by Temple Hogan
Table of Contents
Title Page
Witches of Three: Seraphina Copyright © 2014 Temple Hogan
Book Description
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
About the Author
Also Available from Resplendence Publishing
www.resplendencepublishing.com
Witches of Three: Seraphina
A Witches of Three Story
By Temple Hogan
Resplendence Publishing
R·>♦<·P
www.resplendencepublishing.com
Gems of Romantic Fiction
Witches of Three: Seraphina
Copyright © 2014 Temple Hogan
Edited by Delaney Sullivan and Jason Huffman
Cover Art by Les Byerley
Published by Resplendence Publishing, LLC
1093 A1A Beach Blvd, #146
St. Augustine, FL 32080
Electronic format ISBN: 978-1-60735-785-8
Warning: All rights reserved. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.
Electronic Release: June 2014
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and occurrences are a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, places or occurrences, is purely coincidental.
Seraphina Spencer is the youngest of three sisters who just happen to be witches. Unlike her sisters, Sera tries her best to be normal and not use her powers until the day a handsome stranger shows up in her kitchen to fix her plumbing.
Jack Trent is an FBI agent who’s been on the trail of a slick conman who’s bilked millions of dollars from investors. A trace on a phone has led him to Sera Spencer whom Jack is convinced is either Mannie Somner’s girlfriend or his daughter. Only problem is, she’s either innocent of any knowledge of Somner’s crimes or she’s a great actress. Either way, Jack’s in trouble since he’s falling for her. And oh, yeah, she thinks she’s a witch and Jack is an Incubus.
This book is dedicated to all the great writers in our Grand Rapids Region Writers Group. Their dedication and hard work is an inspiration to any writer. Their willingness to share information, be it research or market information, is generous beyond belief, but most of all I love them for their laughter, sharp wits and amazing imaginations. If you’re a writer, the best person you can have for a friend is another writer. They understand!
Also to my terrific editor and my fantastic husband who’s the best hero I know!
Chapter One
Sera felt left out. Something she often experienced when she was around her two older sisters. Although they looked like triplets with their slim bodies, blue eyes and long blonde hair, and people said they were beautiful, especially Mums. But how could you trust a mother about such things? Mothers were always prejudiced in favor of their children, and Mums was fiercely so.
“Hey, grump puss, what are you moping about now?” Her sister, Charlotte, laughed, bumping her arm for emphasis.
Sera’s margarita sloshed over her fingers, and she licked at them, forcing a smile to show she was part of the threesome. But somehow, she knew she wasn’t.
Charlie had just gotten married two hours before to a handsome, sexy man who made her blush every time he looked at her. Charlie’s bridesmaids had been Sera and Philomena, or Phil as she was called by all, accompanied by her strapping, super guy, Beck, who she’d married the year before. Now the sisters lolled in patio chairs on the veranda of the country club where the reception was being held, their full, tulle skirts glittering in the moonlight. They’d sneaked off in their wedding finery to have a drink on their own and talk. Giggle was more like it, Sera thought sourly. Both women were positively giddy, and why not? They were in love and loved back and experiencing breath-stealing sex and sharing all their happiness with the world.
It wasn’t that Sera begrudged them their joy, but she wanted some too.
Charlie raised her head and looked at Sera sharply. Oh no. She’d forgotten Charlie could read minds and both sisters practiced their witchcraft with unbridled enthusiasm. Not Sera! Mums had told them as little girls they must not, and Sera being the good one and the smallest and Mums’ favorite had striven not to. Oh, she had once or twice so she knew she hadn’t lost the touch, but she’d felt so much guilt afterwards that she’d vowed never again.
“Poor, Sera,” Charlie said with real sympathy. “Phil, she hasn’t got anyone at all. We have to do something about that.”
“No!” Sera said quickly. “Don’t meddle in my life!” The words were spoken rather more stridently than Sera had intended so she softened her tone and smiled weakly. “You two have your own lives to worry about, don’t bother with me.” Did that sound mealy-mouthed or what? She tried again. “I’m sure one day, my own prince will come along and I’ll be as happy as you two are."
“Baby, there aren’t any princes who are going to come riding in on a white charger. Just regular, ordinary guys—well, not so ordinary,” Charlie amended and beamed shamelessly. “But you have to go out and look for them.”
“Yeah,” Phil chimed in.
“Beck fell on your front porch,” Sera said, attempting to tease her way out of her sister’s good intentions.
“Well, yes, he did,” Phil said laughing, “but I was out there looking for a long time.”
“I’m not interested in going that route,” Sera said, then realized she might have hurt Phil’s feelings. “Sorry, that came out the wrong way.”
Phil leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “Oh, Pet, you’re always so serious.” She took a sip of her margarita and leaned closer so her eyes stared directly into her sister’s. “Tell me, how many men have you dated? Never mind that, let’s get down to the real issue. How many men have you bedded?”
