Reluctant (Heroes of the Highlands) (The MacKays #3) by Kerrigan Byrne Page A

their eyes and bracketed hard mouths, yet did little to belie the incomparable strength the years still afforded each man on the unofficial council standing before her and the queen.
    “We have tried,” Laird Connor interjected. “But he is disturbingly elusive.” He rubbed a hand over his close-cropped hair. “The people of the Highlands are starting to call him ‘ The Laird of Shadows .’ It is said he has an ancient Fae relic that protects him from scrying magic.”
    Kamdyn felt her attention drifting. Each man in this room was disturbingly handsome. The MacLauchlan brothers all dressed in their blue, red, and green tartans that accentuated their burnished skin and matching green eyes. Laird Rory MacKay and the Druid Daroch, who’d taken the name of MacKay after marrying her sister, Kylah, each folded heavy, tattooed arms over their blue, green and gold tartans, their intense eyes watching the exchange between Berserker and Banshee with measured interest.
    She tried not to wriggle and fidget. Talk of death and retribution bored her. Lord knew in the twenty years she’d spent as the handmaiden to the Banshee Queen she’d heard her fill, but the abundant amount of muscled male flesh in front of her was enough to wrest her attentions away from the conversation.
    For some reason, she’d become very aware of her virginity. She felt as though she wanted to evoke fantasies about the men present, but in her innocence, she couldn’t really do them justice.
    Contrary to myth, Faeries were very private regarding sexual matters and, though Kamdyn had been invited to partake in what transpired behind their closed doors, she’d never had the courage to do so. Nor the desire. Faerie men, though beautiful, tended to be somewhat androgynous and held little appeal to her at all. They were nothing like the feast of rampant masculinity before her. For the first time in years, her body stirred and her interest snagged where it was absolutely inappropriate to do so. Mouths. Shoulders. Thighs. The flex of a forearm or the length of strong fingers. These mythic warriors of Freya were certainly a different, arresting breed of man, and they piqued her curiosity.
    “My mate, Evelyn, is a seer,” the one called Roderick said in his thick brogue. He had long, black hair and a cruel brow over very kind green eyes. “She told us that if one of us were to hunt this Laird of Shadows , a Berserker would die before his time.”
    Finn nodded, rolling his muscled shoulders and allowing his hand to rest on the hilt of his broadsword. “Not one of us is willing to leave our women widows, or our children without fathers. But we cannot allow this Berserker to go on terrorizing the Highlands.”
    “I thought those blessed by the Gods couldna be killed by Banshees,” Laird MacKay interjected.
    “No’ the Celtic Gods,” Roderick explained. “But there’s no such rule about the Gods of the North.”
    “Years ago, a similar delegation was charged between the MacLauchlans and the MacKay.” Laird Connor turned and tossed a bag full of coin to Laird Rory, who caught it with a swift hand. Their eyes locked and held. “We knew yer Clan had the ear of the Banshee Queen, and this time, it is us who require the taking of a life.”
    Kamdyn’s ears pricked to the meaning in their words. Every person in this room had their fates altered by the other. Even her. She and her sisters had been brutally burned alive by Laird Rory’s violent brother, Angus. Roderick MacLauchlan had defeated Rory and Angus’s traitor father at the battle of Harlaw. Rory had hired the Berserker Laird, Connor, to kill Angus, who had become betrothed to Connor’s mate. Kamdyn and her sisters had been turned Banshees to reap their own vengeance upon Angus, but Connor’s blade was too swift. Though denied their revenge by the Berserkers, the two eldest Banshee sisters, Katriona and Kylah, were able to find their loves and reclaim their mortality through Rory and Daroch. Daroch