Sought by the Alphas Complete Boxed Set: A Paranormal Romance Serial

by Carina Wilder

  * * *

  Kinship 12

  The attempt on Gwynne’s life came a few nights later, more bold than any attack on Dundurn yet.

  Both alphas were with her in bed, in the hidden chamber. After some hesitation on the cwen’s part she’d decided to allow Rauth to continue to share her sleeping quarters, and even to make love with her for the last few nights. She wanted more than anything to tap into his humanity and her bond with him, it seemed, was the strongest link to human sentiment that she could hope to find in him. Much as she felt anger for the words from a few days back, her greatest wish was to keep her growing family close, and to remind Rauth of the importance of their bond.

  She knew that he loved her. She simply knew it. And he would love their child more than he’d ever thought possible.

  The flyers had never been so bold as to use the castle’s windows, most of which were too small for even one of the more diminutive eagles to climb through, anyhow. And for the most part the winged shifters knew better than to render themselves vulnerable to attack within Dundurn’s walls, where flight wouldn’t offer an advantage against the large wolves who resided within.

  So when a sound caused Gwynne to stir in the early hours of the morning, it came as a surprise to her and more particularly to her sleeping bedfellows.

  It was a sort of fluttering that woke her; very soft, soothing almost: feathers stroking stone. But it took very little to wake Gwynne in those days; her protective instincts were working overtime and the slightest stirring tended to rouse her, implanting worry about her baby. And the drake within her was even more vigilant. Its only message these days was, “Let me take on any threat.” At times Gwynne found herself fighting her déor, convincing it that all was well and that there was no need to show itself.

  But now was time for the human mother in her to watch over her child.

  When she awoke in her chamber to the foreign sound, her eyes took only a few seconds to adjust to the room’s dark; they’d become more fine-tuned since her change, as had her other senses. The two alphas were curled around her in their dire wolf forms, protective as always.

  A figure stood outlined in the pale of the early morning light, his back to the window. He was inching towards the bed, a silver object reflecting the dim light in his hand. He was still several feet away when Gwynne found herself studying him. She felt her dragon surge within her, desiring to kill this creature in one fell swoop.

  “Who are you?” she asked, fighting her déor back before reaching for a handful of Lachlan’s fur. His wolf woke immediately, moving before he even knew what was going on. A moment later Rauth was by his side, the two dire wolves stalking their prey.

  The man who’d flown into the room saw that he was now in something of a tight spot; the two wolves were backing him against the wall and if he shifted, he would be at a great disadvantage; they could probably leap at him more quickly than he could make his way to the window.

  He had been told that he would find Gwynne alone. That she’d been in conflict with her mates, and that she resided in this room, isolated. Instead, he’d met his worst nightmare. The chamber’s ceilings were low and his enemies could easily lunge at him, even if he flew at the ceiling. And the window was too far; an attempt at a run would be cut short by large fangs in his legs.

  Instead of running, he unwisely followed a frightened human instinct and began to thrust and jab the knife in his hand towards the alphas’ muzzles.

  It was Lachlan who leapt first, in the moment when the knife was inches from his cousin’s face. His teeth sank into the stranger’s arm and the man let out a blood-curdling scream as the cold steel made contact with the tiled stone floor.

  “I asked you,” said Gwynne, who was wrapping bedsheets around her naked body as she approached, “who you are. And I promise you, I won’t ask again.”

  “A servant of the Lord Drake,” groaned the man, sweat now pouring down his face, the residue of his pain.

  “Well, how kind of my father to send a gift,” said Gwynne, bitterness in her tone at the reminder that her father was a tyrannical madman. “You can tell the Lord Drake that this is an inappropriate sort of present for his grandchild. And that if he sends more of your ilk I’ll be sure to send him a little something in return.”

  “Yes, my Lady,” said the man. Blood was dripping down towards his wrist now, Lachlan’s teeth still deep in his flesh. Rauth paced back and forth, menacing but not yet attacking.

