by Selena Kitt
“I’ll rustle us up some game.” He chuckled, meeting her gaze in the firelight. “Och, Kirstin, yer so beautiful ye make me chest hurt.”
She smiled at him, bemused. This man said the most extraordinary things.
“Is that a book?” She blinked in surprise at the leather-bound tome in his hands.
“Aye.” He nodded, flipping through the pages. “I got up t’build a fire, and one of the stones at the bottom had come loose from our... uh... acrobatics. When I went to seat it, I found this...”
“Mmmm.” She snuggled closer at the memory, her sex pulsing already, wanting him. How was it possible to want someone so much? “Is that... that’s a wulver!”
The drawing was unmistakable. She recognized the half-wolf, half-human form, and more than that, the drawing itself had been done by a wulver hand. Wulvers were all amazing artists and could draw nearly anything. Their style was definitive.
“Aye.” He flipped to another page and Kirstin squinted at it in the firelight, seeing a drawing of a birthing wulver and her pup.
“’Tis a midwife’s text!” she exclaimed, taking it from his hands and pulling it into her lap. “Look, there are drawings of plants—it’s full of them!”
“Yer pleased?” He smiled as she turned more pages, wishing she could read the text.
“Oh, aye,” she breathed, looking up at him with bright eyes. “Sibyl and Laina’ll be pleased, too.”
“I do’na care ’bout pleasin’ Sibyl and Laina.” He pulled her into his lap, settling her there, and she felt his erection begin anew against her bottom. “I care ’bout pleasin’ ye, Kirstin MacFalon.”
“Ye do please me.” She turned her face to his to be kissed. She would never get enough of this man’s kisses, until the day she died. “Ye please me greatly, Donal MacFalon. I can’na wait to call ye husband as well as mate.”
“And I can’na wait to mate wit’ ye as yer husband.” He used her hair to pull her head back, exposing her throat to his hot, hungry mouth.
“Aye,” she agreed happily, lost in the fantasy of being his, even if the reality of being The MacFalon’s wife meant something else altogether.
“No, I meant it, I can’na wait,” he breathed, taking the book out of her hands and pushing her back onto the deerskin. “I want ye now.”
She opened her arms and surrender herself to him.
Chapter Five
Kirstin’s hackles rose before she even knew the man was in the room. She turned to see Lord Eldred standing near the back of the gathering hall. He was dressed as an English lord today, not like the huntsman she’d met him as, but there was no mistaking those keen eyes. They surveyed the room quickly and she straightened when she saw his gaze hesitate as he came to her. A small smile flitted over his features and he gave her a brief nod before turning to someone at his side who wanted his attention.
“Kirstin?” Laina slid into the chair beside her, breathless from her race down the stairs and into the gathering room. “Did ye hear?”
“Hear what?” Kirstin’s attention moved from Lord Eldred—she still didn’t understand why he raised her hackles the way he did—to Laina, although her gaze stopped at Donal, sitting like a king in full dress plaid at the front of the room. The ceremonies were getting close to starting—the hall was filling up with people—and while Donal smiled and nodded to the man who was bending his ear, Kirstin could tell he was impatient.
“Lorien’s back.” Laina told her.
“Aye, I saw ’im.” Kirstin smiled at the memory of the big wulver she’d greeted when he came into the castle. Donal had frowned at the way Kirstin hugged him, the way he swung her up in his arms and kissed her cheek in greeting. “He brought word from t’king.”
“Aye, so y’know ’tis good news?” Laina asked.
Kirstin nodded. Lorien had been happy to give her the news, even before he told Donal, which had irritated Donal even more. But Lorien had been like a brother to her since she was small. They’d grown up together, played together, and yes, so they’d been together, when they were adolescents. For a while, Kirstin thought Lorien might be her true mate, but once she’d seen Laina with Darrow, and now Sibyl with Raife, she knew it wasn’t meant to be. He was a friend, sometimes lover, but not her one true mate. She’d never gone into estrus around Lorien. Her body knew what it wanted.
And it wanted Donal
Lorien had returned safe and well, though, and that made her happy. And he had confirmed what Lord Eldred had told them in the forest. King Henry was honoring the wolf pact. It should have been a relief, but for some reason, Kirstin’s hackles remained raised.
