Page 4 of To Wed a Highlander
Stepping into her, Niall pressed his body fully against hers, hiding her breasts from the unrepentantly hungry eyes of his men, hating the thickness of his leather armor as it hid their softness from his touch.
She hissed when his hands pressed against her back, and he drew them away instantly, not realizing the extent of her wounds until it was too late.
Blood.
Niall stared at it as though he’d never seen it before, watching the rainwater turn the crimson into a lighter pink in his palm. A familiar stirring radiated through him. Rage. Mayhem.
Panic?
Nie. He couldn’t have saved this wounded nun only to be forced to violently take her life. She was different. He wanted her. Not only that, he wanted toknowher. To see her. To save her. Not just from the pain of her wounds, but from himself.
“Run,” he growled the last word his sharpening teeth would be able to utter before the beast completely overtook him in a voice darkened with animal rage. He could feel it mount. Feel his veins pulse with fury, bloodlust, and strength.
Niall pulled away from the woman as the vibrancy of the evening turned to predatory shadows of silver and grey. As usual all color disappeared, leaving only the shapes of his victims.
All color, but for the very real flames ignitinghereyes.
“Everyone get back. Bar the door.” Ingmar’s voice was deadly serious, which underscored the danger of the situation. “Better start praying, ladies,” he warned. “Make peace with your God, because you are about to meet him.”
Chapter 2
To Kenna de Moray, watching a Berserker with the golden visage of a Norse God turn into a demon with eyes the color of charred coals had to be one of the most defining moments of her short life.
She’d known what he was, even when his clear, ice-blue gaze had heated from one of arrogant dispassion, to branding possession. It was as though she could feel the beast that lay dormant inside of him. Could sense the frenzy that was capable of bursting forth from the cold and capable leader.
She just hadn’t known she would see that beast so soon.
Berserkers killed. It was all they did. They had no mercy. No control. Once the bloodlust took them, they indiscriminately slaughtered whatever life they could reach.
A flash of magick burned before her, bringing images of the near future. The stones of the courtyard painted with rivers of blood. The folds of habits, once lily-white, stained crimson. Rain washing gore and carnage into the gardens. The victorious roar of a Berserker beast, and then the tortured roar of a man…
Kenna and the Berserker would be the only two left standing.
What would happen then?
There was no time to think. No time to philosophically consider the good of the many versus the good of the few. She needed to live in order to keep the Doomsday Grimoire safe. In order to stay hidden, she couldn’t use her magick. Not on purpose. But, could she allow this Berserker to be unleashed upon this cloistered order of nuns? Women who thought the worst of her, who stood by while she was beaten and berated?
Pain and weakness wrought by the lashes of hatred and the cold of the rain dissipated behind a surge of fear, and then of her fire.Nay. She couldn’t let this man, who was turning into a creature more fearsome and beautiful than she’d ever seen, lay waste to the convent that had become her home.
These women weren’t evil. They were afraid. Ignorant. They didn’t deserve to be slaughtered like beasts.
The Berserker still held her, his grip becoming stronger, his teeth sharper, his eyes impossibly darker. Of all the abbey’s in the world, why did this warrior have to pickhers?
When a terrified scream from a young novice drew his attention, Kenna knew she had to act now and live with the consequences.
Feeding on the anger of Mother Superior, the terror of her sisters, and the heat burning from the warrior before her, she drew the flames from the torches beneath the awning and created a wall of fire.
Battle-hewn Viking warriors jumped away from the blaze, lest it claim their flesh, and then their lives. Pagans had an innate fear of fire these days, as so many were sentenced to suffer a Christian death within walls just like these.
But this inferno couldn’t be extinguished by the rain, could not be breached by the brave. And it cut Kenna and this frenzied creature of death from the rest of the world, from men now desperate to reach their leader, and from women desperate to escape him.
Kenna and the beast were truly alone.
And now that he was trapped with her between a wall of stone and a wall of flames, his soulless eyes promised retribution.
“You don’t know what you’ve done,” she told the terrifyingly handsome monster staring down at her with those fathomless eyes.
Nor did he seem to care.
