The Making of a Highlander (Midnight in Scotland #1) - Elisa Braden Page 0,117
to remove it.”
He tugged at her skirt and slid his hand up her leg to her thigh. Then between her thighs. Then higher. “What if I did this, instead?”
She sighed and drew his mouth down to hers for a long, sweet kiss. “Clever Englishman,” she whispered. “I kenned there was a reason I married ye.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
TlU
The dream came again, as it had before. The white raven appeared to lead him to the tower. But the end was different this time.
This time, when John climbed the stairs to the uppermost story, a boy of perhaps six years stood in a shaft of moonlight. He had dark hair and blue eyes. His face was sweet and soft. He wore simple clothing—a white shirt and black breeches. No shoes. The boy stretched out a hand as John took the final stair and halted.
“Dark has come,” the boy said. He turned and pointed toward the window, which had the web of cracks but no blood, no jagged glass. “She needs ye.”
Frowning, John drifted forward, drawn by the boy’s familiar face. His features were small yet hinted at strength. But he couldn’t place them. Why did the boy look so familiar?
John moved toward him, reaching out for the small hand. When he touched the tiny fingers, he knew. A shockwave rippled through his body. “I saw you.” He swallowed, his breathing short and tight. “That day in the haberdashery. You were playing with the Cleghorn boy. I saw you.”
Blue eyes came back to him. For an instant, they flashed with the same warm, playful gleam he’d seen then. A crooked smile appeared.
John’s heart turned inside out. He crouched down to the boy’s level, gazing in wonderment. “Finlay.”
The boy inclined his head.
John stroked his soft cheek with his fingertip. “I can scarcely believe it.”
Finlay’s grin gentled into understanding. Then, those sweet eyes turned solemn. “Ye must awaken, John. Ye must save her.”
“Annie?”
Finlay clasped John’s fingers and squeezed. He then turned his hand over, lifting it so John’s palm lay open. A thistle appeared there. Wooden but recognizable. John had seen Annie worry at it with her fingers when she was missing her laddie. Finlay knelt and retrieved something from the shadows. It was John’s dirk, the one with the stag blade. The boy held it out, handle first.
Reluctantly, John took it. “What am I to do with this?”
“Protect.”
“From what?”
Before his eyes, the boy became a bird. The white raven flapped its wings and landed upon the windowsill.
“Finlay. What does this mean? What must I do?”
Blue eyes flashed again, this time turning white as the moon. And in his mind, he heard a single word in a thousand voices. “Awaken.”
TlU
Annie’s head hadn’t ached this badly since she’d let Rannock fill her whisky glass one too many times, tripped on a crate of turnips, and slammed her nose into the sideboard. Presently, sound rushed in and out in loud whooshes while pain threatened to split her skull. Something was digging into her stomach. Something stank like sour sweat. Something was grunting and not letting her breathe.
Or, more rightly, someone.
She was being carried over a man’s shoulder, she thought. Every step jostled her aching head and deflated her lungs. With an effort, she forced her eyes open. Darkness. Rough wool. Stink. Faint echoes of footsteps on wood. She blinked. After another jarring jostle, she sensed turning. But her hair was loose, so the slight light from passing windows shone through a curtain of red.
More grunting. Harsh panting. Her hands were numb, and now that she looked, she saw they’d been bound with twine similar to what she used in the kitchen.
Gray spots floated before her eyes. Sound disappeared.
They were moving toward a set of stairs now, she thought. The tower stairs.
Why the tower stairs? They only led down to the kitchen and the cellar. She swallowed, wondering if she’d be sick. Another turn. Starting down steps.
The cellar had a door to the garden, she recalled.
Someone was taking her to the cellar. Her head was thick, the light thin, and her mouth dry.
Someone was trying to take her from her husband. Her home.
He staggered and braced himself against the wall. Cursed in Gaelic. She recognized the voice. Skene. Though the pounding in her head made thinking near impossible, she tried to make sense of it.