Highland Wolf Pact Read online

  It didn’t surprise Sibyl in the least that Raife was their leader.

  “So you…” Sibyl cleared her throat, thinking of how to phrase the question as they went through the busy dining hall. There were people still sitting at long tables, talking in Gaelic, laughing together, eating breakfast. “Raife mentioned that you don’t… eat… people?”

  “Not for a verra long time. Tis against the pact,” Kirstin said as they passed through the kitchen. “We jus’ wanna live peaceful here.”

  “And all the swords?” Sibyl eyed a rack of them, literally hundreds of blades, as they passed into a tunnel. If these men were peaceful, their weaponry told a different story.

  “Our men are trained as warriors, tis true.” Kirstin shrugged as they neared the end of the tunnel. There was sunlight there, at the end of the darkness. “But they do’na fight unless they have ta.”

  The sun was welcome and Sibyl turned her face up to it, breathing in the cool mountain air. There were women washing clothes to the right, standing barefoot in a stream. The valley they entered was covered in green, spotted with the purple of heather, and in the middle of it all was a sight that made Sibyl gasp aloud.

  “Have ye not seen the warriors?” Kirstin glanced back in surprise at Sibyl as she shrank toward the opening in the side of the mountain, but she couldn’t have been any more surprised than Sibyl was herself.

  I’m not going to faint again, Sibyl told herself, leaning against the solid rock, the world tilting sideways as she watched the half-men, half-wolves wielding their swords against each other in the early morning sunlight, the sound of steel against steel ringing over the mountain. As strange a sight as it was, Sibyl spotted Raife instantly, his long, dark hair trailing behind him in waves as he half growled, half roared and leapt completely over his opponent.

  She didn’t know how she recognized him, because his face wasn’t his own—his snout was long, his canine teeth sharp as he snarled and swung his sword behind him to catch and stop the other half-wolf’s blow. But she did. She knew him instantly.

  Her heart stopped, her knees wobbled, hands trembling as she brought them to her quivering mouth. The big half-wolf—he seemed twice his human size to Sibyl from here—sniffed the air, eyes flashing and ears twitching as those blue eyes turned their way.

  He was a wolf from the neck up, but his body was the same—broad, tanned chest, ridged abdomen, the muscles in his back taut as he kept his opponent’s sword at bay. Raife’s heavily muscled thighs bulged as he twisted and avoided the swing of the other wolf-man’s weapon. The sound of steel striking rock rang through the valley and Sibyl gasped as Raife gave a low, keening howl, shaking his head quickly from side to side.

  One moment he was a wolf—half a wolf, at any rate—and the next he was changed back to a man, tossing his heavy sword aside with a scowl as he approached. The other wolf-man did the same, and she saw that Raife had been fighting with his brother, Darrow.

  “I told ye to come get me when she woke,” Raife snapped at Kirstin.

  “Did ye?” She blinked at him and Sibyl sensed something pass between them. Clearly Kirstin had defied his wishes. “She wanted to come outside. Didn’t ye, Lady Sibyl?”

  “I did ask,” Sibyl admitted, blinking at him in surprise. “I thought, mayhaps, I should go soon…?”

  “I must speak wit ye.” Raife gave a slow nod, glancing at Kirstin, eyes narrowing briefly.

  He held out his hand to Sibyl and she hesitated only a moment before taking it. She tried to ignore the heat in her cheeks as she did so, letting him help her over the rocks, trying to ignore the eyes on them as Raife led her away from the mountain. The women doing wash watched them, whispering behind their hands. Kirstin had gone over to join them and Sibyl knew the girl must be telling them all about their strange human interloper and her odd ways.

  She’d expected to be a stranger in a strange land when her uncle had informed her she would be a Scotsman’s English bride, but she had never expected anything like this.

  They walked down the sloping hill and up another. There were no more rocks to clamber over, but Raife didn’t let go of his steadying hand as they made their way over the crest. When Sibyl looked back, she noticed they were out of the line of sight of the rest of the pack, although she could hear the women singing and the ring of steel as swords began clashing again.

  “Did we scare ye?” Raife asked, glancing down at her.

