Highland Wolf Pact Page 20

  He nodded, glancing over her shoulder, then back into her eyes.

  “What would ye say ta the man?” Donal asked softly.

  “That I love him.” She twisted the handkerchief in her hands. “That I only did what I did because I love him. Because I wanted to keep him safe.”

  “I understand.” Donal gave a long, deep sigh.

  “I wish he did.” Sibyl half-stood, ready to go. She wanted to go hide in her room, bury her face in a pillow and sob the rest of the day away. But there were potatoes to peel in the kitchen. And linens to change on the beds. Anything to keep her hands, and her mind, busy.

  “Ask ’im.” Donal nudged her gently.

  “I cannot!” She handed him his handkerchief. “He will not give me the time of day.”

  “Mayhaps he has a few minutes now?” He glanced over her shoulder again and Sibyl frowned, turning her head in that direction.

  The sight of Raife standing in the doorway made her heart drop to her knees. His face was a mask, unreadable, but his eyes were as blue and expressive as ever. He had heard her, that much was clear. But had he listened? Did he care?

  “Raife?” she whispered, using the chair to hold herself up, because her knees turned wobbly.

  “Ye asked t’see me?” Raife turned his gaze to Donal, ignoring Sibyl.

  “Aye, I did.” Donal waved him in with a sigh. “Come in.”

  “I was just leaving.” Sibyl lowered her head and moved to sidestep him as Raife came into the room. She had just decided that running up to her room and burying her face in a pillow to sob for the rest of the day was exactly what she was going to do.

  “Och!” Donal rolled his eyes, throwing up his hands. “Nay, I was jus’ leavin’!”

  It happened so fast. One minute, Donal was standing there, the next, he was on the other side of the door, and a key was turning in the lock.

  Raife frowned, reaching for the door handle, turning it. But it wouldn’t budge.

  “Unless ye plan on breakin’ down me door, ye’ll be workin’ this out between ye!” Donal called through the thick, solid wood door. “I’m tired of havin’ t’comfort that poor girl’s tears on me shoulder.”

  Raife scowled at Sibyl, as if her tears were her own fault, and Donal’s comfort was too.

  “I jus’ have one more thing ta say afore I go,” Donal called, clearing his throat. “Son, if’n ye do’na want her—”

  “Go!” Raife snapped at the closed, locked door. “Leave us!”

  They both heard Donal chuckle and then there was silence.

  “So ye did it for me, eh?” Raife crossed his big arms over that giant, bare chest of his—the MacFalons had all tried to get him to wear a shirt under his plaid, but he refused—scowling at her. “Ye ran back here into yer lover’s arms for me benefit?”

  “Yes, you big, dumb oaf!” Sibyl snapped. “As a matter of fact, I did! Did it ever occur to you that coming back here and marrying Alistair was something I didn’t actually want to do?”

  Raife’s brow knitted, his frown deepening. Sibyl had held her tongue long enough. She had chased him all around the grounds trying to get him to listen to her, and now that he was a captive audience—until he broke the door down—she wasn’t going to let the chance pass her by. She had practiced everything she was going to say in her head, in a cool, even tone, and all of that went completely out the window when she was faced with him.

  “Did it ever enter your thick skull that maybe, just maybe, I was doing it to keep King Henry and the entire English army from attacking the wulvers?” she cried, her hand itching to reach out and smack him upside his big, dumb head.

  “We’re wulvers, Sibyl!” he roared right back at her. She didn’t even shrink from his anger—at least he was responding. “We can take care of ourselves!”

  “Your brother was run through with a MacFalon sword. He could have died!” She reminded him. “Now multiply that by a hundred. A thousand. How many wulvers would I have had my hands inside, trying to stop the bleeding, if war had broken out?”

