Unwilling (Highland Historical #2)

UNWILLING
     
    By:  Kerrigan
Byrne
     
     
    AMAZON KDP EDITION
     
     
    PUBLISHED BY:
    N. Ainge
     
    www.KerriganByrne.com
     
     
    Unwilling © 2012
Kerrigan Byrne
     
    All rights
reserved
     
    This ebook is licensed for your
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    This ebook is a work of fiction.  The names, characters,
places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been
used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real.  Any resemblance to
persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely
coincidental. 
     
     
    Cover Art © 2012
Kelli Ann Morgan
    www.inspirecreativeservices.com
     
     
     
    Dedication:
     
    To my love.  Thank
you for holding me up.
     
    To the Writer’s of
Imminent Death, the bright spot in my work week.
     
     
    To my fellow
Musketeers, Athos and Aramis, aka Cindy Stark and Tiffinie Helmer.  Thank you
for taking this journey with me.  Above that, thank you for being the stars I
follow in the darkness. 
     
    To Lynne Harter at http://wordnerdyediting.com  
     Your patience is
legendary and your talent extraordinary.
     
    *Kerrigan donates a percentage of all book sales to www.womenforwomen.com to help the
innocent survivors of global war and oppression

Chapter
One
    The
Scottish Highlands, Autumn 1411
     
    “I want his death to be quick and
painless.  He’s my brother, after all.”  Rory MacKay didn’t meet Connor’s eyes
as he said this.  Instead, he tracked the armored coach trundling along the
river Tay where the water ran into the loch, which boasted the same name. 
    Connor MacLauchlan knew it was
around noon, though storm clouds hid the sun.  From their vantage point in the
trees above, he counted twenty mounted highlanders in the coach’s vanguard. 
Twenty he could kill on his own, but it would be a blood bath.  “I take
pleasure in the death, but no’ in the killing.  It willna take long once I
start.”
    Rory winced, but nodded.  His doe-brown
eyes closed as he took a bracing breath.
    Considering the second born twin of
the MacKay nobles, Connor worried about his conviction.   Rory’s bronze hair
matted to his handsome face where fat rivulets of rain had plastered it.  He
was a strapping lad, but even in his heavy hide cloak he didn’t compete with
Connor’s own bulk.  This was a good man doing evil for the sake of his clan. 
Yet the blood would stain his hands, just like it would saturate Connor come
sunset. 
    “If yer having doubts, now would be
the time to voice them,” Connor prompted.  “We can ride away from here and
never speak of this again.”
    Rory’s shoulders slumped.  “Nay. 
Since yer brother, Roderick, defeated our father at Aberdeen, Angus has been
raiding all over Argyll.  He’s split our clan and made us weak.  Anyone who doesna
swear fealty to him is terrorized.  He’s pillaged and burned farms and houses…
wi’ people still inside.  I didna want to believe what I was hearing, but a
woman begged refuge for her and a bairn at the Keep.  She said he ran her
husband through the belly with his sword, then made the dying man watch as he…took
her.”  Rory’s throat visibly worked over a swallow.  “Angus is my twin.  We
used to protect each other from our brutal father.  We used to play together in
the fields and ride our horses along the coast until we could see the end of
the world…”  His eyes hardened.  “He canna return to Dun Keep, MacLauchlan.  I
willna let him be the ruin of my clan.  No more innocents can bear his tyranny.” 
A tear escaped the corner of the young man’s eye and he swiped it away with his
bracer. 
    Connor’s saddle creaked