Revelations Read Online Free PDF Page B

to nature or nurture.
    Emily shifted her legs, disturbing Rhiannon who, head in Emily’s lap, moaned softly in her sleep. “Shhhh,” Emily cooed, stroking the girl’s hair until she sensed the child was asleep again. Thor lay nearby, stretched out, his head resting on his front paws, eyes wide open, watching Emily and Rhiannon with an unblinking gaze that seemed accepting of everything that was happening around him.
    Emily had brought the news of the red-tinged snowfall and the tightening of the storm’s stranglehold on the island to MacAlister. He in turn had relayed it to the captain. Both men had gone outside to check her story for themselves, and both had returned grim-faced.
    “Emily, I think it’s probably best if you and Rhiannon stay here with us for the duration, don’t you think?” MacAlister had suggested and Emily had readily agreed. She did not want to be alone through whatever might be coming. Once had been enough. But the excited chatter of the sailors as they had learned of the encroaching storm and seen the red-tinged snowfall had quickly devolved into worried murmurs, and finally, as the hours wore on, almost absolute silence.
    Emily had begun to wish she had done as Jacob had and requested a room to herself. She had not seen him but once since Constantine and his crew had arrived. But Emily thought that Jacob’s hermit-like attitude was more from the habit of loneliness (or possibly the stash of whisky she knew he’d smuggled across with him) than from a shirking of any need for social interaction.
    Occasionally, MacAlister or the captain would wander between the groups, chatting with the sailors. They were the epitome of stoic, she thought as she eyed MacAlister. He took a knee next to a lone sailor who had isolated himself off hours earlier, his hands clasped around his drawn-up knees as he silently stared at the opposite wall, his head bobbing slowly back and forth as if he listened to some inner song. Within minutes of MacAlister talking with him, the kid was back with his shipmates.
    He was a good man, MacAlister.
    The hours wore on, darkness came, and with it a howling wind that tore at the roof and walls of their shelter, rattling the windows and denying everyone sleep. The wind-driven snow had long blocked any view through the windows, tinting the glass with its pink stain, but that did not seem to deter the “window checkers,” who would still occasionally stand and wander over to look, even though they could see nothing now.
    By the time the second morning crept almost unnoticed over the camp, the mood had dropped as low as the temperature outside, and Emily began to feel a new nervousness settle over the group.
    “Cabin fever” was not a phrase you heard very often in these modern times, but Emily thought she could detect a sense of paranoia attaching itself to the men. It was a knifepoint of anxiety pushing through the thin skin of civility still left; the thick blade, the part that would do all the damage, barely concealed beneath the surface.
    Later that day MacAlister insisted that the two girls take over his room, which they did with a sense of relief. Earlier, a fistfight had exploded seemingly from nowhere, and Emily felt a skinny rat of worry begin to gnaw at her insides. As it was, it was all she could do to stop Thor from attacking. His barking and the men’s yells had alerted MacAlister, and he had quickly stepped in and banged some heads, stopping the fight before it got past a black eye and a few raw knuckles. But Emily doubted that even MacAlister’s imposing reputation and martial ability would be able to brace the emotional wall holding back the swelling fear that threatened to wash over the men for long.
    For the second time in the last twenty minutes Emily checked the Glock on her hip, relishing the sense of security as her fingers played over the weapon’s butt in the holster. The move to MacAlister’s quarters would be a good idea, she decided.
    You’re a