Sera blushed to the roots of her hair. Oh, no. She didn’t have a chance. Phil and Charlie would ferret out her deepest secret. Charlie leaned close as well and stared into Sera’s eyes.
“My god, she’s a virgin!” Charlie exclaimed. “Well, no wonder she’s so uptight and dresses like a Sunday School teacher, never mind the tight-assed way she walks.”
“Cool it, Charlie,” Phil snapped. “She doesn’t need your over-the-top comments. She’s scared!”
“I am not!” Sera denied.
“It doesn’t hurt, quite the opposite, in fact. It’s…it’s…” Charlie paused, searching for a word. “It’s divine. It’s something once you’ve done it, you can’t live without it.” A look of speculation crossed her feature. “You have masturbated, haven’t you? I mean if you’ve masturbated, then you kind of know how real sex feels except it’s so much better with a guy.”
Sera’s face flamed. Again! And she leaped to her feet. Phil jumped up and put an arm around her shoulders.
“Don’t let Charlie upset you. You know how she is. She has Nick now, and she thinks the rest of the world should be so lucky. I kind of feel that way too now that I have Beck in my life, and we just want that for you, not just the sex, but sex is the first priority. If you aren’t compatible with someone physically, things will never work out. Sit down and let’s talk.” Phil pushed Sera into the chair.
“Now then,” she said to Charlie. “What are we going to do about this?�
�
They sat thinking, and Sera thought about using her witchcraft to zap herself away, far away, from her impossible sisters.
“I know,” Charlie said, snapping her fingers.
She really was lovely, Sera thought, in her bridal gown with her long, blonde hair tumbling about her shoulders. For that matter, Phil looked spectacular in the softest, pale-pink bridesmaid’s dress. Sera couldn’t say the same for herself. She hated pink. She looked like a boiled turnip, a pink boiled turnip to be exact, but she hadn’t objected when the color was chosen. Now she sat thinking about what she might have said to her sisters. I hate pink. I don’t want to wear it. I look horrible in it.
“What?” Phil asked impatiently, her tone sharp enough to break through Sara’s reverie.
“We’ll get her an Incubus!” Charlie exclaimed. Now she had everyone’s attention, especially Sera’s.
“You mean Succubus?” she asked faintly. “Even if I’m a virgin, I know I don’t bend that way.”
“Not a Succubus, you goose,” Phil said lovingly. “A Succubus lies with men, an Incubus makes love to women.” She looked back at Charlie.
“I don’t know,” she said, “I’ve heard Incubi are hard to manage.”
“What’s to manage? We want one to come make love to our Sera and teach her everything about sex. She’s a virgin for god’s sake, and we have to take drastic measures. And all of the above is what they do.”
“I don’t want to take drastic measures,” Sera said, feeling her alarm mount.
“Yes, but some are pretty unsavory characters,” Phil said over Sera so no one heard her. “I’ve heard they suck the life right out of their victims.”
“Oh, no, thank you, but I’m not interested,” Sera tried again, speaking softly as was her habit.
“Ordinary people, possibly, depends on the Incubus, but Sera isn’t ordinary,” Charlie said loudly with great enthusiasm. “She’s a witch. Besides, we could take away certain powers of our Incubus, so he couldn’t do that.”
“Are you sure?” Phil asked.
“Of course,” Charlie stated with such certainty, Sera grew even more uncertain.
“I’m not interested.”
“It would be perfect,” Phil said. “If we could make it work.”
“And we can,” Charlie said.
She sat upright with the moonlight spangling her wedding gown and streaking her graceful shoulders and hair with gold. She looked like a princess, Sera thought, but she was always so adamant about such things and having been the subject of her older sisters’ experiments many times before, Sera knew she had to stop this right now. She leaped to her feet and raised her voice.
“I won’t do it,” she said loudly.
Her sisters swiveled their heads and looked at her in astonishment for at least a minute. Long enough for Sera’s chest to begin to tighten from the breath she held.
“I won’t do it,” she repeated again in a small voice.
“Oh, baby.” Both sisters came to her side, putting their arms around her and coddling her as they had when she’d been little. How many difficult or even potentially dangerous situations had they gotten her into over the years? Not again!
“I won’t,” she said, pulling away from their cloying embraces and facing them with an outthrust chin.
“Isn’t she adorable?” Phil said lovingly.
“So sweet, so innocent,” Charlie said. They advanced with all the affection of older sisters for a younger, much loved sibling. “You’ll be the better for it. I would love to think that tonight when Nick and I are consummating our marriage vows and Phil and Beck are making a baby, you’ll be discovering what sex with a man is about.”
“But you’re not suggesting a man. You want to give me an Incubus!” Sera was overcome with anger and disbelief. She shook a finger at them. “Don’t you dare! Stay out of my life. I mean it.” She whirled and ran back inside the large hall.
“Hey, Sera, I was searching for you,” said a tall man with blond hair and kind, gray eyes. “I have a margarita for you. I know how much you love them.”
