by Selena Kitt
“How did ye know?” she asked him, his fingertips moving over hers, not letting go.
“That ye’re a healer?” he guessed.
“Aye.”
“Who else’d c’mon t’MacFalon land, seekin’ their injured kin?” He smiled. “Besides, ye’ve a kindness in yer eyes that belies ye—e’en when yer a wulver.”
“Aye?” She blinked up at him in surprise.
She didn’t think, in her entire existence, than anyone had ever said anything like that to her before. She’d been a healer since she could remember, a midwife, taking care of the wulver children when the other wulver women went into estrus and changed, but it was something that went unacknowledged, for the most part. They all had their individual skills and talents, and everyone understood that they would use them for the good of the pack.
She’d never realized how much the pack took each other for granted, until that moment.
And, looking up into Donal’s eyes, she didn’t think she’d ever been quite so fully seen before that moment. It made her feel far more naked and vulnerable than she’d ever experienced, even after she’d changed from wulver to woman with no plaid at the ready.
“There’s such love and loyalty among ye wulvers.” He patted her hand, looking down at her fondly. “It’s been a rare gift t’bear witness to it. I do’na understand why men would make enemies of ye. ’Tis absurd.”
“Thankfully, t’English king agrees wit’ ye. ’Tis why t’wolf pact exists,” she reminded him, throwing in a bit of honesty for good measure. “Although King Henry created it t’use t’wulver warriors fer ’is own benefit.”
“I’ve seen t’wulver warriors,” Donal said, shaking his head. “I would’na wanna fight on t’opposite side.”
“Yer a wise man.” She smiled at him, glancing around, wondering again where his horse was. Still in the clearing? She wanted to get to Castle MacFalon, to see Darrow for herself, to talk to Laina and Sibyl, to see her pack leader, Raife. That alone would quell her jittery insides.
“And a devoted one,” Kirstin noted, remembering how she’d seen him, head bent, at the burial cairn. “I did’na mean t’interrupt yer prayer vigil. Is that ancestral land? Yer burial ground?”
“Aye.” He nodded. “I admit, I was surprised t’see ye. But truth be told, y’have e’ery right t’be on that spot, as well, lass—mayhaps e’en more’n I do.”
“Me?” She gave him a puzzled smile. “Why?”
“My family’s burial ground’s built on t’ancient den of yer kin—da wulvers,” he explained.
“I did’na know that.” Her eyes widened in surprise. “It’s our sire and his warriors who share and pass down wulver history. As a healer, I know it’s important t’learn and pass on ancestral knowledge of t’healing arts. I imagine the same’s true of leaders—whether they be wulvers or men.”
“Aye, ’tis true of t’good ones,” he agreed. His fingers brushed hers again, this time turning her hand over. She watched, transfixed, as he brought it to his mouth, his lips caressing the inside of her wrist once more, making her knees feel like jelly underneath her plaid. “Yer pack’s blessed t’have such a devoted healer in their midst.”
“Thank ye.” She swallowed, trying to find her voice. It was caught in her throat, breathy. “I’m truly anxious to see my kin, if—”
Donal dropped her hand, turning to give a whistle that startled her. Thankfully, the tree was still there behind her, giving her legs more strength than she felt they actually had in the moment.
“That’s t’call of a kestrel,” she observed, admiring his ability to mimic the bird.
“Aye, ’tis,” he agreed, turning toward her again.
In the distance, Kirstin heard a horse’s hooves.
She swallowed as Donal leaned toward her, hand above her head, against the tree. He was a big tree of a man himself, his body thick and muscled. She swore she could feel every one of them tensing in front of her, every last sinew stretch and bulge of his veins. He was only inches from her and she wondered, briefly, if he might be about to more than just chastely kiss the inside of her pulsing wrist.
Then she glanced up and saw he had hold of the two arrows in the tree above her head. He was slowly working them out of the trunk, his breath coming a little faster with the effort, his bare knee grazing hers.
“The kestrel’s a sound heard both in city and forest,” he explained, giving the whistle again, even though she could hear his horse coming to the call.
She couldn’t help noticing the way his dark hair brushed the plaid over his shoulders. He likely kept it long, like most Scots, to remind them of their wildness—their closeness to nature, and the animals that lived there. Animals that, perhaps, man himself had once been.
