AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Well,” he said, “considering I’ve already met her, I’d say itismy time. It seems—” He stopped talking as he stared in amused shock at the slip of a lass with long golden hair. She paused in her flight, turned toward him, and grinning, waved a farewell before turning her back to him once more. He started toward the lass, her smile as blindingly beautiful as the now-full moon, but Eolande put up a hand. Before he could move away, she grasped him.
His entire body went rigid as she curled her long fingers around his arm. He could have broken free if he’d had the ability to move, but that was the thing he had always heard about seers: once they touched ye, they stole yer capacity to move as they saw into your future. His feet felt heavy as stones as Eolande’s nails dug into his skin and her violet eyes speared him.
“’Tis nae time yet,” she pressed.
“Why?” he demanded.
Eolande hissed between her teeth, her breath coming out in white circles as if it were freezing cold out, not as warm as it was. Wariness stirred deep within him as she spoke. “Because it is too soon. She will come to ye again, but this time in battle, bathed in blood and marked by a heart.”
“What do ye mean she will come to me?” he found himself asking, even though he had never wanted to know his future.
Eolande didn’t seem to hear his question. She looked through him as if he was not there. “To yer knees she will bring ye, and for her, ye will betray everything ye hold dear.”
Cameron jerked, his denial surging through his veins. “I’d nae ever do such a thing.”
“Ye will,” Eolande said flatly in a voice so eerily certain that his gut twisted. “Ye will betray yer king, yer family, the very honor ye cloak yerself with.”
The tic from earlier began to pound in his jaw. “I’d nae ever do these things for a lass, nor any other,” he growled.
Eolande’s mouth pulled into a thin smile. “I only tell ye what I have seen.”
“Yer vision is cloudy, then, Seer,” he ground out.
“Perchance,” she said with a shrug that contradicted the surety of her tone. “But I dunnae believe so. She is the mate of yer heart and the enemy of yer clan. With her comes life and death born of yer choices.”
He looked past the seer toward where the lass had disappeared. The powerful urge to search for her, despite what he’d just heard, swept over him, leaving him vexed. He locked gazes with Eolande once more. “I will always put my family, my king, and my honor above all else.”
“So says the blind man,” Eolande replied, releasing him. “Yer eyes have just begun to be opened to lasses.”
He could not help but laugh at that. “I assure ye, Seer, I have seen lasses for a good while.”
“Nay. Ye have used lasses to cope with the loneliness ye bring to yerself.”
Her words struck so close to the truth that a knot formed in his chest.
“That lass”—she pointed to where the girl had last been—“will catch ye like a fly in a web of longing. Kenning her will lead ye all the way out of the prison ye have created by allowing yer past to overshadow yer future.”
“Enough,” he snapped, not wishing to hear one more word about a future he’d never let come to pass. “I bid ye a good night,” he growled and moved away.
Behind him, Eolande chuckled. “Ye kinnae run from yer future.”
“Who’s running from it?” he called back without stopping his flight. “I’m racing toward it. There are two lovely lasses waiting for me, and I intend to see them both. What say ye to that?”
She laughed. “I say it will be amusing to watch a blind man stumble in the dark.”
“Blind man,” he muttered, ignoring the curious gazes of the people he passed. “She’s the one who has lost her sight.”
Yes, that was it. He was certain of it. Because the future she foretold was simply not possible. Even on the slightest chance that it was, he knew of it now, and he would not allow himself to become so attached to a lass that he was willing to sacrifice honor, family, or king. He was worthy of the MacLeod name, and he’d never do anything to confirm otherwise.
One
1360
Abernathy, Scotland
Sorcha was supposed to be asleep, but her father’s yelling had awakened her. Of course, she could have stayed abed, which was what she knew sheshoulddo, as it was not yet even dawn, but she’d always had trouble doing what she was supposed to do. Her mother, God rest her soul, had said it was because Sorcha had needed to battle her way into this world, turned the wrong way as she had been in her mother’s stomach, and then she’d been born sickly and had to struggle to stay alive. Mother had always said Sorcha was a natural-born fighter.
Unfortunately, that is not the accepted thing for a lady to be,Mother had always added with a sigh.
