Read Online Yuletide Enchantment by Sophie Renwick - Free Book Online

night.”
    “Why?” she asked in a breathless whisper, her heart beating madly in her chest.
    “Because I have loved you for many years, Isobel, and have only been waiting until the right moment to reveal myself.”
    “And why is this the right time?”
    “I could not bear to see you married to another. Not when I want you as my wife.”
    Isobel swallowed hard. He was everything she had dreamed of in a husband. He loved her, he was considerate and passionate. There would be pleasure with him. But even if she could bring herself to believe his story, what future could there be for them? He was magical. And she was a mortal without any special powers. She could never have him for her husband, not really.
    He must have known what she was thinking, because he reached for her and brought her into his arms. “I have taken your virginity, Isobel. That makes you mine. That is the way of mortals, isn’t it?”
    “No, it is not. I am the Earl of St. Clair’s. The contract is already drawn up. There is nothing that can stop it.”
    With a growl, he pulled away from her, his eyes black. “Do you think a mere mortal can stop me from having you? I am stronger and smarter than any human. My magic knows no bounds. Nothing could stop me from keeping you here, with me.”
    “No,” she cried. She was well afraid now, afraid of being trapped in something she did not understand.
    “You’re mine,” he raged, reaching for her hands. “And a Sidhe never gives up what is rightfully his.”
    “I am no pawn, Daegan, for either man or Sidhe.”
    “You’re bound to me, not by magic, Isobel, but by love. Only allow yourself to admit the truth.”
    “It can never be, Daegan. I’m sorry!”
    “Isobel!” he cried, reaching for her but clutching only thin air. She seemed to be floating away, and the last thing she saw was Daegan on his knees calling for her to come back.
    With a jolt, she awakened in her own bed. The dawn was breaking, the sun an orange disc rising slowly above the white clouds.
    She was awake. Alone. Dressed, she realized, in her nightgown and wrapper. The remnants of her dream came back to her, and she realized that her breasts felt swollen and her thighs were stiff, as if she had been in the saddle too long. And then she saw it. The small, circular red stain on her nightgown, and knew her night with Daegan was no dream. It had been real. She had given her virginity to an immortal who could never be hers.
    She cried then, her feelings finally unguarded. What was she to do now? How would she explain her loss of virginity to St. Clair?
    Even as she thought it, she knew she could not marry the earl. As strange and as impossible as it sounded, she loved Daegan. How had it happened? She barely knew him—no, that wasn’t the truth. Somehow she had felt him as a presence in her life these past years.
    Lying down, she snuggled her cheek into the pillow and sniffled away the last of her tears. Sunlight crept in through her bed curtains, illuminating the clan pin that lay on the empty pillow beside her. Daegan had enchanted her pin. He’d told her that the spell would bring her back to the forest—to Annwyn—night after night. The pin was the link to him, the spell that drew her.
    Jumping up, Isobel snatched the pin from the pillow and shoved it to the back of a drawer in her wardrobe. She would forget about the pin. Would never touch it again. Putting it out of mind would free her from the spell, and Daegan’s hold. For she needed to break the hold he had over her. They could never really be together. A mortal and a Sidhe? No, it would never work.

    “I saw the white hart this morning,” St. Clair announced at supper that evening.
    “The beast is still alive, is it?” Ewan grumbled.
    “Strange, to be sure,” the earl murmured. “The animal stood his ground with me, again. I may have imagined it, but the beastie appeared to be challenging me.”
    “What’s this about a white hart?” her father asked as he rested