Reluctant (Heroes of the Highlands) (The MacKays #3) (4 page)

“
Nie
, Kamdyn.” Though the sound of her name spoken with his strong, exotic tongue sent little chills through her, his deep, slow words suddenly carried the emptiness she’d felt before she’d entered his tent. It broke upon her like a wave of darkness, and sudden tears sprang to her eyes. “I could never hurt you now, even if I wanted.”

The way he’d worded that seemed odd, but she supposed this wasn’t his first language. In truth, she didn’t want to hurt him, either. She knew she should. But for the infamous Laird of Shadows, he didn’t seem all that unreasonable. Lethal? Certainly. Deadly? Of course. But he was at the very least curious and fascinating company. Kamdyn let out a gigantic deflating breath. She had to do this or she’d go down in history as the worst Banshee ever.

“I was told your name is Soren.” It was only good manners to finish the introductions, even with a savage. “Do you have a surname?”

“It was Neilson. But no one has used my name for decades.”

“I will,” Kamdyn offered. “A name is a very powerful thing. I shall call you Soren.”

More silence. Then, “Will you speak it after I am gone?”

She blinked up at him, expecting regret or vulnerability in his eyes. She found none. Only a morbid sort of curiosity. Was this man truly so fearless? “Of course,” she murmured at him. “Of
course
I will remember you.” She spoke truth. This man would live in her memory until the end of her days. His name would likely spring to her lips often, as would the memory of his kiss.

He broke eye contact first. “Who sent you after me, little Banshee? Do I not have the right to know who wants me dead?”

“Oh, absolutely
everyone
wants you dead.” Kamdyn blurted, hoping she sounded stern like her older sister Katriona could be when applying her well-used sharp tongue. Though she had a feeling she fell short of her mark. “You don’t do much to ingratiate yourself to people.”

He grunted. Then shrugged.

“But it was the Gaelic Berserkers who sought out my queen. Namely Fionngal MacLauchlan.”

“You’re telling me that Fionngal the Bastard and his two mated Berserker brothers sent
you
to spill my blood rather than claiming it themselves?” He sounded on the verge of laughter, but his implacable features never changed.

“Well, they couldn’t
find
you, for one thing. Also, I can kill you without spilling a drop of blood, which is a great deal less messy. Unless you
want
to bleed for sake of legacy and such, then I can make you bleed out of every orifice. We can discuss that later. Can I impose upon you to tear this for me?” She indicated the place where she needed the fabric separated from the rest of the bolt.

He took it from her hands, gripped the silk, and ripped it clean down the middle as though tearing a parchment.

Kamdyn’s brows shot up to her hairline. “Thank you.” She plucked it from him, trying not to be impressed at his strength. “Lift your arms, if you please.”

He complied, the engorged muscles at his sides flexing to create a most impressive V.

Kamdyn bit the inside of her cheek. Hard. “Right, then.” She cleared her throat. “Hold still and I’ll put this around you.”

He raised a russet eyebrow but remained otherwise motionless.

Preparing herself to touch his skin, she went to him and wrapped her arms around his impossibly thick trunk, meaning to hand herself the other corner of blue silk.

His scent suddenly flared thick in her nostrils. River and leather. His skin was warm, hairless, and smooth. Without thinking, she rubbed her cheek on the hard swell of his chest.

All the moisture abandoned her mouth and headed elsewhere.

A deep breath expanded his torso and a low growl rumbled in the chest next to her ear. “Kamdyn.” Her name had become a deep and tortured groan. “What are you doing?”

“Sorry.” She quickly grasped the corners of the silk and stepped away from him, the movement of her legs causing a delicious friction at the moistened flesh between them. “Slippery,” she explained as the held up the fabric, and winced at her choice of words.

His nostrils flared and his wicked features arranged themselves into what could only be called a predatory arrogance.

For the first time since meeting the Laird of Shadows, Kamdyn became inexplicably afraid. Swallowing around a lump in her throat, she wrapped the fabric around his waist and fumbled to secure it with a knot.

Stepping away from him, she inspected her work and frowned.

“Do I look sufficiently dignified for my death?” Soren asked wryly.

