Highland Wolf Pact: Blood Reign: A Scottish Werewolf Shifter Romance Read online

  As if reading his mind, the older man half-smiled, and asked, “What is’t that ye seek, wulver warrior?”

  Griff frowned into his mug of tea, a mug that seemed giant in the redhead’s hands, but diminutive in his own. He supposed there was no better way than to just come out and say it.

  “I need t’know where t’find the lost packs’o’wulvers.”

  Bridget, who had been reaching over his shoulder to place a wooden plate and spoon in front of him, stopped what she was doing to stare at him.

  “And why d’ye seek this knowledge?” the gray-haired wulver asked.

  “He’s a wulver?” Bridget blurted, blinking at Griff in surprise. “Is e’eryone beyond these temple walls half-wolf’n’half-man? Am I t’only one who can’na change t’animal form?”

  “A’course not.” Aleesa smiled, putting the roast meat and a pot of vegetables on the table. “In fact, t’opposite’s true. Most beasts who roam this world are either man or animal, not both.”

  “Tis true,” Griff agreed, giving a laugh. The redhead glared at him as if finding out he was a wulver was the last insult she could possibly bear. “’Ave ye ne’er been beyond these temple walls?”

  “A’course I have,” Bridget snapped, pulling back, away from the brush of Griff’s upper arm as if she had been burned. The silk of her robe brushing his skin was intoxicating. “Jus’ not… far.”

  “’Bout as far as t’rocks ye met me at, I’d wager.” Griff grinned.

  “Ye’d n’lose that wager, lad.” The older man chuckled and the redhead’s spine stiffened again, her lips pursing prettily.

  The old man looked at his daughter—Griff still couldn’t quite comprehend how the young woman called the old wulver father, when clearly she was not their issue—smiling ruefully. “I can’na take ’er much further than I a’ready ’ave. She’s been a fine student, an obedient daughter, an’ her mother an’ I love ’er dearly. We’ve trained ’er all these years t’fill two roles—that of temple handmaiden and temple guardian. Tis a heavy burden fer one so young, but there’s no other. And ’er mother an’ I’ll n’live fore’er. Certainly, we’ll live longer than most in the safety of this sacred place, and t’will keep us ’ere t’tend it ’til there’s another.”

  “Tis as it should be, Father,” Bridget reminded him, putting a pitcher of cool water in the middle of the table as she sat beside Griff.

  “I wondered why ye’d send a woman out as temple guardian,” Griff mused, accepting a delicious smelling leg of chicken with an empty plate as Aleesa carved. “But clearly ye’ve no other choice.”

  “I almos’ bested ye—twice,” Bridget reminded coolly. She plucked two errant feathers from the wing of a chicken on her plate with a vengeance.

  “I mus’ confess, I almos’ let ye win.” Griff grinned when she gave him a look, eyes narrowed to gray-green slits, like a cat. “But I’ve traveled a long way, seekin’ knowledge at this temple. If I had t’kill ye, I s’pose I would’ve. A’fore I knew ye were a woman…”

  “What’s that hafta do wit’ anythin’?” Bridget wrinkled her snub nose at him, reaching for her mug of tea. “I’m jus’ as much a warrior as ye’re. Me father was ona t’greatest wulver warriors in history. I’ve learned from t’best.”

  “But ye’re not a wulver.” Griff stated the obvious, in spite of the way she glowered at him. “And ye are a woman. Men, ’specially wulver men, have a physical advantage ye do’na. It’s simple fact.”

  Griff gnawed on the leg of chicken, picking it cleanly of meat, before reaching for another, trying to ignore the holes the woman was trying to burn into him with her eyes. But she wasn’t about it let it go.

  Bridget’s voice trembled just slightly as she leveled her gaze on him. “Ye’re t’most arrogant… foolhardy…” Her eyes dropped to the chicken breast he held in his fingers. “Slob of a man I’ve e’er met.”

  Griff met her unwavering gaze. She was nearly smoldering, she was so angry. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the older woman, Aleesa, frowning at her daughter’s words.

  “An’ how many men’ve ye met?” Griff inquired politely, managing to keep most of the smirk off his face.

  “What does’t matter?” she asked, straightening her shoulders haughtily.

  Griff shrugged one shoulder, reaching for his mug. “I need t’know yer frame’o’reference.”

