Persecuted

Elena Jones thinks that her dream-visions are why her life has been a living nightmare. She would do anything to stop them--anything to give her daughter a normal life. But when her dreams show her long-lost sisters in danger, Elena has the chance to transform her curse into a gift. To stop death, before it strikes. Joseph Dolce is her grandmother's right-hand man, with violence in his past and darkness in his soul. Elena dreams of him, too--sweeter dreams, but just as dangerous. Joseph doesn't want to be her knight in shining armor. But his generous lovemaking and selflessly heroic actions cause Elena to have a change of heart. Now, instead of seeing unwanted visions, she'll do everything in her power to make a special one come true....

The muscles in Elena's arms strained as she struggled against the ropes binding her wrists behind her back. Coarse fibers bit into her skin, scratching so deeply that blood, warm and sticky, ran down her wrists and pooled in her palms. She bit her lip, holding in a cry at the sting. But that pain was nothing in comparison to the heat of the flames springing up around her. Sweat ran down her face, nearly blinding her, but still she could see a man on the other side of the flames. A hood covered his head; a dark brown robe concealed his body. But his frame, his height and the breadth of his shoulders, identified him as male. Others stood behind him in the shadows and smoke, also clad in those dark brown robes. They chanted, their voices rising above the hiss and crackle of the flames. "Exstinguo--veneficus." The words were unfamiliar but she suspected they called her a witch. "Nooo--" She wasn't a witch. The smoke choked her, cutting off her protest and her breath. Her line of vision shifted, away from the cloaked figures, to the woman bound to the stake in the middle of the circle of flames.WasElena the witch? The woman's hair was dark and curly, not blond like Elena's. The woman's eyes were dark and wide, not pale blue. Uncaring of the pain, Elena continued to struggle, trying to free herself from the hold of the ropes, of the dream. Of the vision. A scream tore from her throat as she kicked at the covers and bolted upright in bed. Shaking, she settled into the pillows piled against her head-board and gasped for breath, her lungs burning. As the woman was burning." Even awake she could see her, illuminated by a flash of lightning inside Elena's mind. She squeezed her eyes shut and began a chant of her own: "It's just a dream. It's just a dream." But she wasn't sleeping. She hardly ever slept anymore for fear of dreaming of torture and murder. The images rolled through her mind no matter where she was or what she was doing. They weren't like the "dreams" she'd had her whole life, the innocuous images of something someone might do or say a day or two after she'd dreamt it. These weren't little revelations of deacute;jA vu. They were murder, and she was an eyewitness to the unspeakable horror. She reached out, needing the comfort of strong arms to hold her, to protect her. But for the blankets tangled around her legs, the bed was empty and cold. Her husband no longer shared their room. She'd been the one to throw out his stuff after accusing him of cheating. Not even his tyrant of a boss would send him out of town as often as Kirk was gone. Truthfully, she'd been gone a long time, too. Despite the fact she'd rarely left the house, she'd been absent from their marriage. She'd pushed him away. But why hadn't he fought for her, for them? Had he ever loved her or only her money? The hurt that pressed on her heart wasn't new, like an ache from an old injury rather than a fresh wound. She fumbled with the switch on the lamp beside the bed and flooded the room with light. Real light. Not that eerie flash only inside her head. The warm glow of the bulb in the Tiffany lamp offered no comfort, either. Although he denied the cheating and only moved as far as the guest room, she knew Kirk was lying, but she hadn't told him how she'd gained her knowledge of his affair. She'd "seen" him with another woman. At first she'd passed those images off as she had her others, figments of her overactive imagination or products of stress or paranoia. Finally she'd forced herself to face the truth about her sham of a marriage--and herself. She didn't love Kirk; maybe she never had, because she'd never trusted him enough to tell him anything about her past or herself. During college their relationship had been mostly superficial and fun, things that Elena's life had never been. But their relationship had never