Read Online Christina Phillips - [Forbidden 01] by Forbidden - Free Book Online

discover the bubbling resentment that festered. But she never had before. He was a master of deception, and this Druid had no reason to suspect him of anything less than absolute devotion.
    “Aeron.” She held out her wrinkled hand, and he took it and kissed the fragile skin, even as his senses recoiled from the touch of her skeletal fingers. “My dearest child. Come, sit with me and tell me what you see.”
    He sat beside her on the moss-covered log that once, long ago, had been a mighty oak. It reminded him how all great things could fall, no matter how powerful or revered.
    The old woman by his side was the most powerful and revered Druid in all Cymru. But her time was coming to an end. Aeron had seen her demise in a terrifying vision while still a child, a vision of such lucidity it had ensured his rapid elevation within the spiritual ranks.
    Yet even at the age of eight he had known better than to divulge the bloodied climax of that vision. The line between savior and murderer would have been too blurred to distinguish.
    “Druantia.” He extricated his fingers from her possessive hold under the pretext of clasping both hands around his hazel rod. “The situation beyond the sacred spiral grows more precarious by the day. Soon the invaders will have subdued all of Cymru in a fountain of blood.”
    Druantia didn’t answer and Aeron shot her a surreptitious glance from the corner of his eye. She often didn’t answer directly, a trait he found irritating when directed at him. He was no lowly acolyte. Nor even a highly respected Druid of distinction. His place in the hierarchy was second only to hers. As such, he deserved more respect from her.
    He deserved more respect from Carys.
    Her name scorched through his brain, temporarily obliterating the grove from his sight. Fucking Carys with her hypnotic eyes, hair spun from sunlight and impossibly independent nature.
    It was intolerable she continued to refuse him. Blood pounded against his temples, threatening his outward composure, and his hands gripped the holy hazel rod with compressed rage.
    He knew that soon she would submit. His visions foretold such sweet victory, and in such visceral detail, his cock thickened with anticipation even now.
    “And yet we will survive, Aeron.” Druantia’s voice, as fragile as a decaying autumn leaf, invaded his personal world.
    Curse the hag for still clinging to this life. By rights he should possess her coveted position, for his power deserved nothing less.
    Just as he deserved Carys. And he would possess both .
    “We will always prevail.” He bowed his head. Yes. They would prevail, for he would never allow their beliefs to die at the hands of the heathen invaders. But they would survive on his terms. And there was no place in his new world for decrepit old women and their ancient goddesses.
    “And yet Carys still denies you.”
    Aeron ground his back teeth together. Only Druantia would dare throw that in his face. “She’s still too young to know her own mind.”
    “On the contrary, my dearest child.” Druantia’s voice scraped along his raw nerve endings. “Carys knows her own mind very well. Don’t become disheartened, Aeron. The time will come when she sees you for what you truly are.”
    Her one and only master . The words drummed through his brain, pounded along his arteries, throbbed along the length of his erection. It took all of his considerable willpower to remain unmoving on the mossy log, when every particle wanted to roar his frustration to the heavens.
    “I trust you’re right, Druantia,” he said instead, bestowing a gracious smile as he imagined how easy it would be to snap her neck like the dried twig it was.
    Druantia stared at him from her age-glazed eyes. Eyes that always sent shivers of revulsion skittering along his spine. “The Morrigan is never wrong, my child,” she said softly. “She sees Carys is our future. And who better to share that future than you, Aeron? It is written in the