“So it won’t alert t’enemy?” she guessed, thinking of his bird call as she heard the horse whinny nearby, pawing at the forest floor, announcing his presence.
“Aye, wise woman.” Donal showed straight, white teeth as he smiled down at her, yanking the arrows finally free with a sudden jerk. She gasped at the motion and bit her lip as the big man turned to his horse. “Here’s Kestrel now.”
“Yer horse is named Kestrel?” She laughed, looking at the big, spirited, fearless black beauty as Donal grabbed the reins and tugged the war horse nearer to her.
“Ye were naughty, Kestrel, givin’ away me position,” she scolded as the animal drew near.
It wasn’t too afraid of her, now that she was human again, but all animals could sense the difference between wulver and human. It took Donal’s comfort to get the big, black nose lowered in surrender, nuzzling her shoulder.
“I forgive ye.” She smiled, petting the soft velvet of his snout. “He did’na like me much when I was a wulver.”
“He did’na know ye.” Donal smiled, watching her rub her cheek against the horse’s nose.
“He’s beautiful,” she confessed, smiling up at Donal.
“Kestrel thinks t’same of ye, lass.” Donal put his boot in the stirrup and pulled himself into the saddle. Mounted, he seemed like a giant, his smile brighter than the sun that shone through the trees behind his head as he held a hand out for her.
She didn’t hesitate. She grabbed the arm he offered and slid onto the horse, settling into the saddle behind him. She sat astride, like any good Scotswoman would, although she wore nothing under her plaid.
“Do ye ride?” he asked over his shoulder.
“Aye.” She nodded against his broad back, her arms going naturally around his waist. Her fingers could feel the hard muscle of his abdomen, even through his plaid.
“Good.” He smiled—she couldn’t see it, but she could hear it in his voice. “Then I won’t hafta tell ye t’hold on.”
Kestrel took off like a shot and Kirsten gasped, holding tight to Donal MacFalon while clenching horse flesh between her quivering thighs. She pressed her cheek against his back, clinging to him, feeling the steady rhythm of the animal beneath them both as they headed back toward the castle.
But that was nothing compared to the animal Kirsten felt coming alive within her since she’d seen this man and caught his scent across the clearing.
She felt Donal’s thighs flexing against her own as he guided the horse on a path through the woods, and the scent of the man, even though she was currently a woman and not a wulver, made her salivate. Her whole body seemed to want to melt against his on the saddle, as if the motion of the horse could drive them together and make them one.
He didn’t have to tell her to hang on—but she did. She hung onto him as if he was her second skin, as if she could crawl inside him. She clung to him, trembling, not understanding her own feelings at this closeness, at the way they moved together on the saddle.
Kirstin thought she felt him chuckle at the way her fingers locked feverishly around his waist, at the way she clutched him between her legs, and wondered if he knew she was bare and exposed beneath her plaid.
Because Donal MacFalon seemed determined to give her the rid
e of her life.
Chapter Two
“Kirstin!” Sibyl’s eyes widened, at first in shock, then in happy surprise.
Kirstin slipped into Darrow’s room, afraid of what she might find. Donal came in behind her—he’d shown her to Darrow’s room himself—and stood just inside the half-open door, watching as Kirsten crossed over to a bed so big it made the giant, wulver man in the center of it appear small.
“Sibyl.” Kirstin cupped the Englishwoman’s sweet, freckled face, brushing her auburn hair away and kissing her cheek, so very glad to see her whole and unharmed, after her sacrificial ride from the wulver’s den to Castle MacFalon. Donal had assured her Sibyl was fine, but it was good to see it for herself. “How is he?”
“He’ll live.” Sibyl sat back down in the chair beside the man’s bed, continuing to tear sheets to make dressings. Sibyl frowned at the wulver tossing and turning on the mattress. He gave a low growl in his sleep, shaking his head, and for a brief moment he hovered between human and wulver form—a sight Kirstin was used to, but one that gave both Sibyl and Donal pause. Sibyl met Kirstin’s gaze and she saw tears in the redhead’s eyes. “No thanks to the cowardice of Alistair MacFalon.”