  “Toss him out,” said Gwynne. The guy could fly, after all.

  As Lachlan led the man to the window by his wounded arm, Rauth delighted in shoving him upwards with his muzzle, pushing him out the way he’d come. The two had faith that he’d shift in mid-air, but there was the question of whether he’d be capable of flight. He would be suffering from his wound, but neither alpha cared much if he plummeted to his death.

  “And off he goes,” said Lachlan when he was back in human form a few moments later. In the distance an eagle cried out. “A little worse for wear, I’d say, but he’ll live.”

  “Next time, follow my lead,” growled Rauth, his tone quietly irate.

  “Your lead? You were asleep,” protested his cousin. “Had I followed your lead, someone—namely Gwynne—might be dead.”

  “You should not have taken charge. You shouldn’t have attacked first.”

  “No? I’m sorry, Rauth. Why don’t you send me the memo—sorry, letter scrawled on parchment with a bloody quill—about how I’m supposed to behave? It seems that I lost the last one. Maybe someone used it to wipe his ass.”

  “Enough,” shouted Gwynne. “I’m sick of this, the constant bickering. Don’t you two realize what’s just happened?”

  “Nothing happened,” said Rauth. “We’re fine.”

  “Fine. Fine. A man just tried to kill us—or maybe just me—with a knife. He knew where we were sleeping. He came to my window. He must have been carrying the weapon in his talons as he flew. It was clear that he knew exactly where he was headed.”

  “He did. But he’s gone now, and you’re safe,” said Lachlan, walking forwards to comfort her, as always.

  “If you two hadn’t been here—if I hadn’t woken up…”

  “But you did,” said Rauth in his usual matter-of-fact tone. “Besides, you’re capable of great things on your own, or have you forgotten?”

  “Still, this doesn’t sit well. Lord Drake—my father,” Gwynne hated attributing the title to the man she’d never met, who as far as she was concerned was a simple sperm donor. “My father will send more of his kind. You know that’s where this man came from. These flyers, these assassins, are his agents.”

  “And we will fight them off,” said Rauth. “But you’re right, my cwen. We ought not to keep you in quarters that are so vulnerable.”

  “She shouldn’t have been vulnerable, though. Even here,” said Lachlan, whose voice had changed. He sounded pensive, thoughts working through his mind in a long train. “Yes, there’s a window in this room. But there are many windows, many rooms, and we’ve taken pains to hide Gwynne’s whereabouts. No one but us is meant to know she’s here. Not even her closest servant and friend, Ygrena.”

  “What are you saying?” asked Gwynne.

  “I ran into a young wolf shifter in the hallway a few days back. I felt that there was something strange about him. I think he may have betrayed us.”

  “One of ours? A wolf, aiding the enemy?” said Rauth. “That’s nonsense.”

  “Is it, Rauth? Perhaps there was something in it for him. Some shifters care more about wealth than others; for some, it’s power. You never know what might motivate a young wolf. It’s not as though he would climb to your position, or mine, with ease. The Lord Drake might have offered him something more exciting than the life we can provide.”

  “Either way, we need to find this young man, don’t we?” asked Gwynne, who didn’t like the idea of such a person being around Dundurn.

  “I’ll seek him out,” said Lachlan. “I
know his scent. Meanwhile, I’m afraid we’re going to have to move you again, Gwynne, to a room without windows, much as I know you’d hate it. Not only for your sake but for the baby’s. Until we know what’s happened.”

  “All right,” she said. “For our child. I’ll forego sunlight to protect him.”

  * * *

  Kinship 13

  Lachlan picked up the scent and followed it through narrow corridors, deep into the castle’s darkest tunnels. It could be too late by now, he knew; the young wolf might be long gone, back to report to his master, if in fact his theory was correct and Lord Drake was his commander.

  But if there was any chance of finding him it was essential that the alpha try.

  It wasn’t long before he came upon his victim. An over-confident young thing, it turned out, and more than a little foolish. Lachlan found him in the catacombs laughing with others his age, playing a game of dice.

