Reluctant (Heroes of the Highlands) (The MacKays #3) (9 page)

Eventually, Soren rolled to his back and pulled her to rest against his chest. His other arm bent behind to support his neck. He yawned like a big cat and blinked down at her upturned face.

“You’re still not…afraid?” she asked once more, placing her hand on his chest.

“Of course not, little Banshee,” he said, pulling her closer. “I already told you that.” And proved his point by promptly falling asleep.

Kamdyn lie in the warmth of his arms for a long time, her hand pressed to where she could feel the strong, sure beat of his heart beneath her palm. Any moment, a quick and lethal bolt could leave her skin and enter his, stopping that heart forever. Gasping, Kamdyn pulled her hand back as though his flesh had burned her. His muscles twitched, but he remained relaxed, his eyes closed and breaths even. It was her fault he was so exhausted. She’d kept him awake most of the night. He’d Berserked at least three times in the past day, once to fight and win an entire Clan battle. Despite his unparalleled strength, he was still for all intents and purposes a human.

Kamdyn smiled a little. He was so unapologetically
alive
. How could he not fear death? She was terrified of it. Not her own, of course, but of his.

He couldn’t leave her. Not now. Not when she’d begun to—to what? Love him? Logic still insisted that such a thing was impossible in so short a time. But he’d professed the emotion for her in such a way that made complete and unfathomable sense. She had a feeling that lifetimes wouldn’t contain the experiences she wanted to share with him. Even though he was a marauding criminal, at his core he was an incredibly decent man. If only she could be given the time to nurture that part of him. But their time had run out, and if she didn’t kill him now, the consequences would be intense and far-reaching, and not just for her. For her family and Clan.

“I can’t,” she whispered, curling her deadly hands into fists. “I
have
fallen for you, and now I’m at a loss for what to do. If it’s not me, it’ll be some other Banshee she sends... But I can’t bring myself to—” Gods, she couldn’t even bring herself to say the words anymore. She just knew she couldn’t kill him.

“Even though you’re a massive, arrogant, and violent brute. You’re
my
massive, arrogant, and violent brute and I plan to keep you. Even after everything you’ve done. I accept it. I accept you, all of you, for all that you are. And I’m going to do what I can to get you out of this so you can right your wrongs. So you can make it better, and leave a legacy that is separate from the Laird of Shadows.” Her fist clutched tighter. “I swear it.”

Chapter Thirteen

Soren had wanted her heart, and she’d given it to him while he fought through the fog of sleep, and then she’d promptly disappeared. It was enough. She’d accepted him, without being told what it meant. Without fanfare or ceremony, she’d accepted him and it was all he had needed for the Berserker mating to be complete.

He wanted to do all the things that would make him great in her eyes. He wanted to build a legacy she would respect.

Now he was doing the only thing he could to prove to her that he’d changed. He could die without her. Soren didn’t struggle as Finn MacLauchlan and his brother Connor led him into their courtyard in chains. This was the one final thing he could give to Kamdyn. She didn’t have the heart to slay any man, let alone the one she loved. But Soren comprehended the dangerous consequences for her if the terms of the pact were not kept. So he did the one thing he could think of that would release her from all danger and distasteful responsibilities.

“I’m trying to decide if it was courage or recklessness that drove ye to show yer face at Castle Lachlan,” Laird Connor growled. “This is where we keep our mates, where we raise our wee ones.”

Soren didn’t correct the Laird. It was neither courage nor recklessness.

It was love.

He smiled to himself, admiring the sturdy castle with its lovely fountain and strong battlements. “It was pride,” he told them. “So best take my head and be done with it, then.”

Standing side by side as they were, Finn and Connor resembled a golden-hued angel and a dark satyr, but they intently studied Soren with identical green eyes.

“We heard about the battle at
Druin na Coub
,” Finn said. “What we can’t figure out is why you would fight for Clan MacKay against the Sutherlands when one of their own is contracted to slay you.”

Soren knew that news traveled with startling speed in the Highlands. Though he hadn’t expected it to travel faster than a Berserker. He’d just left
Druin na Coub
. “You sent a tiny girl to kill me because you couldn’t find me.” He shrugged, doing his best to keep his features blank and unaffected. “So here I stand, ready to give you a chance to regain your honor as men by doing the deed yourselves.”