  Raife shook his head, ready to deny it, to argue with her, but she couldn’t keep any of it at bay anymore. She had let some of it out on Donal’s wide, generous, kind-hearted shoulder, but it wasn’t Donal she was mad it, and it wasn’t Donal she had been so afraid she was going to lose. It was Raife. It was her big, giant, stubborn, bull-headed, sweet, kind, protective, loveable man of a wolf she had been so scared she was going to lose. It was this man who she had been willing to sacrifice everything for, who she would rather have known was living safely up in the mountain, while she suffered at Alistair’s sadistic hands, than lying dead somewhere on MacFalon land.

  “What if… what if it had been you…” she whispered, eyes brimming with tears. She saw a look of concern pass over his face, the way he reached for her but stopped himself. “What if it had been your severed head… in my lap…?”

  She couldn’t get the words out, couldn’t stop picturing it in her mind. She sobbed into her hands, turning away from him, and then heard him say something she couldn’t quite believe.

  “Would ye have cared if it had been?”

  Sibyl lifted her head, gaping at him.

  “Oh you bastard!” she whispered, a sudden wave of anger overtaking her. She launched herself at him, pounding her fists against his chest. “How can you say that? How can you even ask that question?”

  Raife caught her wrists, half-smiling, an expression she hadn’t seen on his face since they’d been there. It made her want to smack him.

  “Ye never told me, lass,” he said softly, meeting her clouded gaze.

  “What?”

  “Ye never said the words,” he said again. “How was I supposed t’know?”

  “Are you mad?” she murmured. “Am I… dreaming?”

  “D’ye or don’ye?” He pushed his chin out, defiant, glaring down at her.

  Sibyl looked at her wrists, encircled by his big, giant paws, and then up at his face.

  “You want me to say the words?” She shook her head, incredulous. “Because giving myself to you, that wasn’t enough? Because risking my life to save your thick hide wasn’t enough? You need me to say the words?”

  He shrugged. “T’would be nice.”

  “Raife…” She burst out laughing. She couldn’t help it. “My God, you idiotic, ridiculous man. I love you! Is that what you wanted to hear? Tha gaol agam ort!”

  His eyes searched her face for the truth. She prayed he found it.

  “Do you understand that?” she asked softly. “In your own language? Tha gaol agam ort.”

  “Are ye done insultin’ me now?” he asked, letting her wrists go.

  “No!” She hit him again, this time square in the chest with both fists. “You lumbering lout!”

  He caught both wrists again and pulled her close, trapping her arms between them. Then he kissed her. Everything they hadn’t said to each other went into that kiss, everything they both wanted, everything they hoped for, all their desperate fears, all their dreams of a future together. Sibyl tasted salt on their lips.

  “I love you,” she whispered when they parted. He kissed the tears from her cheeks. “Tha gaol agam ort, you boorish fool.”

  “And I love ye,” he said hoarsely. “Ye strange, irrational woman.”

  She rolled her eyes at him and he kissed her again, this time capturing her mouth in a desperate slant, as if he could put every moment they had missed into it.

  “And if ye ever…” His mouth dipped to her neck, nipping and biting her there, making her cry out. “Do anythin’…” His tongue moved down to her collarbone, making her moan as his hands moved under her plaid, seeking the heat of her skin. “So idiotic again…”

  “You’ll what?” she challenged, sliding a thigh between his, feeling the steel heat of him, satisfied when she heard him groan.

  “Wulvers mate for life, lass, I told ye,” he breathed against the tops of her breasts. “I guess I’ll have to kill us both.”

 
“Oh but what a way to go,” she whispered as her man, her mate, her wulver, cleared Donal’s desk with one fell swoop, knocking everything to the floor so he could sit her up on it.

  Sibyl wrapped her arms and legs around him, hungry, desperate for him, unable to quench the fire he’d started burning inside her without him.

  “Ye’ll’na leave me again, lass.” Raife said the words as he entered her, making her cry out and cling to him. “Ne’er again.”

  “I promise,” she whispered into his neck, trembling at the thought of losing him again. “I am yours.”

  “Say it again,” he growled, thrusting deep.

  “I’m yours!” she cried, biting her lip.

  “Again!”

  “Yours!”

