The McKinnon Read online

  Table of Contents

  Acknowledgements

  The Book Shelf

  Disclaimer and E:Mail

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Chapter 97

  Chapter 98

  Chapter 99

  Chapter 100

  Chapter 101

  Chapter 102

  Chapter 103

  Chapter 104

  Chapter 105

  Chapter 106

  Chapter 107

  Chapter 108

  Epilogue

  Feedback & Thank You

  Acknowledgements

  I would be remiss in failing to mention those in my life who had faith in my dream.

  Laurie, Jodi, Alethia, Mary Beth and Katherine –You ladies are the best.

  To my Husband - Thank you for supporting my vision and being my partner through life.

  The Book Shelf

  Titles by Ranay James

  Coming to E-Reader near you

  The McKinnon Legends

  Book One - The McKinnon The Beginning - Nic

  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009Q78PQO

  Book Two - Unfinished Business - Connor

  Book Three - Shades of Grace - Cullen

  Book Four - Of Purest Blood - Gage

  Book Five - The Missing One - Decklyn

  Book Six - A Whisper In The Dark - Robert

  Book Seven - Armed and Dangerous - Mason

  Book Eight - Bones of Contention - Josh

  Vampires Of Nirvana :

  Part One - The Descendants Of Cain

  Book One - Apartment 42 - Slade

  Book Two - The Queen's Heart - Chase

  Book Three - A Garden For Eden - Micah

  Book Four - Second Son of Cain - Asher

  Part Two - The Queen's Enforcers

  Book Five - Guarding Anna' - Cade

  Book Six - Jade's Paradox - Alexander

  Part Three - The Dark Avengers

  Book Seven - The Reluctant Queen - Garrick

  Book Eight - Blood So Sweet - Garrick

  Book Nine - The Beast Within - Maddox

  Disclaimer and E:Mail

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying , recording or by any information storage and retrieval system.

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

  Cover art by:

  http://bookcoverartist.com

  Contact the Author:

  E-Mail: [email protected]

  The Mckinnon The Beginning

  The McKinnon Legends

  Book I

  By

  Ranay James

  Prologue

  Christmas Eve

  1486

  “Wake, child! Run! Run, Morgan, go!”

  Morgan heard the frantic voice of her mother as if yanked by a physical force from a deep and dreamless sleep. Already the fire was spreading at an alarming speed. Toxic black smoke was so thick she could hardly see the hand in front of her face and labored just to breath as the fingers of death reached for her, wrapping around her legs in a certain death grip.

  “Run!” She heard the voice, again.

  “Mother!” she screamed as the ceiling began to collapse around her. “Rhiannon? John? James?” She called for her younger brothers and sister as she crawled along the stone floor. They had been sleeping in the same bed with her, but now were nowhere that she could see. The flames were gaining ground, licking at her gown, and embers singed her hair as she found the chamber door.

  “Turn right, Morgan and run as fast as you can.”

  She unflinchingly followed her mother’s voice.

  Morgan ran down the hallway then traversed the stone stairs. The heat was so intense that the stone burned the tender skin of the bottom of her feet, yet she was heedless of the pain.

  “Turn left, now!” her mother’s voice demanded her.

  Morgan instantly obeyed, finding herself only a few feet from the main entry door. Flames completely engulfed the opening in a deadly inferno of burning wood and molten metal.

  “Trust me, Child. Go through that door.” Morgan felt rather than heard the voice in her head.

  Morgan’s sense of survival was almost too strong to follow that demand from her mother’s voice.

  “Trust me, go! There will be a way provided. Go or die!”

  Morgan took a leap of faith. Bounding over the last three steps of the staircase, she made a running dash for that flaming door. Only feet from the massive blaze, the door baring her exit fell, crashing outward as a massive beam fell from the ceiling. This unburned beam was the bridge she needed as she dashed out of the massive gap left from the missing entryway.

  Out into the night, Morgan ran through the snow in her bare feet until she could no longer feel the searing heat. Turning to look back, she called to her family, screaming at the top of her lungs, forcing her voice to rise above the roar of the firestorm.

  Had her family survived? She s
aw no one in the outer bailey as she ran through the outer gates trying to escape the fire that was rapidly spreading to all the outbuildings and stables. It was as if the whole of the castle was deserted and she was the only living soul.

