Shadows of the Keeper Read Online Free Page A

the wrong side of the road!”
    “Cease your
bleating and fetch the wee lass water.” 
    Footsteps
neared. 
    “Ye’ can’t be
‘aven coffee just yet, milady.”
    Thick brogue
curled around her.  Milady ?  She dared peek.  Candlelight
poured onto her eyes.  A cozy room.  Heaven has waiting rooms ? 
Fire crackled, its embers glowing upon a polished dark wood floor.  Dark
floor.  Official.  I’m in Hell.  Everything in Heaven is
pristine white.  Explains my pounding skull.  Maybe they charred me
earlier and this is why my neck burns. Or I’ve been beaten with sin-sticks.
    Memory
tidal-waved.  She’d been in a car, reading a blasted map—car!  She
moaned again, pain in her head pressing. 
    “Here,
lass.”  A strong arm braced her back, the couch sagging deeply next to
her.  “Water.”
    She looked up
at the man, flinching against his sharp inhale.  “As bad as it feels?”
    “Yer’
eyes.  Lumyn—“
    He silenced,
holding a silver goblet against her lips.
    Allen nearly
clapped his hands.  “How many times have you sang ballads, expressing the
beauty of the other’s eyes, their odd color of gold?  I told you!  I
told you! It’s her !”
    “I doona sing,
spirit.”
    Emily squinted,
peering into a dark corner.  Swiveling her attention back up at her
cupbearer, pain knifed down her neck.  Squinching seemed to help. 
Pain subsided.  She peeked again at her couch mate.  He didn’t look like a demon, save for the scar running from temple to cheek, and tucking just
under his jaw.  Handsome.  Rugged.  Definitely a demon .  
And I’d know.   She tamped down memories of her ex-fiancé’s brutal
lessons of how evil lurked behind an attractive face. 
    Her current
nemesis weaved like a banner in the wind.  “Please, don’t move . . . so
much.  Vertigo.”  Or is he a viper preparing to strike ?
    “Lass,” he
frowned.  “I’m not movin’.  ‘Tis that knock to yer’ head ye’ suffered
when ye’ were driven off the road.”
    “Now, see
here!  I did not force her to crash.”
    Emily’s eyes
snapped to an area where someone should have been present to go along with that
voice.  “Did I total the car?”
    “Total?”
    “She means
damaged,” the faceless voice started.  “Destroyed, complete loss, never to
be used again, unfixable—“
    “I get the
point, mohn!” Her demon growled before returning his attention to her. 
“The car is, uh, totaled .”  He smiled apologetically.
    “Am I dead?”
    “Nay, lass,
verra much alive.”
    Rules out
Hell .  “I need a phone.  Have to—“
    “Doona’ have
one here, nor at the castle.”
    “Castle?”
    “Aye.”
    Emily’s brow
furrowed.  “I was trying to find my way to MacLarrin Castle.”
    “Confirmed! 
I told you—“
    The demon held
up his hand silencing the faceless voice.  “You were in search of the
MacLarrin?” 
    Emily didn’t
like his tone.  She liked his expression even less.  “My company is
looking into buying his castle.”  She winced.  Talking increased her
pain.  “I’m . . . supposed to take pictures . . . finalize the sale. 
Lost.  Tried reading a map.  Why are you glaring?”
    “The castle is
never, has never been for sale, milady.  Where did you get a notion like
that?”
    She avoided eye
contact.  “I believe it was part of a ruse to get rid of me.”  Shards
of pain shot through her skull.  “So my fiancé could marry his bitch.”
    “Your intended
plans to wed his hound?”
    Almost, Emily
laughed.  The most she could offer was a snort.  “A woman he’s been
with, and I was too stupid . . . to read the signs.”
    “Lass, lie
back.”  Garreck helped ease her back.  “Seems ye’ ‘ave escaped a
spineless bastard.   Right now, what ye’ need most is better aid than
borrowed magicks.”
    “What?”
    Her forehead
sported a brazen gash, the swelling grave.  Thank Danu, Garreck muttered
in Gaelic, she’d been unconscious when he’d reset her shoulder.