The Fae Ring Read Online Free PDF Page B

she was feeling. He’d been told most bonded mates—as rare as they were in the Fae Realm—could not only read each other’s minds, but had empathic abilities where their mate was concerned.
    Thinking and feeling as one.
    Could he hope for that deep of a connection with a human lass?
    Xander rose and strode to one of the many windows in the warm bright room. His cousin let him go. No doubt she could sense that he needed some space between them.
    The MacLeod soldiers and men-at-arms were once again sparring in the bailey.
    Gods know Duncan MacLeod needs it.
    Especially if Xander was to remain unscathed.
    He would’ve let the man hit him if it’d come to that. Xander would never lift his hand to his cousin’s family.
    My family now.
    Duncan and Alex were his brothers-by-marriage already by Fae standards. If Janet wished a wedding as Alana had, they’d be family by human customs as well.
    Right.
    If I can convince the lass not to reject me.
    When his cousin gasped, he glanced over his shoulder. “What—?”
    Alana had gone pale.
    Xander started to cross the room to her, but stopped in his tracks. Magic skittered down his spine and made his head spin.
    Something yanked at his mating bond with Janet.
    Then she was gone.
    I can’t feel her.
    At. All.
    Panic crept up from his gut, and he wobbled on his feet.
    Alana met him in the middle of the solar. Her hand shot out to steady him, and their eyes locked.
    “Janet,” Xander breathed.
    “The Faery Stones,” Alana said at the same time.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

Chapter Six
     
    Janet ran hard.
    Harder than she had when she’d fled Xander on the beach. Her legs and lungs burned equally, and her throat was dry. Her ears stung from the rushing wind and she shivered against the chilled air, despite the heat she’d worked up from exertion.
    She paused, leaning on a boulder to catch her breath. Closed her eyes. “What am I goin’ to do?” Her words were desperate to her ears and she clenched her jaw until her teeth ached. It did nothing to stave off tears.
    As they coursed down her cheeks, a warm contradiction to the cool wind, she started to rock, bumping into the large slab over and over. The rough surface bit into her shoulders and upper back, but the pain was good. It grounded her.
    She looked around. Janet was so far from Dunvegan she couldn’t see the castle over the crest of the hills.
    “Drat.” She’d never been this far down the beach.
    Certainly not alone.
    Cormac had wanted to accompany her when she’d gone out this morning. He’d only considered letting her out of the gates by herself because Xander was already on the beach in the first place. Janet hadn’t run into the former Fae Warrior when she’d ventured down to the water. Not until he’d joined her.
    Normally when she left the safety of Dunvegan, if either of her brothers couldn’t accompany her, one of their men, usually a cousin, did so. It was irritating to be watched by men all the time, even if they proclaimed to care about her.
    If she kept going, she’d run into MacDonald land. The rival clan’s stronghold, Armadale, wasn’t far—though it was the other side of Skye—by the looks of where her feet had carried her.
    Janet shivered for reasons other than the weather. “That, I doona’ need.”
    Clans MacLeod and MacDonald had been rivals forever—but true enemies for about a hundred years due to a botched marriage.
    She could’ve laughed at the irony, but she needed to go back.
    Neither of her brothers could stand the current Laird MacDonald. It would be just like the unmannered couth, Hugh, to grab her for ransom if he saw her on the beach, too. Rumor had it he could often be seen riding the border of his lands on a giant black stallion.
    Janet sucked in one breath, then another.
    There was a crack in the ridge behind her, forming a crevice in the face of the wall-like cliff that probably led to a cave. She was tempted to