“Ye look beautiful in the moonlight,” he whispered.
I smiled and turned around to face him, reaching up to caress his face.
“You make me feel beautiful,” I said, leaning in to him and tilting my head back.
Alastair lowered his face to mine and kissed me gently, teasing my lips with his. It felt wonderful, but I wanted more. A fire was beginning to burn inside of me and I kissed him back more forcefully, urging him on.
He walked me backwards until I felt the backs of my legs bump up against the bed. Very carefully, he helped me out of my gown, then let the soft, rich fabric pool on the floor.
My shift was soon to follow, and before I knew it I was standing in front of him completely naked.
A breeze blew through the room from the open window and I shuddered at the caress of the cool night air. My nipples puckered in the chill and Alastair reached out to me, ran his hands down my arms to grab my buttocks and lifted me up. I wrapped my legs around his waist and let my head fall back as his head dipped to feast first on one breast and then the other. The heat of his mouth clashed with the cool air in the room and my head spun from the intoxicating mix of temperatures and the wine I had drunk at the celebration.
Suddenly, I was slowly falling backwards and the softness of the bed came up to meet me even as I was covered by the weight of Alastair’s body.
I ran my hands over the breadth of his back, then grabbed fistfuls of his shirt and tugged it up so that I could feel his skin.
Alastair sat up quickly and tugged the shirt over his head, then threw it aside. I tugged at his plaid, unwrapping his kilt, eager to have him as naked as I was. It was thrilling to know that this time we wouldn’t have to stop. We were man and wife, and we could finally be together completely.
Alastair’s hand tangled in my hair as we kissed. His mouth trailed down over my throat to my breast and then down over my stomach.
I gasped as his mouth covered the heat of me and my back arched as I felt his tongue probing at my core. My fingers slipped through his hair as waves of pleasure crashed through my body.
I wanted to touch him, feel him, make him feel what I was feeling, but I could barely breathe, let alone think.
I felt like I was spiraling higher and higher. My entire body felt as if it were a spring, wound too tight and about to snap under the pressure. My legs began to shake as Alastair continued to pleasure me until finally I could not contain myself any longer. My body arched like a bow and I cried out at the top of my lungs, shouting my pleasure into the night.
Suddenly Alastair was above me, kissing me as he settled himself between my legs. I opened my legs wider to accommodate him and gasped at the pressure of his hardness probing against my entrance. My body stretched to fit him, and suddenly he was inside me. I cried out and bit his shoulder as he began to move slowly inside of me.
I felt as though I were floating and my hips came up to meet his as we picked up speed. My pleasure started to crest once more and my thigh muscles shook as we drove each other closer to the edge. Alastair’s mouth covered mine as he roared his pleasure, the pumping of his hips forcing me to join him in our own private bliss.
I cried out once more as I threw myself over the edge into the waiting abyss with only the weight of Alastair’s body to keep me anchored.
Afterward, we fell into a deep sleep, content and safe in each other’s arms.
CHAPTER 4
“Alastair, please, you need to rest. You have been working all morning and you’ve yet to stop for a single bite to eat. You’ll make yourself sick if you keep on this way.” I stood just inside the doorway of Alastair’s study and watched him as he pored over the correspondences that had arrived for him from the men that he had sent out to the neighboring clan lands.
“I’ll stop to eat in a bit, lass. Don’t fash yourself,” he mumbled absently without looking up from the paper he was reading intently.
I shifted the tray in my hand and walked over to set it down on the edge of the desk, making sure to avoid putting it down on top of any of the papers he had scattered around him. The desk in his study looked as if a storm had been through it, wreaking a careless havoc as it tossed around everything in sight.
“Please, Alastair, you must eat. Just a bite,” I pleaded with him. I rested my hand lightly on his shoulder before brushing back a thick lock of fire-red hair that had come loose from his plait.
He took hold of my hand and brought it to his lips to kiss the back of it before releasing it and sitting back heavily in his chair. He dropped the piece of correspondence he had been reading carelessly on top of all the others.
“Every one of them the same,” he said with a snort of disgust. “Not a one of them has heard anything of use. Whoever these people are, they have covered their tracks disturbingly well, love.”
“I refuse to believe that that our lack of information comes from any great skill on their end. It is more likely that they are able to stay hidden due to an overwhelming desire for self-preservation,” I said, sniffing delicately. “Allina knows all of our strengths, all of our weaknesses. She would be sure to convey to whomever it is she has roped into helping her that they must observe the utmost caution in their actions. She knows how quickly you will move to destroy this threat the moment you discover where it is coming from. She would have to be prepared to move slowly and carefully so that she does not tip her hand too quickly and have us bring the battle to her doorstep.”
“But to hear nothing, Glenna? Not so much as a whisper? How is that possible now that they know what we are?” Alastair slammed the flat of his hand down on his desk in frustration and I covered it with my own.
“Truth be told, I don’t believe that she would be so foolish as to run through the highlands screaming of curses. She is too cunning. Your reputation lends itself to so much superstition that it would draw too much attention. But this, this slow quiet attack? The waiting, the uncertainty? It does its own damage and allows her to bide her time.” I took his face in my hands and turned his head so that he looked at me straight on. “But it also gives us time, my love. It gives us time to prepare. When she makes her move we will be ready for her. We will not be caught unaware. And we will continue to search for her and root her out. She and whoever she found foolish enough to join her in this folly.”
