A Highlander's Redemption (Highlands Ever After Book 1) by Aileen Adams

Author:Aileen Adams [Adams, Aileen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-06-20T16:00:00+00:00

15

Alasdair floated in vague darkness, desperately wanting to slip back into that deep, unfeeling, painless sleep and fight against the voice urging him ever upward into increased consciousness. The more that voice compelled him to wake up, to fight, the more pain surged through his body. Yet it was that very voice that touched the deepest part of him; a voice filled with emotion. He tried to ignore the pain, to focus on that voice, trying to please it, frowning with the effort.

“Alasdair, please, wake up. Ye must wake up!”

He felt something cool placed across his brow and grunted a sigh of relief as it eased the sensation of burning enveloping his body. Coupled with the pain, the heat had grown nearly unbearable. He longed to jump into a cool stream, perhaps even the waters of the lake next to his home—

Home. Everything came back in a flash. He struggled to open his eyes, fighting through the pain throbbing in his body, trying to connect with the voice. Cool hands cradled his cheeks; delicate hands, fingers slim yet sure. Another cool cloth now blotting his cheeks and moistening his lips. He turned his face toward it, greedy and wanting more. A featherlight touch of one of those fingers over his scar, then tracing the outline of his eyebrow, soft as the wings of a butterfly.

“Open yer eyes, Alasdair.”

Finally, through a great effort, every part of his body feeling heavy and stubborn, he managed to make his eyelids move. He opened them halfway, everything was blurry, shadowy, and undulating. He blinked once, then again, small movements that nevertheless took effort. One moment he saw a bright, reddish-orange color and then grays wavering in deeper shadows. He heard the rustle of fabric and sensed someone moving just above him. He forced himself to blink again, and each time he did, his surroundings became clearer. Beitris hovered over him, her brow wrinkled, dark circles under her eyes, gently stroking his brow. She stared unblinkingly down at him, as if through sheer will she could make him do her bidding. As her sightless eyes riveted to his own, he had an instantaneous, uncanny feeling that she could see him. Maybe only in her mind’s eye, but she saw him nevertheless. Her lips curved upward in a relieved, gentle smile.

“I knew ye’d wake up.”

She hovered so close that her breath brushed against his cheek. He grew increasingly aware, biting back the pain that continually and steadily throbbed through his body in time to his heartbeat. He realized he lay in a bed, in his bedroom, at the stone house. How had he gotten here? He couldn’t remember…

“Don’t try to move around too much,” Beitris cautioned. “Ye’ll work out the stitching I gave ye. On yer side.”

Stitches? She had given him stitches? How? How could she—

“Ye took a very nasty wound on the back of yer head, and I had to sew that up too. Luckily, the blade glanced off that hard skull of yers, but it left a deep gash.

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