Page 16 of To Wed a Highlander (A Highland Magic Collection #3)

Chapter 4

K enna had seen many powerful men interact in her life, lairds and warriors, chieftains and kings, sages and druids, even a shape-shifter once. But the look of utter contempt, challenge, and disgust that passed between the naked Berskerker on the floor and her beloved cousin and Liege lord beat them all.

“Kenna,” The wrath in Malcolm’s voice would have shriveled the manhood of the bravest of champions. Good thing she was a woman, and therefore immune. “Do. Not. Tell me. That ye mated. A fucking Berserker .” Malcolm only spoke with such annunciation when truly infuriated.

She waved an impatient hand to cover a whispered spell that would trap the voice of the Berserker on her floor until she could get rid of Malcolm. “No, no, no,” she soothed. “Not mated to just…borrowed from. He’s quite…potent.”

“Och, I canna know that!” Malcolm made the same sound of disgust he did as a boy. The only manner left about him that would ever remind anyone of those lovely, innocent days of their childhood. The days before Macbeth. Before the Wyrd Sisters. Back when her Uncle Duncan de Moray was still King and his sister, Kenna’s mother, was alive. When mornings belonged to the mists, afternoons to Druid instruction, and evenings to laughter, play, feasting, and family.

“What have I done that the Gods curse me with lumbering, ungainly, ham-fisted Berserkers everywhere I turn? Tupping all the women in my family. It’s not right.” Malcolm lamented pinching the bridge of his nose as though nursing a headache.

Kenna put her fists on her hips. “Well, I don’t think that’s called for. I mean, I know he cocked up our plans, but in his defense, he couldn’t have known he was raiding the abbey where the Doomsday Grimoire was hidden. It’s not really his—wait,” the full meaning of Malcolm’s words widened her eyes. “What do you mean, everywhere you turn? Have you been raided as well?”

Malcolm heaved a heavy sigh. “After a fashion.”

Kenna gasped. “What happened? Are you alright? Is Morgana—”

“She mated him, the bleeding oaf, and now ye canna lay yer eyes upon my sister without a dark shadow the size of a Roman wall looming behind her. Bloody irritating.”

“Upon my word,” Kenna sighed. “A Berserker.” She turned to look at Niall, who was currently glaring daggers and attempting to regain his feet with what looked like murderous intent. He probably didn’t take too well to the silencing spell. Oops .

“That can’t be a coincidence, now can it?” she asked, which was more rhetorical than anything.

His look told her that when he regained his balance, he would coincidentally punish her in ways she’d never considered. It wasn’t that she was a mind reader; only his intent was that unmistakable.

Turning back to Malcolm, she focused on the business at hand. “I’ve been hiding at—”

“I know ye’re at Westmire Abbey,” Malcolm said. “I felt it when ye used yer magick. Which means if I know, the Wyrd sisters know, and they’re coming for ye and the book.”

“What do I do?” Kenna tried to hide the terror in her voice from not just her cousin, but the Berserker as well. “I can’t fight them on my own, and there are innocent women here. And Vikings,” she added. Not so innocent, but she didn’t necessarily want them dead. They’d been pretty accommodating and rather gentle, as raiding Vikings went.

“Have the Berserker and his men secure the Abbey, and ye stay with the Grimoire no matter what.” The calculation left Malcolm’s eyes for only a moment, and he gave her a look touched with affection. “I know I’m supposed to tell ye to guard the Grimoire with yer life,” he rumbled. “But… I doona want ye hurt, Kenna, do what ye can to stay safe. We’ll be there shortly after sundown tomorrow.”

“Sundown?” Kenna asked. “But Moray Castle is nearly two days ride. How can you possibly get here so fast?”

Malcolm made another face, this one almost comically baleful. “Doona ask and I willna tell.”

That brought a smile to Kenna’s face, despite the circumstances. If she had to make a gamble, she’d bet it had something to do with Morgana’s Berserker. She was excited to see her cousins, and hoped to live long enough to ask her closest friend about her new husband. Or mate, as it were.

“Hurry,” Kenna pressed. “I’ll get everyone here as ready as possible for what is to come.” Though it wouldn’t be easy, protecting a pagan relic in a Christian abbey.

“We will,” Malcolm promised, his specter fading. “And whatever ye do, do not kiss that Berserker!”

