Incarnate: The Moray Druids #3 (Highland Historical) Read Free Page A

heat radiating from him.  She couldn’t remember anything feeling so incredible.
    And she hadn’t been warm in over a hundred years.
    ***
    Malcolm did his best to keep his stallion’s gait even.  If the lass were concussed, jostling her overmuch could do irreparable damage.  The mist seemed to thicken as they plodded toward Loch Doineann, which was more of a pond, in truth, surrounded by lush forest.  He tried to keep his awareness on their surroundings in case brigands were about.  If he didn’t, he’d focus on how her soft body fit against his, or how supple and tantalizing her breasts had looked. But the forest whispered warnings through the mist that unsettled him. 
    Beware. It said .  Enemies are near.
    If his enemies were near, then the Grimoire was too.  The scrying stone had told him thus.  So what was he doing escorting a peasant home when he should be searching for it?   
    “I’ve not seen you here in the forest before, how do you know where the loch is?” she asked, pulling his cloak tighter around herself and pressing her shoulders against his chest with a tremor of chill.
    “I know every inch of these lands,” he answered simply.  They’re my responsibility.
    For some reason, he didn’t want her to know who he was.  Didn’t want her to treat him with the deference she’d show the King of their Pictish people.  For all she knew, he was a woodsman, doing a pretty lass a kindness.  There was no Grimoire, Wyrd Sisters, Berserkers, or impending war.  For just a moment, there in the mist, they were a man and a woman, making their way through the fragrant, loamy autumn forest.  
    “Do yer people hie from these woods?” he asked. “Do they live close by?”
    “My people are all dead,” she murmured, without much inflection.  “I’ve been alone for many years.”
    It unsettled him how curious she made him.  He wanted to press her, but knew the telling of her story would be painful.  How did she come to be alone in these woods with nothing but a threadbare shift?  Did her people die in the Lowland wars?  Or by the hands of the English?  Perhaps illness took them.  Or plague.  What family did she belong to? 
    Who had put the wounds and wariness behind her lovely, amethyst eyes?
    “There.” She pointed. “Just past that copse of trees.”
    Malcolm spotted the structure—if one could call it that—and frowned.  Due to her dress, he hadn’t expected much, but the rotting, dilapidated dwelling leaning against a few ancient trees was uninhabitable. 
    The roof, for lack of a better word, had rotted through and fallen in on one side.  The door was a bunch of green branches lashed together and propped against the entry. 
    Malcolm tensed as they approached, stopping on the narrow sandy beach of the loch and gaping in silent protest for several minutes.  When the lass began to squirm, he dismounted from behind her.  “Stay here,” he ordered.  “I’ll make certain no one is inside.”
    She nodded, her eyes growing rounder in her face, as though she hadn’t considered intruders. 
    The interior was cozier than he expected, but only just.  She’d been using the collapsed part of the roof as a chimney, with an old empty cauldron and cook fire laid, but unlit.  A pallet of worn furs and a tattered blanket was the only protection from the chill of the dirt floor.  A pestle, knife, tankard, wooden bowl, and a long-handled spoon were neatly lined up against the wall opposite the—well he couldn’t rightly call it a bed, could he?
    Forest fauna and the loch could sustain one person, he supposed, but surviving out here on one’s own would be mighty difficult.  Malcolm felt a pang slice through him at the thought of that lovely woman shivering alone on the dirt floor at night. 
    “I mean to mend the roof before winter sets in,” she said from behind him.
    He turned to her, unable to straighten to his full height in the cramped space.  “Ye… live here?” 
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