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

Arousal slammed into her with a wet and instant rush. All her life, she’d fantasized about being kissed like this. She’d been ashamed of her desires. Of her needs. She’d wanted to drive a man so mad with wanting that he couldn’t help himself. She’d wanted to be officially kissed. Thoroughly kissed. And she’d been murdered before she ever had the chance.

His arm allowed her to slowly drop a little, sliding down his body. His sex pulsed between them she could feel the heat of it even through her robes. It made her gasp, though her gasp seemed to resemble a moan and was swallowed by his lips.

It felt glorious to have her mouth ravaged like this. The beast savored her like a doomed man would his last meal, which, she supposed, he was.

Once her feet touched the ground, he released her hair. A ripping sound permeated the pleasure-drugged fog of her thoughts. Cool air kissed the skin of her back. If she didn’t act now she’d be as naked as him in a moment.

She wasn’t ready for that. Not with
him.
What was she doing? This man was a monster. A murderer! And she was allowing him to kiss her senseless.

Panicking, Kamdyn did the only thing she could think to do. She jolted him with her magic, dropping his giant body into an unceremonious heap on the earth.

***

Someone was saying his name. Which was odd because he no longer had one. But whoever called for him was distressed. Afraid.

His body hurt everywhere. It felt like someone had tried to rip his soul from him and his skin barely managed to fight them off and contain it.

Who would dare? He swam through a dark current to the front of his eyelids and willed them to open. He would gut the fucker and shove his entrails down his throat while he still lived.

Did the doomed villain now threaten whoever called for him? Did she need his protection?

He furrowed his brow. He protected no one who could not defend themselves. He didn’t have time for the weak. For the useless.

Soren. Soren, wake up. Please wake up.

He would protect
her
. The woman who belonged to that voice. He would protect her with his life. With his blood. With his beast. She belonged to him now.

He groaned. Where did these instincts hie from? They screamed through him with an intense ferocity. They were weak. They were soft and humiliating. He wanted rid of them.

Now.

Light exploded into his eye and he could feel his pupil contract. The only illumination came from a lone candle, but even it seemed too much.

“Soren, are you dead? Did I…already?”

His vision swam into focus. Maybe he had died, for never in his life would the angel crouched above him have reached for his face. She was small. Her features so perfectly delicate, he thought they might shatter if touched by a brute like himself.

His vision stung and blurred, reminding him to blink. He tried, but only one eye succeeded, because she held open the other lid with her finger.

“Oh! You’re alive. I’m so relieved.” Her lilting brogue conveyed pleasure with a voice made of equal parts sweetness and sunshine. Her hair was on fire. Wait.
Nie
, it was just the color of flames and piled on top of her head in a curly sort of disarray. He liked it, but it made him want to find what held it there and release her fire curls down her shoulders.

He scowled and tried to scrub his muddled mind clean of such strange and disconcerting thoughts.

She frowned back at him. The expression didn’t look like it belonged on a face such as hers. Clear, sea-green eyes, filled with concern, looked down at him from a face so pale, the pink patches of friction on the flesh around her mouth arrested his notice. He squinted at her moist, swollen lips. A memory tried to struggle to the surface of his murky vision.

The girl’s eyes widened and she let go of his eye to cover that soft mouth with her hand.

His scowl deepened and his eyes narrowed before he pushed himself from where he’d landed on the ground.

Once standing, he swayed a little, and the tiny girl popped up to steady him.

Not girl…
woman
. Her voice intruded on his thoughts, but she hadn’t spoken it aloud. Not this time.

What the fuck? He held his throbbing head. Was that his dagger on the ground? There was blood on it. Preparing himself to be taken by his Berserker, his addled wits couldn’t contain his astonishment when he simply—didn’t. A strange and unsettling feeling stirred inside of him, and he turned to the small girl.

“Did you see who attacked me?” he asked testily.

She looked startled. “Um…”

Useless. “What are you doing in my tent?” he demanded, stalling for enough time to recover his senses. He scanned the room for other intruders, but the night was silent and they were alone.

