Highland Wolf Pact Page 5

  A howl rose up behind her, covering her whole body with goose flesh. Sibyl sank to her knees, giving up, hearing the men shouting, dogs barking. There was no escape now, unless the strange, naked man who called himself Raife and his pet wolf behind her could somehow magically spirit her away. It was too late. Tears, hot and salty, fell through her fingers. She sobbed, knowing she would never be free.

  A soft whine made her look up. The white wolf stood in front of her, the Scotsman’s plaid secured around her neck, completely covering her wound. Then, another wolf, this one even bigger, its black fur as dark as night, eyes as blue as the sky, appeared beside the other. Sibyl stared at it in disbelief, her breath held as its big head cocked to contemplate her. The white wolf had been tamed, but this wolf was as wild as they came. She knew it, just looking in its eyes, those bright, clear blue eyes. Was this the white wolf’s mate? She wondered this, even as she heard the hunting party’s approach, the low growl emitting from the dark wolf’s throat, and thought, not for the first time since she’d woken up that morning, that this would be the last day she drew breath.

  Then the animal nosed her hands away from her face and gently licked the tears from her cheeks. His tongue was warm but she couldn’t help her instinct to move away from those big, sharp teeth.

  “Is this wolf tame as well?” she managed to whisper, too afraid to look away from the pair to glance over her shoulder at Raife. “Is it… your pet?”

  No answer. The black wolf gave a short, sharp bark and the white wolf howled, glancing through the trees at the horses. The horses had a much harder time negotiating the woods, the underbrush thick, the big stallions unsure in their footing. The hounds, however, had an easier time. They were drawing close. Too close.

  “Raife?” Sibyl swallowed, daring to look over her shoulder, forgetting for a moment that the man was fully naked, but there was no one there.

  No one at all.

  “Raife?” She frowned, whipping her head around, looking for the man. Her bow and quiver were on the ground. His plaid was around the white wolf’s wounded neck. But the Scot was nowhere to be found. “Raife!”

  She dared to call his name, even though it might draw the attention of Alistair’s men to her, jumping to her feet. Behind her, the black wolf barked again, a short, piercing sound. Sibyl grabbed her bow and quiver, slinging it over her shoulder as she scanned the woods. He couldn’t have disappeared into thin air!

  She gasped when she felt a cold nose against her palm, a warm tongue. The black wolf moved in alongside her, forcing her hand through its thick fur as it rubbed up against her, almost like a cat might, emitting a low growl, then a plaintive whine. The animal was enormous, making the big, white wolf look small in comparison.

  “They’re coming for me.” She whispered the words to the wolves—there was no one else there. Raife had disappeared, had left her alone with these animals. She knew she was alone. But if Alistair was going to catch her, she didn’t want him to kill the wolves. At the very least, she could save them. “You have to go! Run!”

  She pushed hard against the black wolf, its muscular body budging only slightly. The animal growled, turning its head to look at her.

  “That’s right!” she insisted, feeling tears burning her eyes. “Go! Shoo! Go away!”

  Beside her, the other wolf barked. The white wolf flanked her now, standing between Sibyl and the dogs. They were coming. They were all coming. The black wolf issued a returning bark, moving in closer, until she was pressed between the two of them, almost as if they could hide her.

  “Go!” she cried, trying to push at them, but they were too big, too strong. “Please! Go!”

  It happened so fast she couldn’t even react. The white wolf shoved her hard, knocking the wind out of her, and she stumbled against the black wolf. Sibyl was falling and, instinctively, she reached out for something to grab onto, and the only thing at hand was the neck of the great black wolf. Then they were running. Flying through the forest. Sibyl couldn’t scream, although she wanted to. She could barely breathe.

  At first, the wolves ran side by side, keeping Sibyl from falling off the black wolf’s back. She tried hard to stay on, struggling with her heavy dress, the satchel pinned under her skirt, until she managed to get a leg securely over the wolf’s back so she was sitting astride him, like he was a horse. A horse with no saddle. A very slippery horse with no saddle.

  “Dear God, help me,” she whispered, feeling something graze her temple. When she lifted a hand to her head, it came back bloody, and she saw an arrow quivering in a nearby tree. “Please help me.”

