The Eternal Highlander by Lynsay Sands, Hannah Howell Read Free Book Online

what she said as she left. There were two words ye must needs remember.”
    “Aye, woo and dance.”
    “Exactly. Woo and dance. Do ye ken how to dance?”
    Cathal grimaced. “Nay, but if my wooing isnae enough, I suspect I can learn. Lady Bridget can hiss and scratch all she likes, but, in the end, she will be my wife.”

Four
    The sound of howling drew Bridget to the window. Moonlight bathed the hillside, softening the sharp edges of rock and shrub. What held her gaze, however, were the dark figures that seemed to fly out of the rocks the keep was built upon. They moved so swiftly she had no time to look carefully at any one figure, but she knew they were human. Despite the feral noise, the swift way they moved, Bridget recognized that she was watching cloaked men and women run nimbly over the rough ground to disappear into the forest. She had heard the sounds last night, her second night at Cambrun, but had not looked out of the window. Bridget heartily wished she had not looked this time.
    Bridget let the thick drape fall back over the window. She moved to stand in front of the fireplace, holding her hands toward the flames as she sought to chase away the chill of fear from her body. It was just a hunt, she told herself. Everyone hunted. There was probably some game that was best caught at night.
    She cursed and began to pace before the fire. It was time to stop ignoring things and lying to herself. Most people did not hunt at night even if there was a full, bright moon. Most people did not go hunting on foot, racing out of the bowels of a keep, howling like a pack of wolves. Most people did not race across the ground so fast you could miss seeing them if you blinked, once.
    Now that she was facing the truth, all the other odd things she had noticed came swiftly to the fore of her mind. People should not have fangs. Bridget was very sure of that. The MacNachtons seemed very fond of the dark. She saw very few of the darkly beautiful MacNachtons about during the day and every window was kept heavily draped. Even though he was at the table for every meal, Cathal did not eat exactly what she did. Jankyn ate very little aside from some alarmingly raw meat. All the MacNachtons were alike in appearance, more so than any other clan members she had ever seen. They all had eyes that would not look out of place on a wolf. The only MacNachton she had seen outside the walls of the keep during the day was Cathal and he had been heavily cloaked. He had also stayed outside for only a short time.
    Pausing before the fire, Bridget stared hard into the flames and struggled to recall exactly what she had seen just before she had fainted on the night she was rescued. She had seen Jankyn grinning his fang-baring grin. She had seen those cloaked figures sweep by her, swiftly and silently. Bridget shuddered as she recalled the screams of the men who had been chasing her. The MacNachtons had set upon the thieves, but there had been no sound of swords clashing. There had been blood, however. She could recall seeing it, smelling it. Yet, no matter how hard she tried, all she could recall of that last moment before sinking into unconciousness was swirling black forms surrounding the thieves, screams, and blood. If she had seen how the MacNachtons had killed her enemies, it was locked deep in her mind and did not want to come out.
    One thing did slip out that she suddenly wished she could tuck away again. All too clearly she could hear Nan telling her about the man in the village with eyes and teeth like a wolf, had inhuman strength, wounds that healed like magic, and who only ventured out at night. Demon and witch the villagers had called him, but other words tickled at the edge of Bridget’s mind, ones she did not care to even whisper aloud. She had no doubt that that man had been a MacNachton.
    And their laird wished to marry her, she thought and shivered. A marriage at least two of his clan were adamantly opposed to. Cathal had spent the last