She released him with a sigh and looked down, hiding her face from his view.

He realized he didn’t like it when she did that. He reached into his memory. He’d taken a cold bath in the river, eaten two rabbits and a potato cake, then stripped and fallen asleep on his furs.

“I’m here to, well… that is to say… I’ve been
sent
here to…” She cleared her throat.

“Out with it,” he ordered, feeling his blood begin to flow again and settle at one place, in particular.

He looked down at his growing erection. This was her doing. He glared across at her.

She was looking down too, which made him harder.

“You’re here to deliver a message, to feed me or to fuck me, which is it?”

Her head snapped back up, a flame of intrigue sparking in her eyes. “That last one?” she breathed. Then shook her head as though to clear it.

Excellent. It was what he was hoping she’d say. He moved toward her and she instantly held up her hand to ward him off.

“No! No. That’s a lie. I’ve been sent here—to kill you.”

He paused. Then he snorted, which was the equivalent to an all-out fit of giggles for a man like him. Hadn’t she just stated her relief that he lived? “You will not kill me,” he informed her, crossing his arms.

She let out another sigh, this one full of sheepish regret. “I’m afraid I have to. There’s a contract, you see, and those are very binding. Papers were signed and everything.”

His eyes narrowed at her as he studied her lithe form, draped in all but transparent robes. She held the top layer, which he considered to be the most opaque, across her middle with one hand, as though hiding her ribs from him. Perhaps she was a bit daft. Maybe she’d wandered into his tent from the forest. He looked at her bare feet, smooth and unsullied by the earth.

“What papers?” he demanded. Maybe she could give him a clue as to who his enemy was and how he ended up on the ground.

Her nose crinkled, disturbing the light smattering of freckles across the bridge. “I’m ashamed to admit my mind wanders when the terms of the pact are read. They’re so boring. But the gist of it is, you’re a bad man who does terrible things and I’ve been sent to deliver your punishment.” She gave him a sad sort of smile, her eyes roving over his chest, his arms, his torso and lower. The tiny column of her throat worked over a swallow, and her pink tongue snaked out to lick her lips. “Which is death, if I didn’t mention that before.”

“You did.”

“Oh. Good,” she said in a distracted voice, still ogling his naked body with frank, curious appreciation.

A memory knocked at his skull, seeking entrance and finding none.

She’d called him Soren. By the name his father had given him, the one he’d not heard in a score of years, and barely then. The Berserkers at the temple didn’t call each other by name. They barely spoke at all.

“Answer this, you mad woman, who dared send you to punish me? Speak their names and I might spare your life.” Using the voice he saved for interrogating prisoners and commanding his band of men, he’d meant to strike terror in the woman. No one should be able to find him. He had the
Scáth bhfolach,
which protected him from his enemies. How could one slip of a girl do what entire Clan armies could not? And why didn’t she properly fear him? It was starting to get on his nerves.

The girl blinked and seemed to shake herself out of the daze she’d been in. Her eyes snapped with the green fire of a mythical Wyvern.

“
I’m
mad?” she stomped closer, poking a tiny finger at him. “
You
throw very sharp knives through perfectly nice women and then in the next moment you kiss them and threaten to
ravage
them. Are you telling me that’s the behavior of a
sane
individual?”

“Nice women?” he thundered. “Did you not just say you’re here to kill me?” Suddenly it felt as though someone skewered his temples with a hot poker. Her words unlocked scorching memories that barraged him with a searing pain. “I—kissed you?” He knew he had, his lips now burned with the sweet memory. He just couldn’t believe it. The pink skin around her lips had been caused by his roughly stubbled face. He liked the look on her. He wanted to mark her elsewhere. Her breasts. Her thighs. Her—

“That was the least of your sins.” The girl rolled her eyes. “But aye, you kissed me, rather vigorously, in fact.” She pressed her lips together, and glared at him disapprovingly, but the effect was ruined by the impish twinkle in her eyes.

He’d thrown his dagger right through her middle. His eyes flew to where she hid the blood in the folds of her robe. She’d pulled the knife from her body. He’d gone berserk.