“Does Raife know? What ’bout Sibyl?” Kirstin looked around for both of them.
“I think they know. I’m jus’ so relieved.” Laina gave a happy sigh. “Our bairns’ll be safe from war and strife.”
Kirstin nodded in agreement, the mention of bairns sending a sharp stab of pain through her heart. She shook it off, glancing back to where Lord Eldred was shaking hands. Her mistrust of him had been based on her fear that he was lying about the wolf pact, that King Henry had actually been behind Alistair’s plan all along. But mayhaps she was being too cautious. If Lorien had returned with word—she still marveled at his travel time, but wulvers could travel very fast, over long distances, without wearying—then she had to trust it.
Didn’t she?
“How did ye hear?” Kirstin asked her pack-sister, frowning. “Did Donal tell ye?”
“No, I saw Lorien jus’ a few moments ago,” she replied. “He came up t’see Darrow. I had to practically tie that man to his bedposts to keep ’im in it, in spite of t’sleep-stuff Sibyl had ’im drink.”
“And how’s Darrow healin’?” Kirstin asked. She’d come to nurse her fellow pack mate and she’d spent all her time so far with Donal. She felt a little guilty about that—but when her gaze found Donal’s and he pinned her with those glittering, steel-blue eyes, she didn’t feel too horribly bad about the way she was spending her time at Castle MacFalon.
“He’s well.” Laina smiled. “Truth told, he’s ready to travel, and itchin’ to get home. We hafta get Raife and Sibyl reunited, and soon, or Darrow’s goin’ t’ruin everythin’.”
“Tell ’im he has to keep up the ruse,” she insisted. Donal’s gaze hadn’t left her, although someone had bent to tell him something. The way he looked at her made her feel as if he was stripping her bare with his eyes alone.
“I promise, I’m doin’ m’best t’distract ’im.” Laina sighed, tossing her long white-blonde hair over her shoulder, turning more to face Kirstin. “And ye’ve been distracted yerself these past few days.”
“Aye.” Kirstin flushed, when Donal dropped her a wink and she felt her blush deepen, hearing Laina laugh beside her. Were they so obvious? She wondered.
They’d met for the past three nights at the spring. Donal told her they could spend the night in his room and no one would care—he was the laird, after all—but Kirstin didn’t want everyone in the castle talking, any more than they already were. Besides, their reenactment of Ardis and Asher beside the spring in the wulver den felt right to her. She was at home in the first den—and in Donal’s arms.
“Yer so in love wit’ him.” Laina nudged her with her hip, laughing softly, delighted.
“Aye, I am.” Kirstin admitted. If she couldn’t admit it to her sister, who could she admit it to? She was completely besot. There was no getting around it, no more denying it. She had fallen like all wulvers do—hard, fast and without warning. It was like waking up finding you’d fallen asleep on a charging horse with no saddle and no reins, and you could do nothing but hold on for dear life and enjoy the wild, albeit slightly terrifying, ride.
“Have ye told ’im?” Laina lowered her voice, so the people filling the chairs around them wouldn’t hear. Kirstin was saving the seat beside her for Sibyl. “About... how’t works, for wulvers? Or does he know?”
“I... I do’na know what he knows. We haven’t really talked o
vermuch...”
Laina chuckled knowingly at that.
The truth was, she was afraid to tell him. More than that—she was afraid of the truth herself. Her body was changing. She could feel it, in every cell. It wouldn’t be long—another week, maybe two—and she would change. And she wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.
If Donal had been a wulver warrior, they would run off under the full light of the moon when her estrus-time came and mate like the animals they were. But Donal wasn’t a wulver, he was a man.
A very powerful, handsome, and virile man, to be sure. Their lovemaking had been wild, raw and abandoned. Kirstin had surrendered herself to him completely, and he had claimed her as his own. She couldn’t have wanted any more from a wulver lover. In fact, the words he spoke into her ear while he was inside her, the things his hands did to her woman’s body, far surpassed the animal act wulvers performed under a full moon. To Kirstin, their lovemaking left nothing to be desired—just thinking about it made her feel warm all the way to her toes—except for one thing.
