Highlander's Fierce Wolf (Beasts 0f The Highlands Book 4)
Page 1
Highlander’s Fierce Wolf
Alisa Adams
Contents
A Free Thank You Gift
Beasts of the Highlands
About the book
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Afterword
Beasts of the Highlands
Highlander’s Heart of Steel
Chapter 1
Also by the author
A Free Thank You Gift
A Free Thank You Gift
Thank you a lot for purchasing my book.
As a thank you gift I wrote a full length novel for you called Rescuing The Highlander.
* * *
Click here to get you FREE book
Or use this link directly in your browser.
* * *
alisaadams.com/free
Beasts of the Highlands
Book #1
Highlander’s Lionheart
Book #2
Highlander’s Scarred Angel
Book #3
Highlander’s Wounded Beast
Book #4 (This Book)
Highlander’s Fierce Wolf
Book #5
Highlander’s Heart of Steel
Book #6
Highlander’s Golden Jewel
About the book
Following his King's orders means abandoning his newfound love.
* * *
Wolfram Gunn McKay is a fabled warrior and not happy at all to be sent by his King on an errand to locate a child, much less to have to go to the most northern, isolated, dismal, and windy, part of the Highlands.
* * *
That place is home for the redhead beauty Swannoc McKinnon, who is living a harsh life there. She is struggling daily to take care of the few children and women left after the devastating second Clearance that burned Brough Castle and made it almost unlivable.
* * *
Swannoc decides to gather the children and women and head to Fionnaghall as soldiers are coming back again and again, and it seems they are looking for something... or someone.
* * *
On their way, Swannoc's group encounters Wolfram, and he decides to go out of his way as he can not leave the beautiful woman and her group of children alone.
* * *
Soon Wolfram will discover that among the children Swannoc protects, hides the Kings' most valuable secret, the child Wolfram is looking for!
* * *
Those that would use the boy to destroy the King are now closing in and Wolfram will have to take a tough choice as there is not enough time to complete the orders and at the same time save his newfound love!
Prologue
The night was stormy and dark in this northern part of the Highlands. The tree branches overhead scratched their limbs at each other, making an eerie sound as he dismounted. He patted his big war horse’s neck, his large hands subconsciously gentling over the heavily battle-scarred areas of his loyal stallion as he looked around. With narrowed eyes he patiently scanned the forest until satisfied; only then did he head out of the cover of the trees. There came a steady, miserable drizzle that fell on the long, dark cloak he wore over his shoulders, making him look even more intimidating, even larger than he already was. He walked with the confidence that only a man proven in battle could have. A man used to leading, a man that others followed—no matter the dangers he faced—for he had never failed in any battle. His name was known and respected by all warriors. Even his King knew the value of this man and had sent him into many a battle in the name of King and country.
It was this very King that had sent for him again. King George had sent word to meet him here in this desolate spot. Alone and in total secrecy, he had demanded. Tell no one, the missive had said.
He walked out of the dark woods into the open. His steps were sure and confident as he walked over the heath to the edge of the sea cliff. The wind blew his cloak and his kilt out behind him as the rain hit him in the face. He tilted his face up into the winds, reveling in the wildness of the sea wind and salty spray mixed with rain. It blew his dark hair around his head, revealing a face that was neither beautiful nor ugly, but only strong, weathered by the elements and of waging war. He braced his legs apart as he stood there in tall, thick, leather boots encasing muscular calves, steadily facing into and against the strong sea winds. His hands remained quietly fisted at his sides where he could instantly reach for the long broadsword belted to his kilt’s waist. On the other hip, near his other hand, was a pistol, and over his back a sturdy bow and a quiver filled with arrows. He was an expert in any weapon. He feared nothing, and no one.
The Highland warrior waited for his King.
There came a short whistle. He turned at the sound to see several men on horses galloping out of the forest. One man road forward, whistling again. It was the signal he and the King had always used.
His fists relaxed and he went to greet King George.
They talked quietly for several moments.
The man's shoulders bunched up, his face became taught, his chin tightening as his lips thinned.
“You want me to go to the vera north of Scotland sire, to retrieve a child?” Wolfram Gunn McKay asked the King. He tried to be respectful, but he could not hide the disgruntled tone in his deep voice.
“Not just any child, but yes Wolf, I do. I cannot have my Queen discover my indiscretion. Nor can I let my enemies discover the boy. He would be used against me in too many ways.” The King spoke quietly and solemnly to the huge Highland warrior.
Wolf did not understand the King's loyalty to a woman—any woman. Much less a desire to find and protect an illegitimate child.
