Fire Maidens Scotland (Billionaires & Bodyguards #6) - Anna Lowe Page 0,1
man reckless and blind.
Love is life, his inner beast retorted as if it were a misty-eyed unicorn and not a proud dragon.
Lachlan balled his hands into fists. Love was merely an emotion, and he had been raised to be a cool, analytical man.
Don’t you remember how good love felt? his dragon tried. True love, I mean. Destiny.
Oh, he remembered. All the excitement, all the bliss — and all the temptation. Enough to have nearly derailed his life. It was a damn good thing he’d gotten out while he could.
Still, his chest squeezed, and his pulse raced at the memories of those brief, heady days. The thrill of a single kiss from the woman he loved. The way his heart thumped just from thinking about her…
The pain of saying goodbye, his dragon whispered. The sacrifice it took to let her go.
A good thing Colin jabbed his shoulder just then. “Mark my words, boy. You don’t want to die knowing you’re the end of your line. Think of Trevor. A man with everything — except a direct heir to the family line.”
Angus didn’t look too sad at the prospect. One dragon fewer among the Guardians meant one more seat for a unicorn.
Meanwhile, Natasha’s eyes sparkled. As Trevor’s great-niece, thrice removed, she was his closest relative and, therefore, the logical person to inherit a vast fortune. Word had it, she’d even quit her corporate job in anticipation of inheriting Trevor’s estate. But Trevor had become fickle in his golden years. Who knew to whom the old man had decided to leave his vast holdings?
Natasha checked her watch and called out, “We’re already ten minutes late. Can’t we get started? Everyone is here.”
“Everyone but Trevor.” Penelope dabbed her tear-stained cheeks.
Fergus MacGregor, one of Scotland’s senior unicorns, sighed. “Everyone but Trevor and the person he appointed to bring his ashes home to Scotland.”
A fresh flood of tears trickled down Penelope’s face.
The solicitor — another unicorn shifter, judging by the isolated circle of hair on his otherwise bald head — shook his head. “We can’t begin before the ashes are safely delivered. Trevor was very particular about wanting to preside over this occasion, at least in spirit.”
“Trevor was particular about everything,” Natasha muttered.
Penelope flashed a bittersweet smile. “That’s one of the things I loved about him.”
Lachlan looked between the two women. As the offspring of Scotland’s oldest shifter clans, he, Natasha, and Penelope had known one another for years. Natasha was the same stormy, selfish dragon she’d been as a child, and Penelope was as sweet and sentimental as ever. Then again, unicorn shifters tended to be that way — anxious, emotional, and high-strung.
“Perhaps a poem, then, while we wait,” Penelope suggested. “I happen to have prepared one for the occasion.”
Lachlan winced. That was another thing about unicorns — they loved poetry, with verses that went on and on.
“I don’t think—” Natasha started to protest.
But Fergus MacGregor tossed his head in a gesture of unicorn delight and motioned everyone to their seats. “By all means.”
Lachlan sat, trying not to fidget as his dragon tested the air for trouble. Something was afoot — but what?
Destiny, a little voice whispered in his mind.
Penelope cleared her throat. “I’ll begin with a few lines from Robert Burns.” She unfolded a sheet of paper, took a deep breath, and began. “Here is the glen, and here the bower…”
The unicorns nodded along, rapt. Colin McDougal, the dragon shifter, poured himself a whisky before settling in for the duration. Roger Birch-Thompson, England’s lion shifter envoy to Scotland, folded his hands over his gut and closed his eyes for a snooze. Obviously, both men had found coping mechanisms for dealing with unicorns’ love of verse. Natasha, meanwhile, rapped her long, lacquered fingernails on the buttons of the form-fitting business suit she’d worn for the occasion.
“Underneath the birchen shade, the village bell has told the hour…”
Natasha stirred the air with her hand, prompting Penelope along.
Tears streamed down Penelope’s cheeks, and she hung her head. “I’m sorry. I don’t think I can go on.”
Natasha looked delighted. But Fergus stood and took the sheet of paper from Penelope. “Don’t worry. I’ll take over from there.”
Natasha’s eyes shot daggers when Lachlan rose and guided Penelope to the seat beside him.
“So sad,” Penelope whispered, wiping her eyes.
Lachlan patted her arm. “Trevor was well over one hundred, and he lived well.”
“Still, sad.”
He thought of all the soldiers and civilians he’d witnessed dying far too young. But Penelope would really start blubbering if he mentioned them. Instead, he pulled out a