Alastair’s eyes searched mine, then slowly, he reached out and slowly caressed my cheek. “Whatever would I do without ye, lass?” he asked me.
“Aren’t you glad you’ll never have to find out?” I said with a smile.
“Aye, I am.”
“Come away with me,” I pleaded with him. “Just for a short while. We can go for a walk, or a ride. The fresh air would do you some good. If you’ll not eat, at least take a few minutes to stretch your legs. Please, Alastair. You’ve been in here for so long staring at these papers. I’m amazed the words have not simply begun to blend together into an undecipherable mess.”
“I canna, Glenna. There’s too much work to be done.” He shook his head and reached for one of the many papers on his desk.
“Alastair, you will drive yourself mad in here if you keep going on this way. Ever since that day in Fortingall you’ve done nothing but bury your head in these papers.”
“I am sorry if I’ve not been sufficiently entertaining for you, lass, but believe it or not the future of my people if more important than your boredom.”
I inhaled sharply and resisted the urge to smack him. “How dare you,” I said quietly, my voice dripping with ice. “You think that I’m in here because I’m bored? Do you really think me so frivolous?” I grabbed the tray I had brought in with me, which carried what was to be his lunch, and picked it up off the desk roughly. The movement jostled the wine in the glass and some of the deep red liquid sloshed over the edge and onto the tray. “Fine. Sit here poring over your pages. Do you expect the words on the paper to magically change? That you will force them to reveal some new information by your sheer will? That would be quite the feat. Please, be sure
to come find me when you do so that I can show you how properly impressed I am. And while you’re working on that, you can continue to starve yourself as you seem so intent on doing,” I snapped at him before turning for the door.
“Glenna, wait.”
“No, no, I do not think I will,” I said dismissively and kept walking.
“Glenna, I’m sorry. That was unkind of me,” he said.
I could hear him standing up from his desk and I stopped my march toward the study door but I did not turn around. He came up behind me and placed both of his hands on my shoulders and I tensed in anger.
“Please, lass, I’m sorry. I never should have said such a thing to ye.”
I forced the tension out of my shoulders and tried to let go of my anger. “I know how deeply the things you heard them saying in the village affected you,” I said quietly. “And I know that you will feel the need to do everything in your power to prove to them that none of it was true. That they are right to put their faith in you. But you also need a clear head and to keep your body strong, otherwise you will be of no good to anyone.”
He turned me around and I looked up into his face, which was clouded with contrition.
“You’re right. I’ll be of no use if I drive myself into the ground.” He reached out to the tray and picked up the sandwich I had made for him. Smiling widely, he opened his mouth and took a huge bite and swallowed before taking another and then a third.
I stood waiting quietly while he finished his meal. I laughed as he winked at me then tipped his head back and emptied his glass of wine in a few gulps.
“Thank you,” I said when he set the glass down on the tray beside the now empty plate.
“Nay, Glenna, thank ye.” He leaned in and kissed me lightly at first and then after a moment began to kiss me more eagerly.
I sighed and started to lean into the kiss just as a knock came at the study door.
“Are we forever to be interrupted in this room?” he asked with a sigh as he pulled away and reached around me to open the door.
“My lord, my lady,” said Gregory hastily as he tipped his head in my direction. “You must come quickly.”
“What is it, Gregory?” I asked him.
Gregory looked back and forth between Alastair and me before he said, “The MacGregor has been challenged.”
***
As we hurried to the great hall, a feeling of dread settled within me. To have someone step forward and challenge Alastair meant that he was starting to lose the trust of his people.
The room was already crowded when we arrived. Somehow word of the challenge must have spread throughout the castle. The crowd parted before us as we walked to the center of the room. The long table and benches had already been moved to the sides of the room, up against the walls.
I stood on the edge of the crowd as Alastair walked to the center of the large circle that had formed in the middle of the room. He turned, taking in the large group of clansmen who stood around him. I gritted my teeth at the sight of the fire that flashed in his haunting green eyes. It wasn’t just anger that I saw there, but the ghost of betrayal. I did not pity the fool who had come to challenge my husband that day, but I held my breath and waited as he stood quietly waiting for the challenger to come forward.
There was a shuffling beside me as the people moved to let someone pass through, and I turned to look up into the face of the man we had seen in the town square in Fortingall just a week before. My eyes opened wide as he looked down at me for a moment with a determined expression on his face before he stepped forward to face Alastair.
“I’ve come to challenge the MacGregor!” His voice rang out loud and true around the room and reverberated off of the ceiling.
The room went dead silent at his announcement. It was one thing to hear that the MacGregor was to be challenged, and another thing completely to actually hear the challenge issued with your own ears. It felt as though everyone in the room took a communal step backward in an attempt to distance themselves from the man who had just spoken.
I worried my bottom lip, biting down on it painfully as I waited for Alastair’s reply. The two men looked like giants as they stood facing one another.
