The Capture of Highland Desire (The Mac Coinnach Brothers) by Kella McKinnon Read Free Book Online

obtaining a horse to ride, she slipped out of the back gate and walked swiftly away from the castle.  The only people around were a couple of kitchen maids and a few stable lads, none of whom would dare stop her, even if they cared to.  She kept to the edge of the wood as she made for the hills beyond, glancing over her shoulder now and then, afraid that at any moment someone might find her and drag her back.  Two days, and already she felt like a bird in a gilded cage.  She couldn’t stay here like this for the rest of her life, there was just no way she’d survive.  She moved faster, scrambling over the rocks in a very unladylike fashion.  Her uncle would no doubt be horrified.  He was probably already regretting his decision to send her away all those years ago, thinking she had been ruined by the way she had grown up.  Well, it was too late now.  Unlike most women of this time, she knew what freedom and choice felt like, and she wasn’t likely to give them up anytime soon. 
                  As she had looked out her bedroom window this morning, she had remembered, with an odd sense of déjà vu, looking out the same window as a little girl, daydreaming, wondering what lay beyond the green hills in the distance.  Never would she have guessed the way things had turned out thus far.  Things had seemed so much simpler back then, when she knew where she belonged… what was expected of her, what she wanted.  Now she wondered if those same things had become completely irreconcilable.  As she stared out at the hills, she remembered a little path she used to follow, pretending to be on some adventure or another.  Even then, she had not had much of the makings of a proper lady, as much as her mother had fretted and tried to school her. 
    She followed that little path now, just as she had years ago. It went right past the entrance to a cave, if she was remembering right.  Once, she had even gathered enough courage to go into the cave, but not too far.  It had been dark and she’d gotten scared, imagining that a troll or maybe even a sleeping dragon was inside.  She had run all the way back to the keep and into the kitchens to find Maud, the woman who minded her most days.  Maud had told her there were no longer any dragons in Scotia, and had given her a biscuit.  Allia smiled at the memory, and wondered if the cave was still there, or if her young mind had somehow imagined it all.  Understandably, things had been quite confused in her head for a long time after she’d left.  Now she felt as if she had a foot in two worlds.  There was this one that she had been born into, and the new one she had come of age in, where she had started a life of her own, and had been content, if not exactly happy.  Could she ever be happy again here at Lochain?   She honestly didn’t know. It seemed there was nothing for her here anymore… even her mother was gone.  She felt strange and alone, especially since no one else here could really understand the burden she carried. 
                  At least it was peaceful here, Allia thought as she hiked along the little path, glad it was right where she remembered it.  And… what else?   There was no pollution.  The air was crisp and clean and there was no constant background noise of cars and planes.  And she had family here, of course, an uncle and probably a few cousins (she hadn’t had an opportunity yet to ask about other relatives).  And apparently Leon meant for her to have a purpose of some sort; she just didn’t know what that was yet.  She only hoped that when someone finally got around to telling her what that purpose was exactly, she wasn’t going to wish she had never known.
                  She walked through thick mounds of heather, her unsettled thoughts racing between happiness at revisiting a childhood haunt and near panic at the sudden turn her life had taken and back again, until she came to a very familiar