Free Insolent: The Moray Druids #1 (Highland Historical) by Kerrigan Byrne Page A

never worked with Malcolm, she wasn’t about to let it work now.
    “I am alone in this world, witch , is that what you wish to know?”
    “Druid,” she corrected, automatically. “But I, too, have a name. It’s Morgana, and you can address me as such.” She gentled her voice, trying to be conciliatory. “I wasn’t trying to ask you painful questions. I was just trying to get better acquainted with you.”
    “Well, don’t,” he barked. “There is nothing to acquaint yourself with. I kill people. That is who I am, that is what I do. Sometimes for money. Sometimes for survival. I go to war. I go to sleep. That is my life. I spill so much blood I bathe in it. I see it when I close my eyes. I took my first life the moment I came into this world, and I haven’t stopped since.”
    “Your mother?” Morgana ventured.
    The tightening of his jaw could have been a nod. It was too dark to be sure. Morgana was silent a moment, her heart bleeding over the emptiness emanating from him. It wasn’t pain. It wasn’t rage. It was… nothing. A fathomless, bleak, and yawning chasm devoid of all but a century of blood and loneliness.
    Was it possible for someone to be full of emptiness?
    “Bael, I—”
    “Don’t.” With a burst of speed, he made it impossible for them to talk as he barreled into the Lowlands of Scotland at an incomprehensible pace.
    They didn’t stop until they’d chased down a sea storm. Lightning boiled the clouds building over a distant peak, smelling of brine and heather and something like singed darkness.
    “I see a loch with a thick tree line.” He spoke for what seemed like the first time in ages. “We should rest there until we know what those clouds are going to do.”
    Morgana wondered which loch he referred to, but she couldn’t see a blasted thing with the clouds covering the moon. Though, something told her dawn would be upon them any moment. She could feel it in the mists, in the condensation of water on the blades of long grass. It smelled like home.
    Like the Highlands.
    He set her on her feet and she gripped his powerful arms in order to steady herself while she gained her bearings.
    “Stay here, I’m going to hunt,” Bael ordered.
    “Don’t leave,” she pressed fretfully, worried that she’d angered him enough that he might not come back.
    “I can’t run like that another day without food,” he said. “I’ll start a fire.” He left her, rustling around in the darkness for a time and then returning to where she stood, blindly following his movements with her hearing.
    “What do you have to start a fire with?” she asked, wishing she wasn’t so ineffectual with nothing on her person but a torn dress and a pair of ill-fitting boots.
    “You’re not the only one with magic, Princess.” Princess? Well, it was a good deal better than witch . She decided it was progress.
    A pyramid of logs flared and leapt with light, throwing deep shadows against the Berserker’s dark eyes and painting the chiseled planes of his figure in stark relief.
    Bemused, Morgana wandered toward the warmth of the flames blinking her surprise. “I had no idea you had fire magic,” she exclaimed, quite breathless. “What else can you do?”
    “This is the extent of it.” he motioned to the stack of wood. “We can create and extinguish a moderate flame, but rarely can a Berserker wield fire.”
    “What about water?” she asked, motioning to the loch, still a swath of darkness beyond the bank.
    He shrugged. “I know a Berserker or two who can summon mists, or work curses. But our magicks are more for survival and combat than anything.”
    “Fascinating!” Morgana exclaimed, lowering herself by the fire and resisting the temptation to take her hands from where they held her bodice together to hold out to the enticing warmth. “Tell me everything.”
    He looked at her askance, which she was pretty certain he’d been avoiding since their little interlude by the other loch, both mile and hours