Indecent: The Moray Druids #2 (Highland Historical) by Kerrigan Byrne Page A

Berserker?” she murmured. “This may be the end. Of everything . This is no time to begin a life together. To make promises we may not have made otherwise. I don’t know you. I don’t even think I like you very much—”
    Niall lay a finger against her lips, wishing he could do anything to ease the burdens weighing his little mate down. “The Romans have a charming saying by which I have always lived. Carpe Diem . Seize the day.” He motioned out the window. “Or the night, as the case may be. We’re never promised tomorrow, little Druid, only this moment.”
    She stared at him for a second, her lips trembling behind his fingers doing strange and soft things to his insides. “I hate the Romans,” she surprised him by saying, pulling out of his gentle palm to stand.
    Niall let out a bark of amusement. “We all do, but they are a quotable lot. My point is, you should accept me. If you do, you’ll make me nigh on five times as powerful as I am now. I’ll conjure you fire that you cannot conjure yourself to wield as you desire. I’ll give my life to protect you and pledge my Berserker beast to your service.”
    Feeling rather proud and poetic, he was certain there was no lass alive who could refuse such a declaration. He was Niall Thorsen, after all, pride of his people and slayer of armies. And finally he’d found a battle worth winning, and a woman worth fighting for. He could barely believe his good fortune.
    “How do you know I cannot conjure fire?” she asked dubiously.
    “Because my power belongs in my senses, and I’ve observed that you never create fire, only wield what is already burning.”
    She stared at him in stunned silence for a moment before whispering, “I’m sorry, but the answer is Nay.”
    “Nay?” he echoed, as though the word held no meaning to him. “Why not?”
    “How can I? Moreover, how can you be thinking of such things now? Do you not understand? The servants of evil are out there, bringing the wrath of hell along with them. Everything, the fate of the entire world is on the line, waiting to be snatched out of our grasp. I don’t have time to be anyone’s mate.”
    Niall shook his head, careful not to scoff or condescend. She was young, and afraid. “Kenna,” he crooned her name, crowding her into the bookshelf with his body and trailing his finger along the intriguing neckline of the red frock she’d donned.
    A ceremonial color, if he had to guess.
    “You shouldn’t be so afraid of losing something that you don’t let yourself have it. Life is to live, and I think you’ve forgotten that by locking yourself in this cold abbey devoid of happiness and focusing your every day on duty and prayer. If you don’t allow yourself pleasure, leisure, risk and reward, then why bother?”
    “Because I must!” She pushed against his chest, her tears of pain becoming ones of anger and bitterness. “Because it is my duty to keep the Grimoire safe and duty is all I have left! I’ve lost everyone I’ve ever loved. My parents. My uncle and king. Morgana and Malcolm. And now I’ve found them only in time to call them to what possibly could be their demise.” She turned from him, her small body trembling with sobs that must have been locked away for the space of untold moons.
    “Don’t you see?” she lamented. “I can’t bind my heart and soul to yours only to lose you. I will not let you be my last failure on this earth. That I could not bear.”
    His fingers closed around her heaving shoulders, drawing her back to lean against his chest so he could encompass her with his arms. “Don’t cry, my mate,” he murmured against her fragrant curls, her every sob tearing away a piece of his soul. “That is what I cannot bear.”
    She turned in his arms and collapsed against him, her shudders and convulsions increasing. “I feel I’m not strong enough,” she sobbed against his chest, her tears tickling against his skin. “I fear I will not be able to stand against them. That