A Bewitching Bride Read Online Free PDF Page B

her.
    Then what? Was he going to kill her or maim her?
    She was afraid, deathly afraid, but another emotion began to stir in her. She was a Cameron of Craigmyle. A Cameron would be ashamed to die like a wee cowering beastie. If she was going to die, she would do it with honor.
    Brave words for a girl whose one aim was to find a place to hide. If only her cousins were here!
    The stone dike rose from the blanket of snow like the outer wall of a Roman fort. The breath was rushing in and out of her lungs, and she bit down on her lip to smother the sound. As she climbed the dike, her hand searched frantically for a loose stone, anything that she could use as a weapon. There was nothing.
    She scrambled to the top of the dike and turned to face the devil who was pursuing her. Crouched almost double, trying to make herself as small as possible, she waited. Wait! Wait! Hold steady!
    He was closing in, making no effort at concealment. She saw a shadow emerge from the gloom. Rising to her full height, she gave a ghostly screech and launched herself at him.
    She’d taken him by surprise. She heard the whoosh of air from his lungs as her body collided with his, felt the jar on her wrist as she punched him with her fist. But he had a knife. When she sensed it descend, she rolled and felt the blade glancing off her shoulder. She ignored the pain and raised her head to snap at him with her teeth. He loomed above her, with the knife raised to finish her off. Her screech of terror came out a moan. Around her, the ghosts of the auld stane began to howl their lament. Something—a man? a beast?—crouched above her, wailing like a banshee, then everything faded as she sank into a well of darkness.
     
     
    Gavin tossed and turned on his lumpy bed. His recurring dream was full of images of murder and mayhem. Dark clouds scudded across the sky, obliterating the light of the moon. He could hear the wail of the North Sea as its breakers dashed against the rocky shore. He knew the time and place. His grandmother, Lady Valeria, the celebrated witch of the northeast, had summoned her three grandsons and entrusted each with a prophecy. To fail meant death, not to him, but to the one he had been sent to save.
    “Look to Macbeth,” his granny had whispered on a painful breath. “That’s where your fate lies . You stand on the brink, Gavin . Fail Macbeth, and you will regret it to your dying day . ”
    The image shifted. He was in a cemetery, standing by an open grave; his only companions were the stone angels that stood vigil and the black, prancing horses with their black plumes, the horses that conveyed the dead to their final resting place.
    His heart was beating like a bird trapped inside his chest. He didn’t want to be here. He wanted sunshine glinting off the distant mountains and the smell of heather in his nostrils. But he couldn’t leave. He felt as though he’d taken root on that spot at the edge of the grave, waiting for his worst fears to be realized.
    He saw a movement from the corner of his eye. A young woman was running for her life. He could feel the stitch in her side and the cramped muscles in her calves. The moon came out from behind a cloud, momentarily blinding him. When his vision cleared, he saw that it wasn’t a cloud that had moved. It was the shadow of a man, pursuing the woman uphill toward the “auld stane,” the old stone, where they once burned witches.
    The scream of an animal in pain pierced his mind, and he wrenched himself from his nightmare. “Macduff!” he said aloud. The scream came again, and he shook his head to clear his mind. Where was his dog? All he remembered was that Macduff hadn’t come home last night.
    With the vision of his dream still fresh in his mind and the piercing howl ringing in his ears, he threw back the covers and flung himself out of bed. Panicked, he began to pull on his clothes.
    He saw her in his mind’s eye, lying facedown in the snow. Someone was hovering nearby. Macduff was