  They were running so fast the forest was a blur whenever she opened her eyes, so she kept them closed, burying her face against the larger wolf’s neck. The animals ran hard, panting, and she felt the wolf’s muscles straining between her thighs with every leap over a stray log, every dodge around a tree. Beside them, the white wolf whimpered, but she managed to keep pace.

  Sibyl listened for the thunder of the horses, the bark of the dogs, but miraculously, the sounds disappeared. She clung to the wolf, trembling on its back, too afraid to look up and see where they were going, too frightened to look back, wondering what had happened to the man, Raife. A sudden, horrible thought occurred to her while the wolves spirited her away as she felt blood from her temple running down her cheek.

  Raife had been killed.

  She was suddenly sure of it. The man had been felled by an arrow, shot by one of Alistair’s men. It was the only explanation. The thought brought such an overwhelming sadness she couldn’t help her tears. She’d known the man for all of half an hour, and yet she was sobbing, thinking of him bleeding to death in the middle of the woods. Maybe it was because, in spite of his short, gruff nature, he’d tried to protect her, and had been so gentle with the white wolf.

  Sibyl sensed the temperature change around her, the cool sunlight of the woods giving way to something else. She opened her eyes to darkness, clinging to the wolf, arms tight around its neck, thighs squeezing its flanks so hard they ached. She couldn’t see her arms wrapped around the animal’s neck. Even the white wolf had disappeared from view, although she heard it panting and whimpering next to them.

  “Oh Raife.” She whispered a prayer for the poor, dead man, burying her face once again against the wolf’s fur. She shivered, suddenly cold, even in all her velvet, even with the wolf’s body, flushed from its run, between her thighs. The animal slowed and she dared to open her eyes. She glimpsed a faint light as she peered around the wolf’s big head.

  “Stad!” A voice echoed all around them.

  She couldn‘t tell where it was coming from and Sibyl gasped, grabbing the wolf’s fur in her fists. They were underground—she knew that much. It was cold and no sun reached this place. Maybe they were in a cave? The thought of entering a wolf den with these two animals gave her a chill that went bone-deep, far worse than the chilly temperature making goose flesh rise on her skin.

  But the voice that had spoken was most definitely human.

  And as soon as the wolves heard it, they stopped.

  The white wolf gave a quick bark and Sibyl felt the wolf beneath her growl. It rumbled through her body and the sound made her shiver. She held on tighter, even if she was afraid of the animal that carried her on its back. So far, it hadn’t done anything to hurt her—it had, in fact, carried her away from grave danger. The disembodied voice, while human, was far more unknown.

  “Please,” she whispered, cheek pressed to the wolf’s soft pelt. “Don’t hurt me. Please.”

  “A bheil a' Ghàidhlig agad?” the voice asked, closer now.

  “I don’t understand,” she pleaded in the darkness, the figure of a man drawing nearer. “I’m an Englishwoman. I don’t—”

  Beneath her, the wolf moved.

  It didn’t so much move as change. The animal’s fur, thick and soft, grew sparse and then seemed to disappear altogether. One moment she was leaning forward over the wolf’s neck, nearly horizontal, and the n
ext minute she was hanging on for dear life, her body almost completely vertical. She screamed, her cry echoing back at her, and let go, falling to a hard, rocky floor.

  “Are ye hurt, lass?” The voice beside her spoke English. She understood it perfectly well. In fact, she could have sworn she recognized it. But that was impossible.

  “Raife?” she whispered, feeling the man’s warmth as he knelt beside her. “Is it you? Can it be you? How…?”

  “Come.” He lifted her in his arms and Sibyl put hers around him and sobbed against his neck in the darkness.

  It was too much. The whole day had been too much, from her daring escape attempt to this very surreal moment as this strange man carried her past the sentry. She heard the guard say, “Siuthad!” the voice definitely male. “Càite bheil Darrow?” and the man who held her responded in Gaelic, but she was already slipping further into darkness.

  She had a moment to chastise herself, knowing her father would have been appalled at such a feminine display of weakness, but her body had simply given up. She found herself disappearing down another deep, dark hole, cheek resting against the bare chest and beating heart of a man who, she could have sworn, was a giant, black wolf only moments before.