  “You,” said the alpha when he spotted them, approaching in the dark.

  The young man rose immediately, his eyes frantically searching for an escape. The only means out of the room was by Lachlan himself, and surely he wouldn’t attempt such an idiotic move.

  And yet he did. He shifted immediately into a large brown wolf and charged at the alpha, but he was too slow to compete with a seasoned fighter. Lachlan had anticipated his move and shifted himself, his grey dire wolf bracing for the impact, much larger than the other creature.

  Meanwhile the other shifters, puzzled at the events unfolding before their eyes, transformed in turn, their loyalty to their leader over the young man who’d been cheating them out of their money.

  It was one of them who pounced on the traitor from behind, his jaws clamped on the brown wolf’s neck as Lachlan stood his ground.

  The stranger sank to the floor in submission, the whites of his eyes showing his fear, before shifting back to his human form, naked and shaking.

  Lachlan followed suit and one of his subordinates immediately ran to grab a robe for him from a nearby hook. As he threw it on, the alpha growled, “You are hereby under arrest. You’re fortunate in that we’re civilized and will grant you a hearing, though I suspect that you don’t deserve it. You will, in all likelihood, be made an example of, your punishment severe. You know your crime, do you not?”

  The man opened his mouth to protest. “I didn’t see any harm…I was…”

  “No harm?” shouted Lachlan. “It is our mate, the mate of your alphas, that you betrayed, and she carries our child. You would have helped to have her killed. That is the harm. You are a traitor to this clan, to Lord Rauth and to me. There is no punishment severe enough for you.”

  “But they said that he simply wanted to talk to her,” the young man snivelled.

  “Who? Who wanted to talk to her?”

  “Lord Drake. That he was going to make amends, repair the damage, he said.”

  “So Drake would make amends by sending a man with a freshly sharpened knife to kill her in the night? That sounds like his sort of logic,” said Lachlan. “Men, bring this one to the cells, and if he so much as makes a move to run, you have my permission to castrate him on the spot with your teeth.”

  Two of the clan members were still in dire wolf form and flanked the traitor as he walked, growling each time his pace quickened or slowed. Lachlan walked behind, watching, though he didn’t anticipate an attempt to flee. Rarely had he seen the sort of fear that was evident in this one: he was a coward, plain and simple. At the very least he would suffer expulsion from the clan. At the most he would be killed.

  * * *

  “So Drake is bent on finding his way to Gwynne,” said Rauth when Lachlan had filled him in. “I don’t believe for a second that he wants to take her alive. He never did want her to survive long enough to perform the ritual, let alone to bear his grandchild.”

  “I don’t believe his motives are noble either. He hasn’t been anything close to sane in some years. I’d give my life to keep Gwynne from him.”

  “As would I,” said Rauth, locking eyes with his cousin. “Oh, don’t look at me like that, as though you don’t believe me. You’re not the only noble gentleman around here. You know how I feel about her.”

  “I didn’t say anything,” said Lachlan.

  “You didn’t have to. Your superior air says it all.”

  “Anyhow, I suggest that we have Bree watch her. You and I both trust her implicitly. She would never betray us, or Gwynne.”

  “No, but she’ll never love Gwynne.”

  “I don’t mind. She needs to do her job, and that’s what matters. Her feelings can be cast aside, surely.”

  “Fine. I’ll speak with her. You do realize that our cwen can look after herself quite nicely, do you not?”

  “I am aware. Remember that she nearly set me on fire not all that many months ago,” laughed Lachlan. “But we have the baby to consider as well, who could come along any day now.”

  “Dear God, I wish there were some way to estimate the gestation period for such a child. The stress of it is destroying me.”

  “Rauth, this surprises me. Are you becoming paternal all of a sudden?”

  “I suppose that I am feeling some sort of a bond with our child. Whether that’s a paternal instinct or strategic is of no consequence to me. He is valuable.”

  “Or she.”

  “Or she, indeed.” In a rare moment of weakness the alpha let a smile cross his face at the thought of a little daughter.