“I won’t,” she vowed, then turned from the fire, which was now devoid of Druids, and ran headlong into a wall of muscle and rage. Oh dear, this Berserker had recovered quite a bit faster than she’d expected.

She waved her hand, releasing the silence spell, and prepared to defend her actions.

His features distorted into so many different emotions, Kenna couldn’t distinguish them all. Some resembled outrage, others awe, but one she’d never seen before, at least not directed toward her.

Possession .

It was the last thing she saw before he crushed his lips to hers.

* * *

Niall had meant to punish her, to threaten her with unthinkable consequences if she ever used her magick against him again. He wanted to curse and berate, to rage and bellow, to shake her… to spank her.

Perhaps he’d still do that, eventually.

He’d wanted to escape this tiny, spare chamber, with the Christian god watching their every sin from the cross above the bed, before he did something stupid.

Like binding his soul to hers for the rest of their natural lives with a kiss.

But she’d whirled from the fire with contrition in her eyes lit by sparks of amber mischief, and he’d been lost.

Mine , his beast had growled, and Niall had to completely agree.

Here was a woman who could not only take him, but tame him. One who could bring him to his knees with her magick. Who was he kidding? She could accomplish the same with only a few sultry words from her generous mouth. Her body tempted him like no other had. Her voice transfixed him in a way he’d never imagined. Their sex had pleasured him beyond comprehension.

And when he listened to her talking to Malcom de Moray with affection and respect, Niall knew he had to do something . Possessive instinct surged even before the Pictish King’s warning against kissing him burned in his ears. Upon hearing that, Niall’s body, soul, and beast came to a decision they could never retract.

He was not one to take orders, and neither would his mate.

Niall kissed her with the unrestrained hunger of an untried boy. He’d used his lips for many wicked, lustful things, but never this. The pure, bacchanalian delight he found in the sweetness of her mouth both aroused and humbled him.

He’d never known.

Gods be damned how could he not have known that pressing his mouth to that of his mate’s would feel as though his heart might spill out of his chest and expire from the sheer pleasure of it? How could the illumination of just a simple act seem to resonate through him and radiate outward until it surely reached the sight of the Gods?

Every moment he’d lived, every drop of blood he’d shed, had lead him to this , to this woman, and how she was his .

When he dipped his tongue inside her warm mouth to taste her, exaltation didn’t begin to describe the sensation. She was honeysuckle and cinnamon. She tasted of summer and smelled of sunshine, even through the rainwater.

He imagined it would be especially delightful when she decided to kiss him back.

Ah well, one thing at a time.

With a sound of protestation, she ripped her lips from his and pulled away, her eyes round with shock and accusation. “Why would you do that?” she gasped, holding trembling fingers to her bruised lips.

Niall shrugged shoulders now mobile with returning strength. “I wanted to.”

“But—but doesn’t that mean…”

“We’re mated,” he finished for her, smiling as her eyes went impossibly more round.

“Did you not just hear what Malcolm said? I promised not to kiss you!”

“In all honesty, I think you’ve kept that promise.” Niall advanced on her with what he hoped was more charm than threat. “But, I’m hoping for more response next time.”

Her lovely features filtered through a slew of emotions right before him. Shock melted into confusion, which quickly transformed into anger.

“I don’t think your king’s intentions are honorable,” Niall continued. “He loves you. He likely wants you for himself.” Jealousy was a new emotion, one he was sure to get used to with a mate as lovely as this one.

His woman regarded him like he’d just fed her Lutefisk for the first time. “Don’t be disgusting. He’s my cousin.”

“I’ve heard about you English and your cousins.”

“I’m a Pict, and a Druid one at that!” she spat, outrage flaring in her eyes and heating the air in the room to a temperature that steamed the last of the moisture out of his hair. “We’re not English, and we know better than to marry cousins.”

“As you say.”

“And furthermore, Malcolm doesn’t have the capacity for love. He’s too busy, to studious, too… damaged. He barely tolerates Morgana and me, and we’re the last family he has left in the world.”

“And now he has two Berserkers to add to the count, the lucky Druid.” Niall wondered to whom the King’s sister was mated. Berserkers didn’t usually stray far from the Nordic countries, and nearly all of them eventually found their way to the temple of Freya. Some took mercenary work abroad, and then there was the odd bastard or two.