  “Mine!” he groaned, driving in deep, filling her completely. “Mine!”

  Sibyl wouldn’t let him go. Even when they came and knocked on the door, asking if everything was all right—someone had obviously heard all the clatter—she refused to let him go. She wasn’t going to ever let him go again.

  Her father used to tell everyone that Sibyl Blackthorne wasn’t afraid of anything, and that had been true. But she had been stupid, and reckless, in her fearlessness.

  That was back when she didn’t have anything to lose.

  Now she knew what it was to love a man—a wulver—and how it felt to lose him.

  She wasn’t fearless anymore.

  But she was wonderfully, desperately, humanly in love.

  And Sibyl would take that over being brave, any day of the week, any month of the year, for the rest of her life—and his.

  The End

  EBOOK ONLY: Epilogue (The Story Continues…)

  I hope you enjoyed reading this story as much as I enjoyed writing it. Sibyl and Raife stole my heart and surprised me probably as much as they surprised you. They have been some of my favorite characters and I couldn’t resist the chance to explore more of their world. The epilogue to Highland Wolf Pact follows. I do hope you decide to pick up the sequel—coming soon!—and give it a read.

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  EPILOGUE

  Scotland

  Year of our Lord 1504

  “An’wha’if she births a son?”

  Sibyl heard Darrow’s question, spoken in a harsh whisper outside the big wooden door, and turned her face into Laina’s soft, white fur. The woman was in her wolf state—it was her moon time and she could not change into her human one—but her eyes said everything her mouth couldn’t. Laina heard her husband’s protests and knew they pained Sibyl, far more than the labor she was enduring.

  Sibyl wanted Raife by her side, wanted his hand in hers. Instead he was pacing back and forth outside her door, growling at every passerby, while Sibyl labored in front of a warm fire, Beitris, the old midwife, tending her. Laina had come, in spite of her wolf form, knowing her presence alone would give Sibyl comfort, and it did.

  “Do’na pay’tention t’em, lass,” Beitris soothed, putting a soft, wrinkled hand on Sibyl’s damp brow.

  But how could she ignore them? She knew they were worried. They were worried that this baby would be a boy, who might threaten King Henry VII’s claim to the throne. The king’s first son, Arthur, had died of the English sweating sickness. Rumors ran rampant that King Henry had become paranoid, fearfully keeping a hold of his crown. Advisors of and protectors to the king, of which Sibyl’s uncle, Godfrey Blackthorne, was one, were telling Henry he must purge all illegitimate pretenders to the throne and raise up the only legitimate son had had left—Henry VIII—to take his place.

  There was also talk of King Henry keeping his alliances with Spain by marrying off Arthur Tudor’s widow, Catherine of Aragon, to Henry VIII. The younger Henry was just a boy, though, still unable to enter a marriage contract. Sibyl had received a letter from her mother—all her correspondence went through Castle MacFalon, since they had maintained the wolf pact and their amiable ties with Donal, the new laird and warden of Middle March—stating that King Henry VII had lost not only his son, Arthur, but that Queen Elizabeth had died as well, and the old king had set his own sights on Catherine of Aragon as a way to possibly hedge his bets and secure the Tudors on the throne.

  Sibyl didn’t care who the king married, as long as he didn’t remember his other, illegitimate son, Raife, and change his mind about leaving the wulvers in peace. Raife was her husband, her mate, and now, he was about to be the father of her child. His brother, Darrow, was worried, she knew—if the baby were a boy, King Henry VII might get word and feel his crown was being threatened. Of course, the rest of the pack was worried this baby would be a girl. They wanted a male, to lead the wulvers.

  It didn’t seem to matter what gender child she gave birth to, Sibyl was stuck between a rock and a hard place. And at that moment, she felt as if she was pushing that rock uphill!

  “King Henry’s got another son,” Beitris reminded her. “I’m sure he’ll have sons as well and the Tudors’ll reign long.”

  ““I don’t care if the Tudors have boys or girls or wulvers—as long as my mate and my children stay with me and don’t lay claim to any English or Scottish thrones,” Sibyl panted, trying to will the pain away.

