Wicked Paradise Read Free Page A

truth. She felt it in her soul, and her father would never betray her. Given the chance, he would sacrifice his own life for hers many times over.
    “You are the heart and soul of the Druids, my beautiful, courageous daughter.” Gwilym kissed her forehead. “We will meet in the Afterlife, and you can prove to me how right I was.” His thin lips spread in a wry, lopsided smile even as his eyes swam in tears.
    Resolute, she gazed up through blurry vision into her father’s beloved face. “I love you.” She caressed his pale, dry cheek.
    His shadow towered above the stones with the magnificence of his powers. A blue glow saturated the stone ring. The air sizzled and snapped. He raised his arms heavenward. Lightning bolts flared from the top of the pillars, merging with the force flashing in the cloudless sky.
    A strange airlessness filled Morgan as if she soared above the ocean in her dream lover’s arms, carefree and happy. Gwilym’s tremendous magic flowed around her, through her, became one with her. The energy of the stones lit up her blood like flickers of fire.
    In her emotional maelstrom, a sudden idea occurred to her. “Father?” she shouted above the din. “How will the Druid assassin get to the island?”
    Wind blustered inside the pillars, and she heard Gwilym’s baffling last words in her head. “His charm has already been cast.”
    “Cast? Whatever do you mean?” Morgan’s words vanished in the tempest.
    Her cherished father disappeared. The Sacred Stones melted into one sky-towering column of radiant starlight. An abyss of destiny devoured Morgan, her father’s scratchy voice giving final instructions in her mind.
     
     

 
    Chapter 2
     
    Sunlight dappled through the canopy of trees, and Morgan squinted against the hazy light. A peculiar odor of fertile soil filled her nose as heavy heat weighed down her limbs. Disorder cluttered her mind like spider webs in an ancient, untouched forest. She sucked in air so warm and condensed it coated her tongue.
    “Father?” she called softly, hoping she had suffered a nightmare to end all nightmares.
    Harsh raven cackles and trilling bird songs were the only replies she received.
    Dread blew away the cobwebs in her head, forcing her to open her eyes wide. A circling raven issued a warning caw. Surely, it wasn’t the same raven that trailed her on Avalon? Morgan peered through the seemingly harmless woods, wary of potential danger in the dense interior. A sharp rock poked her buttocks, forcing her to roll onto her side into a heap of dead leaves and twigs. The bird’s screeching pierced her ears, adding to her chaos.
    “Bugger off, bird,” she said, tasting her father’s sour potion. She swished her tongue around her mouth, dredging up moisture to wash the vileness away.
    The unfamiliar tropical woods gave validity to her father’s task. Wretched destiny! His last words haunted her more than anything else she learned in her last hour on Avalon. With countless unanswered questions, her father plucked her parting questions from her as the maelstrom whipped her through the alternating fierce heat and intense cold of space. “Why didn’t you tell me all this sooner? Will I ever return to Avalon?” she had hollered into oblivion before a suffocating weight pressed upon her and Avalon disappeared.
    As she’d hurtled through dense air, his faint reply had echoed in her ears. “I sought a path to travel alone, leaving you here to rule. My Sight did not reveal to me until this morning that I could not go, that you had to travel alone.” His voice had grown fainter. “You will live your life on the island. You cannot ever leave.”
    Recalling Gwilym’s prophetic response sent her heart thudding against her chest. She was terrified of her new life sentence and her monstrous task.
    “The demon’s prison has become my own.” Morgan hammered her fist on a clump of tiny leafed ground cover. She willed her heart’s beat to steady and her lungs to process