Free FlakJacket by A Nichols

healing power and insight. There is a prophecy about a woman, a white witch walking among men. Have you seen any evidence of that?”
    Jordan pondered the question. Hell yes, he had .
    “She needs psychological help.” Well—how was that for support? Jordan didn’t reply except to say goodbye as he ended the call. Things had just gone from bad to worse. This woman knew things, and how was he to protect her if she wouldn’t talk to him? She was scarred physically and emotionally, but he knew she was a strong woman and a loving one. Her interactions with people showed her true character. She was a giver. He made a note to research this myth of the white witch. He shook his head in laughter; hell, he might have just slept with her.
    He began to compile a list. First there were her assailants, three men who were obviously sent by someone else to teach her a very painful lesson. It was meant to look like a rape, to besmirch her reputation as a woman, but it was far more than that. They wanted her scared, and they had almost gone too far.
    Then there was Thomas Hull; his attraction to her as a woman remained from what Jordan had seen. That man still wanted her, and while he had covered for his friend, Jordan felt that someone had ordered the earlier premeditated attack. There was also the hired assassin that he had stopped who said she had a price on her head; if that were true, there could be more attempts on her life. Did everyone want her dead or taken, or would badly injured do? It was a roulette wheel—and it was spinning.
    He had made her HIS —that had not been a brilliant move on his part, and he couldn’t really blame it on the alcohol. He knew what he was doing when his hands first touched her. He ran those very hands through his hair when another thought silently crept in— she could be carrying his child.
    Jordan looked over the seating arrangement for the dinner tonight; she would be with him. He had a thought; he ran upstairs to her room and rifled through her backpack. There was a small journal in it filled with her handwriting. It would be a gross invasion of her privacy on his behalf; it might mean the difference between her life and her death, however, and it was in his hands now. He tapped it over and over against his other hand, and then he reluctantly put it back without opening the cover. As he turned to leave the room, he found Madison watching him from the doorway, her eyes wide.
    He paused before he said, “You’re home.”
    “I am.” She challenged him. “Did you read it?”
    “No. I found I couldn’t betray you like that, even if it meant I was putting your life in danger.” He met her eyes fearlessly, handing her the journal. She knew he wasn’t lying to her, thank God. She walked to him, reaching out to take it as she murmured softly, “Thank you.”
    She tried to move away from him, but his hand caught her. “I wanted to. I told you I’m no saint,” Witch — his witch .
    “I know you have questions.”
    “Let’s start with the marks on your lower back and ass.” He became the interrogator. “You were whipped. Those white scars say that your skin was cut over and over.”
    He must have seen them when she was in the bath. She swallowed the memory and debated how much to say. “You’re very observant. I was whipped in Jordan for being a witch, but the man who was meting out the punishment was scared to death of me. You see, I didn’t cry, not one tear even though the pain was excruciating. If I were a mere woman, he said, I would have cried. He called me the white witch from a myth of his people.” She closed her eyes for a few seconds, remembering that awful time, but opened them again in disgust. “He had thrown his daughter out on the street because she had been with a man. I championed her and offered myself for her punishment. She was only sixteen. He couldn’t complete my punishment because he was frozen in fear. He dropped the whip, and no other man in the village