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Legendary Lovers
Kerrigan Byrne
Tanya Anne Crosby
Kathryn Le Veque
Julie Johnstone
Cecelia Mecca
Miriam Minger
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No part of this publication may be sold, copied, distributed, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical or digital, including photocopying and recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of both the publisher, Oliver Heber Books and the authors, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Highland Shadow COPYRIGHT © Kerrigan Byrne
Once Upon a Highland Legend COPYRIGHT © Tanya Anne Crosby
Of Love and Legends COPYRIGHT © Kathryn Le Veque
When a Highlander Weds a Hellion COPYRIGHT © Julie Johnstone
The Chief COPYRIGHT © Cecelia Mecca
Wild Moonlight COPYRIGHT © Miriam Minger
Published by Oliver-Heber Books
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Contents
By Kerrigan Byrne
Highland Shadow
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Also by Kerrigan Byrne
About the Author
Tanya Anne Crosby
Once Upon a Highland Legend
The Legend of the Winter Stone
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Connected Series
Also by Tanya Anne Crosby
About the Author
Kathryn Le Veque
Of Love and Legends
Table of Contents
The Lore of the Lucius Ring
1. The Ambush
2. The Truth Begins
3. The Unhappy Truth
4. The Burden of Truth
5. The Truth Revealed
6. The Painful Truth
Also by Kathryn Le Veque
About the Author
Julie Johnstone
When a Highlander Weds a Hellion
Preface
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Epilogue
Also by Julie Johnstone
About the Author
Cecelia Mecca
The Chief
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Author’s Note
Also by Cecelia Mecca
About the Author
Miriam Minger
Wild Moonlight
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
ON A WILD WINTER’S NIGHT
Also by Miriam Minger
About the Author
Thank you…
Highland Shadow
By Kerrigan Byrne
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 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.
Connor MacLauchlan studied the second born twin of the MacKay nobles. 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 the 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 as he reached out to clap Rory on the shoulder. “I have a brother of my own,” he said. “I’d die for him.”
Rory nodded his head in appreciation, his jaw working back strong emotion. “Actually, I thought it would be Roderick who answered my missive, what with you being Laird and all. Oh, and a Baron now, besides.”
“My brother is newly married. He promised his bride he’d build her an
apothecary in Strathlachlan. There’s no tearing him away from her side for the time being.” Connor huffed out a chuckle at the memory of his brother following his wee curvy mate about the Keep like an addled puppy, a load of planks on his broad back. God save him from the same fate. Roderick was patient and steady as the day was long. Connor didn’t have the temperament to deal with a wife.
Besides, courting a Berserker could be deadly. And he had enough blood on his hands already. Better not to risk it.
“I see,” Rory let his mouth relax into a faint smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “There’s another conundrum of mine. The next Laird of our clan is betrothed to Lindsay Stewart.”
“The Regent’s niece?”
“Aye. I’d not see her in the arms of my brother, royal beauty that she is.”
“I heard she’s also a royal pain in the arse.”
Rory shrugged. “I’ve never met her. But I wouldn’t give an animal I liked to Angus, let alone a noble lassie."
“Right.” Connor turned his attention back to the road. The Mackay had almost reached the foot of the loch. They would angle southwest, then, following the road along the river.
“They mustn’t reach Loch Lomond.” Rory pulled a heavy purse out of his saddlebag and handed it to Connor, who nodded.
“I’ll get them at Benmore. There’s forest for ambush and caves where I can camp for the night. Besides, Lomond’s too close to MacLauchlan land for my comfort. I’ll no’ let him get close to my clan.”
Pulling his hood up against the rain, Rory turned his horse.
“Go to a busy tavern tonight,” Connor ordered. “Buy everyone there a pint and maybe tumble a lass or two. Make sure you’re seen.”
“All right,” Rory nodded. “And… Godspeed Connor MacLauchlan.”
“I doona need yer God’s blessing,” the berserker murmured as the other man rode off into the mist. “I have a Goddess to keep me.”
When the berserker rage took him, he became lost in it. It was as though another beast lived dormant inside of him and burst free at the sight of blood. Only, Connor never disappeared into the grey oblivion. Nor was he merely a spectator. He became a mass of rage and wrath and indiscriminate destruction. Every man possessed some part of the spirit of the berserker. For some it was a whisper. For others a roar. But the nature of humanity tempered the beast with reason, logic, fear, love, and ambition. For a few ancient blood lines, Freya, the Norse Goddess of war, unchained the beast within chosen warriors of the line and gifted them with unnatural strength and speed. The part of the mind that processed logic, consequence, and emotion became chained but never completely dormant.
Connor turned and watched the heavy coach make its unhurried pace through the late afternoon. Closing his eyes he waited to feel the requisite thrill before a good battle. God help the marauding tyrant within. For once his Berserker beheld the first hint of blood, there would be no survivors.
