by Unknown
“Yer to be married to him today.” Moira nodded as the women brought in Sibyl’s wedding dress, the train so long it took four of them to bring it all in.
“Today?” Sybil felt her knees go weak at the thought, at the sight of that wedding dress she couldn’t imagine wearing. “But I must speak with him!”
“Ye will have plenty of time after yer married fer that.”
“You don’t understand,” Sybil whispered. She had been on MacFalon land already for over an hour. If he didn’t let Laina go—and soon—the wulvers would come looking for her, armed and ready to do battle. “He must let her go.”
“Her?” Moira raised her bushy white eyebrows. “The she-wolf?”
“I hear she threw herself on a spike when one of the men tried to... be with her…” One of the other girls whispered. Sybil recognized her as one of the kitchen maids. Moira had enlisted extra help today, since Sybil was to be sewn into her wedding dress.
“No,” Sybil whispered, looking between the two younger women with wide eyes as they snugged Sybil’s wedding dress down over her hips.
“Why would ye?” The dark-haired scullery maid gasped in shock at this news. “It would be like lying with a dog!”
“Well I would’na mind being with one,” the blonde remarked with a grin that showed a considerable gap in her teeth. “If he was hung like a dog…”
All the women cackled at that and Sibyl couldn’t stand it another minute.
“Where is Donal?” she asked. There was no one else who would listen to reason. Maybe she could talk to him, if they weren’t going to let her see Alistair before the wedding.
“Alistair has had him locked up down the hall,” the gap-toothed blonde told her, arranging Sybil’s long train behind her.
“He came to the defense of the she-wolf,” the dark-haired one snorted. “He didn’t want her harmed. He said if they broke the wolf pact, the wulvers would come for her…”
“Of course they will come for her.” Sybil rolled her eyes, glancing at the open door. Half her train was still stuck in the hallway.
“Come back ’ere!” Moira called as Sybil grabbed a knife off the table, where the maids had put a tray of bread, meat and cheese, and stalked out of the room.
Sybil ignored the maids and Moira, wading through the fabric of her wedding dress toward the man standing at the end of the hallway. It was the one called Gregor—the same one who had thrown her over his saddle, who had pulled up her plaid to spank her in front of the men, and who likely would have done more, if another man hadn’t ordered him to take her inside.
“Where is Laina?” She held the dagger up, snarling at the guard. “The wolf—the wulver. The she-wolf. Where is she?”
“I… I do’na know,” he stammered, glancing down the hall at the maids, who gathered up the length of Sybil’s train as they made their way toward them.
“Who do you guard behind this door?” she demanded to know, still brandishing the knife.
“Sybil?” Came a muffled voice. “Lady Blackthorne?”
“Donal!” She brightened at the sound of him, pounding on the door. He pounded back, definitely behind it.
“My brother wants war with the wulvers!” he called. “Let me out of here!”
“Let him out,” Sybil told the guard. “Do it. Now.”
“I can’na.” The man mopped his greasy brow with the back of his hand, frowning at her. “I have me orders.”
“Come back now, ye hear me?” Moira tugged at Sybil’s train—the women had caught up. “Come get ready fer yer weddin.”
“You will open this door,” Sybil insisted, hand wrapped around the hilt of the knife, pointing it straight at the man’s chest. “Or I will stab you straight through the heart with this before you can even draw your sword.”
The women behind her gasped, but Sybil ignored them.
“Do not test me,” she snapped, eyes flashing.
The guard took one look at Sybil’s face and then fumbled for his keys. He undid the big padlock and Donal rushed out of the room, knocking the man flat on his back, the wind escaping his throat in a hiss.
“Stay down,” Donal instructed, drawing the man’s sword before he could even think about getting up.
“Donal, you have to help me,” Sybil begged. She knew he would listen to her—especially now that she’d discovered Alistair had him locked up. “Your brother has broken the wolf pact. Do you know where Laina is?”
Just the mention of the woman’s name brought tears to Sybil’s eyes.