He looked like a god trying on his mistress’s skirt. “Decidedly not.” Kamdyn winced and couldn’t hold in a bubble of laughter.

He was staring at her again with that strange intensity. As though he couldn’t believe what he saw. He studied the small blood stain on the front of her robes as though it contained the answer to mysteries of the universe.

“We don’t bleed overmuch,” she explained. “Immortal and all that.”

He didn’t blink. Not for a long time.

Kamdyn sobered. “I’ll fix your wrap, I promise.” She reached for the knot and tried to make the fabric more like a tartan. Masculine and fine. “Are you afraid?” she whispered, before she could stop herself.

“What have I to fear?” His voice was so strong, so arrogant.

“Pain,” she said incredulously. “Death. Answering for your sins.” She absurdly wondered if there was an equivalent to hell for Berserkers, but thought it an inappropriate thing to inquire about, considering the circumstances.

Soren gave another of his nonchalant shrugs. A nearly indiscernible flex of his massive shoulder. “Who gets to decide what is sin?” Ice blue eyes bore down at her.

Kamdyn paused. It
was
an excellent question. Also, she loved the word on his lips. She supposed he was familiar with the concept. Comfortable with it. His existence was a sin, insolent, defiant, and very,
very
wicked.

“Death is inescapable.” He didn’t wait for her answer. “As is pain. So why fear it?”

Kamdyn had to look away. A tightness in her chest squeezed until she felt her ribs might collapse. “I promise I’ll be swift when I…I don’t
want
to cause you pain.” She finished the knot on her new handiwork, her vision too blurry to know if she’d done it right.

“No matter what, it will hurt. For more reasons than you will ever know.” A bleak and desperate ache shot through her and she knew it came from within him. Despite his bravado, the Laird of Shadows didn’t want to die. He’d be losing something he profoundly desired—treasured even— and that sense of loss stabbed at her more deeply than his dirk had only moments ago.

“I’m sorry, truly,” she whispered, a tear escaping down her cheek.

He reached out and grasped her chin, which had begun to wobble dangerously, and firmly lifted her gaze to face him.

“You’ve never killed a man, have you little Banshee?” he asked in disbelief, his eyes searching hers for answers to questions she couldn’t imagine.

“I’ve killed
plenty
of men,” she lied, pulling away from his grip and dashing at her cheeks. “Scores of them. Hundreds. I’m very old, you know.”

He looked at her askance. “Do you weep over them all? These
hundreds
of men.”

“Yes.” She knew her petulant tone made her sound younger, so she tried to arrange her features into something like his. Cool. Implacable. Deadly.

“I find I like being your first.” That infuriating smugness was back in his tone.

“I told you—”

“You’re a terrible liar, Kamdyn.” His accusation was softened by the first note of gentleness she’d ever heard from his lips.

It deflated her. “I know.” Her shoulders sagged and she returned to chewing on the inside of her cheek.

“Have you ever been fucked?”

The question paralyzed her. Did he just ask if she’d been—

“Fucked?” If a whisper could be shrill, hers would have been, but she could do little more than stare at him with what had to have been the most idiotic expression.

His eyes flared brilliantly blue at the word on her lips, along with the flame of the candle. A blaze of lust barraged her like the hot blast of a desert storm. It came from him, but it invaded her. Penetrated her until it had become a part of her own body. Her own need.

“You heard me.” He bent down until his face was flush with hers, a predatory triumph playing across his savage features. “I excite you, little Banshee. I can smell it.” His nostrils flared again as he filled his cavernous chest as though breathing in the truth of his words.

Kamdyn trembled, then turned her nose to her shoulder and gave a little surreptitious sniff. She couldn’t smell a thing, though she didn’t dare deny his statement. As they’d already established, she was a terrible liar. He
did
excite her, almost beyond bearing. He also repelled her and fascinated her. He was a villain, indeed the most dangerous marauding warlord to plague the Highlands since Angus MacKay.

Unhitching her knot, he let the blue silk fall from his body, uncovering the evidence of his matching excitement.

“Ye may have known a man, Kamdyn, but I’d bet my soul you’ve never been well and truly fucked.”

