Free Highland Sorcerer by Clover Autrey Page B

that served as a door
lifted. "I brought—get away from her!"
    Crouching his way in, Col shoved a
steaming bowl on the ground and lunged for them, pushing Charity
aside. "What did you do?"
    "Nothing," Charity squeaked.
    Gone was the baby faced Highlander. In
his place was an angry warrior focused entirely on her.
    "Peace, Col." Edeen pulled herself up.
"'Twas my doing. I sought answers through the lass's
memories."
    Col helped his sister up to lean
against him, still keeping a wary eye on Charity, though his
countenance softened considerably. "Ye should not have done it
without I or Shaw near. Ye know how it weakens ye."
    Edeen let out a dainty little snort.
"If Shaw knew what I'm about, he'd forbid it."
    A dark brow rose spuriously. Were all
the Limonts able to do that? "What are ye about?"
    Edeen twisted in his arms to better
look up at him. "Oh Col, I've seen the symbols Aldreth used. I can
get them off Toren. I know I can. We can free him."
    Charity narrowed her eyes. Had Edeen
been able to see more of the symbols than she had or was the girl
making a wild guess as to what the hidden parts of the markings
were? As though sensing her thoughts—empath, she probably was—Edeen
glanced at her, her mouth tightening.
    Col looked stunned. Charity didn't know
if he'd help them or be a hindrance by running off to tattle to
Shaw. She was sure they'd get no cooperation from that quarter.
She'd sized Shaw up as the kind who wouldn't budge when he believed
he was doing the right thing. And he'd made it clear that putting
the entire clan before Toren was the right thing.
    Maybe it was. She couldn't really fault
him. She just knew bone-deep that her right thing was saving Toren.
She'd known that the first time she'd healed him and even though
that blending of souls technically no longer existed, she had felt
it. Still felt it.
    "Ye're sure?" Col asked
Edeen.
    She nodded.
    Col stared at the leafy walls made of
branches. If she searched hard enough Charity was sure she'd see
the pistons of his mind rapid firing. "We'll need to slip out on my
watch while Shaw and the others sleep."
    Edeen's head bobbed and Charity bobbed
her own head right along with her.
    "We'll need a plan."
    "I have a plan. Have had one a long
time though Shaw would not hear it out." Edeen grinned, taking on
her role of being the older of the two.
    One of Col's eyes squinted. "Why does
yer expression strike the fear of the gods to my heart?"
     
     

Chapter
Thirteen
     
    Col's watch turned out to be the last
one before dawn. The light watch he called it. The easiest watch
usually assigned to him since his older brothers still treated him
as a child needful of protection rather than a protector in his own
right. His stiff bearing spoke of just what he thought of that
notion, the underlying rebelliousness evident in the toss of his
head. Charity had the feeling that if Edeen hadn't broached the
matter of them running off to save Toren, that Col would have done
it on his own anyhow.
    They slipped easily past the little
group of slumbering Highlanders that had been with Col and Shaw
when they’d first found her at the castle. They slept wrapped in
their long blanket-like plaids around the dying embers. On an
unconscious level, they were all probably accustomed to the thread
of Col's boots during the early watch and to the light steps of
Edeen as she preferred to wake before the men and perform her
morning ablutions in private. Though a few of the men stirred, none
fully awoke.
    Soon the three were in the forest,
walking in silence while they made their way down slope toward the
gray castle. By early afternoon, they came to the back of the
castle.
    Col led them around to the front of the
austere structure where there were, indeed, tall wooden gates and
several guards stationed out front and two more up in the round
towers to either side. The castle reminded Charity of what she
thought Sleeping Beauty's castle should look like, remote and
surrounded by a dense forest. All