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Beyond the Highland Myst(783)

By:Highlander


What Life Was Like Among Druids and High Kings. New York: Time Life Books, 1998.





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ABOUT THE AUTHOR



KAREN MARIE MONING graduated from Purdue University with a bachelor’s degree in Society & Law. Her novels, which have appeared on the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists, have won numerous awards, including the prestigious RITA Award. She can be reached at www.karenmoning.com.



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DELL BOOKS BY KAREN MARIE MONING



Beyond the Highland Mist

To Tame a Highland Warrior

The Highlander’s Touch

Kiss of the Highlander

The Dark Highlander

The Immortal Highlander





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SPELL OF THE HIGHLANDER

A Delacorte Book / September 2005



Published by

Bantam Dell

A Division of Random House, Inc.

New York, New York



This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.



All rights reserved

Copyright © 2005 by Karen Marie Moning



Visit our website at

www.bantamdell.com



Delacorte Press is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.



Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Moning, Karen Marie.

Spell of the highlander / Karen Marie Moning.



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Into the Dreaming

Karen Marie Moning





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For my sister Laura, whose talent for shaping unformed clay extends to far more than that which can be fired in a kiln.

May your gardens ever bloom in lush profusion,

May your peach jam and pecan chicken always taste like heaven,

May the artistry inside your soul always find expression,

And may you always know how loved you are.




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His hard, wet body glistened in the moonlight as he emerged from the ocean. Brilliant eyes of stormy aquamarine met hers, and her heart raced.

He stood naked before her, the look in his eyes offering everything, promising eternity.

When he cupped one strong hand at the nape of her neck and drew her closer to receive his kiss, her lips parted on a sigh of dreamy anticipation.

His kiss was at first gentle, then as stormy as the man himself, for he was a man of deep secrets, a man of deeper passion, her Highlander.

One hand became two buried in her hair, one kiss became a second of fierce and fiery desire, then he swept her into his arms, raced up the castle steps, and carried her to his bedchamber…



Excerpted from the unpublished manuscript Highland Fire by Jane Sillee





One




928

Not quite Scotland



It was a land of shadows and ice.

Of gray. And grayer. And black.

Deep in the shadows lurked inhuman creatures, twisted of limb and hideous of countenance. Things one did well to avoid seeing.

Should the creatures enter the pale bars of what passed for light in the terrible place, they would die, painfully and slowly. As would he—the mortal Highlander imprisoned within columns of sickly light—should he succeed in breaking the chains that held him and seek escape through those terrifying shadows.

Jagged cliffs of ice towered above him. A frigid wind shrieked through dark labyrinthine canyons, bearing a susurrus of desolate voices and faint, hellish screams. No sun, no fair breeze of Scotland, no scent of heather penetrated his frozen, bleak hell.

He hated it. His very soul cringed at the horror of the place. He ached for the warmth of the sun on his face and hungered for the sweet crush of grass beneath his boots. He would have given years of his life for the surety of his stallion between his thighs and the solid weight of his claymore in his grip.

He dreamed—when he managed to escape the agony of his surroundings by retreating deep into his mind—of the blaze of a peat fire, scattered with sheaves of heather. Of a woman's warm, loving caresses. Of buttery, golden-crusted bread hot from the hearth. Simple things. Impossible things.

For the son of a Highland chieftain, who'd passed a score and ten in resplendent mountains and vales, five years was an intolerable sentence; an incarceration that would be withstood only by force of will, by careful nurturing of the light of hope within his heart.

But he was a strong man, with the royal blood of Scottish kings running hot and true in his veins. He would survive. He would return and reclaim his rightful place, woo and win a bonny lass with a tender heart and a tempestuous spirit like his mother, and fill the halls of Dun Haakon with the music of wee ones.

With such dreams, he withstood five years in the hellish wasteland.

Only to discover the dark king had deceived him.

His sentence had never been five years at all, but five fairy years: five hundred years in the land of shadow and ice.