Michele Hauf - An American Witch In Paris

Taken hostage in Paris...

...but bound by desire

Tired of his desk job, Ethan Pierce decides it’s time for a more exciting occupation. This straitlaced vampire may be ready for demons and blood magic, but nothing can prepare him for Tuesday Knightsbridge. She’s brash, she’s bold and she’s the sexiest woman he’s ever met. She also happens to be a witch...and the key to saving the world.

MICHELE HAUFis 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 populate 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 www.michelehauf.com.

Also by Michele Hauf

Her Werewolf HeroA Venetian VampireTaming the HunterThe Witch’s QuestThe Witch and the WerewolfAn American Witch in ParisThe Dark’s MistressGhost WolfMoonlight and DiamondsThe Vampire’s Fall

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

An American Witch in Paris

Michele Hauf

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-08201-3

AN AMERICAN WITCH IN PARIS

© 2018 Michele Hauf

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 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.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

Version: 2020-03-02

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This one is for the witch in me.

And it’s for the witch in you.

Honor your soul for what it has been,

is now and will be. Namaste.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Epilogue

Author’s Note

Extract

Chapter 1

Ethan Pierce stood before a steel-barred cage in the Acquisitions department’s clean room. He was the director of the department, which was responsible for hunting, collecting and containing objects of magical nature, dangerous curses and talismans, even volatile creatures that may prove harmful to common humans if left unmonitored in the mortal realm. Ethan sent retrievers out on jobs that canvassed the world, and those adventuring professionals returned with the items.

This latest acquisition, brought in hours earlier by the retriever Bron Everhart, was needed to help locate an even more important item. For what Acquisitions ultimately sought was the blood demon Gazariel, who had stolen the code for the Final Days. If that code was to be activated, all the angels from Above would fall and smother the mortal realm with their smoldering wings. Literally. And the only way to find the demon was with the one thing in this world that wore its sigil.

“A witch,” Ethan muttered as he paced before the cage.

Behind the steel bars, which were warded to keep in the subject, yet also wired with electricity to keep her docile and hamper any magic she should attempt to use in defense, stood the witch. She was a head shorter than Ethan, thin and dressed in clingy black leggings, fierce-looking black ankle boots with high heels and a silky black shirt that revealed a toned abdomen. Over it all she wore a heavy coat made of what looked like fake gray fur, which was studded with silver and black spangles. Her long white hair spilled forward, concealing one eye, and fell messily over one shoulder to her waist.

The other eye held him intently. It was a blue eye, the iris circled with black as if someone had drawn those eyes to be colored in. And on her eyelids, black shadow granted plenty Gothic melodrama. All together the look was...

Wicked, Ethan thought.

Hatred was too strong a word to apply to his feelings about witches as a species. Not all witches were evil or malicious. Yet he’d never completely get over his dislike for witches. They’d once held a murderous reign over his species, vampires, when their blood had been poisonous. One dip of the fang into a witch’s vein could bring an ugly and permanent death. That was no longer. The Great Protection Spell, which had turned all witches’ blood poisonous, had been broken decades earlier.

Rationally, Ethan knew not all witches were dangerous. And besides, it was the twenty-first century. Things had changed. He worked with a few witches here at Acquisitions and the overseeing department, the Archives. For the most part, witches of the light were safe and trustworthy.

But the dark witches, such as the one standing in the cage before him? A shudder traced Ethan’s spine.

The witch didn’t move, only held his gaze, as if breaking it might arrest her breathing. And he wasn’t about to look away. He must show her his dominance. In order to work with the witch to find the demon, she must be kept under control. Subdued. Yet her magic should remain accessible, which would keep the sigil she supposedly wore somewhere on her body open and ready to lure in the demon Gazariel.