Kilting Me Softly: 1 by Persephone Jones Read Free Book Online Page B

compelled her to get up. Rising to her knees, she spun like a top in the thick black night, desperate to orient herself.
    Unexpectedly, the salivating, golden-eyed creature’s double entered the small clearing with a leap that defied human possibility. Men did not move in such ways. Yet there it was. There was one explanation but she refused it at once.
    “Ahhh!” Morgan let out a cry and scurried like a crab to the base of a rock.
    Had grief driven her mad? Was she seeing double? There, before her eyes were not one but two Ciaran McCades. She hadn’t suffered a head injury and she defied the possibility that she was insane. That left one logical conclusion. Morgan saw two of them, because there were two of them.
    “Run, Morgan!” someone somewhere shouted.
    Without understanding how, she was on her feet and running. A burst of adrenaline coursed through her and her blood raced to her extremities as she made record distance between herself and the melee. She looked back for a split second and nearly stumbled into another hole. But she had to look again.
    Large, hairy and staggering on two feet, they grappled like bears. These weren’t like any bears she’d ever seen. Extended snouts ornamented with elongated fangs stretched wide in open-mouthed snarls and growls. Claws scraped and swiped at each other from hands that did not belong to men. Even when she realized what they were, her mind would not accept it.
    Suddenly, something in the night sky caught her attention. From out of nowhere, a strong wind rushed past her. It tangled in the trees like a flock of birds, moving the branches as though they were strings on a harp. It was as if the wind had words and the wooden monoliths were speaking for them, whispering through their branches like reeds. But the wind was isolated, acting in a way that wind could not, taking shape, taking life. It was speaking to her in urgent warning.
    Run, run, run!

Chapter Four
     
    Safely on the other side of her inn room door, Morgan drew the bolt and locked it. Wheezing and gasping for breath, she watched the door as if it might blow off its hinges and explode into a thousand metal shards at any second. Dissatisfied with the steely fortifications, she braced the wood and wicker chair against it. Racing around the room, she went to the windows, checked the locks, pulled the curtains shut. Uncertain what to do next, she paced like an animal and tried to calm herself.
    I’m okay, I’m okay, I’m okay…
    Morgan shook her head in utter dismay. All the preparation, time and money spent searching for answers to find herself in this crazed night terror of a dream. She could have sobbed, but something within her held it together.
    Disbelief.
    Twins. She almost laughed. It never occurred to her to consider such a thing. Without permission, her mind drifted to what she’d witnessed in the forest. Perhaps she was mistaken. Stress could make a person see things.
    But that?
    Best-case scenario, they would kill each other and she could leave without suspicion.
    One thing was certain, she wasn’t going to stick around to find out. In a frenzy, she threw her clothes back into her bags. Never comfortable with putting her things in drawers when she traveled, it wouldn’t take her long before she could call a taxi. Making a mad dash into the bathroom, she gathered her various toiletries and threw them in her overnight bag. Leaning into the shower, she grabbed her body wash, razor and shampoo.
    The room went black and she gasped. An icy chill snaked up her spine. She prayed the monsters hadn’t followed her. Moving at a snail’s pace, she inched her way to the window and forced herself to pull back the curtain enough to peek out. Someone had cut the power to the building.
    Then she heard it.
    A noise from the window. Morgan gripped the only thing she could use as a weapon, her disposable razor, and prepared to do battle. The billowing curtain at the far end of the room indicated she’d left a window