Reluctant (Heroes of the Highlands) (The MacKays #3) (8 page)

“You may use your scream, but aside from that you may not kill humans.” The queen was very firm on this point. Banshees were already under intense scrutiny of the Fae Council of queens due to the last sovereign’s behavior.

“Allow me to march with you.” Soren stepped forward, his fists clenching and his eyes flashing with anticipation. “I will bring my men.”

Tah Liah seemed to consider. “It would have no bearing on the outcome of the pact. You are still marked for death.”

“Consider the relic I gave you a gesture of good faith.” Soren shrugged. “If I do not fall in battle, kill me once the Sutherlands are defeated.”

Once the Sutherlands were defeated? So arrogant. Kamdyn’s eyes burned. Despite herself, she loved his superior audacity. “You would fight for my Clan?”

He gave her a haughty, impatient look and then reached for his armor.

Dressed in the colors of earth and leather that set the russet undertones of his dark hair ablaze, he looked exactly like what he was. A ruthless, violent Berserker who’d fought and won battles that would have crushed a lesser man.

Plucking his gigantic axe from its perch, he swung it to a jaunty angle on his shoulder with one hand and held the other out to her. “Come on, little Banshee.” He gave her a brilliant smile, the first she’d seen grace his grim mouth. Kamdyn came to understand that Soren’s smile was the most terrifying thing about him. If the Devil, that Prince of Darkness, ever smiled, it would be exactly like the one the Laird of Shadows was giving her now. Full of teeth, eagerness, and the promise of blood. “Let us go and slaughter your enemies.”

Chapter Eleven

“Absolutely not!” Rory thundered. “What in the name of the Gods possessed ye to bring these—these land pirates to Strathnaver!”

“Watch your tone with her, Highlander.” Soren said in a low, quiet growl.

“I doona care if ye’re the bloody Laird of Shadows, I’ll still take yer head and mount it on my battlements.”

“Not if your battlements belong to the Sutherlands.” The Berserker’s caustic, unperturbed smirk was doing little to help things.

“Um, actually…” Kamdyn stepped between the men and put a staying hand on Soren’s chest piece. “They were already camped at the Naver Forest, not a half-day’s march from here. It wasn’t anything at all to bring them here to
help
.”

The MacKay had been driven up against Ben Loyal and the Sutherlands were loath to break upon the mountain, so they stood at an impasse, hurling insults and arrows at each other, each Laird frantically strategizing. Soren had brought his men around the north side of the mountain, and they stood at the ready. The Berserker and his trusted general of sorts, a rangy Monroe named Murdock, had boldly marched across the line to meet with the Laird.

“Ye mean to say they were hiding on MacKay lands?” the Laird roared, then turned on Kamdyn and jabbed a finger at her. “I thought ye were supposed to kill this man. Katriona would have jolted him to the moon by now. We canna afford to make enemies of the MacLauchlan’s, as well.”

Soren grabbed the burly Laird by the neck and all the surrounding MacKay men drew their swords. Murdock did the same, falling back to shoulder with Soren. “She will keep her word, after I keep mine to defeat her enemies. But point that finger at her again, and you’ll lose the hand before I go,” the Berserker promised in a lethally quiet voice.

Daroch, who brandished his sword at the Berserker but watched the exchange with sharp and mighty interest, gave a few shocked curses in his ancient language. The tattoo crawling toward his left eye crinkled as he narrowed a discerning gaze leveled mostly at Kamdyn. “There’s something between the two of ye.”

Kamdyn could feel a guilty flush crawl up her neck. “Now’s not really the time,” she evaded. “Not when we have a battle to fight. Soren, put him down.”

The Laird’s feet touched the earth and everyone seemed to breathe again.

“My men will have no one to lead them when I am gone,” Soren spoke to the Laird conversationally, as though he hadn’t just threatened dismemberment. “The Banshee thought you might have need of them, so I give them to you with their word to be loyal.”

“What need have I for blackguards and criminals?” Rory snarled.

Kamdyn seized the arm of her brother-in-law and pointed him toward the band of two hundred and fifty men wearing an air of restless bloodlust rather than Clan colors. “Look at them, Rory. They’re
here
, prepared to fight for you, to swear fealty to you as their Laird if you’ll have them.” Her desperation on their behalf surprised even her. But defeat wasn’t an option. Kamdyn was first and foremost a MacKay, and she’d do what she could to protect her Clan. If that meant by these unorthodox means, then so be it.