Wolf stared hard at the King. Something was different. The King had sent a clandestine message requiring that Wolf meet him immediately in this spot that was in the middle of nowhere. Everything about their meeting was quiet, secretive, and mysterious. Unusual. Wolf knew there was something his King was not telling him. The King looked nervous for he was shifting his feet back and forth and twitching his fingers in agitation.
“Why have you asked this task of me, one of your warriors? Tis not a warrior’s errand.” Wolf asked in a gruff voice. “Is there something you are not telling me? Tis simple to retrieve a small child isnae?”
The King looked down. Then slowly his eyes rose to stare at the massive, proud, powerful Highland warrior in front of him. “It will be dangerous. There are others that have been sent before you. Others that cannot be trusted. I cannot attest to their loyalty from what I now know.”
Wolf’s eyes narrowed and his jaw tightened. Now he understood. “Your enemies are hunting the boy?”
“Yes,” was all the King said.
“Very well sire,” Wolf said with quiet respect.
“You will do this for me?” the King asked once again.
“My word is truth,” was all he said before he bowed and walked back towards his waiting horse.
1
Scottish Highlands
Late 1700s
* * *
Swannoc McKinnon stared up at the ruins of her home, Brough Castle. The wind whipped through her red hair and twisted her long skirts about her ankles. With the wind came the sharp, acrid tang of ashes mixed with the wild ocean smells of the Pentla
nd Firth.
The roof has caved in, she noted, her shoulders falling in deep despair. Only the stone walls of the castle were left, but barely. Anything the King’s men could burn, they did. It had been quick and brutal and she had not stood a chance of attempting any defense. With this third attack she had taken the few people who were left and hid.
She hung her head in shame.
She had failed.
She had been wrong in thinking they were safe.
The Clearances had come to this most northern part of the Highlands.
She had thought the people of Brough would be overlooked here on this wild and lonely peninsula. At its tip it overlooked the North Sea and the angry Pentland Firth, whose tides were fast and dangerous. Her family had been here for as long as anyone knew; from the times of the ancient people who had come across the sea to settle on this land.
But it was she, Swannoc McKinnon—or Swan, as she was usually referred to—that had let her people down.
It was she that had not been able to stop the end for Brough Castle and its people.
She was looking sadly at the destruction of her home when she heard the plaintive howl of the wolf. It made gooseflesh rise on her arms. She spun away from the sound in fear and ran back to the nearly deserted village where she was now living. She started singing a song to calm herself. It also shut out the noise of the wolf howling. She sang rapidly in time with her footfalls. The faster she ran, the faster she sang.
“Oh saw you bonnie Lesley,
To see her is to love her,
And love her but forever,
For nature made her what she is,
And never made another.”
Swan ran right up to the door of the small cottage she was sharing with a young woman named Neilina, but preferred to be called Neely. The cottage was one of only a few that had not been burned to the ground by the soldiers.
Neely was still awkwardly getting used to sharing quarters with the “Lady of the castle,” as she referred to Swan. Her father had been lost in an attack before this last one. She had no one, just like Swan.
Neely yanked opened the door to the crofter’s cottage to see Swan standing there. Swan was out of breath and her face had gone white as she leaned on the door, trying to catch her breath. Neely looked at Swan from her booted feet, past her long, dark blue skirts, to her linen blouse and up to her hair. She was disheveled from head to foot. Swan’s red hair was loose, the curls wild around her face and down her back. Her delicate, creamy, white face looked stark and frightened. Her blue eyes were huge and dark.
“I heard ye singing milady,” Neely said with a hint of animosity in her voice. “What frightened ye? For I know ye sing when ye are frightened. But ye sing a lot lately so either ye like to sing or ye are frightened quite a bit.” She frowned at Swan. “Or ye have discovered that what ye call singing frightens people away.” At Swan’s stern expression she asked more politely, “What caused ye to sing? Have the soldiers returned?”
“No, not the soldiers. But I heard it again Neely,” Swan said, ignoring Neely’s observation on her singing. “The pitiful, mournful sound of a wolf. It’s guarding the castle I think.”
“Tis all burnt, what would a wolf want with the castle Lady McKinnon? Tis bad enough they destroyed the castle and the village. Tis just a few wee children left, three women and one auld mon. Now we are plagued by a wolf milady? Me dear old dead da would have killed the creature by now,” Neely said, with a frown and a tsking noise. She looked sideways at Swan. The young girl that she had watched grow up in the castle had changed. The two were about the same age. But gone was the skinny, unfortunate-looking, carrot-haired girl who was afraid of her own shadow. Lady Swan had become striking—though she was still timid and fearful, always trying to sing away her fear.
“I told ye to call me Swan, please Neely, things are different now,” she said as she grasped Neely’s hand.