* * *
Endless hours in the stuffy coach made Lindsay Stewart squirm with restlessness. She couldn’t read to pass the time, for within minutes of bouncing through the mud-rutted roads she’d be green as Irish moss and her afternoon meal would make an unwelcome reappearance. She’d rather have ridden out in the fresh autumn air with her vanguard, but her uncle forbade it. In fact, he’d been quite forbidding since taking her father’s place as Regent of Scotland. Every time their last discussion ran through her head, she could feel the embers of her temper ignite all over again.
“There’s nothing I can do to help ye, Lindsay,” he’d said with a dismissive wave. “The betrothal contract was signed between yer father and the senior Angus MacKay in agreement for a trade of MacKay lands and their swords against the Donald. Both men who signed the contract are dead now. I canna go against yer departed father’s wishes. Ye’re Laird has sent for ye. Ye’ll go to Angus the Younger and be an obedient wife.”
“But the late Laird Angus was a traitor and ended up fighting for the Donald. Surely that negates the contract.” Lindsay had argued.
“There’s still the land. The agreement stands.” Robert Stewart had folded portly arms over his belly and jutted the foremost of his chins out at her. The movement reminded her of the Neapolitan Mastiffs he kept as hunting dogs. There were many jests about the Scottish court as to how much dogs and master resembled each other.
“You would trade your niece for a few paltry acres of peat moss and heather?” she’d asked, aghast that her uncle could care so little for her. She’d been a good companion to his ailing wife for some time. That, at least, deserved some deference. “I’ve heard that Angus is a brute. Would you have me treated unkindly?”
“I’d have ye do yer duty to clan and country. If yer father hadna waited so long to marry you off, he wouldna have had to settle on the MacKays. But because ye were a raven-haired beauty like yer mother, he couldna bear part with ye and die alone.” His eyes had narrowed into red-rimmed slits of cruelty. “Yer no’ the first noble girl who had to lie beneath a husband she didna like, and you willna be the last. Show a little gratitude. There are several lassies who’d slit yer throat to take your place.”
“Then let them,” she’d spat.
“Doona tempt me!” He’d thrown her out of his richly appointed study, then. Ultimately, she’d ended up stuffed with a fraction of her belongings into what the MacKays had dubbed a “gilded coach” and surrounded by dozens of reeking highlanders.
Lindsay looked around the cracked and peeling interior of the conveyance. Perhaps it had been grand once. Last century. At least she’d been allowed her privacy. And, her betrothed hadn’t come to collect her, himself. He’d sent this sinister looking band of brutes to conduct her from Inverness to Dun Keep, the MacKays’ highland castle on the other side of the bloody isle. She parted the dingy curtain of indeterminable color and tried to let some fresh air into the close interior.
A nebulous and sinister mist had abruptly rolled off one of the many nearby lochs and blocked out the autumn afternoon. Lindsay could taste the moisture of it on her tongue and breathe it into her lungs. It smelled of ripe berries and freshly fallen leaves. Squinting through the soupy swirls of silver and gray, she assumed she was looking north, as they’d endlessly been traveling east to reach Dun Keep. It was hard to tell though, as the trees, rock formations, and the river all lay hidden in the fog.
The sounds of anxious horses and the low murmurs of her guard caused the fine hairs on her body to rise with awareness. She could see the forms of the three closest men to the coach. The flashes of their green kilts and drawn swords would sometimes come into view before disappearing back into the thick cloud.
“Is everything all right?” she asked the closest highlander. A scrawny man whose age remained indeterminable beneath his shaggy locks and what had to have been a summer’s worth of grime.
He shifted his horse closer and leered at her, revealing that he’d lost most of his teeth and all of them on left side. Whether from rot or battle, she couldn’t be sure, but the effect was most unsettling. “Nothin’ ta fash yerself with, lass. Just a bit o’ fog makes the horses jumpy. Ye never know if there be a wolf or what not in the woods.”
“Oh.” His words didn’t relieve her worry. Something about this particular mist was unsettling. Maybe a bit unnatural. It slithered around them, its silver fingers reaching through her clothing to leave a cool sheen on her flesh.
She shivered.
If yer in need of diversion. I can come in there, teach ye a few things.” His tongue made an alarming appearance though he kept his teeth clenched.
The burly warrior next to him smacked the back of his head. “Ye canna be saying those things to the lass!” he chided. “She’s wedding the Laird. Angus’ll cut off yer sacs and feed them to his dogs while ye watch… and that’s just fer lookin’ at her sideways.”
The scrawny lad had the decency to look stricken. “Ye’ll no’ be mentioning it to ‘im, will ye lass? Ye know I meant nothing by it.”
“Your secre
t is safe with me,” she shrugged. Best not to antagonize the fellow. Who know what a desperate man would do?
“Yer lucky she’s a sweet wench.” The other burly man cackled. “Or ye’d likely not live to see yer next—”
An axe imbedded in his skull, effectively cutting off the rest of his sentence.
Chapter Two