Harry Reynolds, the library director, could have been a heartthrob for some fortunate woman, but not for Sera. Somehow, things just didn’t click with him, and she often wondered why. Since he seemed a perfect representative of the male gender, she assumed the problem lay with her. Now he held out a cocktail, his eyes glinting appreciatively behind his glasses.
“Hey, did I tell you, you look gorgeous tonight?” he asked in his quiet manner. He smiled and pushed his glasses up on his nose when she took the margarita from him.
“Here’s to better days,” she said and drank the margarita down without pause.
Harry gaped at her in surprise. “You-you’ll get brain freeze that way,” he said helplessly while she continued to drain the glass.
When it was empty, she handed it back and smiled at him. “My brain can handle it.”
“W-would you like another one?” he asked tentatively.
“Yes, I would.”
She glanced in the direction of the bar. The waiters had removed all the china and silverware and shoved extra chairs and tables out of the way to enlarge the dance floor. The band had returned from its break and now began a set of lively, rhythmic music that brought couples hurrying to the cleared area.
“Never mind the margarita, dance with me, Harry,” she said.
“Well, I haven’t finished my drink.” He looked around with that helpless air of his, searching for a place to discard it.
“Let me.” She took the margarita he’d brought for himself and drank it down, feeling the power of the tequila clear to her toes. A waiter passed by, and she disposed of the empty glass, grabbed Harry’s arm and yanked him out on the dance floor. Her sisters had entered the room, and she overheard one of them utter Harry’s name.
“Much too boring,” the other said. “We have to find someone who knows all about women and how to treat them.”
The music drowned out anything else, but she’d heard enough to know her sisters had settled on her as their project. They were going to find her a man or an Incubus whether she wanted one or not.
In the middle of the floor, she turned into Harry’s arms, and he held her lightly, properly, respectfully, boringly as they began to dance. Oh, lord. Her sisters had a point. But what did it matter? She’d gone this long in her life without a man, and she had about decided she could do without one. After all, wasn’t she having a torrid affair with her vibrator? What more could she want?
Except she did. She knew that as a virgin she was practically a phenomenon in this modern day, a relic. Or maybe not, maybe she was just an oddball, an old maid in the making, never wanting or needing a man’s touch. Never needing children or a normal life with family and home, except she did and not just because her go button had been set on normal, but because everyone needed someone to touch them and whisper words of love, someone who would need her back. She wanted children and a home that was created by two.
She’d long ago decided the kind of wife and mother she would be. She’d just never figured out the part that led up to it, the falling in love with someone, the luring the man of her choice into her arms, the letting go so her destiny was in his hands not hers. Why was this so hard? Charlie and Phil made it look easy.
The music ended, and Sera stepped back from Harry. He was blushing bright red, and she realized she’d practically glued herself to him during the dance. He glanced down at himself and clasped his hands together over his crotch. He’d gotten a hard-on, and she hadn’t even noticed! What did that say about her? She was hopeless.
“Thanks for the dance, Harry,” she said and turned away.
“Wait,” he said, grabbing for her hand, then remembering his state clasped his hands in front of himself again. “Can I drive you home after the reception?”
“I’m afraid not, Harry,” she said gently and put her hand to her head. “I’m not feeling very well. I think I’ll leave early. Thanks anyway.”
/>
“Should you be driving yourself? I mean after all you’ve had to drink. Those margaritas can be deceptive.”
“I’ll take a cab,” she lied. Her car was parked right out front, and she intended to drive it home.
“I’ll drive you.”
“Don’t worry about me,” she said and hurried toward the entrance.
Her sisters blocked the way.
“Not Harry,” Phil said with such certainty that one would think Sera should immediately cross him off her list, if she had such a list.
“He’s a nice man,” Charlie agreed, “but I’m sure he would bore you to death. You’re not stuck on him, are you? I saw how you draped yourself over him while you danced, but you didn’t look happy, Sera. In fact, you looked absolutely bored.”
“I was,” Sera said, rounding on them. “Are you satisfied?”
Charlie looked affronted, and Phil blinked as if she didn’t understand Sera’s attitude.
“Don’t be angry at us if you’re bored with him,” Charlie snapped. “I hear he’s a bit of a stud dud anyway. Let’s look for someone a little more exciting. Oh, there’s Ben Harrison. He’s a ladies’ man, and he has a new one every month.”
“Why would I waste my time with him just to be the flavor of the month?” Sera snapped. “I’m not going to play this game with you. I’m going home.”
“Got a date with your vibrator, huh?” Charlie said. She always loved stating the most outrageous. One could never have a secret vice around her.
“Charlie!” Phil said and put an arm around Sera. “Don’t mind her, baby. She’s so rude at times. Just because she’s found Nick, she’s full of herself.”
“Well, I have a right to be,” Charlie said and paused. “Well, all right, I’m sorry if I said something that made you feel bad.”
“You always say things that make people feel bad,” Sera sniped then swung her wrap around her shoulders and headed for the exit.