Highland Storm Read Online Free PDF Page A

returned, fanning the air before Una’s nose, before finding purchase on the stone in the hilt of her staff.
    “We must prepare,” she said, and the fox moth went perfectly still.

Chapter 3
    G auging his position against Càrn Dearg—the highest peak of the Am Monadh Liath —Keane dún Scoti sidled his mare as near to the edge as he dared to go. The wind ruffled his black hair and the fur of his heavy cloak tickled his chin.
    Nestled between the red hills and the gray, hidden by the pinewood forest below, she would be easy to miss. But the closer he got, the more fervently she whispered to his soul.
    Anticipation quickened the beat of his heart. Horseflesh tensed between his muscled thighs. Beithir’s right front hoof clipped the rock and a smattering of loose stones trickled down the bluffside… but then he saw her .
    Lilidbrugh.
    Huddled beneath the half-light exchange between the sun and moon, she lay strangling in weeds, brambles clawing at her stone. The ancient ruins lay at the edge of the great boreal forest, where his ancestors had once battled Roman legions. Blackened, not by age, but by ash that had been scoured now by nigh on two hundred years of Highland wind and rain, she stood, battered and bruised, clinging to her berth.
    Until her doom, she had been the ancient seat of Fidach, the heart of his kinsmen, back when their lands all bore the names of Cruithne’s sons—Cat, Fidach, Ce, Fotla, Circinn, Fortriu and Fib. One by one, all seven Pecht nations had fallen to the Scots or to the Gaels, with the final blow being dealt five years past to Fortriu, elsewise known to the Scots as the Kingdom of Moray. As he’d claimed he would do, David mac Mhaoil Chaluim brought down the Mormaerdom, wresting the north from his brother’s allies and heirs. Against all odds, the youngest son of Malcom Ceann Mor was now the one true king of all of Scotia.
    Tendrils of pink and violet wove their way through the dark silhouettes of evergreens, like fingers threaded through a lover’s mane.
    Their priestess once said the dawn of their people was past; the sun was setting now, and soon, no one living would remember from whence the dún Scoti had come. They were the last of the painted ones—those men the Romans once called Pechts. They carried the heartbeats of their ancestors in their blood, and the song of their people in their hearts. But like the light of this day, their song was fading fast.
    Downwind, by the burn, Keane could hear his men chattering endlessly, none of them overly concerned about being overheard. For his part, he was so entranced by the ruins that he never even heard his friend approach. “What is that ?” Cameron asked.
    “Lilidbrugh,” Keane replied, and his tongue made love to the name.
    “Lilidbrugh?”
    “Aye.” The White Lily of Fidach, named after the rare stone from which she was hewn, the white quartz that had been culled and hauled from the lands near the River Ness. And there, in the courtyard had once stood a lavish fount, fed by sweet Highland springs. The fount was drained now, dismantled piece by piece, its keystones chipped away and filed into jewels for the curious.
    “Ye’re ogling it like a woman’s arse! Is this what draws us to this god-forsaken place? Tis naught but a pile of rubble, Keane.”
    Keane smiled and said nothing more. Like the Stone of Destiny hidden in their vale, some things were not meant to be discussed. “Where are the others?” he asked.
    “Stopped to take a piss in the burn.”
    “ All of them?”
    “ All. Of. Them. Dirty bastards.”
    Clearly, his friend’s mood was sour, and unlike Keane, the vision below improved it none at all. But then, Cameron MacKinnon, like his kinsmen of Chreagach Mhor, was far removed from this past. They were more Scots now, if the truth be known. Though if Keane meant to discard every man and woman who’d strayed from the auld ways, he would be left with no friends at all. He and his folk were the outliers now. Dún