  * * * *

  Surely she was dreaming.

  Sibyl woke on a mattress, looking around in the flickering light of an oil lamp, blinking up at the shadows and a man whose face was becoming increasingly familiar. She remembered the hunt first—her ride with Alistair into the woods, the revelation that the animal they were pursuing was a pregnant female locked in a convenient cage, her subsequent emancipation of that animal, her shooting of her fiancé, and her eventual escape—and then her capture.

  Well, she didn’t exactly remember her capture, but she could only infer that it had happened. She remembered the dogs barking, the horses, the shouts of the men. She remembered huddling, trembling and sobbing like a child, on the forest floor. And then—

  And then her mind had taken flight.

  Surely she had been captured, taken down here into a cold, dank place with sheetrock walls that could only be in the dungeons of Alistair’s keep, and her imagination had done the rest. She couldn’t trust her memory—the wolves, the ones that had carried her to dubious safety, had been a dream. She was sure of it.

  She had been sick with a very high fever once when she was a child and had dreamed all sorts of things. Her father’s huntsman had been twisted by her imagination into a bear, her mother into a vulture, her dear father into a barking dog. She knew the mind could play tricks that way.

  This man, Raife—was he her jailer then? He sat beside her on a log-stump stool, still wearing only that wrapped tartan plaid, bare-chested in the dim orange glow as he pressed a cool, wet cloth to her head. She didn’t recognize him as one of Alistair’s men, but perhaps the master of the dungeon was little more than a prisoner himself, locked away down here taking care of Alistair’s mistakes, keeping her betrothed’s secrets.

  “Where am I?” Her voice cracked. How long had she been asleep?

  “’Ere lass.” He spoke English, but in her dream, he’d spoken Gaelic. So that must mean she really had been dreaming. Of course she had, because in her dream this man had changed from a giant, black wolf back into this human form.

  “Yer wit’ me,” Raife reassured her. That cool cloth felt so good, and it made his hand feel even warmer as he brushed hair away from her face. “Yer safe.”

  Maybe she was still dreaming, but somehow she knew this was true.

  A low whine reached her ears and Sibyl frowned, trying to sit up. Raife frowned his own objection but he helped her, grabbing onto her elbow and steadying her when her intention was clear.

  “Easy,” he urged as she swung her feet to the floor. “Yer wounded.”

  “Wounded?” She touched her head, an ache throbbing there, vaguely remembering something. Then it came back. The arrow stuck quivering in the tree. The blood trickling down her cheek. She touched her temple and felt a bandage there. It was real. That sudden realization brought a chill and she shuddered, meeting Raife’s eyes.

  It was real.

  It was all real.

  “Wulvers?” she whispered, her lower lip trembling.

  Raife gave a slow nod.

  But it couldn’t be real. Her mind balked.

  “Laina!” The shout echoed in the distance and Sibyl’s spine straightened.

  The white wolf. Raife had called her Laina. Who was calling for her?

  “Darrow.” Raife stood, glancing down at Sibyl, frowning.

  Sibyl remembered that too. The sentry who had stopped them, he had asked about someone named Darrow. She didn’t know any of the other words in Gaelic, but she knew that was a name.

  “Mo bràithair.” Raife took a step toward the door, that shout growing louder, calling the white wolf’s name.

  “Your brother.” Sibyl stood, steadying herself against him. He was as solid and still as a tree rooted in place. “He owns the wolf?”

  Her mind wouldn’t let her believe anything else.

  “Darrow!” Raife called his brother’s name, opening the door. “Trobhad an seo!”

  The shouting stopped but Sibyl heard footfalls heading toward them. And that low whine intensified. She located the source of the sound across the room and realized it was the wolf. She was still laboring, panting softly, and beside her was an older woman dressed in tartan plaid tending to her and a much younger woman by her side.

  “Laina?” Sibyl whispered the wolf’s name and her white head came up briefly. Those blue eyes locked with hers. And then she was laboring again, her side rising and falling quickly, the sound of her panting filling the room.

