Bloodmagic (Blood Destiny 2) by Helen Harper Read Free Book Online Page B

suppose some might call of the future.”
    I knew it!  The pleasure waves vanished and my bloodfire leapt up instead.  My eyes narrowed slightly and my body tensed, and I waited for her to elaborate further. 
    She continued.  “You think I’m terribly odd, don’t you?  With my funny tea, and my demand for strange herbs from ancient graveyards, I’m not surprised.”  She sighed heavily.  “In another generation I might have been burned at the stake for being a witch, I suppose.  My grandmother had visions just like this – all the time.  I can remember they gave her terrible migraines.  Of course, I don’t think what I have is strong enough for that.  Just odd glimpses now and then.  Like now.”
    I suddenly wasn’t quite sure what to think.  I felt tense and wary and wondered what she was going to come out with next.  So she couldn’t only just read minds – she could see into the future as well, some kind of soothsayer or clairvoyant.  The familiar swirl of heat rose further inside me.  It didn’t possess the nervous flicker or angry flames that it often did although clearly my paranoia wasn’t entirely crazy and misplaced after all.
    “You think that you see into the future?” I questioned, my jaw clenching.
    She giggled slightly, an odd sound coming from an older woman, though why I thought that I have no idea.  “Oh, I don’t know that it’s the future, dear.  Just perhaps potential outcomes.  Like with the blisterwort for my friend.  She’s not that sick, I just have the feeling that there might be something coming on.  An illness of some kind.  And that this might help.  It’s all so silly, really.  It felt strong with you, though, stronger than I’ve ever felt before.  There’s a man – with dark dark hair and,” she cocked her head slightly, “a kind of feline grace that’s unusual in a man of his size.”
    I almost snorted at that last but just managed to contain myself.
    “You’re hiding from him,” Mrs Alcoon said, “that’s why you’re here in Inverness.  And you are going to leave because you’re worried that he’ll find you here.  He won’t though.”  She looked serious now.  “He wants to find you, but he won’t ever come here.  I felt that very strongly.  And there’s another one, with golden hair but I can’t see him as clearly.  There is a strange sort of mist surrounding him.  He means you no harm, though, that I am sure of.  You should be flattered at the attention from both.  They are terribly handsome.” 
    She winked at me saucily as she said that last comment, which I found almost as disturbing as the fact that she was suddenly me telling me that she had otherworld powers.  I had a pretty good idea to whom she was referring, with both of the ‘men’, and I definitely found neither of their attentions flattering.  I also didn’t know whether I could trust her vision or trust her.
    “I’m not crazy, if that’s what you’re thinking,” she said, suddenly worried.  “Some of the locals here think I’m a bit odd, maybe a few think I’m loopy, but I’m really not.  I’d like you to stay, Jane.  It’s good for me having someone around and, I think, it’s good for you too.”
    I just stared at her, tongue-tied.  I wanted to believe her and, it did all make a kind of sense.  I knew I’d been worrying about her and what she really was but I was also pretty sure that anything otherworldly about her was just a hint.  I’d surely have sensed it otherwise.  My mind flashed briefly back again to Jack the drunk on the bus and how wrong I’d been there.  That had been different, however, because that was my paranoia imagining things that weren’t there rather than things that were.  She had a little bit of power that had been passed down from her family and that was all. 
    Trust.  I hadn’t trusted anyone at all since I’d left Cornwall.  I couldn’t tell her about what I really was – that would only put her