Page 37 of Secrets of the Highwayman (Immortal Warriors #2)

T he Sorceress strode through the great cathedral, enjoying the sense of space around her. Incense burned, flowers bloomed, and there was a deep ancient silence.

She smiled, congratulating herself. Everything had gone very well with her past two attempts at adjusting history, and she hoped for more success again.

She entered a white marble chapel, bleached by the light of many beeswax candles. The man in repose upon his tomb had once been called a giant among men—and his powerful arms and chest proclaimed him a warrior.

But Reynald de Mortimer had been far more than that.

With his white-blond hair and grey, almost colorless eyes, he was well named the Ghost. He was a brutal and powerful lord in the thirteenth century, and he’d had to be strong in mind and body to hold on to his lands despite all those who tried to take them from him. Yes, he was feared in his day, but even his enemies said of him that when the Ghost gave his word he kept it.

That was why it was so strange that he hadn’t kept his word the day he died. Afterward his lands had fallen into chaos, with people dying in the slaughter that seemed to go on endlessly up and down the Welsh borders. The Ghost could have prevented that if he had lived.

But this was his chance now to make amends, and the Sorceress had found a particularly interesting mortal to help him out. She smiled. Yes, there’d be some fireworks between them, but that was all part of their journey.

She held her hand over his face, not touching him, but close enough to feel the stir of his breath. There was an ugly scar on one side of his throat where someone had tried to kill him, though the rest of his face was unmarked. Handsome, but it did not look as if he smiled very much.

“Your chance has come, Ghost,” she murmured, and her voice caused the walls of the chapel to vibrate. She raised her arms and the heavy wolfskin cloak rose about her, the strands of her long red hair writhing like serpents around her face. She looked frightening, like a Welsh witch from the days of old.

She began to chant and the man on the tomb moved restlessly, as if he were fighting against some imaginary foe, and then his eyes sprang open. They were of the clearest, palest grey—almost the color of water. And he spoke one word.

“Run!”