“Lady Blackthorne, you must come wit me.” Moira wasn’t just pulling on Sybil’s train now, she was yanking on it. “I must get ye ready for yer weddin’!”
“I will worry about my wedding later!” Sybil cried, grabbing a yard of the fabric attached at her waist and yanking it back, making the older woman stumble. “Right now I have more important things to concern myself with!”
“How do ye know of the wolf pact?” Donal asked, frowning at the guard still on the ground as he inched his way past Sybil, the fabric of her dress making it difficult to move along the floor.
“I have been living with the wulvers this whole while,” she explained, hearing the maids gasp again. That little piece of gossip would keep them going for years, she thought. “Do you know where she is? If he will just her go, war can be avoided.”
“I do’na know.” Donal shook his head. “I came to her defense, and I ended up locked in ’ere.”
“What?” Sybil gasped as she felt her train being tugged again, but this time it wasn’t Moira or the maids. This time it was the guard. He had tunneled beneath the fabric and was now caught in it near the door Sybil had stormed out of.
“Get back here!” Donal yelled, but the man had freed himself from his white satin prison and practically fell down the stairs at the end of the hall. “He will tell my brother I am free.”
“It will be war,” Sybil whispered. “The wulver’s mate is coming for her. We must find her and let her go. If we can just free her…”
Had she sacrificed herself for nothing? Sibyl wondered, looking back at Donal’s face. The color had drained from it. Was Laina already dead, as the maids had intimated? She couldn’t bear the thought. Tears came to her eyes, spilling down her cheeks.
“You cry for a dog?” The dark-haired maid rolled her eyes.
“Shut up!” Sibyl snapped. “Donal! Where are you going?”
But he was already halfway down the hall, sword in hand, going after the guard.
Sybil quickly followed, shoving by Moira and the maids, but she found herself stuck halfway down the stairs, her train too heavy to move on her own. Donal had the guard by the throat, but it was too late, he had already sounded the alarm. Alistair’s men were gathered at the foot of the stone steps, looking up at Donal holding one of their men at sword point and Sybil standing at the top of them in her wedding gown.
“Please!” She pleaded with them all, hoping she could reason with someone, anyone. “Let the she-wolf go! If you let her go, then the wulvers will not come after you!”
“Let them come!” Alistair’s voice echoed through the great hall as he stalked into it, his men parting as he approached the stairway.
“It will be war!” she cried. The sight of her betrothed made her dizzy with disgust and she clutched the stair’s railing.
“King Henry will not stand for it,” Donal insisted. He still had the guard at sword point. “He doesn’t want war with the wulvers.”
“You’re wrong, brother.” Alistair called up the stairs, smiling that cold smile that never reached his eyes. “King Henry wants his demon seed dead. He wants no challenge to his throne.”
His words carried through the hall. The maids gasped, of course—Sibyl didn’t expect anything less. But everyone seemed to understand his meaning. They all knew the legends, the stories that had been told about the wulvers and the wolf pact. Perhaps some of them had even been alive, Sybil realized, looking back at Moira’s pale face and the way she cr
ossed herself at the mention of the wulvers, when a young man named Henry had come looking for soldiers to help him win a crown. When that same man, who would one day be king, had taken what he wanted from the wulver woman, as men were wont to do, and had abandoned her with child, as men were also wont to do.
The consequences for those actions were far-reaching, and likely riding toward them right now, half-man, half-wolf, fully armed and ready for battle.
“Raife doesn’t want the crown!” Sibyl’s voice shook when she spoke the words. It was true, but would anyone believe it? She didn’t know.
“Raife is it?” Alistair sneered at her. The hatred in his eyes, the hatred that had always been there, just barely veiled, filled her with dread as he came up the stairs, two at a time, passing his brother to get to Sibyl. “And has he taken what’s mine?”
“I am not yours.” She felt her lower lip tremble but she couldn’t stop the truth from spilling out of her mouth. “I will never be yours.”
