The Magic of Highland Dragons Read Online Free PDF Page B

after a hard and bloody battle, and she had been wounded when her family’s home was attacked. It was a cold, wet day, and someone had wrapped her in the Mac Coinnach banner to bring her to the castle to be tended. I kenned as soon as I saw her that she was to be my wife.”
    For many years Bren hadn’t left the castle without the Mac Coinnach standard, just in case. Though he could not imagine under what circumstances it would come to be wrapped around the woman he would love. But he wanted her that much… and far more.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 3 ҈
     
     
     
     
    Dirc put the loaf of bread on the table nearest the fire and handed Faith a steaming bowl of porridge. As he did so he regarded her with something akin to growing wonderment and respect. For all his long life, he had never come across such a woman who could be whisked away unawares to another time and place with no real explanation, and seemingly take it all in stride. He had no doubt she was frightened, and perhaps still even a bit in shock, but she had a deep strength to carry her through it all, very much like her mother. And her grandmother, too. He shook off the memories, better left where they lie, for now. “Sorry lass, I’m no’ the best cook.”
    A peculiar smile lit up her face as she took the earthenware bowl into her hands and then laughed. “It’s pottery. Not in pieces. A whole porridge bowl!” She met Dirc’s slightly puzzled frown with a smile of bemusement. “It’s just that I usually see them in pieces, and I always wonder what each bowl might have been used for when it was whole. I’m a… well, I’m… I was a kind of a historian, before. It was my… job. In my… time.”
    “Ah, I see. Ye like the past, learning the old ways. That’s wise.”
    She set the bowl on the table to cool a little before it burned her fingers, letting the warm mealy scent of boiled grain waft up to her nose. It smelled so good, or maybe she was just really hungry. After all, she hadn’t eaten since lunch the day before. “Are you going to tell me now why I’m here? I’ve been very, very patient, but all of this…” She made a helpless gesture with her hands. “I don’t understand what’s happened. I don’t know why I’m here.”
    The older man sat down on a stool across the table from her, and as she regarded him, she could have sworn his eyes had changed for an instant, in a most unusual way, as if he was a much different being than the one she saw before her. The hairs on the back of her neck rose, but she managed to keep her face from registering anything but the hope that he was about to fill her in on her unexplained situation. Then, as she looked at him, searching his face for clues, another slice of understanding dawned.
    “ You brought me here, didn’t you?” She suddenly knew that he did, was sure of it. She put down her wooden spoon on the table with a dull thud. Her eyes challenged him to deny the truth. “It was you… I know it was you! That’s how you knew to expect me.”
    “I had something to do with it, aye.” He sighed, drawing his hands over his face. She couldn’t know everything, not yet. He was messing with things enough as it was, and he just couldn’t risk it. With a bit of good fortune, she would find out soon enough all that she needed to know, but for the time being he needed to tread very carefully. “See here, lass, I ken ye have questions, but I simply need a bit more time to answer them. Can ye understand that? Can ye give me the time I need?”
    She was already tired of waiting. “You take me from my home and my life there, bring me here without my permission, and you need more time to get around to telling me why ?” Faith was beginning to feel just a little bit desperate. She needed at least some sort of purpose, some reason for her life to have been turned upside down. Some explanation for what she considered to be the absolute madness she had stumbled into.
    Dirc didn’t answer,