  “He’s insufferable!” Bridget exclaimed, looking across the table at her father. “I’m sorry I did’na best ’im fer ye. He does’na deserve whate’er knowledge he’s ’ere t’seek. An’ I do’na feel ye should give it t’him.”

  “How d’ye know anythin’ about me?” Griff asked, still keeping his tone conversational. He wasn’t going to take the girl’s bait, no matter how she set the trap.

  “I know enough.” Bridget snapped a carrot between her teeth, chewing noisily. The vegetable clearly hadn’t been fully cooked. “I know ye’re full’o’pride. Ye’re boastful, ye’re rude, ye b’lieve ye’re entitled. Not only t’whate’er ’tis ye wanna know ’bout t’lost packs’o’wulvers, but ye act as if ye’re king of ’em a’ready.”

  “Bridget,” Aleesa warned, shaking her head.

  “Accordin’ t’prophecy, I am.” Griff smiled, a little smugly, he had to admit.

  He heard Aleesa gasp, and she put her trembling mug back on the table to gape at him. Her blue eyes stared into his, her head cocked, and he knew she was seeing, maybe for the first time, the color of his eyes.

  He wondered if they were their usual, strange, gold color, or if they had suddenly flared red. He sometimes could feel when it happened, especially when he was angry, but not always. The older man was watching too, a look on his face that had not been there previously. It wasn’t frightened, like the dark-haired wulver woman, it was harder, more knowing, and resolute.

  “Wha’ prophecy?” Bridget looked between her parents, frowning, and then at Griff. “I know of no prophecy about t’king of wulvers. Ye’re an arrogant, assumin’ fool.”

  “Mayhaps ye do’na know as much as ye think ye do.” Griff blinked at her and Bridget glared back, grinding her teeth. He could hear it.

  “T’red wulver?” Aleesa’s voice trembled almost as much as her mug had in its journey from hand to table. She glanced at her husband, meeting his eyes, and something passed between them.

  The gray-haired wulver stood, towering at full height, looking down at Griff and snarling, “That’s not a claim t’make lightly.”

  “It’s mine t’make.” Griff stood, too, and it happened so fast that both women at the table jumped back in shock when Griff shook his dark mane of hair and shifted instantly from man to wulver-warrior. His half-wolf form was formidable, twice his normal size, with a wolf’s head but a man’s body, his fur a dark russet color, his eyes blood red, flashing.

  He didn’t need to see himself to know.

  He saw it in their eyes.

  He saw it on Bridget’s already pale face that went stark white at the sight of him.

  Not to be outdone, the older man shifted, too. His mane of hair turned to gray fur and teeth, as the two wolf-men faced each other across the table, growling deep in their throats, threatening each other, dark lips pulled back from their canines in warning.

  “Enough!” Aleesa cried, standing and holding a palm out to each wulver, as if she could keep them apart. “Violence’s forbidden ’ere. If ye wanna ’ave a pissin’ contest, go do it top side, d’ye hear me?”

  Griff shifted back first, with a shake of his big, russet-colored wolf head, and the older man followed suit, but the tension hadn’t eased in the slightest. Griff felt the hair still standing up on the back of his neck as he faced the gray-haired wulver.

  “If he really is t’red wulver…” Aleesa murmured to her husband. The gray-haired man’s lip curled, and Griff saw, he didn’t know what to believe.

  “I am t’red wulver,” Griff insisted. He’d been called such in his own pack for so long, he wasn’t used to being doubted. “Ye’
re addressin’ yer future king.”

  “Ye’re no one’s king yet, pup.” The other man leveled him with a long stare. “And ye’re addressin’ Alaric, t’Gray Ghost, swordmaster t’yer father, Raife, and ’is father a’fore ’im, and senior guardian of this temple. Ye’ll stand down, or I’ll be glad t’remind ye of yer place ’ere.”

  Griff had the impulse to fly across the table, to take him on here and now, but he saw the way Bridget glared at them, how Aleesa’s eyes grew wide as she looked between the two men, and so he held back. They had information he wanted—needed. Mayhaps if he could convince them of the prophecy, and that he was the wulver who fulfilled it, they would be more forthcoming with that information.

  “Alaric, t’Gray Ghost.” Griff held his hand out to the other man, who took it, and they shook. “Yer reputation proceeds ye. M’father talked overmuch of yer swordsmanship and yer bravery. Now I know where t’lass learned it.”