Connor had a pole axe in his hand poised beneath Soren’s chin in the space of a breath, his eyes swirling black with barely leashed anger. Oh, to be a fully accepted, mated Berserker. The powers were, indeed, mighty and impressive. Soren only regretted he wouldn’t get the chance to fully explore them. His beast called for him to fight, and he nearly trembled with the control it took to allow the Laird’s contempt to go unanswered.

Finn put a staying hand on his half-brother’s arm, scrutinizing Soren through narrowed eyes.

“Ye are the only one here without honor,” the Laird snarled, then glanced at Finn. “He lies. I can sense it. I say we put him down.”

Finn shook his head, a curious frown drawing his flaxen brows together. “We sent the Banshee after him some time ago, and it’s still unclear
why
he’s alive.”

“What does it matter?” Connor asked.

“The
why
of it is simple,” Soren explained. “I didn’t want it to be known I was defeated by a tiny woman. Not an appropriate legacy for the Laird of Shadows.”

Finn leaned forward, his eyes boring into Soren’s with leashed meaning. “We
both
know it isn’t that simple.”

Soren bared his teeth. He was finished with this conversation. Every moment alive without his mate was like an eternity of torture. Every beat of his heart created new anxiety about her survival if she broke the terms of the pact. He had to goad them into finishing him. His death was the only way to ensure her safety.

“The years have made you soft, Finn the Bastard.” Soren arranged his features into the most mocking, condescending expression he could. He remembered the ferocity of Finn’s defiant eyes back at the temple, more than two decades ago. His lack of bloodline had made him a pariah among his own kind. He’d been fed with the dogs. Beaten regularly by the temple Elders. Shunned and mistreated by his own kind. He’d become one of the strongest, most fearsome Berserkers in their history. And they’d still sent him to kill his own Celtic half-brothers, or die.

Soren was younger than Finn. But he remembered the Gael’s disgrace, and wasn’t above using it to goad him to violence. “’Tis no matter. I imagine even you Highlanders can find the strength between the two of you to kill a man with his hands chained behind him who refuses to defend himself.”

Finn’s eyes flared with a shadow of his former rage, but he made no move against him.

“I could still kill ye if
ye
were armed and
my
hands were bound behind me, boy,” Connor threatened. “Or don’t ye remember the battle we fought all those years ago? The slaughter we wrought upon countless other Berserkers? Our only mistake was letting ye survive.”

Soren lunged toward the pole axe, and was astounded when Connor pulled it safely away from his flesh. “Here’s your chance to correct that mistake,” he urged. “End me here and keep your precious Highlands safe from me.”

Finn shook his head, folding stubborn, massive arms over MacLauchlan colors. “First, I want to know
why
you showed up here, asking for death but not a fight. You are not the Soren Neilson I remember.”

“You look good in a Highland tartan,” Soren sneered again at the handsome, golden-haired Berserker who shared his native tongue and half his heritage. “You’re lucky your brothers let you wear their colors even though your mother was just one of their father’s discarded whores.”

The moment Finn’s temper overwhelmed his curiosity and his eyes swirled with onyx and wrath, a very small figure dashed from the doorway.

“Soren!” To his complete and unfailing shock, Kamdyn stood in front of him, her curly head barely reaching his chest and her arms flung wide in a protective stance. Soren would have laughed at the preposterousness of it all had he not been so astounded to see her there. “How could you
say
something so hateful?” She glared over her slim shoulder at him with unreserved censure.

“What are you
doing
here?” he demanded. He’d thought to protect her from his death, not have his executioners step around her wee body to cleave him in half. Blood would stain her new pretty Fae robes.

Again.

“He’s
very
sorry he said that,” she addressed the two irate Berserkers, all the while standing in front of him.

“I am
not
sorry,” he argued.

Her heel stomped down on his foot with such force he suppressed a wince.

A third dark-haired MacLauchlan brother appeared in the doorway and they blinked from her to him in unison, their shock only somewhat less apparent than his own.

