Highland Sinner. Hannah Howell

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      “Nay! Dinnae kill him! He is innocent!”

      Morainn Ross blinked in surprise as she looked around her. She was at home sitting up in her own bed, not in a great hall watching a man press a sword point against the throat of another man. Ignoring the grumbling of her cats that had been disturbed from their comfortable slumber by her outburst, she flopped back down and stared up at the ceiling. It had only been a dream.

      “Nay, no dream,” she said after a moment of thought. “A vision.”

      Thinking about that a little longer she then nodded her head. It had definitely been a vision. The man who had sat there with a sword at his throat was no stranger to her. She had been seeing him in dreams and visions for months now. He had smelled of death, was surrounded by it, yet there had never been any blood upon his hands.

      “Morainn? Are ye weel?”

      Morainn looked toward the door to her small bedchamber and smiled at the young boy standing there. Walin was only six but he was rapidly becoming very helpful. He also worried about her a lot, but she supposed that was to be expected. Since she had found him upon her threshold when he was the tender age of two she was really the only parent he had ever known, had given him the only home he had ever known. She just wished it were a better one. He was also old enough now to understand that she was often called a witch, as well as the danger that appellation brought with it. Unfortunately, with his black hair and blue eyes, he looked enough like her to have many believe he was her bastard child and that caused its own problems for both of them.

      “I am fine, Walin,” she said and began to ease her way out of bed around all the sleeping cats. “It must be verra late in the day.”

      “’Tis the middle of the day, but ye needed to sleep. Ye were verra late returning from helping at that birthing.”

      “Weel, set something out on the table for us to eat then, I will join ye in a few minutes.”

      Dressed and just finishing the braiding of her hair, Morainn joined Walin at the small table set out in the main room of the cottage. Seeing the bread, cheese, and apples upon the table, she smiled at Walin, acknowledging a job well done. She poured them each a tankard of cider and then sat down on the little bench facing his across the scarred wooden table.

      “Did ye have a bad dream?” Walin asked as he handed Morainn an apple to cut up for him.

      “At first I thought it was a dream, but now I am certain it was a vision, another one about that mon with the mismatched eyes.” She carefully set the apple on a wooden plate and sliced it for Walin.

      “Ye have a lot about him, dinnae ye.”

      “It seems so. ’Tis verra odd. I dinnae ken who he is and have ne’er seen such a mon. And, if this vision is true, I dinnae think I e’er will.”

      “Why?” Walin accepted the plate of sliced apple and immediately began to eat.

      “Because this time I saw a verra angry gray-eyed mon holding a sword to his throat.”

      “But didnae ye say that your visions are of things to come? Mayhap he isnae dead yet. Mayhap ye are supposed to find him and warn him.”

      Morainn considered that possibility for a moment and then shook her head. “Nay, I think not. Neither heart nor mind urges me to do that. If that were what I was meant to do, I would feel the urge to go out right now and hunt him down. And I would have been given some clue as to where he is.”

      “Oh. So we will soon see the mon whose eyes dinnae match?”

      “Aye, I do believe we will.”

      “Weel that will be interesting.”

      She smiled and turned her attention to the need to fill her very empty stomach. If the man with the mismatched eyes showed up at her door, it would indeed be interesting. It could also be dangerous. She could not allow herself to forget that death stalked him. Her visions told her he was innocent of those deaths, but there was some connection between him and them. It was as if each thing he touched died in bleeding agony. She certainly did not wish to become a part of that swirling mass of blood she always saw around his feet. Unfortunately she did not believe that fate would give her any chance to avoid meeting the man. All she could do was pray that when he rapped upon her door he did not still have death seated upon his shoulder.

      Chapter 2

      “Do ye intend to be my judge and executioner, Simon?”

      Tormand watched as Simon struggled to gain some semblance of the calm and sanity he was so well known for. Despite how badly it stung to think that, even for one brief moment, Simon could believe that he could do such a thing to Clara, to any woman, Tormand could understand what prodded the man. Any man of honor would be horrified by what had been done to Clara and would ache to make someone pay for the crime. The brief insanity that could grip a man upon seeing such dark brutality easily explained why finding Tormand’s ring clutched in Clara’s hand would bring Simon to Tormand’s door in a blind fury. The fact that Simon had not immediately killed him told Tormand there was some doubt stirring behind Simon’s shock and fury.

      “Why was she clutching your ring?” Simon demanded.

      “I СКАЧАТЬ