Rory rolled his sinewy shoulders and ran a hand through hair bronzed lighter by years in the sun. “Ye doona ken the position ye put me in, wee one,” he said more gently. “These men, they willna be welcome in my Clan after the wrongs they’ve done. Not only because of me, but because of the people they’ve sinned against.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Kamdyn argued. “If they fight next to MacKay today, I believe that will be a start. They’ll bleed for you, Rory, some of them will die only for the
promise
of a Clan and a name. Imagine their loyalty once you’ve given them one.”

The Laird MacKay was known and respected for his practicality and fair-mindedness and Daroch for his faultless logic. They looked out over the men assembled at the base of the mountain, backlit by a grey autumn sky. Some of their faces were hopeful. Young. Others older and more cynical. Their sins shone like defiance in their eyes and were carried as different weights on each shoulder. But they awaited their fates out of earshot, next to a force many times greater than them, their weapons down.

“They’d have to return what they’ve taken,” Daroch said, ignoring the quelling look from Rory.

“Done,” Soren agreed with a nod of finality.

The two MacKay men, who’d become as close as brothers over the years, held silent court with their eyes. Daroch threw his head toward the Sutherland horde. They were advancing again, splitting their forces around the mountain, making a move to flank and divide the MacKays.

“And make public amends for their crimes,” Rory gritted out.

Murdock stepped forward. “All those who followed us here have already agreed to that per the Laird of Shadows’s wee Banshee’s request.” He dropped to his knee before the Laird. “We’ve given our word.”

“We’ll see if that means anything.” Rory pinched the bridge of his nose. “Gods save me from battlefield promises.”

“Only time can prove us true,” Murdock said wisely.

With a short nod, Daroch turned to Kamdyn with a brow raised. “The Laird of Shadows’s wee Banshee?”

“Let’s kill some Sutherlands, shall we?” Kamdyn said with forced brightness. “The day’s light is wasting.” She marched toward the approaching army, towing a gigantic, ambling Berserker in her wake.

Chapter Twelve

Soren was glad Kamdyn did not fight. Though the magic in her hands was as deadly as his entire army, the pacts between Faerie and human could not be usurped, even by Clan loyalty. Besides, his little Banshee’s hands were not made for killing. They were gentle. They were kind. Her scream, however,
that
could do plenty. Sutherlands melted before it, clutching their heads as though to keep the blood inside. And still, she’d killed no one. Not directly.

He
would be her sword.
He
would be her wrath. He was the shadow of death awaiting the sentence from her soft lips, and once she gave it, his execution was swift and merciless.

The Sutherlands would remember their defeat at
Druin na Coub
for a thousand years at least. And though his name would morph over the centuries, it would be the Laird of Shadows who’d defeated them.

Splitting their forces had been the Sutherlands’ gravest mistake, for they found an extra two hundred and fifty fresh and bloodthirsty warriors at the head of the MacKay army to the north. To the south, they fell beneath the Laird MacKay’s smaller faction due to some ingenious explosive accelerant crafted by a brilliant Druid, paired with a Banshee’s keen, and the axe of one Berserker who thoroughly enjoyed his blood-soaked vocation.

Soren’s final gift to his mate was the safety of her Clan. The word would spread that the mighty Laird MacKay not only had four thousand men left, even after the battle was over, but a Berserker protecting them, as well.

When the last of the Sutherland forces fell or fled, Soren saw that Kamdyn’s predictions proved wise. A number of his men hadn’t survived the day, but those that did joined the post-battle frenzy with the air of brotherhood only shared by those who’d bled next to each other.

Soren was satisfied by this, surprised to discover the depth of his anxiety for the future of his men only after that future had been somewhat secured. The fates worked in strange ways, he supposed, and pointed his boots toward his own short-lived destiny.

His blood was high, pounding through his veins with all the feral intensity of his past Berserker rage, but with a new abject clarity.

He found his mate surveying the battlefield with the surprising satisfaction of a warrior. Her hair caught fire as the clouds gave way to afternoon sunlight.