Kirstin swallowed hard at the name, seeing a dark cloud pass over the Englishwoman’s face. Sibyl had been promised to Alistair—Donal’s older brother, who had been laird of Clan MacFalon until his recent demise—and had been willing to sacrifice herself in marriage to a cruel man she didn’t love in order to save the wulver pack.
Sibyl couldn’t have known—and Kirstin certainly hadn’t realized, when she put the Englishwoman on a horse and sent her away from the wulver den, heading back toward Castle MacFalon—that Alistair was setting a trap for the wulver warriors, using his betrothed as bait. He’d also kidnapped Darrow’s mate, Laina, just in case the wulvers decided not to pursue the Englishwoman who had been living in their midst.
But it had been Alistair’s intention all along to lure the wulver army out of their mountain den and destroy them. Kirstin had heard the story, told by the wulver warriors, of Alistair’s cowardice and treachery. She’d heard them talk of the way Darrow had demanded single combat blood rite—a fight to the death between two men. It was a codicil in the wolf pact intended to avoid all-out war between the Scots and the wulvers.
Alistair had refused to fight or to honor the wolf pact, which his own father had signed in blood, until the crowd shamed him into it. Kirstin knew the coward had called for a stand-in, but not even his own brother, Donal, would step up for him. The wulver warriors told the story of Alistair MacFalon’s cowardice, how he’d cried like a little girl when Darrow began to best him, begging for the fight to be called off, because Laina was, in fact, not dead after all, as the Scotsman had boasted.
And when Alistair had her brought out as proof, bound and bloody but very much alive, he’d used the distraction when Darrow’s back was turned to run the wulver through. What Alistair hadn’t counted on was a wulver’s strength, determination, and incredible resilience. Darrow had managed to turn and lop off the coward’s head before collapsing at his mate’s feet.
Kirstin had heard the story told a dozen times before she left the den, but she didn’t really understand its reality until she saw it in Sibyl’s red-rimmed eyes. She couldn’t imagine what the poor woman had been through and she put her arms around her in comfort before turning her attention to the wulver recovering from his wounds in bed.
“I’d like t’take the opportunity once again to apologize fer me brother’s heinous actions.” Donal spoke from the doorway, looking between the two women. “I can’na say’t enough. And I hope, in some way, I can make up fer—”
“You can stop with the apologies, Laird MacFalon.” Sibyl looked at him fondly, her eyes softening as she saw him standing guard near the door. Kirstin saw the way the woman looked at Donal, with such great affection, and instantly, her body reacted in a way that had never happened before. Kirstin’s spine stiffened, her hands clenching into fists, and deep in her chest, she felt a growl rising, even though she was in human, not wulver, form. She swallowed it down, confused by her own response, hearing Sibyl’s voice praising the laird of the MacFalon Clan. “You’ve been more than generous with your time and your resources, Donal.”
Donal. Sibyl called the laird by his Christian name? Kirstin met Sibyl’s eyes and saw the tears there—real tears. The woman had been through hell and back, that much was clear. Donal MacFalon was a man with a big heart and a strong sense of integrity—she’d kenned that much already. Of course, he would offer Sibyl a kind hand, a big, strong shoulder to cry on.
Why should that bother her? Kirstin wondered. And yet, the tiny hairs on the back of her neck were standing up, and her blood felt as if it was boiling in her veins when Sibyl spoke of the laird.
“He’s been such a comfort to me,” Sibyl told her, reaching out a hand for Kirstin’s. She allowed Sibyl to take it, to press it to her damp cheek, even though her hand trembled slightly in anger. What in the world did she have to be angry about? She reasoned with herself, trying to shake off the feeling. If she could control her wulver side, she could certainly control this—whatever this sudden feeling was.
Except, she couldn’t. She didn’t understand it, but she couldn’t control the feeling at all.
“I can’t thank him enough for everything he’s done,” Sibyl went on. Each word grated on Kirstin’s ears, raked like a wulver’s claws on slate. She gritted her teeth, listening to Sibyl’s praise of the man, wondering why she had a sudden urge to throw the redhead from the nearest high window.
She had come to love Sibyl like a sister! What in the world was wrong with her?