Unless they made love while Kirstin was in wulver form, she could never bear his children. She-wulvers only experienced estrus as wulvers. The weight of this fact was like a thousand stones pressing on her heart. The MacFalons were Scots, so they weren’t quite as particular about producing heirs as the English, but Donal was a man, and men wanted sons to carry on their lineage. They wanted daughters they could marry off to their neighbors to create alliances. And she wanted to give him sons and daughters.
She was a midwife—she’d been bringing pups into the world since she was a child herself, attending Beitrus—and the thought of not being able to bear children of her own left her feeling cold and alone. Looking at Laina, she thought of her wee bairn, the sweet, big-eyed, dark-haired Garaith, holding his chubby fists out to be picked up. She remembered the way Darrow had looked when his son was born, how proud he’d been. If she couldn’t give that to Donal, she didn’t know how she could possibly stand it.
And how could she tell him? How could she look him in those beautiful, kind ,blue eyes and tell him that, loving her meant he would never have an heir? She wondered, sometimes, after their lovemaking, when he was stroking her hair or just watching her in the light of the fire, if he had put all the pieces together and figured it out for himself. Mayhaps he already knew the wulver ways, as Laina had intimated? But somehow, she didn’t think so.
Because if he knew, she had a feeling he would end things between them as quickly as they’d begun.
And that’s what she was really afraid of. Now that she had given in to herself—mind, body and soul—given into him, she couldn’t imagine losing him.
So she had managed, every time he hinted about moving forward with marriage plans, to distract him, to keep things secret, just a little longer. She had been using Sibyl and Raife as a good excuse—not until things were settled between her pack leader and his mate, she said. Then they could share the news with everyone.
“Ye haven’t talked ’bout it at all?” Laina asked, frowning, bringing Kirstin out of her reverie. “What’ll ye do? Where’ll ye live? How’ll ye—?”
“Shh, ’ere comes Sibyl.” Kirstin stood, welcoming Sibyl into their row of chairs with a hug.
Kirstin noted that Raife was watching his mate closely, although only from the corner of his eye, trying to appear as if he wasn’t. Their latest plan to throw the two together had involved going riding under the pretense of looking for wulver traps—Lord Eldred had been keen to show them the various places where he and his men had begun disarming them—with Sibyl and Kirstin riding behind Donal and Raife.
Donal and Kirsten had planned to ride off and leave the two together alone in the woods, but Kirsten’s horse had spooked at something—Laina claimed it was because she was so close to her estrus, but she didn’t know for sure—and had taken off at a gallop. Donal and Raife gave chase, and by the time they caught her, Raife was so angry he threatened to pull Kirstin over his saddle and wallop her like a pup. Was it her fault the horse had spooked? Then, to top it off, it had begun to rain, and Lord Eldred begged off to go somewhere with his men, while the four of them rode back to Castle MacFalon in silence.
So much for plan B.
They’d moved on to plan C, which they would implement some time later in the week. It had to be soon, though, because while they were still bandaging Darrow’s wound, he had nearly healed, and if Raife came out of the glowering mood he was in and started paying closer attention, he would know they were trying to deceive him. The only thing that kept Darrow in bed was the prospect of helping to alleviate his wife’s discomfort because of her lacking nursling. He was clearly enjoying that part of the ruse.
Sibyl sat beside Kirstin with a smile, but there was no time for small talk. The room was full to capacity with all of the MacFalon armsmen as well as local villagers and several of the guests who had stayed on, after being invited to the wedding of Sibyl Blackthorne and Alistair MacFalon—which had never taken place.
The castle was still full of them, and Moira was busier than ever trying to feed everyone. Kirstin imagined the woman would be glad when they were all gone, which would likely be soon. Right about the time the wulvers left for home. Raife said the guests were staying on only to see if they’d turned themselves into wolves—like they were a curiosity or a freak show—and Donal had reluctantly confirmed as much.
Now, though, they were all crammed into the common room to watch the pomp and circumstance of their new laird being affirmed. He would also name his new guard captain and hunt master this day. After the ceremony would be a great party—poor Moira had been cooking for days and had brought in several extra sets of hands from the village to help her—and Kirstin was looking forward to it.
Beside her, Sibyl fidgeted, pulling at a stray thread at the edge of her plaid. Her nailed were ragged, as if she’d been biting them, and she looked even more pale than usual. Her gaze kept skipping to Raife, who sat on the other side of the hall, as far away from her as he could get, while still being able to keep an eye on her.
