Return of the Highlander (Immortal Warriors) Read Online Free PDF Page A

in his head ceased their endless demands. His lands were as empty as the glens he’d just walked through—where were his people?—but everything else was so extraordinary he did not want to consider the meaning of it now. He didn’t dare begin to think of that. He just wanted to reach the security of his home.
    Heavy rain was coming down into his eyes, and although he could barely see a yard in front of him he strode on, the powerful muscles in his legs working, his faded kilt swinging, his long dark hair plastered to his head.
    Maclean passed a cottage, dim light shining out into the gloaming, smoke trickling from the chimney. It was odd that it was here, where no cottage had ever been before, but he wasn’t going to waste thought on it when he was so close. So close to the place where he had been born and where he had lived and ruled. Men had feared and admired him, women had given him their bodies and their hearts. They had trusted him, followed him in the ancient unquestioning manner of a clan its chief.
    And so they would again.
    He reached the lip of the hill just as the rain stopped. There was a girl with a pale face and long dark hair, huddling beneath the doorway to the great hall. He wondered if she was real or a dream. And then he was looking up and up, and for a moment it was there, Castle Drumaird, soaring bleakly into the sky.
    Then just as suddenly it was gone.
    He blinked to clear his sight, thinking it was the rain. Only the rain. It could not be…his castle, his home. Broken, torn down, like some giant had swung his boot and kicked aside the pieces.
    How could it be? That he had returned from the grave only to find everything he loved was gone.
    Loneliness overwhelmed him as the rain lashed his face. In his quiet despair he wanted to weep, but the Maclean did not cry. He wanted to rail and shout, but he was too sick at heart to make a sound. He wanted to fall to his knees and allow death to claim him. But he was already dead, he must be…and yet he lived. The Fiosaiche had brought him back from death. His hands closed into fists at his sides, the rainwater dripped down his face and soaked into his clothing, and he stood in silence and faced the dreadful sight before him.
    He lived, but now he had nothing to live for.
    The girl was picking her way through the tumbled stones of what had been mighty Castle Drumaird. He watched her numbly, not allowing himself to hope that this time someone might see him. And, of course, she didn’t. She reached a young rowan tree and grasped the slender trunk to steady herself as she jumped down into the sodden grass. It was overgrown and reached to her thighs, and she grimaced as she waded toward him.
    A woman, he realized, not a girl.
    Dark wet hair, a pale oval face and a lush body beneath loose, shapeless clothing. She turned her head and looked over her shoulder at the remains of the tower, and for a moment her profile was etched against the stormy sky. Despite his own grinding pain Maclean was struck by her beauty, and the cloak of tranquillitythat enveloped her. She owned a still calm that Maclean in his pain ached to embrace.
    The woman fastened her jacket with a shiver and moved in his direction, intending to go down the path he had just climbed up. As she passed him he smelled her scent, flowery and warm. She barely came up to his shoulder, but he was a big man. A chill gust of wind blew a lock of her long dark hair toward him…and through him. And then she was gone.
    Maclean looked upon what had once been his beloved home and slowly, stiffly walked toward it. He did not understand what had happened here. He could only assume that during the long centuries when he lay dead, all he loved had crumbled away, leaving this sad monument to the past.
    His head began to pound. There had been a battle, but not here. Brief vivid scenes of savagery. Culloden Moor? That name was familiar. The smell of campfires and food cooking, the low murmur of men and a sense of