“I—um.” Kamdyn unabashedly stared at him in stark amazement, unable to tear her eyes from his masculine desire. What was it about Berserkers that turned her into a speechless idiot? It could be that the primal, possessive lust wafting from him called a powerful echo from her own flesh until she couldn’t differentiate from his masculine, dominant desire and her own dangerous feminine needs. She chewed on her cheek, frantically trying to formulate a response.

“What say you, little Banshee? Fuck me first. Then kill me.”

Chapter Six

Soren stood motionless as his tiny mate silently, blatantly stared at his aroused nakedness. Denial furrowed her delicate brow and doubt telegraphed through her crossed arms and the anxious chewing at her cheek.

But her nipples were hard. He could see them pressing against her robes. Her spine kept arching when she pressed her thighs together in answer to the renewed surges of her arousal that provoked him almost beyond his control.

Soren was many things, but he was first and foremost a predator, and all his instincts were held in a leashed poise, waiting for the exact moment in which to capture his prey.

She was his mate. The answer to every Berserker’s most fervent desire, and though she would not accept him as her man, as her own beast, she might accept his body for the night.

He was the Laird of Shadows. The night
belonged
to him, and every dark, shameful, deviant fantasy she’d ever harbored, he would fulfill.

And perhaps a few of his own before he left this world behind.

He only needed her consent.

“All right,” Kamdyn nodded, her eyes filled with an emerald storm.

“Say it,” he commanded through a mouth drawn so tight it’d gone numb.

“Soren? I—I—” His name trembled from her and need ripped through him with all the strength of a thousand sharp dirks, slashing his control to shreds.

“
Say it
,” he growled through his teeth.

Her lashes feathered over her cheeks as her delicate throat worked over a difficult swallow. Her color heightened until her peach-tinged skin turned a bright pink.

“Fuck me,” she whispered.

Her heated womanly aroma intensified along with the scent of her fear as he lunged for her. In a flash of feminine panic, she turned away as though to flee.

But there was no escaping him now.

Seizing her around the middle with one arm, he all but yanked her off her feet and pulled her against him. The curve of her sweet, round ass thrust against the insistent hardness of his cock, her soft thighs pillowing his hard ones.

With his other hand he cupped her jaw, and turned her face toward her right shoulder. “Kiss me, little Banshee,” he ordered.

Dropping his head, Soren tried his best not to devour her mouth this time, but to indulge in it. She was the first and last woman he’d ever kiss, and he found the act to be surprisingly sweet. He wanted to fuse their mouths together. To share her breath and give her life.

His life.

And he would, ere this night was over.

The first time his berserker had kissed her, she’d been pliant and submissive in his arms. This time, her hand snaked behind him to plunge into the hair at the nape of his neck and draw him deeper into her mouth. Her tongue met his with equal vigor and even launched a shy exploration of its own.

He swallowed her soft moan as her silk-covered bottom arched against his hips. He felt the unspoken invitation in the marrow of his bones.

A growl tore up his throat and vibrated in the kiss between them.

He didn’t break contact with her mouth as he walked forward, each step pumping his painfully hard cock against the cleft of her ass. The silky material of her thin Fae garment chafed his engorged flesh.

When they reached the table, he ripped his lips from hers and bent to clear it with a strong sweep of his arm.

What was left of his dinner and goblet hit the earth with a muffled
whump
and the candle’s flame doused before it reached the ground. Soren could re-light it with his fledgling Berserker magic if he wanted to, but he didn’t need the light to see her by, and in his lustful frenzy, he didn’t spare the consideration.

It was time to claim what belonged to him. This would be the first time of many this night. It would be primal and brutal and savage. He would brand her on the inside and out with his fingers, his cock, and his teeth.

He would leave marks. Reminders of his possession that would hopefully outlive him. Any men she’d had in the past would be erased. With any lovers she would take after his death, Soren would be there. In between her and the flesh of every other man would be
his
memory. In this way, he could achieve immortality.

***

Kamdyn couldn’t contain a ragged gasp when he finished tearing her robes down the back and jerked them from her body, and again when he bent over her, pressing her breasts into the cool wood of the table. In contrast, his giant body was warm against her back.