Highland Sinner Read Free Page A

lean body was taut with fury. Out of the corner of his eye, Tormand saw Walter tense and place his hand on his sword, revealing that Tormand was not the only one who sensed danger. It was as he looked back at Simon that Tormand realized the man clutched something in his hand.
    A heartbeat later, Simon tossed what he held onto the table in front of Tormand. Tormand stared down at a heavy gold ring embellished with blood-red garnets. Unable to believe what he was seeing, he looked at his hands, his unadorned hands, and then looked back at the ring. His first thought was to wonder how he could have left that room of death and not realized that he was no longer wearing his ring. His second thought was that the point of Simon’s sword was dangerously sharp as it rested against his jugular.

    “Nay! Dinnae kill him! He is innocent!”
    Morainn Ross blinked in surprise as she looked around her. She was at home sitting up in her own bed, not in a great hall watching a man press a sword point against the throat of another man. Ignoring the grumbling of her cats that had been disturbed from their comfortable slumber by her outburst, she flopped back down and stared up at the ceiling. It had only been a dream.
    “Nay, no dream,” she said after a moment of thought. “A vision.”
    Thinking about that a little longer she then nodded her head. It had definitely been a vision. The man who had sat there with a sword at his throat was no stranger to her. She had been seeing him in dreams and visions for months now. He had smelled of death, was surrounded by it, yet there had never been any blood upon his hands.
    “Morainn? Are ye weel?”
    Morainn looked toward the door to her small bedchamber and smiled at the young boy standing there.
    Walin was only six but he was rapidly becoming very helpful. He also worried about her a lot, but she supposed that was to be expected. Since she had found him upon her threshold when he was the tender Page 8
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    age of two she was really the only parent he had ever known, had given him the only home he had ever known. She just wished it were a better one. He was also old enough now to understand that she was often called a witch, as well as the danger that appellation brought with it. Unfortunately, with his black hair and blue eyes, he looked enough like her to have many believe he was her bastard child and that caused its own problems for both of them.
    “I am fine, Walin,” she said and began to ease her way out of bed around all the sleeping cats. “It must be verra late in the day.”
    “’Tis the middle of the day, but ye needed to sleep. Ye were verra late returning from helping at that birthing.”
    “Weel, set something out on the table for us to eat then, I will join ye in a few minutes.”
    Dressed and just finishing the braiding of her hair, Morainn joined Walin at the small table set out in the main room of the cottage. Seeing the bread, cheese, and apples upon the table, she smiled at Walin, acknowledging a job well done. She poured them each a tankard of cider and then sat down on the little bench facing his across the scarred wooden table.
    “Did ye have a bad dream?” Walin asked as he handed Morainn an apple to cut up for him.
    “At first I thought it was a dream, but now I am certain it was a vision, another one about that mon with the mismatched eyes.” She carefully set the apple on a wooden plate and sliced it for Walin.
    “Ye have a lot about him, dinnae ye.”
    “It seems so. ’Tis verra odd. I dinnae ken who he is and have ne’er seen such a mon. And, if this vision is true, I dinnae think I e’er will.”
    “Why?” Walin accepted the plate of sliced apple and immediately began to eat.
    “Because this time I saw a verra angry gray-eyed mon holding a sword to his throat.”
    “But didnae ye say that your visions are of things to come? Mayhap he isnae dead yet. Mayhap ye are supposed