  She saw her father stumbled out of the castle carrying her mother and relief flooded her. She ran to him where he had fallen to the ground, burned and dying.

  “Mamma, Papa, oh God, somebody help them!” she cried, looking around for any hope of assistance for the father she adored and the mother she loved beyond life itself. There was no help for either of them as she watched her adored father take his last breath holding his beloved Duchess whom he had died to save.

  His efforts had been in vain.

  Alison Pembridge, Sixth Duchess of Seabridge, fought the hands of death pulling her into the spirit world. She had one thing she had to do before leaving this physical earth behind her.

  “Morgan, listen to me.” Alison struggled to speak past the pain and damage to her lungs from the searing flames. “I love you, heart of my heart.”

  “Mamma, save your strength. You will be fine. I’ll make you better, I promise. Just don’t die, please. I’ll take good care of you.”

  Morgan’s young mind could not fathom what was actually happening. Her brain was not allowing her to see this for what it was. Alison knew that. Reality would find her lovely daughter soon enough.

  Alison also had foreseen this night long before she had married the dashing and charismatic Morgan James Pembridge, Sixth Duke of Seabridge. She could not change things or stop the hands of fate. She had tried to spare her children the pain of what this night had brought to them all. As a mother, she had failed. Destiny had brought them here, regardless of her efforts to change the flow of time and how this event would unfold. It simply had been out of her control to stop the hands of fate.

  She had also foreseen other events, and she had to pass onto her daughter what she could while there was still time.

  “Listen to me, child. You must be strong. You're now the Seventh Duchess of Seabridge. It is your destiny, and the path ahead will make you strong if you do not let him kill you. Only you can find the inner strength to survive, Morgan. Take heart, the great sorrow will pass and great triumph will follow. Remember the contract I showed you?”

  Morgan nodded as tears streamed, cutting a clear path down her soot-covered face.

  “Do not forget it, Morgan, and just as you heard my voice tonight, know I will always be there to guide you in time of greatest crisis. I…love…you.” Alison’s hand fell away from her daughter's face.

  “Mamma? Mamma!” Thirteen-year-old Morgan watched as the light went out of her mother’s emerald green eyes.

  Morgan screamed as her Uncle Lester Brentwood picked her up and carried her away from her parents’ bodies.

  “No! Put me down! Let me go!” She fought him as she saw a man dragging her father further from the flames. Brentwood needed indisputable proof his step-brother, wife, and children were dead.

  “Morgan, listen to me. They are gone! They are all gone except you and me.” Lester watched as the remainder of his home went up in flames. Morgan was too distraught to notice that a wagon, a covered carriage, and several horses were already ready to leave. “I’m taking you home to Seabridge. Then I will go to King Henry. As your father’s only brother, I am your only living relative, Morgan. You are now my responsibility.”

  Morgan was numb. She had suffered the greatest loss a child could experience, but she clung to her mother’s words. “I will guide you in times of crisis.”

  Morgan could feel her mother near as she folded herself up into a ball on the uncomfortable seat of that carriage and allowed her mind to go blank.

  This would be the first of many times in the next seven years she would retreat into herself out of self-preservation.

  To survive, one does what one has to.

  For Morgan it was to become a way of life.

  Chapter 1

  Seabridge Castle

  England

  Spring 1493

  It had been over seven years since that fateful Christmas Eve. Morgan, now a young woman of twenty, stood taking a deep breath for courage.

  “You can do this,” Morgan whispered, her words disappearing into the darkness of the hidden passageway.

  “You must do this, my child.” Her mother’s voice came back, echoing softly on the drafty air.

  In spite of the damp and chill lingering in the midnight air, Morgan found herself wiping away a bead of sweat inching its way down her temple. Escape was her focus, and having planned this moment of escape for years, she knew with utter certainty, it was now or never. She was not about to let a little thing like fear keep her from obtaining the one thing she had not had in seven years.

  Freedom.

  She could smell freedom. She tasted it on the stale and salty air as it bubbled up from the depths of the castle.

