Reclaimed (A Highland Historical Trilogy) (The MacKay Banshees 1-3) (13 page)

Wet gurgles escaped Albert’s opened throat, but his skewered hand blocked the spray of any blood.

Rory let him drop to the stones.

Katriona felt physical pain for the first time in nigh on a year. Her shoulder and the side of her head throbbed from impact as she pushed herself from the stones. Holding her hand to her forehead, she groaned and accomplished a somewhat steady sitting position.

The first thing she registered was Rory standing proud and victorious over the treacherous Albert’s dead body. At her sound, he spun to her, the gentle, umber eyes she’d come to love had been replaced with hard, sinister intent. He stormed to her with long, predatory strides, seized her by the shoulders in a bruising grip, and dragged her to her feet.

“Rory!” she cried. “You’re alive!” Thank the Gods. He was her living, breathing miracle and now they could be together.

“Aye,” he hissed. “And I’m deciding whether to kill my first woman with my bare hands or to let my clan burn ye alive.”

Fear sliced through her. “Rory! It’s
me
, Katriona.”

He shook her roughly, doing no good for her already pounding head. “Ye have no right to even
speak
that name to me, witch!” He shoved her toward the door.

“Look at me!” she cried. “My love,
please
, look at me.”

He jerked her toward him, snarling down at her, his features alight with a lethal temper. “Now is not the time to test me, woman, I’ll—” His breath escaped him as his eyes locked onto hers. The hand that held her began to quake. “They’re… green,” he gasped. “What magic is this?” He regarded her as he would a coiled serpent.

“Faerie magic.” Katriona smiled and lifted her hand to point toward the fireplace where Cliodnah stood, unveiled, clutching the spitting, struggling spirit of Kathryn Frasier.

Rory’s mouth dropped open and he squeezed his eyes shut, opened them, looked over at Katriona, then back toward the Fae Queen. His mouth looked as though it formed words, but none came.

“When Cliodnah heard that Kathryn was an enemy to the Fae, she decided to switch the goblets,” Katriona explained. “Once Kathryn’s soul was released, I seized the opportunity and leapt into her body.” Katriona held an unfamiliar hand in front of her eyes, a joy bubbling through her veins that she’d never again thought possible. “This one’s shorter than what I’m used to so, I’ll need you on hand to reach for high things.”

The man she loved turned to her, his hand tightening even more on her arm. His wounds had ceased bleeding. He appeared a fierce warrior, his features stark and lethal, though his eyes glittered with unshed moisture.

He moaned her name and crushed her to him.

“You can’t call me that anymore,” she chided against his warm chest. “It’ll confuse everyone.”

“My body is
not
yours!” Kathryn sputtered, still writhing in the queen’s effortless grasp. “I can still take it from you! And mark me, you simple bitch, I will find the way!”

“Witching hour approaches.” Cliodnah’s lips twitched with delight. “I do appreciate when something unexpected happens.” She nodded to Katriona and Rory. “For it so rarely does. I’ll consider this an even trade. Enjoy what’s left of your mortal life.”

Katriona’s smile widened at the dawning of a memory. “What were those words again? R
óin m'anam.”
She didn’t feel the magical melding of soul or anything that could verify that the spell had any real merit.

But, judging by Kathryn’s screams as she faded into the nether, she supposed the ancient words had done their job binding her soul with a new body. She pulled away from Rory, who was still apparently struck speechless.

She realized they were already married, technically. “I’m yours,” she murmured. “If you’ll have me in this body.” She looked down at the form of the woman who’d betrayed him.

Rory gently took her face in his hands, his eyes boring into hers with such fervent intensity that tears welled in response.

“I didna love ye for yer body,” he vowed. “It was yer soul I so treasured all this time.” He took her mouth in a swift and burning kiss. This time, her warmth matched his and their heat ignited a flame that would last an eternity.

Rory pulled back, his breath much quicker than before.

“I canna express my joy at having ye here with me.” He clutched her closely and his brow furrowed. “Though, I doona like the idea of calling ye Kathryn in front of people. Ye’re nothing like her, and I’d just as soon not utter her name again.”

Katriona had to admit she adored the fact that he felt that way. She bit her lip and regarded his dark eyes that were again gentle and so full of emotion. “In our most intimate moments you called me
Kat
,” she remembered. “I think I would like it if you addressed me as such from now on.”

That seemed to please him. “My Kat,” he murmured. “Whom I like to stroke until she purrs with contentment.”

Katriona’s body warmed to the heated promise in his voice.

“I have to go for Lorne,” he sighed, reaching down and wiping at the symbol drawn on his torso in blood with his tartan. “I need to move the body from my chamber.”

Katriona nodded. “We’ll say he attacked in a fit of jealous rage.”

“Aye,” Rory agreed, tucking her into his side as though he was loath to let release her, even for a moment.

“Then we should hie to the stables,” Katriona suggested.

“Oh?” Rory’s eyebrows lifted. “Are ye of a mind to take a midnight journey?”

Katriona shook her head and ran a finger over Rory’s beloved lips. “I’m without any particular power now. But in the stables, we’ll find all kinds of straps and whips and whatever apparatus may catch our fancy.”

Rory’s entire body tensed, a groan vibrating up from deep in his chest.

“You see,” she continued, enjoying the quiver of yearning her body experienced in answer to his. “I mean to have my wedding night, husband. I’m afraid you won’t get the sleep you were promised.”

