Circle of Fire (Damask Circle 1)

MADELINE SMITH DIDN’T BELIEVE IN GHOSTS—NOT UNTIL the night Jon Barnett walked into her life, anyway. Maddie drew her legs up to her chest and held them close. Maybe walked was the wrong word to use; his method of movement seemed more like floating.

Outside her bedroom, the branches of an old elm scraped back and forth across the tin roofing. The wind howled around the old house—an eerie cry that matched her mood of anticipation and fear. Snow scurried past the windows, a stark contrast against the blackness of the night.

It felt oddly fitting to be sitting on her bed, waiting for the arrival of a ghost while an early winter storm raged outside.

Only he insisted he wasn’t a ghost at all.

She tugged the blankets over her knees and wondered if she should stoke the fire with a little more wood. Maybe the heat would keep him away. Or maybe he’d gotten tired of his game and simply forgotten about her. She believed that the desperation in his eyes was real enough; she just didn’t believe that he was real.

Perhaps he was just a figment of her imagination—a last, desperate escape from the loneliness of her life.

The clock on the mantel began to chime quietly, and she turned to look at the time. One-thirty. Maybe he had forgotten about her …

“Madeline.”

She closed her eyes, uncertain whether fear or the unexpected pleasure of hearing the low velvet voice one more time had caused the sudden leap of her heart.

“Madeline,” he repeated. This time a hint of urgency touched the warmth of his voice.

He stood in the shadows to the left of her window. Despite the storm that raged outside, he wore only a short-sleeved black shirt and dark jeans—the same clothes he’d worn when he had first appeared last night.

Tonight there was something different about him, though.

Tonight he looked afraid.

But he wasn’t real, damn it! How could a ghost feel fear?

“Madeline, you must help me.”

She closed her heart to the desperate plea in his voice. What he was asking her to do was impossible.

“I can’t.” She avoided his gaze and fiddled with the fraying edge of the blanket. “I don’t know you. I don’t even believe that you exist. How can you expect me to leave everything I have on the word of a ghost?”

“You must!” The sudden sharpness of his voice made her look up. “All I’m asking is for you to travel across the state, not to another country. Why are you so afraid to leave your retreat?”

Maddie stared at him. He seemed to understand altogether too much about her. No one else had seen her fear—not even her sister, who was as close to her as Maddie ever allowed anyone to get these days.

“There’s nothing wrong with being cautious,” she said after a moment.

He studied her, amusement flickering briefly in the diamond-bright depths of his blue eyes. “I never said there was. But life has to be lived. You cannot hide forever.”

She ignored the sliver of alarm in her heart, ignored the whispers that demanded she ask how he knew so much about her, and raised an eyebrow. “And what does a ghost know about such things?”

He sighed, running a hand through his overly long hair. In the light of the fire, slivers of gold seemed to flow through his fingers. “I’m no ghost, Madeline. But I will be if you don’t help me soon.”

Alarm danced through her heart. “What do you mean?”

He walked across to the fire and held out his hands, as if to capture the warmth of the flames. Hair dusted his arms, golden strands that gleamed in the firelight. His fingers were long and smooth and tanned. Lord, he seemed real—and yet, if she looked closely enough, she could see the glow of the fire through his body.

“I mean that I’m stuck down this damn well, and I can’t get out. I will die, Madeline, unless you help me.”

Maddie closed her eyes and tried to stifle the rising spiral of fear. Not for her safety, because she sensed this was one ghost who would cause her no harm. It was just fear of … what? She didn’t know, but there was something about this apparition that made her wary.

Perhaps she should play along with him. Surely he’d eventually tire of his game and leave her alone. Or perhaps she was just going mad, as most of her so-called friends had insisted she would.

Yet those same friends had never understood what she was, or what she was capable of doing. Nor had they ever tried to help her.

“Why can’t someone else rescue you? You must have friends. Why don’t you go haunt them?”

“Believe me, I would if I could.”

His tone was dry and left no doubt that he would rather be anywhere else than with her. Bad news when even a damn ghost doesn’t want your company. “So why can’t you?”

He frowned. “I don’t know. Some force keeps driving me toward you. I have no choice in the matter, Madeline. You’re all I have.”

And you refuse to help me. The unspoken rebuke was in his eyes when he glanced at her. Maddie bit her lip and looked away, watching the snow continue its dance past her window. Maybe she was going mad. She was beginning to feel sorry for a ghost.

“Why would you be able to reach a complete stranger and not anyone of real use to you?”

“I don’t know.”