“Ye were just telling us, wee Banshee, that he’d reformed his ways and deserved for the pact to be rescinded.” The newcomer, Roderick, lifted an unconvinced eyebrow.

“Aye…” Kamdyn cast another scathing look over her shoulder, but kept a solicitous smile fixed on her mouth for the sake of the scowling brothers. “Um… you see…”

“I
see
that he’s the devious, criminal despot his reputation charges him to be, and he deserves to die screaming,” Connor’s gaze lit with a blood-thirsty gleam.

It all made sense to Soren now. His little Banshee had come to plead his case to the men who’d ordered his death. Finn’s reluctance to end his life stemmed from the fact his very own assassin hadn’t wanted to kill him. If such a sweet and decent lady could find forgiveness for his sins, perhaps he deserved to be heard. She’d been trying to save his life. And he’d gone and cocked it up by trying to save her.

“But he was all
alone
.” Kamdyn had found her voice and employed it still on his behalf. “He organized others who were alone and abandoned, because it was what he knew how to do. My lords, I know they were misguided, but given a chance—”

“Misguided?” Connor said slowly, as though he couldn’t believe the word. “Is that what I tell the children who are cold because of the villages he burned? Or the Highland widows of those who dared stand against his marauders? Do pardon that ye have to waste the time to rebuild ye’re homes, ye’re lives, but forgive this Berserker, he was alone and
misguided
.”

“I understand, Laird.” Though he couldn’t see her face, Soren could hear the tears and desperation building in Kamdyn’s voice. “I also thought thus when I was dispatched to take his life. But I feel that he can find a place among us. Reparations will be made on his behalf and… he’s given back all the property he took and pledged his men in defense of the Highlands. They’ve already saved more innocent lives than they’ve taken and they promise to evermore.”

“It’s not enough.” Finn’s eyes were hard now, unforgiving.

Mouth twisting in an ironic smile, Soren nudged her. Just when he’d thought he couldn’t love her any more than he already did. He should have expected she would attempt the impossible. “They’re right, my little Banshee,” he murmured. “How could I find forgiveness if someone had so wronged you? There would be none. So have I done to their people and they are right to claim their justice.”

“Bloody Christ on the cross.” A horrified, awe-stricken look seized the features of the MacLauchlan laird. “Ye’ve
mated
with yer Banshee assassin.”

***

Kamdyn’s body tensed and she could feel heat crawling up her neck. “I don’t see how what we did last night has anything to do with this discussion.”

“Have ye accepted him, lass?” Connor asked, eyeing her like her answer may mean the difference between life and death.

“Of course I did—I
do
.” She took a protective step back toward Soren and bumped up against his unerringly solid chest. “Else why would I be here, trying to save his life?”

Two of the three Berserkers seemed to be wracked with indecision. Roderick and Finn both wore inscrutable expressions, but Kamdyn could read the turmoil in their emotional signatures. Their Laird remained provoked and angry. She could feel the love of his people mixing with the pressure to protect and avenge them. He was a good man with a bad temper, and that combination might prove to be the death of hope for her.

“Mated? That certainly changes things, doesn’t it?” A husky, feminine brogue preceded a lovely ebony-haired woman into the courtyard. She wore the circlet of a chieftain’s woman though she looked rather young to be mated to a Berserker who’d nearly met the century mark.

“Lindsay, I told ye to remain inside until this was dealt with,” Connor barked at the woman.

Lindsay waved an elegant, dismissive hand at her surly husband and regarded Soren and Kamdyn with keen amethyst eyes. “Since when have I ever done what you tell me to?”

“Woman, this wee lass could decimate our entire household with her little finger if she had a mind, and I doona like that fact combined with yer sharp tongue.” Connor’s words were delivered with more concern than severity, and his wife’s smile only widened.

“Oh! No. No. No. I would
never
!” Kamdyn put out a hand and belatedly realized that might not have been the best gesture, but the lady didn’t so much as flinch.

Lindsay also strategically placed herself in between the MacLauchlan Berserkers and Soren and Kamdyn, smoothing the front of her fine dress and smiling as though receiving important guests.