Reluctant (Heroes of the Highlands) (The MacKays #3) Read Free

glances.
    There she would find the Laird of Shadows.
    And there she would end him.
    Kamdyn paused at the entry to the tent, which faced the trees rather than the camp. Becoming corporeal, she adjusted the thin straps of her diaphanous blue robes and hesitated.
    Though it was early October, large, soft flakes of snow began to drift slowly to the highland trees and grasses. Not a storm, more a warning that winter approached. At the appearance of the lazy, feathered swirls, a feeling of lost desolation reached out to her. It drifted about the camp, not unlike the snowflakes, leaving none untouched.
    Kamdyn watched the pillagers with new eyes. She’d expected evil. She’d expected the kind of violent, selfish brutality that Angus and his men displayed when they’d burned her and her sisters alive.
    But she felt none of that from the surrounding men. She felt… Need. Raw, pure, unfulfilled desires. Some so intense and soul-searing, they choked her. The need for love. For acceptance. For food, for blood, revenge, sex, dominance. Some of the men who laughed the loudest were the most empty.
    And the emptiness seemed to concentrate at one particular point.
    His tent. It was like a chasm. Indeed, they called him the Laird of Shadows, but there had to be light in order to create shadow, didn’t there? And in his tent, she could feel none. To her Banshee senses, whatever that tent sheltered was like a gaping wound, nay, like scorched and salted earth. Desolate. Insatiable.
    Clenching her fists in preparation, she needlessly filled her lungs with chilly air, and nodded to herself. His name was Soren, and he needed to die. Wasn’t that what the Nordic Berserker had said? He’d done terrible things. Killed innocent people. Destroyed livelihoods and homes, and would continue to do so unless she put a stop to it.
    Right, then. She squared her shoulders. Time for the Laird of Shadows to face the Reaper—er—Banshee. She thrust aside the flap of the tent and plunged inside.
    The hiss of a dagger flying end over end warned her the moment before it imbedded to the hilt just below her rib cage.
    Kamdyn let out a shocked cry at the sharp pain. It was more a sound of outrage than anything. Her hands went to where the dirk penetrated her skin.
    The Berskerker had a double-sided axe in his hand before he leapt from the pallet of furs on the floor.
    He was incredibly massive. He was also incredibly naked.
    A lone candle flickered at the far edge of the tent on a table strewn with the leavings of a devoured supper. Its flame flared brighter and reflected in the ice-blue eyes that mirrored astonishment back at her.
    For a speechless moment, their gazes clashed and held. But Kamdyn couldn’t stop her eyes from darting glances at all the foreign parts of him displayed by the dancing candlelight.
    Laird of Shadows, indeed. For there were shadows created by the deep grooves and swells of sculpted brawn stretching taut over his thick frame. And there were shadows lurking in his deep-set eyes as they latched onto the hilt of his blade still protruding from her middle.
    “You are—a girl,” he accused her in a deep, rumbling Nordic accent.
    Apparently, brilliance wasn’t on the list of dangerous aspects of the Laird of Shadows.
    His brutal face was condemning as he again lifted his eyes to hers. His axe lowered and then clattered to the earth as he dropped it. “I thought you were—I do not keep girls in the camp.”
    “I am a woman .” She absurdly felt compelled to correct him while trying not to rudely stare at his nudity. Her eyes rested on the torque that encircled the swell of his bicep. “Well, I’m a Faerie. A Banshee. But I was a woman. Once. Not that I’m not now. A female, that is. Not a… woman.” Kamdyn scowled and squeezed her eyes shut. This was rapidly deteriorating. They hadn’t amply prepared her for this. Hadn’t told her that the villain would have the sculpted features of Eros and the body of a barbarian god.
    “And