The Summer King Read Online Free Page B

you,” she burst out. “It’s your fault she died!”
    Yes, that was it. That was why she had come. To confront him.
    The blackberry eyes stared back at her without blinking.
    “Is it now? And why, then, does the guilt be hangin’ off ye like a cloak? It’s not me ye blame but yourself, I’m thinkin’.”
    The chasm was drawing nearer. She dug in her heels. She wouldn’t let him trick her with words.
    “I should’ve protected her from you.”
    He was quick to reply. “I didn’t harm a hair on her head. ’Twas herself came after me, though I did me best to hide. ’Twas ye , not her, we wanted.”
    Laurel was at the brink, peering into the abyss. She stepped back again. Tried a different tack.
    “Are you some kind of cult? Drugs? Religion?”
    His gaze was implacable.
    “Ye know very well that’s not the case, and ye know what your sister was at.”
    “She didn’t give you a name,” Laurel said quickly. The pressure was excruciating, the force of something she couldn’t accept. “Whenever she mentions you, it’s always vague.”
    “She knew the rules.” His tone was matter-of-fact but Laurel heard the challenge. “’Tis bad luck to say too much about us.”
    He rummaged in the pockets of his vest and pulled out a little brown bottle. Unstoppering the cork, he took a long swig, then regarded her sideways.
    They had reached the crux of the matter.
    “Go’wan, grasp the nettle,” he prompted. “I dare ye to say it. The F word. And I don’t mean a curse.”
    “Fairies.” She nearly choked. “Honor believed in fairies.”
    For the first time she truly met his eyes. Red pinpricks of light glinted inside the dark irises. There was no emotion there that she could recognize, no sympathy or concern or even judgment. His look was utterly alien and disinterested. In that gaze, she caught a glimpse of an impossible reality, ancient and unknowable. Anywhere else she might have been able to dismiss it, but not here, not on the side of a lonely mountain that fell into the sea.
    Laurel began to back away. She felt her thoughts unraveling, her mind threatening to unhinge. Her words came out strangled.
    “I … can’t … do … this.”
    “Don’t be afeard! Your sister needs ye! We need ye!”
    His shouts trailed behind her as she stumbled back down Bray Head. Crashing through brush and briar, she grabbed at trees to keep from falling. Nettles stung her, brambles scraped her, but still she ran, like a deer fleeing before the hunter.
    At last she broke from the greenery onto the stone steps that led to the sea front. But she almost barged into a familiar figure.
    Ian did not react immediately, but stood gazing at his hands.
    Still distraught, Laurel was about to accuse him of following her when she saw what he was holding. It was a large black bird, a crow or a raven. The dark wings were limp and ragged. Blood spattered the feathers, a livid red against the glossy black. Its neck had been wrung.
    Ian looked up, eyes burning with shame.
    As Laurel took in the stillness of the broken body, a primal rage tore through her. She stood helpless in the face of death.
    “Murderer.”
    He jerked back as the word struck him.
    Then she brushed past and raced down the steps, toward the beach. Her need to escape was overwhelming, as if her very survival depended on it. When she reached the seashore, she kicked off her shoes and ran into the water. The shock of cold knocked the breath out of her, but she plunged in regardless. When she dove, seeking solace in the depths, she kept her eyes open though the salt sea stung.
    Laurel knew it was her own mind torturing her, yet she continued to stare at what she saw. There in the blue-green shadows of the water, caught in laocoön strands of seaweed, was Honor’s body, deathly white and beautiful.
    The image drove her to the surface, gasping for air.
    Back on the beach, shuddering with cold, she pulled on her shoes. The icy water had condensed her thoughts to the clarity of