  “No.” She was lying, but just a little. She had started to get used to this world, as strange as it was. “I don’t scare easily.”

  “Tis true.” He smiled, stopping as they neared a tree, leaning against the trunk to look down at her. He still held her hand in his, thumb rubbing over the top of her knuckles. “Ye’re a brave lil lass.”

  “Was there something you wanted to speak to me about?” She swallowed, looking up, way up, into his observant blue eyes.

  “I’ve some bad news for ye.” He glanced back the way they’d come, brow knitted, jaw working. “I sent scouts out early, before dawn. I’m afraid…”

  “He’s looking for me.” She knew it was true. Of course it was. Alistair wasn’t going to give up that easy.

  “I can’na let ye go.” Raife’s hand swallowed hers. “Til I’m sure tis safe.”

  “Raife…” She blinked up at him, feeling strange in her Scot’s plaid, especially the way he looked at her in it. This was not her home, these were not her people. “I cannot stay here. I must be away.”

  “Where’ll ye go?” He reached out to brush a stray strand of auburn hair away from her cheek, looking concerned. “Is there someone waitin’ for ye, lass?”

  Their eyes met and she knew he was thinking about Alistair. So was she. Her betrothed would certainly be looking for her, although he wouldn’t want to marry her, not anymore. Or mayhaps he would, still—only to make her life a living hell. That would be more Alistair’s predilection and if the thought of being married to him had repelled her before, it terrified her now. She could never allow herself to be brought before him again, in any capacity.

  “I’d keep ye safe.” Raife’s eyes were so expressive and his heart was in them. “If… if there’s no one who already has claim on ye.”

  She hesitated, considering his words. She knew what he was asking and was afraid to answer him, to tell him the truth. He knew she’d been promised to Alistair—but he also knew she didn’t want that marriage. She had run away from it, straight into this man’s world, but in her rush to escape, she hadn’t thought past her immediate future. She couldn’t go home to England, not to her mother and her uncle. She knew she would never see them again, after what she had done.

  She wasn’t just an interloper, an Englishwoman in Scotland, she was now a human in a world full of strange creatures, forever a stranger in a strange land, unwelcome. She had no home, not anymore, and never would again, she realized with a slow, dawning horror. She would spend the rest of her life hiding—what did it matter, then, where she did so?

  “No,” Sibyl said softly, swallowing hard. “There is no one.”

  “Then stay.” He took her other hand in his, so he was holding them both.

  She glanced down at them, and then up into those impossibly blue eyes. She was thinking about Laina and her baby and the change that came over the she-wolf, unbidden, putting her into sudden, grave danger in a world that didn’t understand her kind. She thought of God’s curses and didn’t doubt for a moment that he was a man like Alistair, someone who craved power but never did anything to earn it. She’d been raised a good Christian, a good girl, and where had that gotten her?

  Sold into matrimonial slavery to a stranger, that’s where.

  Sibyl felt the rough callouses on Raife’s hands, looked up at the kindness in his eyes, and thought she could stay here. She could, at least for a while. Mayhaps she could be of some use in this place. She might even stumble across the plant that could change all of their lives, relieve them of the curse of living this way, hidden in the side
of a mountain.

  Maybe they could help each other, Sibyl thought, meeting Raife’s kind, searching eyes.

  And maybe, she realized, they weren’t that different after all.

  “Ye’re welcome ’ere, ye ken?” Raife rubbed his thumbs over Sibyl’s knuckles, looking down at her hands in his.

  “Thank you.” She couldn’t express her gratitude to him, not really.

  How strange it was, to be grateful to be welcomed in a place no human even knew existed.

  How strange it was, to be so suddenly alone, so estranged from the world, she no longer belonged anywhere at all.

  How strange it was to hold a man’s hand who had, just a few moments earlier, been wielding a sword as some fantastical creature, the stuff of legend come to life.

  How strange it was, to look up at this half-man, half-wolf, and feel things she never had before, things that scared her more deeply than wolves or even the threat of capture or death.

  How strange it all was.

  How strange indeed.