Alastair took a step closer to his challenger and looked him over slowly from the ground up. “Ye think to challenge me for the position of chief of this clan?” he asked. Even though his voice was low, he was easily heard throughout the room.
“I challenge ye as leader of this pack. You’ve failed your people, Alastair MacGregor, by allowing the curse of the wolf to be known outside of McGregor lands. You’ve brought the enemy to our doorstep and some say behind these very walls. Ye have no business being Alpha.”
“And ye think that you’re the right wolf for the job, then, do ye?” Alastair growled.
“Aye, I do.”
“Fine then, pup. I accept your challenge,” said Alastair.
Graham bristled at being called pup then ignored it. “As our chief, you have the right to choose the time and place of the challenge.”
“Tomorrow night at moonrise. There is a clearing not far from here. We will meet there,” said Alastair decisively. His voice was cool and businesslike but I knew that the blood had to be boiling in his veins.
Graham bowed low and stayed doubled over until Alastair had walked away from him and exited the circle. He walked past me and headed straight for the door without stopping to look back. I turned to look at Graham and saw that he was also watching Alastair’s departure with a strange look in his eye. His gaze slid to mine and our eyes locked. My jaw clenched in anger I turned my back on him, dismissing him sharply as I followed Alastair out the door.
CHAPTER 5
I stood like a statue and looked out the window, watching as the sky turned from blue to orange and pink as the sun began to set. I tried to calm the rapid beating of my heart but the slow deep breaths that I forced myself to take were of no use. I wouldn’t have to wait much longer. In a few short minutes I, along with the rest of the castle’s inhabitants, would exit out the castle doors and head into the woods toward the clearing where the challenge was to take place.
I clasped my hands together and brought them to my lips. Since the change I had gotten used to feeling warmer than I used to, but that evening my hands felt like blocks of ice, as though nothing in the world could warm them.
After the challenge had been issued Alastair had locked himself away and I hadn’t seen him since. For the first time since I’d met him he had barred the door to the study, effectively locking me out, cutting me off from him. I felt completely helpless and utterly useless.
I held my hand up in front of my face and remembered the feel of the smooth wood of the study door beneath my fingertips. The door might as well have been made from iron, so efficient was it in barring my path. The only person to step foot past that door had been Alastair’s uncle Donald. I could only hope that he had been able to offer my husband some sort of comfort and clarity.
The sun dipped lower toward the horizon and I left the room to head to the study. Just as I reached the door it opened and Alastair and Donald emerged. Donald looked tired but determined. He patted Alastair firmly on the back and gave his arm a quick squeeze.
“E’en Do bait Spair Nocht,” he said to Alastair.
In what you do spare nothing. The MacGregor motto. There was no advice Alastair could have been given that would have been more fitting at that moment. No matter what was to come, Alastair could not afford to show any weakness.
Alastair turned his head in my direction and his eyes locked onto mine. They were shining brightly, with a wild look to them. I stepped forward, reaching out, and he pulled me to him, embracing me tightly.
“No matter what happens, know that I love you. If anything happens to me, I have made sure that Donald will ensure ye are well taken care of,” he whispered into my hair.
“Do not say that,” I hissed and jerked back. “Don’t you dare say that. I will not stand here and listen t
o you say your goodbyes. Do you hear me? I will not stand for it, Alastair, I will not!” I was shouting by the end as I wrenched my way out of his arms.
“Glenna, nothing is certain, and we must be prepared…”
“No! I will not allow it. This will be over before it has begun. You are their rightful chief. You are their Alpha. You will prove that to every man, woman and child who bear the name MacGregor. And once this ridiculous challenge is finished and you have trounced that… that mutt into the dirt, we will go out and find Allina and drag her out of her hiding place by her hair and make her rue the day that she decided to start this trouble!”
The two men stood staring at me in silence, their mouths agape, as if I had just sprouted a second head. Suddenly Alastair threw back his head and roared with laughter.
“Ah, my little warrior. You’ve always a way of knowing exactly what I need even when I’ve not got a clue, haven’t ye?”
I crossed my arms in front of my chest and sniffed dismissively. “We’re going to be late,” I told him and turned away.
I blinked rapidly in an attempt to hold back the tears that threatened to surface and squared my shoulders. Alastair took my hand and jerked me back around to face him. His mouth crashed down onto mine and I accepted him eagerly. My fingers dug into the muscles of his arms as I clung to him fiercely. Although I refused to give voice to my fears, my body betrayed me as it trembled softly. Finally I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, resting my forehead against his chest, soaking in the feel and scent of him.
“Come now, lass,” he said to me quietly. “We must go.”
I nodded silently and entwined my fingers with his. We walked as a group out of the castle and toward the open patch of glen where Alastair would fight to keep control of the clan and his pack.
***
The soft light of the setting sun filtered down through the shimmering leaves as the large group from the castle walked silently through the woods. Alastair and I led dozens of castle inhabitants to the challenge spot. Even though so many of us were moving though the trees, there was almost no sound as we stepped lightly through the underbrush.
Craved By The Highland Wolf (The Clan MacGregor Book 3) Page 3
