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quaintness and peacefulness
with a slight tingle of electric energy, made her want to stay. Made her feel
she belonged.
    Why Sanctuary drew her and kept her imprisoned, she didn’t
know or understand, but she’d never felt so alive, content, or so safe, except when
she was feeling insane, of course. “I bet Mum would like it here. Maybe I can
convince her to visit. I could use the company.”
    Sighing, she shook off the gloominess her mum’s call had
left her feeling. Perhaps Eldora was right, and someday she’d meet her Prince
Charming. Maybe she’d fall in love and marry. Have children. A family. She’d
grown up a lonely child. She wanted babies, lots of babies to dote on one day.
    Pausing in front of her shop, she laughed softly. Arching
her neck, she raised her arms in an elegant arc toward the sky. A gentle breeze
rushed past her fluttering the soft folds of her black cotton skirt. It swirled
lightly around her knees as she twirled around. “Oh, Prince, my handsome
Prince,” she chanted. “Come claim me. My thighs are warm and welcoming.”
    Saylym smothered a laugh at her whimsical silliness and
stuck the key into the lock of the shop door, pushed it open, and stepped
inside. Smiling, she closed the door behind her and flipped the ‘OPEN’ sign
around to face the street.
    “Come and claim me.” She snorted. “Right. And I’m the good
witch, Glinda.”

 

     

     

     
    Chapter Two

     

     
    Prayer services and community
fasting were conducted by Reverend Samuel Parris in hopes of relieving the evil
forces that plagued them. In an effort to expose the “witches”, John Indian
baked a witch cake made with rye meal and the afflicted girls’ urine. This
counter-magick was meant to reveal the identities of the “witches” to the
afflicted girls so they could make public the names while being examined.

     
    ~Salem Witch Trials
    Late-February, 1692
     

     
    Page Entry…

     

     
    Before the days witches dwelled in the mortal realm, times were
troubled in the land of Ru-Noc. King Osh, along with the elders that made up
the Waken Guild, ruled the land with a firm and cruel hand. In their quest for
thrills, pleasure, and power, wakens first sampled the splendid energy derived
from witches’ souls.
    But this pleasure of simply tasting a soul could not satisfy the
wakens’ ravenous hunger and their females began to take exception to such abuse.
In time, the males learned to seduce a witch first. At the moment of climax,
when she was at her weakest, the waken then stole his mate’s soul.
    Horrified by what was happening, the witches turned their backs on the
wakens and sought their own ruler. They chose Leyla Winslow, the eldest and
most powerful of witches, to be their queen. Combining their magical skills
with Leyla’s, the witches summoned a place from the ash of the mystical
Phoenix, a place they could live, a place away from the tyranny of King Osh, a
place forbidden to the wakens, except at Beltane.
    They named it Sanctuary.

     
    ~Pages of history from the Winslow witches.
    In the Year of Samhain, 300

     

     
    Sanctuary
    The Time of
Beltane
    Present Day

     
    Prince
Talon leaned against a lamppost on the street corner and folded his arms across
his chest. He drank in the female’s intoxicating beauty. A soft whistle of
appreciation escaped his lips.
    The
velvety sound of her gentle laughter touched his skin. Without conscious
thought, he rubbed a hand over his heart as if she’d staked her claim and
actually owned property there.
    Damn,
she was lovely. Sexy.
    He frowned. She was too busy eyeing those infernal
instruments of torture to be aware of him standing near the town-square. For
some reason, that annoyed him. Witches always noticed him, and chased him.
She’d notice him, too, he vowed. He intended to make damn certain she did.
    His breath caught in his throat as he watched her twirl
around and chant. The sound of her sweet voice floated in the air, weaving a
spell of seduction about