. That was why, over the years, he had striven to keep such information from the public. Because knowing so much? It fucked with a man’s mental state.
And then there were some days he wanted to walk away from it all. Like today.
This morning he’d been woken and called to assist with media contacts while a minor graveyard at the edge of the city had been blocked off from public access. Routine cosmetic repairs, he’d explained to the news reporters. The truth? A demonic ritual had roused a cavalcade of vicious entities from Daemonia. Slayers had taken care of the immediate threat, but that had left the graveyard covered in black tar-like demon blood. And the stench!
Tor had spent the better part of this afternoon arguing with a group of muses about their need to “come out” to the public regarding their oppressive attraction to angels who only wanted to impregnate them. Something to do with the #metoo movement. Sexual harassment or not, the public wasn’t ready for the truth about fallen angels and their muses. But, being a feminist himself, he had directed the muses to the Council, who had recently put together a Morals and Ethics Committee.
“I want normal,” he muttered. He grabbed the fire extinguisher to douse the flames. He refilled the canister at the local fire station monthly. “It’s time I had it.”
It took ten minutes to clean up the sludgy ash pile and shovel it into a medium black body bag. Fortunately, this werewolf had been tracked to the edge of the 13th arrondissement not far from the ring road that circled Paris. It was a tight little neighborhood, mostly industry that had closed during regular business hours, leaving the streets abandoned and the dusty windows dark. Tor hadn’t noticed anyone nearby, nor had he worried about discovery as he made haste cleaning up the evidence. His van was parked down the street.
He hefted the body bag over a shoulder, picked up the extinguisher and his toolbox filled with all the accoutrements a guy like him should ever need on a job like this, and wandered down the street. His rubber boots made squidgy noises on the tarmac. After dousing the flames, he’d rolled down the white polyethylene hazmat suit to his hips. With shirtsleeves rolled up, his tweed vest still neatly buttoned, yet tie slightly loosened, he could breathe now.
“Normal,” he repeated.
He’d scheduled a Skype interview early tomorrow afternoon. The job he had applied for was assistant to Human Relations and Resources at an up-and-coming accounting firm in la Defense district. About as mundane and normal as a man could hope for. He’d never actually worked a regular “human” job.
It was about time he gave it a go.
The olive green van, which had seen so many better days, sat thirty feet down from a streetlight that flickered and put out an annoying buzz. Humming a Sinatra tune, Tor opened the back of the van and tossed in the supplies. He’d dump the body bag at a landfill on the way home. He’d done his research; that landfill was plowed monthly and shipped directly to China for incineration.
“That’s my life,” he sang, altering the lyrics to suit him.
Sinatra was a swanky idol to him. Singing his songs put him in a different place from the weird one he usually occupied. Call it a sanity check. The Sultan of Swoon relaxed him in ways he could appreciate.
He peeled off the sweaty hazmat suit, hung it on a hanger and placed that on a hook near the van ceiling. At his belt hung a heavy quartz crystal fixed into a steel mount that clipped with a D ring onto a loop. He never went anywhere without the bespelled talisman. Another necessity for sanity. The rubber boots were placed in a tray on the van floor. He pulled out his bespoke Italian leather shoes from a cloth bag and slipped those on.
“Ahhh...” Almost better than a shower. But he couldn’t wait to wash off the werewolf blood. Odds were he had it in more places than the smear across his cheek.
Closing the back doors, he punched a code on the digital lock to secure it. While he sorted through his trouser pocket for the van key, he whistled the chorus to the song that demanded he accept life as it was...that’s life.
Maybe... No. Life didn’t have to be this way for him. He was all-in for a change of scenery.
Before he slid the key in the lock, he saw the driver’s door was unlocked. Had he forgotten? That wasn’t like him. He was always on top of the situation. Which only further contributed to his need to run from this life as if a flaming werewolf were chasing his ass.
Tor slid into the driver’s seat and fired up the engine. Another crazy midnight job. His final one. He would stand firm on that decision. And after getting a whiff of the dead werewolf’s rangy scent—someone please show him the way to his new office cubicle.
Adjusting the radio to a forties’ swing station, he palmed the stick shift.
When the person in the passenger seat spoke, he startled. “Whoa!”