“Ye’re wrong about that.” Alistair grabbed her to him, crushing his mouth against hers in a painful, bruising kiss. His tongue forced its way past her teeth as he gripped her behind in one hand, her breast in the other, right in front of everyone like he didn’t care who saw. And of course, he didn’t. He wanted them all to see that he owned her. She was surprised he didn’t strip her naked and take her right there on the stairs.
If it weren’t for the presence of the priest down there, ready to perform the marriage ceremony, she knew he really might have.
“King Henry promised me a proper English bride and the rule of all of Middle March if I would kill those flea-ridden dogs,” Alistair growled, spittle spraying her ear. “There is no more wolf pact.”
“No,” she whispered, closing her eyes to it.
It couldn’t be. Was King Henry so afraid of losing his title, his throne, to a bastard son who didn’t want to have anything to do with the crown? No one knew about Raife—and his claim to the throne was tenuous, at best. He wasn’t just Scottish—he wasn’t even fully human! Henry had a son in line for the throne. The Tudors had regained the title after much maneuvering and fighting, but it was theirs. And the wulvers had helped them win it.
“I have a thousand men ready to kill them all as soon as those dogs ride up to the gates!” Alistair announced, his arm still around Sybil’s waist as he grinned down at his men. There were only a hundred or so gathered in the hall, but that didn’t mean a thing. She was certain there were more where that came from—those were just the ones who had heard the commotion and had come running.
“Isn’t that so?” Alistair called out. The men rallied, crying back with a rousing, “Aye!”
They were riding into a trap, just as Sibyl had feared. The wulvers would come down the mountain on horses, armed and ready for battle, transformed as half-man, half-wolf, a few hundred strong. In a battle, they were almost invincible, their healing capacities and super-strength making them fierce warriors, which is what had made them such a force to be reckoned with when Henry recruited them.
But a few hundred wulvers against a thousand men, all set on killing them? It would be an ambush. A slaughter. Sibyl saw Raife falling, saw Alistair—or more likely one of Alistair’s men, because the man himself was too coward to face a wulver—running a sword through her mate’s heart. They might be able to quickly heal from wounds, but they could still be killed. Their hearts could still stop beating.
And if Raife’s heart stopped beating, hers would too.
“Have you ever seen a wulver?” she snarled at Alistair, raising her voice so they could all hear her words. “Have you ever faced a beast who is half-man, half-wolf? They are warriors. I have seen them. They have held me captive for over a month! They do nothing else but train for war. They are far more ready for it than any of your farmers or even your best trained men! I have seen them rip an animal’s throat out with their bare hands!”
“We cannot fight magic.” The men whispered. Sibyl’s heart soared when she heard the mutterings down below. She was sowing the seeds, but she needed more help. “It is witchcraft. It is against nature.”
“She is trying to scare you!” Alistair pushed Sybil away from him and she tumbled, losing her footing, as he went back down the stairs. “They’ll be as easy to put down as dogs, you’ll see!”
“Donal… please…” Sybil cried, thankful the man was still standing there. He caught her fall. “You must do something.”
“My brother is laird of clan MacFalon.” Donal helped her stand, shaking his head sadly. “He is the MacFalon now. That was my father’s doing, not mine. These men do not follow me.”
“But they will!” she insisted, glancing down at the lot of them. More were coming into the hall all the time, having been drawn by the shouting. “The Scots do not have a hierarchy like we do in England. They will follow the strongest leader. Alistair is not that man!”
“You bitch!” Alistair sneered up at her, hand on the hilt of his sword. She didn’t care if he came after her. He could run her through with it—death would be a merciful blessing now—as long as she could save Raife and her wulver family. “You lying, whoring little cunt!”
“You must lead these men to do the right thing!” Sybil spoke only to Donal, seeing a light in his eyes, the same light she’d seen in Darrow’s. It was the passion of the second son, one not born into distinction but who desperately craved it, who went after it like a moth to flame.