Kirstin tried to listen and pay attention, but she kept getting distracted by Donal in his dress plaid. Her mind kept wandering to what he looked like out of it, and that made her feel as fidgety as Sibyl. It wasn’t until Donal introduced Lord Eldred Lothienne to his clan that she really started listening. Up until then, the master of ceremonies had droned on about MacFalon lands and tracts and sections, as if he had to tell them every bit of dirt and rock the new laird of Clan MacFalon owned. Kirstin didn’t know—mayhaps, according to some law, that’s exactly what he had to do, but why subject them all to it?
Lord Eldred shook hands with the laird and Kirstin heard whispers around her about who he was and speculation about what he might be doing there, but no one had to wait long. The man was happy to steal the spotlight, stepping in front of Donal, literally upstaging him as he spoke to the crowd.
“I’ve come to deliver a message from King Henry VII of England,” he proclaimed. His voice boomed through the hall, carrying all the way to the back, bouncing off the wall. “In my hand, I hold a royal decree, sealed by the king himself. This is a proclamation written in his own hand, reaffirming the crown’s support of and enforcement for the original wolf pact decree is it was written.”
This news was met with sighs of relief and general applause.
The people who lived on the MacFalon lands had long known about the wulvers, even if those from far-away did not quite believe the tales of the half-men, half-wolf warriors who lived in the borderlands.
And they had all heard the stories of what life was like before the wolf pact, when wulvers ran free and hunted men. No one wanted those days to return.
Many of the MacFalons strained their necks to look over at Raife, and Kirstin felt dozens of eyes turn her way as well. Laina clapped along with the rest of the crowd, nudging Kirstin to do the same. Kirstin nudged Sibyl, urging her applause, and she complied, although not with much enthusiasm.
This worried Kirstin, because Sibyl had been quite concerned about King Henry’s response. They’d all hoped Alistair’s claims that King Henry was behind his plan to eliminate the wulvers were just lies, and now they had proof, from the England’s high royal huntsman himself. She would have thought Sibyl would be thrilled.
Lord Eldred handed the sealed proclamation to Donal. He actually had to turn around to do it, and Donal accepted it graciously. Lord Eldred handed him another piece of paper, also sealed, leaning into say something to the laird no one else could hear. Donal gave a nod, his brow knitting for a moment, before setting both scrolls aside.
“King Henry VII of England will condemn any act against the wolf pact,” Lord Eldred went on, bragging about his position as royal huntsman, and how the king had put him in charge of enforcing his wishes. Lord Eldred also made the announcement that, due to the recent death of King Henry’s eldest son, Arthur, the crown was in mourning, otherwise King Henry himself would have made the trip.
Lord Eldred strutted like a peacock, completely commanding the room, and just watching him made Kirstin’s blood boil. This was Donal’s day, his affirmation of laird, and this pontificating fool was literally standing in front of him in order to address the crowd. No one seemed to care much, though. They were all taken in by his swagger, which made Kirstin’s lip curl in a sneer she actually had to cover with her hand.
“Oh no.” Laina whispered, craning her neck to look behind them. “Oh no, no, no.”
“What is it?” Sibyl asked, turning to look.
Kirstin whirled in her chair and saw him.
Darrow was up, dressed, and making his way into the hall.
“Oh nooooo!” Kirstin echoed Laina’s sentiment with a howling whisper. “Go! Fetch ’im a’fore Raife sees!”
But Sibyl was already up, heading toward the back of the room to corral her charge.
Laina followed and Kirstin sat there for a moment, watching as the master of ceremonies attempted to take control again—it was time for Donal to name Aiden and Angus MacFalon as his guard captain and hunt master, respectively. They were Donal’s cousins, a lively pair of brothers with long, dark hair and bushy brown beards who liked nothing more than to drink and eat, as far as Kirstin could tell, but they were amiable enough. And, she supposed, it was good that they were big men, thick and barrel chested. People moved out of the way when they came into a room. Even Lord Eldred stepped aside as the brothers approached their laird to take the knee and pledge their fealty. She watched this happen out of the corner of her eye, but her attention was focused on Laina and Sibyl, who were now trying, as quietly as they possibly could, to drag Darrow back to bed before Raife saw him.
