Haunting Embrace Read Free

anyway. “You best go on to the house and tell the missus to patch you up. She’s not worth much, that woman, but she can stitch as well as any doctor.”
    Áedán shook his head. The ship still needed to be readied before the storm.
    “Don’t worry on that,” Mickey said, following his thoughts. “I’ll finish it up and you’ll have your meal and your bed just as if I’d had a full day’s labor from you. It will all come out right in the end.”
    Áedán held to that thought. Yes, it would all come out right in the end. When he was restored, when he was once again as powerful as he’d been, Áedán would remember Mickey’s act of kindness.
    Gratitude . He frowned in disgust. Another emotion.
    With a nod, Áedán stepped onto the weathered dock and strode away in the direction of Mickey’s small house. With each step, the lure of the cavern intensified until he found himself turning toward it .
    No, a voice of reason spoke sharply in his mind. Do not go there.. . .
    But denying the cavern’s silent summons seemed pointless and too cowardly— too human— to tolerate.
    No matter that he answered to the name of Áedán Brady now, inside he was still Brandubh. The Black Raven. The most powerful Druid to ever draw breath.
    As soon as he crested the first hill and was out of Mickey’s sight, he veered off, his feet moving faster of their own accord as he headed to the ruins that landmarked the place to descend. The sky darkened and lightning split it into a thousand gray white pieces as rain began to pelt him with fury.
    Filled with urgency, he fought down the pervasive dread that battered him like the sea against the cliffs. He did not know what waited in the cavern, what new turning point it had in store. But he refused to let fear control him. Never again would he allow anything— anyone— to rule him.
    By the time he reached the point where he could see the ruined castle, he was drenched and out of breath. For a moment, he stilled, quaking inside as thunder exploded above. Emotions he couldn’t begin to comprehend churned into foam and flotsam, miring any logic that might have surfaced.
    Pausing at the top of the stairs, he gazed at the deteriorated slope of steps down to the rocky beach below. He knew it had been millennia since he’d hacked them out of the granite cliff, but seeing the eroded decay somehow made the sense of an eternity come and gone more real than ever. Yet he could remember clearly the feeling of dangling over that abyss, of laughing at the danger, the peril of a fall as he’d carved each descending tier. The stone had sparkled with hidden crystals, and the sun had favored them, favored him . He’d been Brandubh, the bold Druid. Powerful. Feared.
    Betrayed.
    The steps were nearly worn away and caked with moss and slime. Treacherous in this storm, and yet he made his way down, trying to convince himself that his actions were his own. That he came because he was ready, not because he was compelled. The throbbing pain in his wounded hand kept him alert, kept him here and now when it felt like a thousand hooks had embedded in his skin with the lines attaching them stretched taut and towing him forward.
    The storm had arrived with all the stealth and vehemence of his perdition. It whipped the sea into a tempest, and huge waves slammed against the beach, trying to shuck him out from between the rocks. They did not dissuade him. He was set now—determined to reach the cavern and face whatever it was that made a Druid fear.
    He breached the point where giant boulders made rebellious sentries to the entrance, withstanding the rage of the tides. Then at last he stood in the small passageway that led into the cavern.
    A shudder shook him from inside out, like the thunderous storm unleashed. Power crackled around him as he stood on the threshold and peered into the blackness.
    By degrees, his eyes adjusted and he saw the shadows inside heaving and lulling with the fearsome waves, splashing a black