“Och I know,” Neely said and pulled her hand out of Swan’s grasp. “I just cannae control it sometimes. You are still the lady of Castle Brock,” she said, using the old Scottish pronunciation of the castle’s name. “We can niver be friends. Tis hard to not call you anything other than milady, or Lady Swan, or Lady McKinnon, or Lady Brock,” Neely said as she unconsciously tucked a few stray, light brown hairs back into the braid that fell over her shoulder. “So that’ll be the way it is. Tis me tongue ye see. It has a mind of its own.” Her grey-green eyes made an attempt at a smile at Swan.
The plaintive sound of the wolf came faintly again.
“Where are the children?” Swan asked firmly, hiding what she was feeling in her voice. She knew what Neely thought of her.
“They are out playing behind the cottage. Do not fear milady, Beak is with them, as is Kaithria. Ye know she’ll not be letting little Albie out of her sight. Scary lass that one,” Neely said, looking towards the back of the cottage. “Och and there goes me tongue again, I am sure she is not scary at all.”
Swan smiled tensely at her. “As long as Beak is with them,” she said, relaxing her smile just a bit.
She turned at the sound of voices to see the children coming around from behind the cottage. They were dancing around Beak’s knobby knees as he walked towards her in his old kilt. He still wore it daily, no matter the law saying the wearing of tartans were illegal. He had sworn that no one would care what happened this far north. That no one would ever come to this most northern peninsula of the Highlands.
He had been wrong. So very wrong, Swan thought.
Swan’s lips tipped up slightly in a sad smile as she watched his jaunty walk. It was as if his boney legs had more joints than was natural. His kilt hose could never stay up on those stick-like legs and even now had fallen into folds around his skinny ankles. He had his ever-present stick and a small ball. The old horse master was determined to learn the new game in St. Andrews called golf. He waived a skinny arm attached to an almost translucent hand at her. The man is all skin and bumpy bones, Swan thought.
Then she recalled going over their meager store of food only a few days ago, realizing once again that they were running low. She had not told anyone, not wanting to admit it even to herself.
Dear old Beak could not afford to miss a meal. Nor could the six children in her care.
They were orphans.
All of them were now orphans, actually.
They were the only ones that had survived the sudden multiple attacks in the name of the Clearances. But no one that had laid siege on Brough stayed to keep the castle in their own name. It was as if they had been searching for something and not finding it, and so moved on. They didn’t want her lands or her castle.
So why the terrible destruction? Why?
“See? There she is Lady Swan,” Neely whispered, interrupting Swan’s thoughts.
Neely nodded to Kaithria, who held the hand of a little boy with blond hair named Albie. They had arrived many months ago with some other children, fleeing the Clearances from somewhere south of them here in the Caithness Highlands. Kaithria had been calmly silent when asked for any details.
Neely leaned closer to Swan and whispered, “She’s still wearing that cloak with the hood pulled over her face and hair milady,” she mumbled in annoyance. “She doesnae need to wear it, tis a nice enough day.”
“I believe she is a nun,” Swan answered Neely in a hushed voice. “She has to dress that way…she and little Albie and some of the other children came from a priory that was caught up in the Clearances. The King is protestant after all,” murmured Swan as she studied the young woman with the cloak.
“Then is she a Jacobite?” Neely asked with worry in her voice.
“Neely,” Swan said quietly in admonishment, “she is like us. She is neither Jacobite nor a Royalist. She is a Highlander.”
Neely shrugged her shoulders. “Twould be best for us if she would take off the black cloak and the dark trappings of a nun, Lady Swan. As for that, twould be best for old Beak to stop wearing that kilt, tis illeg
al.” Then she murmured under her breath, “No one needs to see those old knees…or those skinny legs…”
Swan shook her head and looked at Kaithria as she and the children came closer.
Swan had gotten glimpses of Kaithria’s face. She was startling in her beauty. Unlike myself, Swan thought. Her own eyes and mouth had always been too large for her delicate face. Her hair was that atrocious color of red and seemed to be forever a wild mess of curls that had a mind of their own, escaping any effort at a tidy braid or bun. Her hair always ended up hanging in untamed ringlets and curls around her face and down her back. There was no winning with it and so Swan had given up trying long ago.
Kaithria stopped in front of Swan. She barely raised her head, at least not enough that Swan could see her face. “We should go milady,” she said in a calm voice.
“Go?” Swan said, startled. “We have nowhere to go.”
Kaithria stepped slightly closer, the hood of her cloak still covering her black hair and most of her face. Her faded black skirt swished as silently as the young woman’s voice who wore it. “One of the children told me that he heard the soldiers who burned the village asking where the children were, Lady Swan.” Then she stopped and waited, her head still slightly bowed.