The Immortal Highlander Read Online Free PDF Page B

land. One that would somehow transcend the innate cold-bloodedness of its kind, all for love of
her
.
    Do you?
Gram pressed sternly.
    Ashamed, Gabby had nodded.
    That’s what makes them so dangerous, Gabrielle. The Fae are no better than the Hunters they send after us. They are inhumanly seductive. “Inhuman” is the word you must remember. No souls. No hearts. Do
not
romanticize them.
    She’d been guilty of it then. She’d not thought herself guilty of it still. With the passing of her teen years, she thought she’d laid many things to rest, including her foolish infatuation with a fantasy fairy prince.
    Not.
    With a groan of abject misery, she forced herself up from the floor. Cowering in a limp little heap wasn’t going to accomplish anything.
    If you ever betray yourself,
Gram had told her too many times to count,
if one of them ever realizes you can see them, you must leave immediately. Don’t dare waste time packing, just get in the car and go as fast and as far as you can. I’m leaving you money in a special account to be used only for that purpose. It should be more than enough to see you to safety.
    Gabby clutched the edge of the kitchen counter and closed her eyes.
    She didn’t want to leave, damn it. This was her home, the home Gram had raised her in. Every corner was filled with precious memories. Every inch of the century-old, rambling Victorian was dear to her, from the slate roof that was always springing a new leak, to the spacious, high-ceilinged rooms, to the archaic hot-water heating system that knocked and rattled, but steamed so cozily in the winter. And so what if she couldn’t afford to heat most of the house and had to wear layers of clothing unless she was within a few feet of a radiator? So what if it still didn’t have central air and the summers were swelteringly hot?
    On occasion she’d been awfully tempted to dip into her escape-the-fairy fund, but she’d resisted. Things would change once she graduated and got a real job. Her finances wouldn’t always be so precarious. Even an entry-level position with a law firm would enable her to start paying off her pile of student loans and begin much-needed renovations.
    She spent most of her time in the octagonal turret anyway, either in the library on the first floor or in the upstairs bedroom she’d redesigned for herself when Gram had died. With all the windows open on a summer night and the ceiling fan softly whirring, she could bear the heat. Besides, she loved lying in bed looking out over the sprawling lush gardens (despite the rickety wrought-iron fencing that desperately needed to be replaced). The mortgage had been paid off years ago. She’d planned never to leave, had hoped to one day fill up the too-silent rooms with children of her own.
    And now, just because one dratted fairy—
    Wait a minute,
she thought, her eyes flying open,
it didn’t have fairy eyes, remember?
In her panic, she’d completely forgotten about its strange eyes. They’d been a single color. Black as midnight. Black as sin but for those golden sparks.
    Definitely
not fairy. The Fae had iridescent eyes that changed quicksilver-fast, spanning all the colors of the rainbow. Shimmery and quixotic. Never black-and-gold.
    In fact, she thought, nibbling her lower lip pensively, it had displayed several baffling anomalies: its eyes; its human attire—really, a fairy in jeans and a T-shirt?—usually the Fae wore garments fashioned of fabrics unlike anything she’d ever seen; and its seeming emotion.
    Could she be so lucky? Frowning, she replayed the entire encounter in her mind, trying to isolate any other anomalies. Was it possible that the creature she’d seen wasn’t a fairy but something else?
    Heartened by the possibility, she turned and hurried through the dark house toward the turret library. She needed to consult the O’Callaghan
Books
.
    Comprised of nineteen thick, tediously detailed volumes that dated back to the fifth century, the
Books
were