Lois Greiman Read Online Free Page A

Lois Greiman
Book: Lois Greiman Read Online Free
Author: Bewitching the Highlander
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can heal ye,” Keelan said. ’Twas a lie. Perhaps.
    “Of what?”
    He caught the other’s gaze. “Of that which ye dare na speak.”
    The baron smiled. “I fear you are confused, my boy, for I dare all. Have, in fact, for more years than you can count.”
    “Ye lie,” murmured Keelan.
    “Shut your mouth, boy,” Roland snarled, but Chetfield raised his hand, holding him at bay, head tilted, eyes almost closed.
    “You have powers, Highlander?”
    “Aye,” he said.
    “Powers!” Roland laughed. Bear grinned, a slice of evil in the midst of his matted beard. But Keelan was only interested in Chetfield, focused on the glowing eyes that watched him like a hunting wolf‘s.
    “What sort of powers?”
    A cold draft of liquid fear washed through Keelan, but he was too tired, too sober to care. “There be magic in me hands.”
    “You’re gifted?”
    “Aye.”
    Roland scoffed. “Surely you don’t believe—”
    “Quiet,” hissed the master, and turning stiffly, stepped close. Fear came with him, an aura of unexpected evil. “Heal me then,” he said.
    Keelan tilted his head against the timber, watching, solemn, as terrified of his own words as of the man before him. “Nay.”
    He was never certain who struck him. His head rang with the pain of it. Blood pooled in his mouth, dripped from his cracked lips.
    His mother’s face floated into view, bonny eyes laughing. She didn’t chide like the others who came in his dreams. Did not blame him. Though she should.
    “Who are you?” Chetfield rasped, and Keelan grinned.
    “ Ange,” he said and his mother smiled from his memory. He had inherited her Gypsy looks, the dark, untamed hair, the walnut-hued skin. Only his eyes were different, silvery blue where hers were as black as midnight, shifting from anger to laughter with the beat of her heart. He smiled at her.
    “He’s gone to the other side,” Frankie rasped.
    “Ye were healthy afore,” Keelan intoned. The image was clear now, as clear as river water.Chetfield in the bull’s enclosure, eyes shining, staff raised as he stood over a cowering servant. “Until Mead’s untimely death.”
    Chetfield stepped closer, voice quiet, body still. “You know of Mead?”
    “Aye.” Two pence had bought him much information in a nearby hamlet. He had been told of an accident, but he had not been told the truth. Poor Mead must have fought back. Must have gotten in one good blow, for the master was wounded.
    “What clan are you?”
    Keelan rested his head against the pillar behind him. By the light of a tallow candle, his mother had told him tales. Stories of warriors of stone, of gifted maids, of dark-haired Irishmen with magic in their hands. Perhaps long ago he had believed he descended from such heroes. “Me ancestors come from the far Highlands and stretch back to the Druids.” Exhaustion was settling in like a black cloud, heavy and cool, almost soothing.
    The old man struck him this time, but Keelan was beyond pain, beyond caring, in the vague hinterlands at the far side of lucid.
    “You lie,” Chetfield hissed.
    “Often,” Keelan muttered, and grinned through the blood. The expression hurt far more thanChetfield’s blow. “But I be a bit too weary to do so just now.”
    “What is your surname?”
    “I canna say.”
    “I could kill you with a word,” hissed Chetfield, but the lies came easy now, borne on the wings of hovering unconsciousness.
    “I think ye may have already,” Keelan murmured. “Still, I dunna ken me true name for I had na da.”
    The old man’s eyes were narrow, slits with the merest spark of excitement in their depths. “I do not believe you.”
    The world seemed hazy, peaceful. He couldn’t feel his limbs. “Verra well.”
    “Who raised you?”
    “They called her Sorciere.”
    “She was a witch?” Chetfield rasped, eyes alight.
    “Some said as much.” Keelan laughed. The noise echoed eerily in the dark space. He rather liked the sound of it. “But never to her
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