Viking's Claim (Kilts & Kisses #4)(25)

My men and women are fierce. They’re the strongest, most fearless, most savage warriors a man could ask for to charge into battle with, and I’m proud to call them my brothers and sisters. And in a surprise attack from the sea, we’re nigh unstoppable—a force from hell. A fist of fury ready smash anything and everything in our path to glory and riches.

…But we are not an army. That’s the reality, and though it’s a hard truth to swallow, swallow it I must. In a full-on, pitched battle against Lord Chauntleroy, inland at his own castle, away from our ships and the ocean? We wouldn’t last an hour.

That’s why I’ve called for them.

There’s the sound of horses coming through the woods, and when they enter the little clearing, I can feel my friends bristle behind me. I’ve just brought my immediate circle of Bjorn, Ivar, Erik, and Freya, and they’ve brought equal number.

The horses stop a few yards away, and as they dismount, you can feel the tension burning fiercely through the small clearing.

“Give me a reason.”

Lord Hamish Ballentyne growls the words as he dismounts, his eyes fierce and narrowed at me.

“A reason for what, my lord,” I drawl out the title, smirking as I make a big show of bowing comically low. Behind me, my friends snicker. Lord Hamish and the other highlanders who’ve just arrived don’t look amused.

“Not to kill you right here and now,” he hisses.

His friends dismount as well—Lord Malcolm McAuley, Lord Callum Bruce, and Callum’s father-in-law, Lord Lachlan McDougall. And I notice that they’re all armed.

I don’t blame them. So are we.

“Because,” I smile thinly. “Because I can give you what you want.”

“Which is?” Callum growls dangerously, his hand on the pommel of his sword.

“Peace. Peace and a complete end to the marauding up and down your shores, forever.”

Callum arches a brow. Hamish’s gaze narrows at me.

“Killing you could solve that problem too.”

I smile at him. “Aye, but you’d never be able to kill me, little highlander.”

Rage clouds his face, and he snarls as his hand tightens around the grip of his sword. But Malcolm steadies him, placing a hand on his shoulder and shaking his head as he mutters something. Malcolm turns to me, folding his arms over his chest.

“If I have this right, you want our help in stealing a highland girl away from the highlander lord who she’s betrothed to marry. A lord she was in fact going to marry just the other day before it was you who stole her to do gods only know what wi—”

“Mind your words, highlander,” I hiss dangerously, unsheathing my broadsword in one sweep of my arm. The men instantly reach for theirs, before Freya swears viciously and steps between us all.

“Enough!” She spits, eying each of us. “Enough, put the blades away.”

“Speak, Norseman.”

Lachlan McDougall’s deep, rumbling baritone thunders through the air around us, a hand coming up to stroke his thick, silvered beard as he eyes me. We’ve fought before on occasion, when he came roaring in to the rescue of a village near his lands that I was attacking. He’s a large man, almost as big as me. And despite his older age, the man is in peak fighting condition—big arms, broad shoulders, and a fierceness in his eyes. Truth be told, of all of them, it’s the man fifteen years my senior I’d be the least inclined to want to fight one-to-one.

“Aside from Rhona being a friend of my daughter’s and these men’s’ wives, why would we possible join forces with a known murderer and terrorist.”

“Two reasons,” I growl, raking my fingers over my beard. “One, because if you help me, you will have peace in these lands.”

“Meaning you’ll leave these shores?” Malcolm eyes me.

I turn, glancing at my friends before I turn back and smile.

“More like the opposite.”

The four of them glance at each other questioningly.

“I’m planning on settling—here, on these very shores.”

Four jaws drop. Four sets of eyes go wide in disbelief and anger.

“Is this a joke?”

I shake my head at Malcolm.

“Nay, no joke. My people and I are done with the marauding life, and through with the violence. But doing so means we can’t return home. Not with the current king we have. All we want is land to call our own—to farm, to settle. To raise our families here.”

Hamish barks out a laugh.

“You’ve gone mad, devil. You think you can land on these shores after years of attacking them, and then take land and call it your own?”

“The land I’ve found belongs to no one, actually,” I throw back. “And the past is the past. You’ve killed my men; I’ve killed your people. It’s over though.”

“The hell it is,” he hisses.

“So this is your bargaining chip?” Callum nods at me. “We help you take Rhona back from Chauntleroy, and your offer is to then settle on our very shores?”

“And to stop the marauding, yes.”

Callum snorts, shaking his head as he looks away.

“You’ve got some balls, Viking.”

“Would you care to see them, little lordling?”

He glares at me, and I grin.