  That broke the tension and they all sat down again to eat. He was surprised by the girl beside him, whose anger seemed to have ebbed away entirely. She just watched and listened as they talked around the table.

  “So ye’re really Raife’s son?” Alaric asked, studying him. Both the wulvers looked at him quite differently now that they knew his parentage. That both pleased and annoyed him.

  “Aye.” Griff reached for the last leg of chicken at the same time as the woman beside him.

  “Ye look like ’im.” Aleesa nodded over her mug.

  “More’s the pity.” Griff snorted, struggling with Bridget briefly over the leg of chicken. Another test of wills. He glanced at her, smiling, and she rolled her eyes and gave up, letting him have it.

  “Except t’eyes,” Alaric noted.

  “How’d ye come t’be ’ere, in this temple?” Griff asked, leaning over and depositing the last chicken leg in his hand on Bridget’s plate. “Story tells that yer wife went out t’gather herbs and ne’er returned?”

  “Aye.” Alaric nodded. “Aleesa had a dream ’bout this place. She was called ’ere, y’ken?”

  “By... who?” Griff blinking, glancing around, as if another presence might suddenly appear and make themselves known, although he knew that was unlikely.

  “I do’na know,” Aleesa said softly, her gaze dropped to her plate. “T’was a voice from… far ’way, ’cross t’sea. I had t’follow.”

  “So ye left yer husband an’ young pup?” Griff looked over at Bridget as she tossed the chicken leg back onto his plate.

  “Pup?” Bridget asked, looking at her mother, clearly surprised.

  “A daughter...” Aleesa did not lift her lowered eyes, and her voice dropped to something so soft it was hard to hear her. “Kirstin...”

  “An’ ye followed ’er?” Griff asked. He picked up the chicken leg, studying it. He no longer wanted it, would have let the girl have it, but she refused. That irked him.

  “Aye,” Alaric agreed, sliding a hand over his mate’s on the table. “I followed, and I found ’er.”

  “How?” he asked. “How could ye know where she’d gone?”

  “I did’na know,” Alaric admitted, looking at his mate with the kind of love Griff was used to seeing pass between couples he knew—like his parents, like Laina and Darrow, Kirstin and Donal. He knew that kind of love when he saw it, even if it continued to baffle him. “I followed ’er trail at first. Then, later, I discovered a woman’d sought passage t’Skara Brae from t’place where her trail ended, and I knew’t mus’ be ’er. I challenged the guardian of this temple—an’ I slew ’im.”

  “There was a guardian ’ere?” Griff stared at him in surprise as he quietly snuck the chicken leg onto Bridget’s plate. The girl noticed and glanced at him, but she didn’t say anything.

  “Aye, but no priestess.” Alaric patted his wife’s hand. “Aleesa knew… t’was ’er callin’.”

  The dark-haired woman lifted her eyes to meet his and Griff saw tears there. It pained him. He knew the woman who was her daughter, who had been without her mother for years, who thought the woman was likely dead—and her father, as well.

  “Ye know m’Kirstin?” Aleesa asked him softly. Her lower lip quivered. “She’s well?”

  “Aye,” he replied, nodding. “Her son, Rory, is one of me truest friends.”

  “She has a son...” Aleesa looked over at her husband and something passed between them. How long had it been, Griff wondered, since the parents had seen their daughter? Forty years, mayhaps? The older wulver woman turned back to Griff, asking, “She found ’er one true mate, then?”

  “Aye, The MacFalon.” He had already told her he didn’t believe in magic—he wasn’t about to tell her he didn’t believe in “one true mates” either.

  “The... who?” Bridget looked blindsided. She’d forgotten the fought-over chicken leg. She’d probably even forgotten her loss to Griff at the crossroads, from the confused, surprised look on her face.

  “Donal MacFalon,” he explained. “Son of Lachlan. Brother of Alistair.”

  “My Kirstin’s married t’The MacFalon?” Alaric’s voice was as hard as granite.

  “He’s a fine man,” Griff countered, shaking his head at the old man’s alarm. He could understand it, of course. There was a time when The MacFalon—in fact, all of the MacFalon clan—had actively hunted and killed wulvers. But that wasn’t the case anymore, not since the wolf pact. King Henry VII, who had an encounter with Griff’s grandmother, from which his father, Raife, was born, had initiated the wolf pact. It had resulted in peaceable relations between the wulvers, Scots and English for years.

