Blue Keltic Moon (Children of the Keltic Triad) Read Online Free Page A

jogged to the manor and pushed open the heavy, scarred wood door. She paused a moment, listening, then followed the faint murmur of voices to the workroom.
    The conversing trio fell silent when she entered and stepped back to reveal a tartan covered lump centered on a table. Tall and regal, Jayse, ruler of her faerie clan, motioned her forward. Then his shoulders slumped noticeably and he gathered his wife to his side.
    Lucidea, ruler in her own right of another fey race, glanced up at him, shivered, then sat on one of the four chairs placed around the table. She held tightly to Jayse’s hand and he sat next to her.
    Full of questions, Bree turned to Coralie, who gnawed on her lower lip and gave a single shake of her head. Tears shimmered in the Alfar-Sindhu’s eyes. Coralie glanced past Bree’s shoulder, took a deep breath and sat.
    It didn’t take much thought for Breanna to realize this meeting had something to do with Morghan. Lucidea’s uncle, and Coralie’s lover, the prince of the Alfar-Sindhu had disappeared into the world between worlds twenty years previously. But from the concern and sadness on the faces around her, she assumed she wasn’t there to hear good news.
    “You know the history behind Morghan’s disappearance,” Jayse stated softly. “Of how he found a skull, a sacrifice, shortly before the fire elemental attempted his escape from the world between worlds?”
    Bree nodded then turned slightly to look at the bust on a pedestal near the inner door. Lucidea’s father, Morghan’s brother, had been killed to open the way for the elemental. Morghan had prevented the elemental’s escape, but had been trapped in the world between worlds himself. A sculpture of him, one of Lucidea’s creations, stood at the other side of the doorway.
    Jayse continued, “For the first year after Morghan’s disappearance, Lucidea and Coralie attempted to bring him home at each full moon. After that they—we—concentrated on the rare blue moons. But we must have always missed some clue, or maybe the timing was never right. I don’t know.” He stroked the back of his fingers along Lucidea’s cheek. “We just don’t know.”
    “No,” Lucidea said and covered his hand with hers. She leveled her gaze on Breanna. “We do know there’s another blue moon in a week. We need to talk with Gowthaman. He’s archived most of the calendars and texts Coralie used... used the last time. We need to see if there’s another conjunction of blue moons in all those different calendars.”
    The reluctance in Jayse’s movements as he angled to face Breanna sent a pang of longing into her heart. To love another so much, and to be able to show the world that love...
    “You’ll bring Gowthaman here, along with his research. We need his expertise.”
    “Did you send a message?”
    Jayse gave her a rueful smile. “As always, he respectfully declined, saying he’d send pertinent materials to us. I want him here, Bree. Even if you have to carry him.”
    “Understood. I’ll leave now and—”
    “Wait, Bree,” Lucidea said. “There’s more. We think this time might be... no, this will be the time we find Morghan and bring him home to us. There’s another part in the equation this time. There’s... there’s this.”
    At Lucidea’s nod, Coralie rose and carefully lifted the square of tartan from the table. The dark, empty eye sockets of a fleshless skull stared toward Breanna. “What’s this?”
    At Coralie’s uplifted eyebrow, Bree waggled her hand toward the table. “A skull. I know that. But whose? Where?”
    Jayse took up the telling again. “This was found near the spot Morghan discovered his brother’s skull. We didn’t find any other parts of a skeleton.”
    Calling on her analytical skills, Bree leaned forward to study the bones. “Coincidence?”
    “Hardly,” Jayse said. “The location is in a remote part of the property and the surrounding rocks and ledges are difficult to navigate. So it wasn’t an