“Many of these men are too young to remember the wulver warriors,” Donal said, his voice carrying through the hall. “I was just a child when King Henry came to the MacFalons, asking for our allegiance. But some of these men do remember. Don’t you?”
Sybil glanced down, finding some gray-haired men among the group who pursed their lips and nodded in agreement, much to her relief.
“But some of these men followed my father when King Henry created the wolf pact. Some of these men followed King Henry into battle to fight for his right to wear a crown in a foreign land. Their fathers fought alongside mine, and they fought alongside the wolf warriors for God and country, to secure a peaceful future for their families.”
Sibyl watched Donal’s face change as he talked, as the men, even the younger ones, started really paying attention to his words. Alistair’s face grew red with anger.
“How much bloodshed d’ya wanna see?” Donal cried, throwing his arms wide. “D’ya want yer homes burned, yer women raped? Hav’ya seen what warfare does? My father saw what the border wars did between the Scots and the English. My father, yer laird, told King Henry he wanted to live in peace, and King Henry agreed. Scots, English, wulvers—we all bleed. If we fight—we’ll die.”
The crowd murmured its assent. Many of Alistair’s men were too young to remember that kind of bloodshed, but they grew afraid, not only of what the reality of war might mean, but of taking up arms against an army rumored to be more than human. Sybil smiled triumphantly as she realized Donal had swayed them. Even if Alistair ordered them out to kill the wulvers now—would they do so? She didn’t think they would.
“Do’na listen to him!” Alistair cried. “I have heard from King Henry himself! He—”
A commotion erupted through the crowd. Something was going on outside. Sybil cocked her head, hearing the sound of a horn, some sort of call. She didn’t understand it but she was glad it had distracted everyone from Alistair’s words. The thought that King Henry himself had made some sort of agreement with Alistair to eliminate the wulvers made her blood turn cold.
“What is that noise?” Alistair huffed, crossing his arms like a petulant child at the interruption. He clearly didn’t like his brother getting all the attention. “Stop it at once!”
“It’s the wolf pact, brother. The one you do’na have the honor to honor.” Donal walked slowly down the stairs, coming to stand face-to-face with his older brother. Alistair’s eyes grew wide with fear. “They’re invoking single combat rite.”
“No.” Alistair’s voice barely
got above a whisper. She could hardly hear him. “I will’na.”
“According to the wolf pact, ye must,” Donal insisted. “Yer father signed that agreement in blood, and yer honor bound to it!”
“I’m nah!” Alistair stamped his foot, arms still crossed over his chest. “I will’na!”
“Men!” Donal called, eyes bright as he saw them turned toward him, listening, paying close attention. “Take yer laird to face the wulvers.”
Alistair howled like a child, but there were too many of them. They grabbed him and hauled him out of the hall, out the open door. She watched the men do as Donal ordered with great relief, knowing they would follow him. Alistair could talk until he was blue in the face, it didn’t matter anymore. Donal was a man who inspired these men, whose integrity showed in everything he did.
“What is single combat rite?” she wondered aloud.
Donal heard her, turning to glance back as he started following his men.
“It will be leader against leader,” he called back.
“Raife,” Sibyl whispered.
She didn’t think twice. She used the dagger still in her hand to cut away the train of her wedding dress, freeing herself, and ran down the stairs.
Chapter Ten
“Blood rite!” The words were whispered from one person to another in the crowd as they gathered out in front of the MacFalon castle.
Sibyl looked around at all the people and wondered at the number. Why were they all here? Alistair had claimed he had a thousand men at the ready and he was not speaking in jest. But the rest of the people, where had they come from? The villages around the MacFalon land weren’t this densely populated. Could word have spread so quickly?
Sibyl pushed her way through the crowd, searching for the source of the horn that sounded loudly above her head. People stopped and looked at her bare legs in her ruined wedding dress, whispering behind their hands, and suddenly she realized—these were her wedding guests. They had come to see their laird marry an Englishwoman and had ended up attending something akin to a joust. That was all she could imagine as this, “single combat,” or “blood rite” everyone was talking about.