Once upon a Dream Read Online Free Page B

come to his week, he’d gorged himself so that he was sick a full day. And had counted it worth it. But now he’d learned to take his time, and appreciate.
    â€œDo you remember now how you came here?”
    â€œIt was raining.”
    â€œYes, and is still.”
    â€œI was going…”
    â€œHow were you going?”
    â€œHow?” She picked up her fork, sampled the fish without thinking. “I was driving…I was driving,” she repeated, on a rising note of excitement. “Of course. I was driving, and I was lost. The storm. I was coming from—” She stopped, struggling through the mists. “Dublin. I’d been in Dublin. I’m on vacation. Oh, that’s right, I’m on vacation and I was going to drive around the countryside. I got lost. Somehow. I was on one of the little roads through the forest, and it was storming. I could barely see. Then I…”
    The relief in her eyes faded as they met his. “I saw you,” she whispered. “I saw you out in the storm.”
    â€œDid you now?”
    â€œYou were out in the rain. You said my name. How could you have said my name before we met?”
    She’d eaten little, but he thought a glass of wine might help her swallow what was to come. He poured it, handed it to her. “I’ve dreamed of you, Kayleen. Dreamed of you for longer than your lifetime. And dreaming of you I was when you were lost in my forest. And when I awoke, you’d come. Do you never dream of me, Kayleen?”
    â€œI don’t know what you’re talking about. There was a storm. I was lost. Lightning hit very near, and there was a deer. A white deer in the road. I swerved to avoid it, and I crashed. I think I hit a tree. I probably have a concussion, and I’m imagining things.”
    â€œA white hind.” The humor had gone from his face again. “You hit a tree with your car? They didn’t have to hurt you,” he muttered. “They had no right to hurt you.”
    â€œWho are you talking about?”
    â€œMy jailers.” He shoved his plate aside. “The bloody Keepers.”
    â€œI need to check on my car.” She spoke slowly, calmly. Not just eccentric, she decided. The man was unbalanced. “Thank you so much for helping me.”
    â€œIf you want to check on your car, then we will. In the morning. There’s hardly a point in going out in a storm in the middle of the night.” He laid his hand firmly on hers before she could rise. “You’re thinking, ‘This Flynn,he’s lost his mind somewhere along the way.’ Well, I haven’t, though it was a near thing a time or two. Look at me, leannana . Do I mean nothing to you?”
    â€œI don’t know.” And that was what kept her from bolting. He could look at her, as he was now, and she felt tied to him. Not bound by force, but tied. By her own will. “I don’t understand what you mean, or what’s happening to me.”
    â€œThen we’ll sit by the fire, and I’ll tell you what it all means.” He rose, held out his hand. Irritation washed over his face when she refused to take it. “Do you want the knife?”
    She glanced down at it, back up at him. “Yes.”
    â€œThen bring it along with you.”
    He plucked up the wine, and the glasses, and led the way.
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    He sat by the fire, propped his boots on the hearth, savored his wine and the scent of the woman who sat so warily beside him. “I was born in magic,” he began. “Some are. Others apprentice and can learn well enough. But to be born in it is more a matter of controlling the art than of learning it.”
    â€œSo your father was a magician.”
    â€œNo, he was a tailor. Magic doesn’t have to come down through the blood. It simply has to be in the blood.” He paused because he didn’t want to blunder again. He should know more of her, he decided, before he did.