“I’ll be all right.” Rory steered her once more toward the door, his stride hurried and full of purpose. “I can sleep when I’m
dead
.”

REDEEMED

A Highland Historical Novella

Chapter One

The question hung in the air like the heavy, inescapable stench of charred flesh or rotted meat. Everyone’s eyes held the same breathless and hopeful expectation as they stared at her.

Kylah worried a part of her cheek with her teeth. What was she supposed to be feeling at this moment? What was the acceptable response they expected her to convey? She supposed she could react one of two ways.

Anger and betrayal.
How could you, my sister, marry the brother of the vile Laird who murdered us all? He carries their poisonous blood in his veins. I’ll never forgive you for this…
et cetera and so on
.

Or she could side with her youngest sister, Kamdyn, and her mother, Elspeth.
I trust your judgment and am ready to give the new MacKay Laird a chance to make you happy and right the wrongs done to our family...
Heaping platitudes of magnanimous forgiveness and such until everyone’s worries were laid to rest.

Kylah studied the pale green glow she cast on the warm rugs and tapestries littering her mother’s new cottage. Since she’d refused to move into the keep with the MacKay Laird, Rory had bequeathed to Elspeth a lovely warm home close to the castle so her eldest, Katriona, or Kathryn as she was now known, would be able to visit her family often. A kindness Kylah supposed she should be grateful for on her mother’s behalf. She no longer had to worry about her comfort and survival. Elspeth now had a living daughter to care for her.

Gratitude. Relief. Yet more emotion she was supposed to experience but didn’t.

She searched her soul for the warmth of sisterly affection and compassion, or the heat of rage brought on by the pain of disloyalty. But found—emptiness.

Less than that. She stood at the edge of a black, gaping abyss and kept squinting and straining to see the bottom like a bloody fool. She couldn’t very well reach into it and pluck out an answer. It contained nothing.

She was nothing.

No one.

Therefore, why did her opinion even matter? Why was it her responsibility to grant them absolution for something they were going to do regardless? Because she was the only one who had been violently raped before she died?

“Kylah, dear, whatever you’re thinking you can just say it outright.” Kamdyn drifted toward her and leaned the specter of her shoulder next to Kylah’s to show support. In fact, their outlines overlapped as the dead could no longer touch the living. Or each other. They just floated above the floor, little more than ghosts. Ineffectual Banshees. “What do you feel about Laird Rory and Katriona being married?” she repeated the question.

Kylah flicked a glance at the Laird in question. Even stone-faced and grim, Rory MacKay didn’t resemble his twin brother Angus in the slightest. With the tall, broad frame of a mythic warrior, his handsome features consisted of different variations of bronze. Light hair, amber-hued eyes, and sun-kissed skin had once contrasted with the ugly pallor of his brother’s ruddy complexion. Rory wore pity and remorse like a cloak, but hid defiance beneath it like a concealed dirk. He didn’t take responsibility for his brother’s actions, though they shamed and angered him.

Katriona stood next to her husband, hand clutched within his large palm, her eyes pleading for understanding. Kylah latched on to them, for Katriona’s eyes were the only thing that remained her own. The rest of her body had once belonged to Kathryn Frasier, Rory’s bride. Where she’d once favored her sisters, tall and slim with long, mahogany hair, she now resembled a Nordic princess. Blond curls tangled down her back, tamed with a circlet and braids. Pale skin touched with a golden hue covered lush curves most women only dreamed of possessing.

Katriona had never been a great beauty, but Kylah missed the honest angles of her sister’s expressive face. The one she’d had before it was melted away in the fire Rory’s brother had ignited.

Elspeth was the hardest to look at. And not because of the shiny, painful burn scars on her face, but the softer way she regarded Rory MacKay. With a little kindness, he’d won over her mother, but Kylah and Kamdyn remained unconvinced.

Elspeth reached out to Kylah, like she’d done so many times in the months since she’d spoken the olde words that’d turned her murdered daughters into Banshees. “Kylah, love, don’t you want your sister—”

“It’s fine.” Kylah drifted back from her mother and attempted to force inflection into her answer, but from the looks on their faces, she’d failed utterly.

“Fine?” Kamdyn echoed. “Are you certain? You don’t sound—”

“I said its fine,” Kylah insisted. “I can feel that he loves her, and that she loves him. Is anything we say going to change that? Or have any effect on how they’ve chosen to live their lives together?”

Katriona and Rory looked at each other. His strong hand tightened around hers, and his solemn eyes softened with unabashed affection.

“Nay,” Katriona murmured. “But we came here to explain. It happened so fast. We wanted to give you all a chance to express your feelings or concerns over what has transpired.”

“I have none.”

Katriona’s brow wrinkled. A familiar expression on a foreign face. “None of which, feelings or concerns?”

Either. Both. She could pick one. “I’ve told you it’s all right.” Kylah hoped those words fared better than
fine
. They were all she had to give them.

“Your feelings have to be more complicated than that, sister.”

“They’re not.”

“But dearheart…” Elspeth stepped forward once more and Kylah again retreated. It was a struggle to look at her mother. Not because of Elspeth’s disfigured face, but because of the hurt and pity etched into her gaze. Her mother always reminded Kylah of that night. Because she’d been forced to watch. And Kylah relived those terrible moments before her death through the unspeakable horror in her mother’s eyes.