Highlander 04 - Some Like It Kilted (2010) Read Online Free PDF

through his veins. But still he thrust Saor’s arm closer to the flame, determined to triumph. Until the blood rushing in his ears became a shrill buzzing, and a scalding flash of white-hot pain exploded against his hip.
     
“Yee-owwww!” Lightning quick, he slammed Saor’s arm against the candle, the hiss and stink of burnt flesh lost in the shouts of his men and the agony of the blinding heat stabbing into his side.
     
Saor blinked and sat back, his grin returning. “It would seem the American lassie shall be yours,” he announced, shaking his singed wrist.
     
Around them, revelers whipped out swords and raised them high in tribute. Bran pushed slowly to his feet and left the table, scarce seeing or hearing the cheering throng for the raging blaze he couldn’t ignore. No longer just at his hip, the heat raced through him, searing his very soul.
     
Every inch of his body burned.
     
His blood sizzled and each indrawn breath left a fiery trail that roasted his lungs.
     
It was a misery he finally recognized.
     
Though he’d rather cut himself than admit the flames came from the pommel stone of his sword.
     
His nape prickled at the possibility and icy chills sped down his spine. The Heartbreaker’s crystal was said to be enchanted. Formed by the tears of a MacNeil ancestress who lost her love in an ancient battle, the gemstone was believed to heat and glow in times of grave danger to the clan.
     
Or so legend claimed.
     
Not wanting to think about the other claims, Bran lurched through the hall, sifting himself into the cold night air of the bailey only when he was sure none of his men was looking his way. Dark mist swirled across the cobbles and the wind was picking up, the air damp with the smell of rain. Beyond the curtain walls, he could hear the sea crashing against the rocks. MacNeil’s Tower, after all, claimed its own wee isle, set just off the nearby coast of Barra. The keep was a nigh- impregnable stronghold and utterly defenseless against the dread churning inside him.
     
He stopped near the lee of a wall, letting its towering stones and the drifting mist shield him from prying eyes. If the Heartbreaker was branding him, he meant to keep his fate to himself.
     
Even so, it cost him greatly to toss back his plaid and clamp his hand around the sword’s rounded pommel.
     
The heat was excruciating.
     
But it was the bright blue light seeping through his fingers that nearly stopped his heart.
     
Shimmering blue light that legend called the truth of the sword and that—for which he’d always been most grateful—had never deigned to show itself in all the long centuries he’d possessed the fabled blade.
     
It was truly magnificent—finely honed steel just as ghostly as himself. And—his gut clenched—still possessed of the powerful magic of the true Heartbreaker.
     
Bran shuddered.
     
The saints only knew where the earthly blade now rested.
     
Not that it mattered. His chiefly wits already told him that his beloved sword had determined to disrupt his eternal peace.
     
Now he looked on in horror as the light deepened in brilliance and began curling past his fingers to weave and dance before him. Eyes wide, he staggered backward, releasing the pommel. But if clutching the crystal had unleashed its magic, letting go didn’t break the spell.
     
Far from it, the blue light began spinning into a long, glittery wand that bobbed and bounced in the air, slowly stretching itself into a glowing rectangle, bright against the cold gray of his castle walls.
     
He was cold, too.
     
Blistering heat no longer blasting him, a black chill now swept him. It was a terrible, icy grip on his gizzard that would have brought a lesser man to his knees.
     
Bran did his best not to flinch.
     
Such weakness was beneath his chiefly status.
     
Hebridean chieftains, in particular, were known for their stoutheartedness and valor. Frozen innards were nothing to men of his ilk.
     
Ghostly or otherwise.
     
But