Haunting Warrior by Erin Quinn

Author:Erin Quinn [Quinn, Erin]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: PENGUIN group
Published: 2010-03-28T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty

SARAID felt the shift in the air and recognized it for what it was even before she came awake. Someone was coming. Someone not of this world. Would it be Colleen of the Ballagh again? Returning to finally answer the questions that had plagued Saraid since her first visit?

Slowly she sat up, realizing as she glanced at Ruairi, that it was only her dream-self who moved. Her body still lay sleeping in the circle of his arms.

Her face looked peaceful, secure in sleep. Sure that this man she barely knew—this man who had kissed her until she had no awareness of time or place—would protect her. He was awake, as he’d promised, though he looked tired. He scanned the woods around them, ever vigilant.

She stood, leaving her slumbering self behind, and Ruairi’s head suddenly turned and he stared right at her. For a moment she froze, watching his gaze shift back and forth from her corporeal body to the ethereal one that stood beside it.

He could see her. The realization frightened her at the same time it brought a queer sense of comfort. Ruairi could see her. She wasn’t alone.

She heard her name called from somewhere deep in the forest and she turned to it, wanting to deny the summons even as she heeded it. Surprised, she realized that she didn’t want to leave Ruairi behind, that somewhere, sometime in this long arc of sun to moon, she’d begun to feel safe with him.

But the dead did not like to wait, and so she forced herself forward, carefully picking her way through the underbrush, compelled to keep moving through the bracken and thorns that tore at her gown. She looked back at Ruairi and found him scanning the woods, searching for her. Most likely thinking he’d imagined seeing her step from her body and move into the forest.

Around her the thick trunks of oak and elm crowded close, heavy branches jostling to touch her and tear at her clothes. In the heart of the Dark Forest, Cathán had cleared hundreds of trees to build his fortress, but he’d left the surrounding woods to act as sentries. His men were known to be agile climbers, and they trained to use the forest as an ally when they fought. The strategy had proven effective.

Saraid hesitated now as the glimmer of moonlight vanished beneath the impenetrable wall of bough and leaf. Ahead a wraithlike form separated from the gloom, and she held her breath as it slowly took shape. There was a head, a torso, arms thick and corded, barrel chest, legs. As the features of his face filled in, she clenched her eyes and prayed it would not be one of her own brothers.

When she looked again, a man stood before her. He was older than her brothers, older than many of the men who had survived Cathán’s attacks, bigger and stronger than any of the elders. A stranger, then. That surprised her even as relief tingled through her limbs.

The dead

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