  * * * *

  It didn’t take as long as she expected to adjust to living with a pack of wolves. Or, wulvers, as Raife often reminded her. Sibyl was surprised how kind and welcoming they all were. She’d never been one to spend her time idly, even back home, and so it was easy to ingratiate herself to the wulver women by offering to help cook, do laundry, and take care of the pups. She thought it was funny how they called them pups, even though they were really all human babies, once they were born.

  It took her only a day to insist Kirstin stop bringing her meals on trays, treating her like—and calling her—“Lady Sibyl.” She was tired of titles, tired of pretending to be a “proper highborn lady.” She’d had enough of that with the MacFalons. With the wulvers, she could be more fully herself than she’d ever been in her life. Here, they didn’t think twice about her ability to shoot a longbow or ride a horse astride—they had those too. The wulver warriors trained on them, riding through the valley, their hooves tearing up the heather.

  She was free to come and go as she pleased, either in the valley or within the mountain, but the sentry on duty had warned her, and so had Raife, that she wouldn’t be allowed to depart the tunnel. It was for her own safety, Raife said, and she believed him. Alistair’s men were out looking for her and had come as far south as the mountains. But even if Alistair and his men found the entrance to their mountain, the sentries could hold them off until the warriors arrived to defend the den. Besides, the entrance was hidden, deep down, and there was an enormous rock that could block it, if need be. Raife had assured her they were safe here.

  Sibyl took one look at the wolfen warriors swinging their swords and claymores and believed him without a doubt. She’d been a little afraid of them at first, even after they’d changed back into men and put away their swords, but once they all gathered for a meal in the dining hall at the center of the mountain, laughing and joking and talking—in Gaelic of course—Sibyl found herself relaxing.

  The only one she was still wary of was Darrow. She didn’t see him much for the first week or so. Kirstin took meals in to Laina and he stayed with her much of the time, eating meals in their room. She only saw him out on the training field while she helped the women herd the sheep, feed the pigs and goats, or do the laundry, standing barefoot in the cold stream, beating shirts and plaids against the rocks. She tried avoiding Darrow’s gaze as much as possible, but it was funny, every time she looked up, it was Raife she saw, keeping a close eye on her.

  Every night, she would ask Raife, when he knocked on her door to check on her, to say goodnight, if Alistair’s men had given up, and every night, he would shake his head, a sad look coming into his eyes. At first she thought it was because he didn’t like disappointing her, but as time wore on, she wondered if, perhaps, it was because she was asking at all. Asking meant she wanted to leave, didn’t it? And the truth was, the more time she spent with the wulvers, the exact opposite was true.

  So she stopped asking Raife, but she still desired to know, so she gathered up her courage and started asking Darrow. Whenever she saw him, she felt his dark gaze, an unspoken hostility emanating from him. Raife said he’d accepted her, that he wouldn’t challenge his pack leader’s decision to allow her to stay, but she wasn’t so sure about that. Darrow led the men every day out of the mountain to look for any signs of the Scots and clan MacFalon. He was the one who would know.

  It was on her first visit to see Laina after the birth she dared to ask him. She thought she would visit during the morning hours, when the men trained out in the valley and she knew Darrow would be out there. Laina was happy to see her, sitting up on her mattress, nursing the baby. She was still too pale, but the cut beneath her collarbone was healing and she smiled and beckoned when Sibyl knocked.

  “Such a beautiful baby,” Sibyl exclaimed, smiling as she looked down at the child’s sleeping face. He looked so much like Darrow and Raife, with that slight indent in his chin and those full red lips. And that hair. All that thick, dark hair. “I’ve never seen a child with so much hair!”

  “All wulvers have thick hair on their heads,” Laina smiled, brushing the baby’s locks away from his face.

  “But nowhere else, I noticed,” Sibyl replied, flushing at her own observation.

  “Noticed, did ye?” Laina grinned, showing a row of straight, brightly white teeth. Sibyl noted their canines were just slightly longer than most humans. She blushed even more when Laina’s fair brows went up and she cocked her head to look at Sibyl knowingly at her comment. “Aye, tis true. Jus’ t’hair on our heads—til we change.”

  Sibyl hid her shudder. She was used to living with the wulvers now, but the transformation from wolf to human and back again still disturbed her.

