Read an Excerpt

The Night Before The Wedding

Chapter One

A broken vow when peace was sworn,
The price shall be a daughter born
Of Farlan blood to wed our chief—
Each generation, no relief.

Mist rolled along the ground and clung to the stones of the castle like wraiths in the light of the half moon. Fires burned in the central courtyard, drums pounded, and pipes wailed as two clans gathered in silent distrust. One clan chief knelt on the ground, his head bent beneath the threat of a gleaming sword.

A frail old woman raised her hands to the skies, one hand clutching a dagger. The wind whipped up with a vengeance, sending the woman's garments flapping about her slender limbs. Her silvery hair danced and tangled like a living thing, though she never moved, never blinked. In a voice vibrating with the power of the Ancient Ones, she chanted.

The dagger is her mark of grief,
The girl who's born to wed our chief.
By eighteen years, the girl shall wed

Else madness comes and sees her dead.

Someone cried out. A young woman fell to her knees on the damp ground, gripping her upper arm as her red hair snapped madly around her. Her kindred rushed to her, and when they pried her hand away, they beheld an angry red mark on her skin, in the shape of a dagger.

The old woman didn't notice. She kept keening her words up to the skies, to the moon and the heavens and the powers that lived all around them.

Should MacBraedon break this pact
His clan shall suffer for this act.
Only the dagger will bring him sons;
Shouldhe wed another, there will be none.
When lightning flashes and stones run red,
When MacBraedon wakes Farlan from the dead,
Only in this darkest hour
Shall my words then lose their power.

Lightning crackled, singeing the earth nearby. Without even flinching, the old one thrust the dagger point-first into the ground at her feet, burying it to the hilt. The earth shuddered and thunder boomed, and with a harsh gasp, she crumpled to the ground like a discarded toy to lie panting, completely spent, her eyes still wide and dark with power as she gazed at the heavens.

Her clansmen rushed to her and lifted her fragile form from the ground. The mists swirled and danced, laughing in their silent way, and the world shimmered with magic.

Then he was there, stepping through the foggy tendrils as the scene with the old witch faded away, his shoulders broad and his muscled body bare but for the plaid that wound around him. His sun-kissed brown hair reached nearly to his shoulders, ragged yet masculine, emphasizing the strong bones of a warrior's face. Blue eyes appeared to look right at her, searing through all pretense to her very soul.

"Catherine," he said, reaching for her. "You are mine."

Catherine Depford jerked awake to find herself standing beside her empty bed, her palm extended as if to accept the clasp of another. With a cry, she covered her face with her hands.

Again. It had happened again.

This was the third time since her eighteenth birthday only a week ago. She dreamed of Scotland, over and over again, even though she had never been there.

Her body burned with unfamiliar hungers, puzzling and shameful. It was the man in the dream; he brought forth these shocking feelings. Just his presence, just knowing he was reaching for her. That he wanted her.

Even though the dream had faded, even in the cool anticipation of dawn, her body still throbbed.

Chilled, she moved closer to the low fire smoldering in the grate, limbs trembling with fatigue. And fear. But she dared not seek her bed again. If she slept, she might dream.

She sank down to her knees before the soft red glow of the hearth, folding her arms around her for security as much as for warmth. She had hoped and prayed that the Farlan curse would spare her. That her mother's words that horrible day had been false. But the evidence spoke to the contrary.

Dreams of a place she had never been—always the same dream, always the same man. Voices whispering to her on the wind, words and chanting no one else could hear. All those times she had found herself standing outside her father's London town house, staring to the north, with no memory of how she'd gotten there.

No, she had not been spared.

She closed her eyes, clenching her fingers around her upper arms, rocking gently to soothe her shattered nerves. Even now she could remember her mother, standing poised by the open window, the remnants of her bonds dangling from her wrists. Red hair—as blazing as Catherine's own—tangled and curled around her shoulders in unkempt disarray. Her blue eyes were wild, her smile broad and beautiful and terrifyingly wrong.

Her mother. Mad Glynis.

"You will see," Glynis had warned, shaking a finger at her six-year-old daughter as the servants burst into the room, frantic to recapture their escaped mistress. "You will see, daughter mine, on your eighteenth birthing day, when the curse of the Farlans falls upon you! You will see the hell I was forced to bear!"

"Mrs. Depford," called one of the servants, racing for her. "Please wait!"

"Eighteen," she hissed, eyes glittering. "The curse will come!"

Then she turned and leaped from the window onto the cobblestone street below.

Catherine remembered screaming, over and over again. And the softness of Mellie's bosom as the maid scooped the shocked child she had been into soothing arms, hiding her face so she could not see the window anymore. The smell of lemon that clung to Mellie, comforting and pure.

She opened her eyes now, looking around her room, seeking to dispel the memory. Her heart pounded, her fingers clenched so tightly around her arms that she could barely feel them anymore. Whispers lingered just beyond human hearing, drifting through her mind like phantoms.