  “Women can’na lead!” Beitris laughed at the thought and Sibyl rolled her eyes. Even wulver women, who were so strong and capable, believed women couldn’t lead, whether it was a pack or a country.

  “Maybe the Tudors will be ruled by a red-haired woman!” Sibyl snapped, feeling another pain coming on.

  “Tis yer time,” Beitris soothed. “Do’na worry. This bairn’ll be leader’o’his pack.”

  Sibyl didn’t care if this baby would lead the wulvers or follow another, she just wanted to hold it to her breast and see it open its eyes. Her first baby had been born too soon, a tiny wisp of a thing Raife could hold in one palm. She had insisted, then, he be at the birth, and he’d held her hand through the whole ordeal. But when she’d looked up at his face, when she’d seen the way his eyes clouded over at the sight of his tiny, dying son, Sibyl knew she couldn’t again put him through something so traumatic.

  Men might deal every day in matters of life and death, but a woman’s heart was stronger than a man’s when it came to birth. So this time, Sibyl insisted he wait outside. Bad luck, she told him, for a man to be at the birth of his child. It was certainly true in her world, amongst humans, that men weren’t invited into the birthing chamber. This was women’s work. Her work. And she knew she had to do it alone.

  “I wish Kirstin was here!” Sibyl moaned as the pain came again and she bit down hard on the leather strap Beitris gave her. Sibyl was trying to be as quiet as she could so as not to alarm her already anxious husband.

  Laina licked the back of Sibyl’s hand, her tongue warm and soothing, as if to say, “I understand.”

  But Kirstin was gone. Sibyl didn’t like to think about losing her friend, about the sacrifices Kirstin had made to be with the man she loved. Laina’s own sacrifice, the wolf’s sad eyes and soft whine, said enough. Too much. It broke Sibyl’s heart that she had failed them, that she’d been unable to really help the plight of the wu
lver women—even if she had, in the end, found a way to “cure” the curse.

  “Oh no, not again,” she whispered, her fingers digging into Laina’s soft, white fur.

  Sibyl thought she just might die from the pain alone. She’d thought, when she birthed Robert—named after her father—that it had been bad, but he’d been so small. This baby was full term, his head like a boulder she was trying to push uphill. She grunted and strained and tried not to cry out, but the pain was too intense. She couldn’t hold out any longer. The man she loved, the only man who had ever claimed her—mind, body and soul—was standing on the other side of that door, and she wanted him.

  She needed him.

  “Raife!” Sibyl screamed his name, feeling as if she was being split in two. This was pain beyond pain. She couldn’t even see straight. Her body had taken over. Everything was out of control.

  “Sibyl!” The door burst open and Raife barged in. He was at her side in an instant, holding her in his big arms, the circle of his embrace safer than any she’d ever known in her life. “Are ye hurt?”

  She couldn’t help her short, strangled laugh. She wasn’t hurt, no, but she was hurting. Beyond hurting. But with him there, it was instantly better. He made everything better.

  “Tis almos’time,” Beitris told him calmly, pressing a warm cloth between Sibyl’s open legs. “Yer son’ll be’ere soon.”

  “It could be a daughter!” Sibyl panted, clinging to her mate, cheek pressed against the broad expanse of his chest.

  “Aye.” Raife chuckled, kissing the top of her head. “A bonnie red-haired lass like ’er mother.”

  “Tis ginger, that’s fer sure,” Beitris gave a nod between Sibyl’s thighs.

  Sibyl blinked in surprise as Raife bent his dark head to look but then another pain hit and she was sinking. There was nothing but a red, thrashing haze of pain and an overwhelming urge to bear down.

  “Noooo! Please! Raife!” Sibyl screamed, abandoning the leather strap and giving into the agony. She turned her face against his upper arm—the marked one. She carried a matching mark, intricate Celtic swirls, down her hip and thigh. Her marking had been painful, she remembered, but it had been nothing like this.