  “An’ I wish we did’na.” Laina sighed, leaning over to kiss the babe in her arms as he fell completely asleep at the breast, his lips sticky with milk.

  Laina didn’t seem to care that she was uncovered. Modesty was the last thing the wulvers seemed to care about, Sibyl had noticed. Maybe if she’d grown up the way they had, changing from human to wolf, she wouldn’t care about clothes either. Kilts seemed the perfect solution, as they could tie them around their necks or waists and cover what they needed. There weren’t any bothersome buttons or laces.

  “Change, you mean? You wish you didn’t change?” Sibyl frowned, pushing Laina back onto the mattress when she went to rise to put the baby in his cradle. It was wooden, small, and close to the floor, where the mattress was. The only raised bed in the mountain was in Raife’s room—the one Sibyl had been sleeping in every night. The rest of the wulvers slept on the floor on mattresses or rugs, rolled up in their plaids.

  Sibyl took the baby, careful not to wake him, and put him in his cradle next to his mother. He stirred just slightly, settling on his stomach, sucking his fist in his sleep. He was a big boy already, growing fast, she noted.

  “Ye do’na know.” Laina shook her head sadly, stroking the baby’s damp head. There was a fire going and the room was quite warm. “I’m so glad he’s a boy and not a girl.”

  “Why?” Sibyl rankled at her words. How often had her own father wished she was a different gender? She couldn’t count how many times she’d heard it. It seemed, to her, having a gender preference one way or the other just made life more difficult between parent and child.

  “Boys, they can choose, ye ken?” Laina lifted those incredibly blue eyes—all the wulvers had those same eyes—to meet her own. “Girls, we can’na.”

  Sibyl remembered what Raife had told her about the wulvers, about Lilith’s curse, although she wasn’t really sure what to believe. It was like listening to the bible stories about Noah and the flood, or Jonah and the whale. Even as a child, Sibyl had questioned such tales. How could all of God’s creatures fit in one boat, even an enormous one? How could a man survive for three days in the belly of a whale? Even the story of the Garden of Eden seemed, to her, just another way the church made everything appear a wo
man’s fault.

  “And boy wulvers, they can turn into those… halflings? Half-wolf, half-man?” Sibyl remembered seeing Darrow and Raife wielding their swords, growling and snapping at once another. “But women can’t?”

  “Aye,” Laina agreed, leaning back against the mountain wall behind her. She was tiring, Sibyl noted, and told herself she’d take her leave soon and let the new mother rest. “If only I could find the huluppa.”

  “It’s dangerous for you to take willow,” Sibyl reminded her, shaking her head vehemently. “It’s the reason you nearly bled to death. Please don’t take any more.”

  “It’ll be safe, now he’s birthed.” Laina’s shoulders straightened, eyes narrowing, face determined. “I’ll find it. Tis out there. I know tis.”

  Chasing rainbows. That’s what Raife had said, Sibyl remembered. But Laina seemed very determined to find the plant that might keep her from changing from human to wolf and back again.

  “But it’s not safe,” Sibyl insisted. “You can’t go out there anymore. You have a child to care for.”

  “Not when I’ve turned,” Laina said bitterly. “Once me moon-blood returns, I’m at the mercy of me cycles again. I will’na even be able t’care for ’im when I’m changed.”

  It was a horrible predicament, Sibyl thought. So very unfair.

  “What do wulver women do, then?” Sibyl wondered aloud.

  “We care fer each other’s bairns,” Laina replied with a sigh. “But we’re all a’the mercy of t’moon and our cycles. If’n we could choose…”

  Oh what a great freedom it would be, Sibyl thought, if any woman could choose. Wulvers and humans weren’t so different after all, she realized.

  That’s when Darrow came into the room, opening the big door. Sibyl still wondered at the strength and craftsmanship it had taken, to carve out rooms in the caverns, to create doors and fireplaces. Sibyl froze in place, still sitting beside the baby’s cradle, her gaze meeting Darrow’s. His expression changed when he saw Sibyl, smile fading, eyes hardening to glittering points, sharp, blue jewels.