Highland Defiance (The MacLomain Series- Early Years) Read Free Page B

continued to study hers, his deep voice cut through her misconstrued thoughts. “Because I am him.”
    “Him who?” she whispered.
    He gently took her hand. “So sorry that I didnae introduce myself before. I am Adlin, Chieftain of the MacLomain Clan. The lad from your dream. The one who will take you to your betrothed.”

Chapter Two
     
    Cowal, Scotland
    1050
     
    Adlin was doing his best not to immediately wrap her up in his arms.
    After all, he’d dreamt about Mildred for many years too.
    Now, at last, she’d traveled back in time to him.
    As foretold.
    Arms across her chest, feet splayed, she shook her head. “I’m going nowhere until I wake up.”
    With a purposefully heavy sigh, he leaned against a tree and eyed her. Though hard to believe, she was even more beautiful in real life. Her hair hung in thick dark brown waves around her shoulders and her eyes, the most arresting shade of clear blue he’d ever seen. They were huge and a wicked mix between round and almond shaped. Her finely shaped dark brows arched slightly and turned them sultry and secretive. The shape of her face was classically beautiful with high cheekbones and full, pink kissable lips.
    “Stop looking at me like that,” she huffed.
    “Like what?”
    “You know.”
    “I do?”
    “Of course.” Mildred promptly took to chewing a nail and frowned.
    “Bad habit, lass.”
    Abruptly pulling her hand away from her mouth, Mildred notched up her chin and declared, “I need to wake up.”
    Adlin didn’t blame her for being so confused. He’d be confused too if he was in her position. Perhaps he’d gone about this all wrong. “What do you usually dream when you dream of us, Mildred?”
    She twisted her foot in the dirt beneath and shrugged. “Not this.”
    “I ken that. Please, what then?”
    “What does ken mean?”
    “It means that I understand.” He nodded his head in a try-to-understand gesture. “My dialect. Forgive.”
    Mildred shook her head and again eyed the forest uncomfortably. “You never much talked about dialect before… in the other dream.”
    “What did I talk about?”
    He already knew but had to ask… had to pull it out of her.
    “There was a cliff and men,” she said absently. “And you,” she said, locking eyes with him.
    “Me?”
    “Always you,” she whispered, her expression suddenly distant, before she again came to attention. “I was being led somewhere. You saved me.”
    “That’s a good thing,” he piped up.
    “One would think.”
    “But it wasnae,” he said solemnly, in tune with the octave of her voice
    “No. No, it wasn’t.”
    “So it didnae end well?”
    “No,” she whispered. “It never ends well. You die.”
    “How do you know?”
    Mildred stopped digging her foot into the ground. “Because I dreamt it. Haven’t you been listening?”
    Adlin fought a grin. “But you say you’ve always had the same dream?”
    “Yes.”
    “And I died in every one.”
    “Yes.”
    “How do you know?”
    She shifted uncomfortably. “You just did.”
    Adlin couldn’t help himself; he took one of her hands. “Tell me.”
    Mildred stared down at their hands, confused no doubt by how real it felt. “It doesn’t matter.”
    “Obviously it does.”
    He squeezed her hand gently when she paused.
    Her eyes rose slowly to his. At least ten seconds passed before she softly said, “You killed them all then you went off the cliff. I was alone then. I was always left alone. You always died.”
    With a heavy swallow she pulled her hand away, almost as if she felt she could stop him from vanishing off that cliff with her simple gesture.
    Adlin worked hard to swallow himself. It wasn’t easy being face to face with her. It wasn’t easy looking at a woman who had only ever been a figment of his imagination…or the gods. Either way, it was as difficult for him as it was for her. Knowing that in her dream the enemy had her. Knowing that the only way he could save her was by doing what he did, whatever