  “He’s a good husband an’ father,” Griff told them. “An’ a trusted leader.”

  “He’s still laird of the clan?” Aleesa asked, cocking her head in confusion.

  “Aye. He was when I left.” Griff chuckled. “They live in Castle MacFalon.”

  “How?” Aleesa frowned. “I know t’wolf pact was keepin’ the peace b’tween ’em, but... I can’na imagine t’MacFalons allowin’ wulvers t’live in t’castle.”

  “Heh. You’d be surprised.” Griff grinned, remembering how often he was at Castle MacFalon, or Rory was visiting the den. They passed back and forth quite often with no incident. Just thinking about it made him a little homesick. “Besides, Kirstin’s not a wulver anymore.”

  Alessa sat back, truly shocked, whispering, “What?”

  “My mother, Sibyl—she’s a human woman, not a wulver—she’s a great healer,” Griff explained. He tried to think of the best way to present things to her, but decided there wasn’t really a good one. So he just told her. “She found a cure for t’wulver woman’s curse. They found an old text buried in the first den, and she deciphered its meanin’ enough to gather the herbs she needed to make a cure.”

  “The Book of the Moon Midwives?” Aleesa asked, her already wide eyes growing wider.

  “Aye, how’d ye know?” Griff wondered aloud.

  “I know of it,” she breathed. Aleesa looked at her husband, then back at Griff, and finally, her gaze fell onto her daughter—the one who she had not borne, but raised. “No one knew where t’was. Tis where the prophecy’s told.”

  “Aye, m’mother and the wulver women have been pouring over the thing for years.” Griff snorted, sitting back in his chair. “M’mother could only read English. But she got help from Moira and Beitrus.”

  “Beitrus...” A smile flitted across Aleesa’s face. “She’s still alive, then?”

  “Aye, old as t’hills, startin’ t’go blind.” Griff smiled back at her. “…and she’s no longer a wulver either.”

  “What?” Aleesa exclaimed.

  “She’s the one who tested t’cure,” Griff told her. “Insisted, as she was t’oldest, and had t’least t’lose, if it killed ’er.”

  “They let ’er just take it?” Alaric cried.

  Griff chuckled. “No, but if ye knew Beitrus—she’s stubborn.”

  “Aye, that she is.” Aleesa laughed, patting her husband’s hand. “Always was.�
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  “Why’d ye never send word?” Griff asked, looking between the two older wulvers with a slow shake of his head. “At least tell us ye were ’ere?”

  “I can’na leave.” Tears sprang to Aleesa’s eyes again and she blinked them quickly away when her daughter looked at her. “Once a priestess commits ’erself to this temple, she can’na go.”

  “Yer daughter would’ve liked to know ye were alive,” Griff said softly. He saw his words hurt her, but he felt they had to be said. “Safe.”

  “All is as it should be.” Alaric stood, leaning over to kiss the top of his wife’s bent head.

  “Yer ’ere now.” Aleesa lifted her gaze to meet Griff’s, such hope in her eyes. “Ye can carry word back to m’Kirstin, can’t ye?”

  Griff nodded. “Aye.”

  The woman stood, too, helping her husband and daughter clear the table. Griff moved to help them, but Aleesa insisted, as their guest, that he sit.

  “The Book of the Moon Midwives.” Aleesa shook her head in disbelief as she made them all more tea. “I’d like t’see it. Read it—what I could make out. Ye could read it t’me, Alaric.”

  Bridget sat beside him, holding her own cup of tea. She was quiet now, far more subdued. Clearly he had brought new and mayhaps not welcome information into this little, isolated family. He worried about the way her brow wrinkled as she blew gently on the hot liquid, looking into it as if it might hold some answers.

  “All t’wulvers in m’den can read’n’write both Gaelic’n’English,” Griff told Aleesa. “M’mother was English—but she learned Gaelic right alongside t’pups.”

  “They read’n’write?” Alaric’s eyes widened.

  “Aye. She’s big on education.” Griff laughed. “And had quite an influence over m’father.”

  “I guess so.” Alaric laughed too, shaking his head.

  “I don’t see much point in knowin’ how t’read’n’write.” Griff shrugged. “If wulvers were meant t’be men, we wouldn’t be half-wolf, eh?”

  “So you’ve seen t’prophecy written?” Aleesa asked, looking at him in wonder.