I’m a Faerie. A Banshee.
Her voice drifted through his memory.

His Berserker had chosen a Banshee as his mate. He’d claimed her with a kiss, and she’d dropped him near death with the lethal power in her tiny fingers.

“Fuck the Gods,” he breathed.

She tisked at him. “I’d say now’s not the time to blaspheme against the Gods,” she gently censured. “Not when you’re about to meet them.”

A dry sound of bitter amusement worked its way up his throat. The Gods had fucked
him
time and time again. Why not threaten to return the favor? They were sodomizing his destiny even now. Finally sending him a mate who was bound to end his life.

Chapter Five

“Right, then.” Kamdyn glanced around the tent until her gaze snagged on his trunk. She wandered over to it, the warrior’s hot glare burning a hole into her back. When she crouched to open the lid, he was suddenly there, slamming it shut.

Kamdyn gasped. She hadn’t even seen him move. She didn’t dare look at him, as his hips were now at eye level.

“What are you doing?” he barked.

“I
was
getting you something to cover yourself with,” she informed the trunk.

He grunted. “If I wanted to cover myself, I’d be covered.”

Forgetting herself, she looked over at him. Squeaked. Then locked her eyes back on the trunk. He was so—big.

“I figured that a fearsome leader such as you wouldn’t want your men to find you dead
and
naked. I was trying to protect your dignity.”

He was silent a protracted moment, and Kamdyn was again blasted with a barrage of very confusing emotions. Or had
she
confused him? She really needed to get better at this.

“I have trews.” He pointed to a sodden pile of clothes tucked in a dark corner.

She frowned at them and threw him a very disapproving glare.

“Very well,” he said in a low voice, and took his hand from the trunk.

Kamdyn opened it again and looked inside. On the left, gold, silver, and jewels winked at her in the candlelight. Diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and the deepest sapphires the color of Soren’s eyes. She fingered the blue stones, inlaid into a silver pendant. He’d taken these things from someone else.

“I’m supposed to recover something from you and return it to my queen,” she admitted to him. “A relic.”

“The
Scáth bhfolach
,” he murmured.

“Aye.” She selected a bolt of very fine blue silk from the right side of the trunk and stood.

He was silent again.

When Kamdyn glanced up at him, he was looking down at her with the most peculiar expression. Like she was a problem he needed to solve.

She suddenly felt the absurd need to put him at ease. Just how did one do that when about to execute a fellow?

She glanced around. “Where would you like to… um… you know?”

“Die?” he said wryly.

She nodded and chewed the inside of her cheek, wishing like hell he hadn’t said the word.

“Do you want to lie down?” she pointed at the thick, plush pile of furs and pillows on the ground. “Would that be more comfortable?”

“
Nie
.” He crossed his arms again. “I’ll die standing, if it’s all the same to you.”

She should have expected that from one such as him. Nodding again, she unraveled the fabric, hoping she seemed like a capable and efficient executioner. What she needed was to take charge of the situation.

Seizing his hand, she pulled him toward the darkest corner of the tent away from his pallet, fire pit, and table with the candle. She liked the rasp of the calluses on his palm against her hand. It seemed that he wrapped his long fingers around hers in a gentle grip, but the thought was so ludicrous, Kamdyn decided she must have imagined it.

She positioned him near the corner and stepped back. Assessed his placement. Clucked her tongue. Then moved him to the left a little. She was starting to get used to his nakedness. To enjoy it. Which was why he needed to be covered.

“You’re being very cooperative, considering,” she praised him. “I must say, I’m pleasantly surprised you’re not fighting me.”

He chuffed. “Can I kill you, little Banshee?”

“I’m afraid not.” She cast him an apologetic glance from under her lashes and returned to measuring out a few yards of silk, trying not to stare at the width of his shoulders, or the fascinating cut of the muscles at his hips that led down to his—

“My name is Kamdyn,” she blurted, feeling as though he should know the name of his executioner. “And I suppose you
could
hurt me, if you wanted. Would that make things easier for you?”