“Nay, he does not have two Berserkers because we are not mated,” she insisted, crossing two huffy arms beneath those fantastic breasts, lifting them to strain against the thin material of her shift.

“I am,” Niall corrected, not missing the way her eyes followed the more intimate muscles of his body as he bent to reach for his trews and put them on. “And you will be.” Just as soon as he talked her into it.

“Don’t be so sure about that.”

“What cause have I to doubt?”

She regarded him as though he were touched in the head. “The fact that I’m actively refusing you should lend you some pause.”

Niall wasn’t one to let something like that get in the way of eternal happiness. If she underestimated his tenacity, that was her fault. “You refuse me now, but I have time to seduce you. And from what I can tell, you’re an easy catch, especially for a nun. I just had to lie there and you gave me your body. I don’t imagine it’ll be too much harder to win your heart.”

He ducked as a book sailed past his head and the flames flared so high they shot up the thin chimney and heated the bricks of the walls. “You—you arrogant, thieving, base, wicked villain…you… you…” She seemed to run out of names, and this being a nunnery, projectiles were in blessedly short supply.

Niall didn’t mind the name-calling, as all the words she hurled at him did generally apply.

“Did you not hear the conversation Malcolm and I just had?”

His little mate asked questions when she was angry . Niall shelved this information for future reference.

“There is no time! And even if there was, I would never —”

“Never is one of those words you always end up regretting,” Niall interrupted her.

“ Ne-ver. Accept you . As my mate,” she finished with a very similar annunciation pattern as her cousin.

Niall just smirked at her. If there was one thing he’d learned about women in his half-century of life, it was that they never meant it when they said never .

“Tell me about this Grimoire,” he prodded, hoping to distract her from her ire. “And these Wyrd sisters. Why are you in danger?”

“Why am I in danger? Because of you , that’s why,” she snipped.

“We’ve established that. But if my men and I are to protect you, which we will, we’ll need to know from whom and what for.”

She glared at him for a moment, but then seemed to cede the point. “I barely know where to begin,” she sighed. “On top of everything, the whipping, that kiss, this Viking raid… oh and let us not forget the pending apocalypse, I’m rather overwhelmed.”

“Start with everything and go from there,” Niall urged gently. They’d address the kiss again, of that she could be certain. Hopefully many times, and whilst naked, those breasts pressed against his—oh, she was speaking, he should pay attention.

“If you know of Malcolm, then you must know that his father, King Duncan, was killed by Macbeth, who usurped the throne and banished Malcolm to Goddess-knows-where, and gave Morgana, his sister, to the English King Harold for his own self-serving purposes.” she began.

“I’ve heard as much.” Niall eyed the bed upon which she sank to perch, and decided to remain standing.

“Well, Macbeth’s actions were prompted by three de Moray witches who are known as The Wyrd Sisters. They’re elemental Druids, like Morgana, Malcolm and I, except they use dark, evil magick and they were supposed to have died two hundred years past.”

“Why are they still alive?” Niall asked. “Do Druids have longer life spans than usual?” If Berserkers did, it made sense that other powerful pagans would, as well.

Kenna shook her head. “I know not by what dark power they prolong their life, but the fact that they’re here puts the survival of all the world in danger.”

“How so?” he queried.

Scooting to the edge of her small bunk, she used lithe and nimble fingers to wriggle free a brick from her crumbling wall, then another, and another until a pile of a dozen stones sullied her bed.

Niall noticed that she didn’t seem to care, as though she never expected to sleep there again.

Sobering thought, that.

She reverently extracted a tome that appeared ancient, even by his standards. The leather was too light to be animal, too thin to be sea creature, and tinted in only a way that a man who’d seen as much death as he would recognize.

Tanned human skin.

Blue wodish runes swirled in sacred spirals around the corners of the book and stretched toward the center in tribal arcs. There, in a script long forgotten, was a name he couldn’t read written in a language far too ancient to still be uttered by a living soul.

Perhaps the first language of the first man. Or maybe the language of the Gods.

A kiss of power and lust touched the base of his spine, thrilling through his darker urges with the innate greed of man. This book wasn’t exactly good, but neither could he call the feeling evil. Just potent on a scale he’d never before contemplated.