Kirstin’s eyes fled Sibyl’s, returning to the doorway, where Donal stood, hand on the hilt of his sword, at the ready. His cheeks reddened slightly while Sibyl sung the man’s praises as if he were the second coming of the human’s worshipful Christ, and Kirstin tried to fight her desire to separate the woman’s yapping head from her little body.
“It’s been me pleasure, Sibyl,” Donal muttered, clearing in his throat. “The least I could do fer ye...”
“Well, he rescued me from a trap.” Kirstin’s voice was much more strident than she meant it to be, and she stood there, crossing her arms over her chest, feeling her face growing red. “I mean, he... I...”
“Oh, Kirstin, no...” Sibyl gasped at the thought. “The same one Laina was trapped in?”
“Nay, t’was a net.” Donal frowned. Kirstin knew Laina had been trapped in a cage, a message left in her blood for the wulvers to find after she’d been taken to Castle MacFalon. “Should’ve been disarmed. But we’ll have help with that in the morning. King Henry’s sent his royal huntsman to ensure all the wulver traps are taken out of the MacFalon woods.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful news.” Sibyl perked up at that, eyes bright. “Does that mean... King Henry intends to honor the wolf pact then?”
“Aye.” Donal gave a satisfied nod. “I expect the wulver messenger Raife dispatched will return with similar news. But Kirstin and I—we met Lord Eldred Lothienne and his captains in the woods. They were already working on disarming the traps.”
“I ran into an armed one,” Kirstin said wryly.
“Are you all right?” Sibyl asked.
“Donal saved me,” Kirstin reminded her, taking far too much pleasure in saying it, and enjoying the way Donal smiled in response. Kirstin approached the bed, putting the back of her hand to Darrow’s forehead. No fever—that was a good sign. “Where’s Laina? I would’ve thought she wouldn’t leave ’is side.”
“I sent her to fetch some bread and soup for our wounded warrior.” Sibyl sighed. “Every time he sees her, he wants to get up, and he’s going to pull out all the stitching I did.”
“So ye did stitch ’im up then?” Kirstin lifted the dressing to look. Sibyl was a fine healer, for a human, and had done a good job with needle and thread. The wulver in him had done a great deal of healing already, Kirstin n
oted—although she was shocked by how bloody the wound still was. It must have been very serious, quite deep. Wulvers healed from the inside out. Superficial wounds could heal within hours, sometimes minutes.
“Yes, I think we have him well in hand,” Sibyl agreed, watching Kirstin’s hands moving over Darrow’s body, checking him for other injuries. She didn’t feel anything broken or out of place. “It’s just keeping his pain controlled—and keeping him in bed—that we have to deal with until he’s well enough to come home.”
“Home...” Kirstin smiled at Sibyl’s choice of words.
The Englishwoman had run away from this castle, away from the cruel Alistair MacFalon, her betrothed, and had ended up in the wulver’s den. Sibyl had spent months falling deeply, madly in love with Raife, the wulver pack leader. Kirstin had watched it happen, had been heart-glad of it. Raife sorely needed a mate, and while many of the wulver women had hoped to be marked by him, he’d never taken to any of them.
Until Sibyl came along. Not a wulver—not even a Scot! An Englishwoman. A shasennach. But Raife loved her, and she loved him. Sibyl had been so changed. She no longer wore English gowns—even her English accent had begun to fade. And she now thought of a wulver den as her home!
“It’ll be good t’have t’pack together again.” Kirstin agreed, seeing Donal’s brow knit at her words. It was a phrase that should have instantly filled her with peace and calm, but she, too, felt a strange new tug at her heart she didn’t quite understand at her own words.
“Kirstin... you should know...” Sibyl glanced at Donal, biting her lip, and Kirstin felt that strange zing of feeling again, like a lightning strike. Then it was as if someone had suddenly dropped a weight on her chest. It was hard to breathe. What was it that Sibyl wanted her to know, and what did it have to do with Donal MacFalon?
And why in the world did it matter to her, all of a sudden?
“Raife is... angry with me,” Sibyl confessed. Donal snorted from the doorway at that, and Sibyl’s cheeks filled with color to match her hair. “To put it mildly. And he’s likely to be angry with you, too.”