  “Laina!” Darrow bellowed, bursting into the room. He was as tall as his brother, but lankier, not quite as broad. He had the same thick, dark hair, those piercing blue eyes that desperately searched the room for the sight of the wolf laboring on a mattress on the floor across the room.

  The wolf howled and Darrow went straight to her side.

  “Tiugainn!” the midwife muttered to herself, doing something Sibyl couldn’t see, but there was blood, plenty of it, on both women’s hands. The wolf actually snapped at the old woman, but she didn’t actually bite her.

  “Tha e cunnartach!” The midwife shook her head, removing a hand covered in blood from the behind of the wolf. Sibyl had seen enough calves and horses born to know what was happening, but she leaned in to ask Raife for sure.

  “What is it?”

  “The pup is facin’ wrong ways,” he murmured, his eyes on the scene before them. “She’s tryin’ ta turn the bairn.”

  “The pup…” Sibyl frowned. “But… shouldn’t there be… more?”

  Horses and cows usually carried only one offspring to term, but wolves were like dogs—they had litters. She had played with lots of puppies in the warmth of her father’s castle kitchen where the bitch would give birth in a large crate, and then the puppies would crawl all over each other in it until they were big enough to let roam.

  “Wulvers birth one.”

  Wulvers. Not wolves, wulvers. Raife had corrected her again and again, but Sibyl had dismissed his insistence as a language barrier. In Scotland, wolves and wulvers seemed interchangeable. At least, that’s what she had initially believed. Now, watching the white wolf, Laina, give birth, she wasn’t so sure.

  “Bidh curramach!” Darrow growled at the midwife as she did something that made Laina howl in pain.

  “Wulvers birth as wolves,” Raife explained as Sibyl watched, feeling weak-kneed and weak-stomached. “She can’na change while she’s laborin’. Tis why she could’na free herself.”

  “From the cage?” Sibyl watched as Raife’s brother bent to press his head against Laina’s furry one. She licked his cheek, whimpering softly, and the man whispered something in Gaelic that she couldn’t quite hear and wouldn’t have understood regardless.

  “It’s their first bairn.” Raife put an arm around Sibyl’s waist
, perhaps sensing her uneasy footing. “Nature knows its own way. Wolves birth young far easier than humans.”

  Raife had caught her just in time, too, because Sibyl felt her knees buckle as the wolf pup was born. The midwife exclaimed in triumph as the slick, dark-furred creature emerged covered in a bloody sac, head-first, as it should be. And then for the second time that day, Sibyl felt the world begin to go dark as, right before her very eyes, the white wolf Laina changed.

  Sibyl told herself she was dreaming. That the naked, blonde woman and the crying babe between her open thighs had always been there. Or perhaps, the wolf was still there, and Sibyl was in the grip of a horrible fever, imagining the wolf taking human form. Her vision went dark around the edges, but she saw it all anyway.

  The wolf’s body arched and moved, its snout shrinking, mouth open in what appeared to be a wide yawn that swallowed up its whole face. The animal’s limbs stiffened, muscles moving underneath, as if something were alive beneath its flesh. Then its fur slowly vanished, as if it was being pulled into its skin from the inside. The skin was as pale as a baby’s beneath, pale as any human. Everything changed, everything about her, except for the color of her bright blue eyes. Those were the same, from beginning to end. Sibyl focused her attention there, her own eyes wide with disbelief and fear.

  Her eyes were telling her truths her mind didn’t want to see.

  Maybe the arrow that had grazed her scalp had taken her sanity with it?

  “Balach!” the old midwife announced. The younger woman cleaned the child up with a cloth and handed it to the mother.

  “Balach.” The young mother’s voice was soft, her blue eyes full of tears as she met Darrow’s in the light of the lamp. “Garaith.”

  “Tis a boy.” Raife smiled, his arm tightening around Sibyl’s waist as he explained this to her in hushed tones. “The next in our line. They’ll name him Garaith, after me father.”

  The woman—she was a woman now, full figured and lovely with the longest blonde hair Sibyl had ever seen—brought the baby up to her breast, and Sibyl saw the slash there beneath the woman’s collarbone as the midwife covered her with a sheet, a little late to protect her modesty. The wound had been tended, but she would have a scar there for the rest of her life.