Highland Shifter (MacCoinnich Time Travel) Read Online Free PDF

rushed from her lungs when she hit the ground.
    Kong continued to run away, leaving Helen less than a half a mile from the fighting men and struggling for breath. Alone on an open path, she stumbled to her feet, ignoring the pain in her leg, and scrambled behind a large tree.
    She needed to focus. Her breath came in short gasping pants, while her heart raced in her chest so quickly she could hear her own blood gushing through her veins.
    The knife MacCoinnich had pressed into her hand was her only defense if the men returned. Helen held it in front of her, and her eyes darted, following every noise in the forest.
    As adrenaline started to subside, the pain from her leg started to scream. Unable to avoid facing the injury any longer, Helen glanced down at the three-inch gash on her calf. It wasn ’t horribly deep, but it hurt like hell. Some gauze and an antibiotic was all she needed. She colored herself lucky since the sword that did the damage was large enough to amputate her leg with a single blow.
    Using the knife, Helen cut away a portion of her shirt and pressed the cloth into her wound. With blood seeping through her fingers, she wondered if the scent would attract animals from the woods.
    She had to keep moving. But where?
    With the loose ends of the cotton tied together, she attempted to stand. Everything hurt.
    After moving only a few yards in the direction the horse had run, Helen tripped on a stump.
    Anger and frustration welled inside, threatening tears. “Dammit!”
    Boy, did she want to sob big fat tears that would serve no purpose.
    She didn ’t. Instead, she picked herself up off the ground and began walking again.
    A twig behind her snapped.
    She spun.
    Two sets of angry eyes, belonging to two equally angry men, stared at her.
    If these two managed to follow her, Helen couldn’t help but wonder if MacCoinnich had died in the fight.
    The thought of her life ending in a foreign land, at the hands of men dressed in ancient warrior garb, had her blinking back tears. One managed to escape, trickling down her cheek.
    At the sight of her weakness, the men laughed. “No need to fret,” one of the men said as he stepped closer to her.
    “Oh, she should fret,” said the other man who ’d met her foot with his face. He didn’t hold back his anger.
    Helen backed up with each of their advancing steps.
    Why had she left home?
    More tears clouded her eyes.
    She thought she heard a growl in the woods behind her, but couldn’t risk turning away from the men to look.
    Instead, Helen curled her arms into her chest and wept, “I want to go home. Please, just let me go home.”
    The world around her tilted and once again fell away.
     
     
     
     
    Chapter Four
     
    Amber MacCoinnich cried out in physical pain. “Not again.” Grief swelled in her gut, doubling her over until she had to sit or risk falling. Her empathic gift suffocated her. The loss of Simon blanketed her with sorrow. She ’d only experienced this feeling once before in her short life. It had happened years ago, when Grainna cursed her older brother Fin and his wife, Lizzy, sending them into the future. The memory of that loss swelled in her mind, even though Lizzy and Fin eventually made their way home.
    The door to her room sprung open, her sister-in-law Lizzy tumbled through. “Simon ’s gone.”
    “Aye.”
    Her body ached with his loss. The void of a loved one’s death was the only thing that compared.
    Desperation marred Lizzy ’s face. Her son was gone. In a heartbeat, in a one blink of an eye—gone.
    Amber closed her eyes and willed the pain gripping her stomach to recede. She focused her gift, reaching for some hope. But she didn ’t feel any. She had no way of knowing if Simon was dead, or swept away by some magical force.
    She prayed it was the latter. The family would depend on her to reveal hope of Simon ’s safety. And each year her empathy grew, nearly crippling her.
    “Mother?” Selma MacCoinnich pulled at Lizzy ’s skirts.