  “I suppose we’re going to have to do something about Drake,” said Lachlan. “A spy of our own would be helpful.”

  “Yes, but we have no such person,” said Rauth. “It’s going to have to be a matter of going on the offense.”

  “Castle Carrfyr will be a difficult one to assault, you know. It’s set high on its hilltop, and all but impossible to access. There’s a reason it’s well suited to shifters who fly rather than walk.”

  “Yes, I realize that. We’ll have to work through this. I—we—need to get rid of Drake once and for all, before…”

  “Before his grandchild comes into the world.”

  “Ideally, yes.”

  A voice came from the doorway. It was the Lady’s.

  “That won’t happen,” she said. “Gwynne is in labour.”

  * * *

  Kinship 14

  Gwynne was in bed in her new windowless quarters, sweat soaking the nightgown the Lady had given her: a white linen garment, meant to be loose and comfortable but at this point a mere soggy annoyance.

  Ygrena had remained at her lady’s side since Gwynne’s contractions had begun, holding her hand when she could, though at times the cwen came close to crushing her human bones when the intermittent pangs came upon her. Gwynne had heard of the pain of childbirth, but this was insane. If she could have passed out from the agony it would have been a mercy.

  The sensation reminded her of her first time shifting: a terrifying torment; her entire body being stretched in ways that were unnatural and skewed. This was not simply a stretch, though; this was something quite different. The baby was actively trying to see to its own birth, as though aware of its need to escape her womb. And it seemed to have no mercy.

  The alphas could hear their mate screaming even though they were still a hundred feet away, far down the hall as they hurried towards her quarters. The sound was awful, blood-curdling and heart-wrenching. And they knew then of the pain that their Gwynne must be in. She was no weakling, and the only cries that they’d ever heard from her had been ones of ecstasy.

  “What can we do for you, my Lady?” asked Lachlan when he was at her side.

  “Nothing,” she moaned. “Nothing at all.” Her sodden nightdress clung to her flesh and the sheets, and her hair stuck in strands around her face.

  The Lady stood at the end of the bed, ready for what may come.

  “The baby is on its way,” she said. “But it’s not entirely cooperating. Ygrena, look to Gwynne for a moment. I need to speak to the men.” She
stood then and signalled the two men to head into the hallway with her.

  “There is something you both should know,” she said. “She’s going to be having twins.”

  Lachlan and Rauth both looked at her in stunned silence. Two children. What should have felt like the most joyous moment of their lives simply seemed like a hard blow. Two babies meant more danger for Gwynne.

  “They seem to be fighting for dominance,” continued the Lady, “as though there’s a race inside her to see which will come out first. These babies are competitive—not unlike some alphas I know.” Reproach coloured her voice, as if blaming Gwynne’s mates for the nature of their offspring. “If this labour continues for too many hours,” she said, “It will go badly. She will go into shock.”

  “But what can we do?” Lachlan asked again, despising his own helplessness.

  “Pray, if you do such things. Hope for the best. You can do nothing.”

  “Could modern medicine help her?” asked Rauth. He didn’t outwardly exhibit Lachlan’s fear, though he felt it acutely. They had so many resources. Surely something could be done. Medicine had advanced so much since his time; there was a cure for the plague, for God’s sake.

  “No. That is, there would be too much risk in moving her to her own century. We don’t know what the babies will look like when they’re born. You know as well as I do that the children of shifters sometimes come out in their déor forms. Gwynne’s life would be over if she were found out, not to mention what they might do to the children. The best we could do is bring someone here from her era. But even that should be left as an emergency measure.”

  “We can’t let her die,” said Lachlan. The thought was beyond unbearable.

  “You put her in this position,” the Lady all but snarled. “You knew the risks. Now she will give birth; she is determined to do so, regardless of the cost. So now is not the time for you to panic as you sit by and watch. Support her in any way that you can. It’s up to Gwynne’s body at this point, and those damned stubborn babies.”