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"You know Rainer He was throwing daggers blindfolded, showing off for some human Beau took a blade in the side and caed him off Rain while I saw to the humans" Harlech’s ain, I’d be pleased to see to it"

A hand rapped on thebehind thelass divider between her and Locksley "My lord?"

"You ers tapped the top of her shoulder "Your jacket is torn"

Jayr tucked in her chin to inspect the narrow burnthe bronze leather "So it is" She reached inside the jacket to check her shoulder, which bore no wound, and felt soht in a fold of her sodden shirt She took out and looked at a flattened slug "The last bullet must have ricocheted"

Byrne turned his head away fro His expression remained composed, but the pupils in his eyes contracted to vertical slivers, and the blue-black irises took on a diffused glow, one of candlelight shining through a goblet of burgundy "You were shot and you dinnae say a word?"

"I am not injured,similar in Jayr’s own breast, an iming Byrne had every right to be annoyed with her for nearly leading him and Lord Locksley into an aainst this trip into the cityHer duty was to serve, not to chastise

It would be gratifying, a snide corner of her heart said, if he would but occasionally listen tojacket, remembered the torn condition of her shirt, and instead pulled up the front zipper The offending slug she pocketed "Forgive e as soon as we return to the Realht saystreetlights

"I should not have mentioned it" Locksley sounded rueful now "It is only that I have coveted that particular jacket for months, and planned to filch it froet it?"

"Farlae, the keeper of the wardrobe, arments," Jayr said "I can have him measure you He will have a duplicate made by the end of the week"

"What, and further tarnish my dusty reputation?" His ahed, twinkled "Never"

The suzerain’s jesting did not provoke a response frorowing discontent Jayr would have to see to it that the tournaone h Jayr hated that part of her duties as nothing else, she would procure some human females to entertain him before their staff was sent on leave Perhaps two or three of the woe, bleakhad to

Chapter 2

Aedan ht harder, and spilled more blood than a hundred h human life as laird of the rave to aid his hulish out of their hohland de blood from one of his wounds across Byrne’s brow "Youof the Scots would die never knowing that on that glorious day on Bannockburn, when the English were soundly thrashed by an army half the size of their own, the lairdthe life of an innocent

Jayr’s life, offered to save his own

That she had given herself to hi her and changing her from human to Kyn, he had cursed her soul as wholly and completely as he had his own

Byrne had tried to do penance for the terrible price she had paid for hiht a life of peace Resisting the lure of battle had not been a si, for it was the only trade he had known, and the only place where his affliction had proved of any value But for Jayr’s sake he had resisted, beating it back until the urges dwindled and subsided

Or so Byrne had believed

During the jardin wars, Richard hadto wield him like a club to sh lord It had been the first test of Byrne’s control over his affliction, and he had won, keeping a level head even in the

Many years later, when Byrne left Scotland and the slaughterhouse of memories behind for the promise of a new life in America, his newfound iron control had persuaded Richard to raise him above the ranks of the warrior Kyn As an Aiven rule and responsibility over more than three thousand of his kind who had already settled in the colonies Here, too, he had been obliged to fight occasionally for as his, but he had taken up the sword as a man, not a monster

His victory over his affliction had seemed complete, but Byrne knew that what lurked inside his soul would never leave hi, however, had reawakened it