“One last time,” he murmured in her ear when he came up behind her.

Her response was instant and ecstatic.

They escaped to the Kyle with their preternatural speed. Their hurried and frigid bath was made too long by their inability to separate their ravenous mouths for more than a handful of moments.

Soren didn’t lose his frenzied sense of heart-pounding, gut-wrenching, almost fear-inducing need until he had her splayed naked in the grass beneath him. He was very glad she was an immortal, for he’d be afraid to break her with the strength of his passion otherwise.

This time, it wasn’t just her legs he wanted wrapped around him, but her arms, her lips, her very soul. Soren had given her everything. Would still give more. But he wanted something from her before she put him in the ground. He wanted to take a piece of her heart with him to the afterlife.

He couldn’t bring himself to ask for it. He didn’t know the words, in her language or in his. Instead, he busied his tongue in other ways that kept either of them from talking. He claimed her mouth, worshiped her breasts, and nipped a trail of alternating kisses and nibbles down to the womanly flesh he most craved.

Splaying his fingers on each of her slim thighs, he spread them wide, settling his shoulders between them. She was so delicate. So small and soft. As Soren dipped his head to kiss her intimately, he gloried in her gasps of delight. In the demanding little fingers she threaded in his hair. She tasted of salt and musk and insatiable desire. Her pliant flesh parted for his tongue, the bud of her pleasure nestled and waiting for him to pay it heed.

To be cruel, he danced around it. Using his lips and tongue to torture her to the zenith of yearning need, only to deny her when her body tensed in the anticipation of her release.

“Soren.” His name became a demand. Her fingers gripping and pulling at his hair with insistent pressure. His smile curled against her glistening sex as he looked up over her mound, the quivering muscles of her belly, and through the narrow valley of her breasts. The look in her eyes would follow him into the eternities. The sweetness had vanished. The charming naiveté gave way to a new creature. This one as primitive and selfish as he.

He wanted to meet this creature. Wanted to mate with her, as well.

“Do not make me beg,” she warned in a voice that was too husky with sex to be stern.

His chuckle vibrated against her, causing her to dig her heels into the soft ground as her entire body tensed and trembled. Before his mouth drove her to a long and loud final release, she’d not only begged for it, she’d pled, entreated, and beseeched.

***

Finally able to breathe, Kamdyn adjusted her exhausted legs as her Berserker beast crawled up her body with predatory grace. He left slick kisses on her belly, on her ribs, her breasts, and in the hollow of her throat.

In such a short time, he’d become her world. She was aware of the fragrant Scottish earth beneath her and the rare blue autumn sky above. In between existed only him, only them, pressed so close together that she’d thought they’d melded into one form of pleasure and flesh even before he sank inside her welcoming body.

Though a storm of frenzy raged within her, she was grateful that his movements within her were torturously slow. The same storm turned his eyes from the color of ice to the color of an angry sea as they locked onto hers. She felt every slick, heavy inch of his length as he pressed it in and retracted. His hips were the only part of them that moved, the rest clutched in an embrace that each feared to break.

When she could no longer stand the open, naked emotion in his eyes, Kamdyn buried her face in his neck and buried her fingers in the flesh of his back and shoulders. She undulated beneath him, not only opening her body to him, but her heart, her soul.

Neither of them said a word. They communicated in thrusts and moans and the short, curious noises exclusive to love-making. When she felt the web of nerves threading through her moist flesh begin to sizzle and pulse, she fought her release. She willed it to die, needing him for longer.

Forever.

But her traitorous body pulled taut and a ragged warning cry accompanied the first clenching, unparalleled sensation. His large, strong hand clamped over her mouth before she realized that her screams of pleasure had become a Banshee keen. Her muscles locked as the storm broke upon her in wave after wave of dizzying, crippling ecstasy.

He followed her into that place, his movements becoming shorter, stronger. The pulses wracking the whole length of him until he curled over her, uncovering her mouth to replace his hand with his lips.

She tasted herself on him but didn’t care. His kiss was the sweetest, most lovely thing she could readily imagine. Even after the storm passed, they stayed like that for an eternal moment. Their hands caressed and explored the other’s face as though to commit it to memory, only punctuated by languorous kisses.