Banshee's Howling Ecstasy Claims Her Ghostly Highland Laird

The mist clung to the crumbled stones of Dunravens Castle like a lover who refused to let go. Rowan McAllister pulled her rain jacket tighter around her curves, boots crunching over centuries of fallen masonry as she swept the beam of her flashlight across the inner bailey. At twenty-eight, the American paranormal investigator had chased ghosts from Savannah to Prague, but nothing had prepared her for the electric prickle that raced up her spine the moment she stepped through the broken archway.

The air grew heavier, colder, scented with wet heather and old iron. Her breath fogged in front of her. Then the fog thickened, coalesced, and took the shape of a man.

He was massive.

Broad shoulders strained against the spectral folds of a plaid kilt, the fabric translucent yet detailed enough to show the heavy leather belt and the dull gleam of a phantom dirk. His chest was bare beneath a half-draped tartan, every carved muscle limned in faint blue-white light. Black hair fell to his shoulders, framing a brutally handsome face scarred by old battles. His eyes burned like twin emeralds lit from within.

Laird Callum MacTavish.

Rowan’s research had been thorough. Died 1746 at Culloden, last laird of Dunravens, said to haunt these stones forever searching for a woman brave enough to match his war-lust in the bedroom. The legends had always sounded like horny folklore. Until now.

The ghost’s gaze locked on her. A slow, predatory smile curved his mouth.

“Ye smell alive, lass,” he rumbled, voice layered with the echo of distant bagpipes and clashing steel. “Warm. Wet already. I can taste it on the wind.”

Rowan’s thighs clenched involuntarily. A strange heat bloomed low in her belly, spreading outward like liquid fire. Her throat tightened. When she opened her mouth to answer, the sound that emerged wasn’t her usual smoky alto.