Only With A Highlander by Janet Chapman

Author:Janet Chapman [Chapman, Janet]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-04-10T04:00:00+00:00

Winter blinked in amazement. She slid off Snowball and walked toward the pine, unable to look away from the pulsing trunk. Stepping through the thick pile of leaves, she slowly reached out and touched it.

She gasped, pulling her hand away at the realization that it was alive, that she had felt its weak spark of life struggling to surface. Without questioning why, driven by some unfathomable yet urgent need, Winter stepped up to the tree, wrapped her arms around it, and lay her cheek against the cold, rough bark.

A rainbow of colors immediately swirled through the air. Her arms and fingers tingled and her ears roared at the sound of pitch moving along the trunk’s veins. With her chest pressed into the rough bark, Winter felt the pine’s energy slowly shifting…until it finally matched the steady rhythm of her own pounding heart.

A calmness settled over Winter, both the internal and external storms receding, the swirling colors slowly fading away until only the purity of white remained. A loud caw came from above, and Winter looked up to see a plump black crow perched on one of the pine’s remaining branches over her head.

Winter’s knees buckled and she slid to the ground. She sat curled at the base of the tree, hugging the trunk as tightly as she could, feeling TarStone’s vast store of energy moving through her. In her mind’s eye she saw roots stretching deep into fissures that spidered through the mountain’s granite.

The trunk she was hugging expanded and receded with billowing breaths as the vital energy flowed up from the mountain and into the tree.

The crow gave another high-pitched caw, and Winter looked up to see it lift off the branch and flap skyward. It caught the wind and soared over the swaying treetops of the forest, disappearing into the dark, churning storm clouds.

Winter slowly straightened away from the pine, blinking in confusion. What had just happened?

Had she actually become one with Daar’s pine? Could she really have felt its pulse as strongly as she felt her own?

Yes, that’s exactly what had happened, and Winter finally understood the true scope of her gift, as well as the very real threat Cùram de Gairn posed. For even though she knew the pine would live for months yet, she had also seen its eventual death—arriving on the chill wind of utter hopelessness.

Chapter Fifteen

T he clouds had thickened and lowered by the time Winter crossed Bear Brook and entered the high meadow, the wind blowing at gale force and a wet snow falling with blinding intensity. Though she was wet to the skin and miserably cold, the closer Winter got to Matt’s cozy little cave the calmer she became. Despite all her questions and confusion, she was confident she could figure out a way to lure Cùram into the open for Robbie.

But what was she going to do about Matt while she dealt with the magic? How could she keep such a powerful secret from him? She couldn’t say when it

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