She handled it with reverence and not a little bit of misgiving, and opened its pages with the appropriate care. “This is the Doomsday Grimoire,” she explained. “It is the book from which all other holy books were produced.”

Niall’s eyebrows shot toward his hairline. “Even—”

“ All of them,” she nodded solemnly.

“Contained within these pages is every prophecy, truth, mythology, and spell known to mankind.” She caressed a page with suspiciously russet calligraphy that could have been ink, but was mostly likely dried blood.

Niall swallowed, truly feeling for the first time the direness of their situation.

“You see, the Goddess lends her power to three Druids of de Moray every generation. It has been thus since the evolution of man.”

“Evolution?”

Kenna waved her hand, as though to signal that was for another conversation and continued. “We are wielders of the four elements and keepers of the seasons. For example, Malcolm is Earth and Spring, I am Summer and Fire, and Morgana is Autumn and Water. You may note the absence of Air and Winter, and that is because the Goddess decided that four elemental Druids on the earth at once would be too much power for us mortals to wield, even though we’re wielding them on her behalf.”

“You said the Wyrd sisters were de Morays,” he prompted with a growing sense of dread.

She nodded, as though pleased he understood which direction she lead him. “The most terrifying, powerful, and inevitable prediction is the Doomsday Prophecy, itself.” She laid her hand on a page, reading a passage from a long paragraph scrawled in tiny symbols, her husky voice layered with the veracity of divination.

“Verily, when four elements are born to one house and are behind one gate, the seven seals will break. The first, Conquest, on his white horse with a crown. The second, War, on his red horse with his sword. Pestilence is third, on his black horse with his scales of balance. And finally, Death on his pale horse and he shall bring with him the might of the Underworld.” She paused, taking in a shuddering breath and rubbing her arms. When the four Druids wield together from the Grimoire, they will hear thunder, the heavens will weep, the earth will tremble, the air will burn, and the rest of the seals will be broken, one by one.”

Niall’s own hairs lifted with trepidation. “Don’t stop there.” He chuckled, if only to let the air out of his burning lungs. “It was just getting good.”

“The fifth seal has to do with raising an army of the dead,” she continued. “An army of the slain innocent, the burned witches, and the wrongly executed to reap their vengeance upon the world. The sixth is elemental devastation as wrought by the four horsemen. You know, civil unrest, earthquakes, plague, war, dark suns, the moon dripping with blood— that whole bit. And then…” She looked up, her eyes swimming with moisture that comes from the shiver of truth.

“And then?” Niall asked breathlessly.

“The reckoning .”

The ominous word speared his blood with ice.

“What reckoning?”

She shook her head. “It does not say, but I imagine with all that precedes it, it cannot be pleasant.” Her eyes found his and they shared a desperate look. “Like I said before, the Wyrd sisters are of the de Moray line. They’re of our house, so to speak. And with them is the witch Badb, and her element is Air and her season winter. You see, they’ve been after the Grimoire for two hundred years. It is their plan to set the apocalypse into motion, and now that there is an Earth Druid, Malcolm, that makes us four.

“When we realized King Duncan was dead and Morgana captured, Malcolm sent me away on his fastest horse. We knew the Wyrd sisters were after him and the book, and that we weren’t powerful enough to fight them just yet. If they caught both Malcolm and the Grimoire in one place, all would be lost. So we decided I was to hide with the book somewhere the Wyrd sisters would never look, and as long as I didn’t use fire magick, they couldn’t find me.” Her eyes became sad, tortured, and a desperate pain lodged in Niall’s chest. “I’d heard that Macbeth had given Malcolm to the Wyrd sisters in exchange for the throne. I think they did terrible things to him. He didn’t look the same…”

“And so when you used fire to save a bunch of thankless nuns from my Berserker…” Niall trailed off as a lead weight settled in his belly, realizing the true cost of his actions. He’d unwittingly set in motion the end of the world.

Well… Fuck .

His people had been raiders for generations. They celebrated the strong and preyed upon the weak. It was the way of nature. The way of the world. The strong survived, thrived, deserved to be here. The weak were culled and pillaged, preyed upon. But as he looked at his stalwart little mate, he realized that power came in many forms, and that he had a lot to think about.

The first consideration being that Kenna de Moray was his mate. More to the point, he was hers.

And if he had to stop the fucking Apocalypse to get her to accept him, then so be it.