  Her uncle, in deed, returned her to Seabridge after the death of her family. However, her uncle had seen that she remained here, too, locked away, tormented, and abused. His subjects were too afraid of him to help her. Morgan was held a virtual slave in a castle, simply too isolated for anyone to even realize she was a prisoner in her own home, beaten, starved, and alone in her torment.

  “You can do this, heart of my heart.” The soft encouragement of her mother’s ghost answered her trepidation. She closed her eyes against the blackness that would lead her to the damp bowels of the castle. Plunging behind the secret door of the tower room, Morgan quickly felt for the lever. To her way of thinking this door was a feat of engineering, as was the whole castle. The massive stone moved almost without a sound, the door closing behind. The stone upon stone was barely heard as the tattered tapestry she dropped back in front of the passage muffled the resonance.

  Now committed, there was no going back.

  Sheer willpower and determination propelled her through narrow passageways that some long ago ancestor had been insightful enough to build. It was a means of escape, hidden behind the walls of the room where she was a virtual prisoner. Over the years, she had discovered many such passages throughout the castle.

  By sheer luck she found the doorway five years earlier when necessity had driven her to pull the tapestry off the wall to wrap around her for warmth. Remembering the day clearly, Morgan was shivering, huddled against the opposite wall, and it had taken her several days to see the door. Hours each day, her total attention was transfixed on the bare stone. To her eyes, something did not seem quite right and then it had revealed itself. One moment she was looking at bare stone and then, almost as if by magic, it registered in her mind what she was seeing. Instantly, she sprang to her feet, flinging the moldy tapestry behind her. Hope spurred her to find the key to opening this hidden door to freedom. Fearing someone else would see it, she hung the tapestry back. She never removed it again, no matter how cold she had gotten.

  In the years following that grand discovery, Morgan cleared the cobwebs, dust and remains of long dead rodents along its length. She needed a clear and unobstructed path between the two walls, which were so close, had she been a man she would have to turn sideways to traverse the path.

  Picking up the items that she had managed to collect on her nightly excursions, she dug through the pack. Finding the trousers, shirt, and knife, she carefully placed each item soundlessly on the passage floor. Slipping off the ragged dress, Morgan quickly redressed, using the ragged scraps of her dress as under garments to bind her breasts. With no one to care or help to tend her needs, there was no opportunity for a haircut. In seven years her hair had grown past her waist. She knew it had to go. It was crucial to her disguise as a poor stable boy.

  The knife sliced freely through the long braid. The weight of it transferring from her head to her hand felt like freedom.

  Placing the severed tresses into a sack once used for seed, she prayed the confinement would keep any of the long dark strands from inadvertently making their way under th
e opening and giving away the existence of the door. If she had to abort this escape attempt, she needed to ensure her secret was safe. Not that she had a reasonable explanation for how she cut her hair without having a weapon should she have to return unsuccessful in this attempt. Tying a knot in the top of the sack, she placed it to the side, leaving it behind, along with any remaining self-doubt.

  From this point to the next, Morgan would be in complete darkness, knowing that each of the chambers had slits in the walls for secret viewing. She could not risk someone seeing a light source shining through the walls alerting someone to her presence.

  It was neither here nor there, she thought. She did not need the light, knowing intimately every passageway with her eyes closed.

  When she began to venture out over five years ago, there had been several narrow escapes. Almost immediately, tales began to circulate of certain parts of the castle being haunted with the spirit of her long-dead mother. Many servants came forward claiming to have seen the ghost of the Sixth Duchess wandering the castle at night searching for her dead children. Some had gone as far as to say the Duchess had spoken to them through the walls.

  Her uncle had dismissed all this as the ranting of the ignorant. Morgan had taken full advantage. Knowing none of the superstitious folk would venture to the places they thought to be haunted bought her time to roam the castle freely. Morgan smiled at the thought giving her courage. The only ghost wandering the corridors of Seabridge was herself, and she had no intentions of dying anytime soon.

  She moved slowly, feeling her way along the passage, careful not to give her presence away to the occupants in the chambers just inches away. Step by agonizing step, Morgan kept her breathing even and silent just as she had practiced.

  Inching her way closer to her first destination, Morgan felt for the latch located at the top of the door. This passage exited into the study, opening less than two feet from the desk that had once belonged to her father.