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Scottish Highlands, 1705
Sorcha Tolmach, Princess of the Faol, possesses the power of the wolf and the otherworldly allure of her legendary clan. But she also longs for more freedom than she could ever find in her brother’s court. Impulsively running away to the Highlands, she doesn’t anticipate being wounded and confined to a ramshackle castle by Conall Macpherson, Laird of Kilfinnan. Sorcha senses only darkness in the rugged, forbidding man’s future—so why does she still feel a passionate yearning to become his mate?
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Epilogue
About the Author
Prologue
Legend has it that one dark, stormy night many centuries ago, a small wooden craft got into difficulties off the West Highland Coast, and broke its hull on the vicious outcrop of rocks called the Beathach, or the Beast. All aboard that storm-tossed ship were lost save for one, a babe in arms, only child of the mythical Highland warrior known as The Fearless One. Still tucked up in the woven reed basket in which he had been sleeping, the child was miraculously washed ashore on the remote, uninhabited Isle of Kentarra.
Here, he was found by a wolf pack who, instead of tearing out his throat, suckled him and reared him as one of their own, initiating him into their ways, imbuing him with their qualities. He survived and grew to be a man. A man with the spirit of the wolf residing inside him. He eventually learned how to master his inner beast. And he learned how—and when—to unleash its terrifying power.
From this extraordinary individual evolved the Faol, with their chilling clan motto: Faiceallach! Tha mise an seo! Beware! For I am come!
Living in uneasy symbiosis with their Highland neighbours, the Faol are feared and revered in equal measure throughout Scotland. While the men are famed for their consummate skills in battle, little is known of the reclusive Faol women, who rarely leave their remote island kingdom of Kentarra.
Like all Faol they can take the form of a wolf. Deeply sensual and possessing an extraordinary, unearthly beauty, these highly alluring creatures are irresistible to human males. The unique ability to foretell the future is possessed only by the Alpha females of the clan. A gift, which can, on occasion, prove to be more of a curse.
Chapter 1
Scottish Highlands, Summer 1705
The sun was up, a weak pale orb which merely hinted at warmth. Hard to believe it was the same one which blazed over the isle of Kentarra. Sorcha Tolmach yawned, cast aside the cloak she had wrapped around herself and sat up. Everything about the Highlands was different from the familiar landscape of home. The vast tracts of moorland and forest she had already traversed could have easily swallowed up the whole island. The jagged mountain peaks with their snowy caps were much higher than the glittering jewel-studded crags which hid the underground citadel in which she lived. Here, the people inhabited little stone cottages. A dour race they seemed, though she had taken care not to get too close to them. One thing to impulsively run off as she had done, without an escort, and to travel across this alien world quite alone. It would be quite another to openly court being discovered.
She smiled as she thought of Eoin’s reaction to her disobedience. Her brother would be furious. As Alpha Prince, he had consistently refused to allow her to visit Grada, where her other brother Struan had his own realm, but she was tired of doing what she was told. Besides, she could look after herself. Her Faol powers were all the protection she needed from any human.
Delicately sniffing the early-morning air, Sorcha felt her senses thrill at the very unfamiliarity of it. It was sharper, thinner, with none of the heady scents and soft humidity of Kentarra. But like an exotic perfume, the Highland blend of heather and pine and stony earth had its own illicit allure.
There was not a soul about. The desolate tract of moor she must negotiate rose gently in front of her, clumps of rock standing stark against the ground cover of heather and fern. In the distance, her keen eyesight spotted a narrow gap which marked the entrance to a glen. It was much greener there, and when she focused she could hear the tumble of a stream.
Quickly discarding her gown, and the white silk sark trimmed with lace she wore underneath it, which was her only other piece of clothing, Sorcha tied them into a small bundle using her cloak. Naked, she stretched her arms high and threw back her head to look up at the sun. An onlooker would have been stunned by her sheer beauty—black hair rippling almost to her waist, striking silver-grey eyes, her lush body displayed in unashamed and quite unselfconscious perfection. There was about Sorcha an air of sensuality mingled with excitement, a whiff of danger. She was a sight no man would readily forget. It was as well there was no human man to see it.
Closing her eyes, she breathed deep and focused on her inner wolf. A sleek, silver creature she was, who liked nothing more than to run, wild and free. Here in the Highlands, away from the constraints of her brother’s court and her own position as an unclaimed Alpha princess, Sorcha could afford to let her loose. Using her powers and sensing no danger hereabouts, she summoned her alter ego.
Her bones stretched. Her skin prickled. Her back lengthened; her thighs tautened. The pain was no more than a brief, blinding flash. The heart of her wolf beat faster than her own. The breath came quicker, shallower. She dropped to all fours, relishing the powerful rush that always accompanied her shifting, a mixture of sheer exuberance at the supple litheness of her body and a twisting, glittering desire that conjured vivid carnal fantasies. None of which she ever indulged.
The soft Highland breeze rippled her fur. Catching her bundle in her sharp teeth, Sorcha’s wolf picked her way delicately out of the ferns in which she had taken cover and loped confidently towards the glen.
Conall Macpherson, Laird of Kilfinnan, known to all as Black Conall, crouched down in the shelter afforded by a cluster of saplings. The tall muscular figure with his unruly hair and unkempt appearance blended seamlessly into the untamed Highland landscape. Around him in the glen, his sheep cropped contentedly at the grass. Conall picked up his musket. The long barrel was inlaid with mother-of-pearl and delicate silver filigree. Etched into the stock was the name of the man who had commissioned the expensive weapon, and the date. Rory Macpherson 1700. Five years ago. Just six months before his brother’s untimely death.
Instinctively closing his mind to those heart-wrenching memories, Conall positioned the musket on his shoulder and trained his sights on his flock. Five days in a row now, the wolf had filled its belly from his livestock.
He spotted something entering the glen from the eastern side. It was a wolf all right, though smaller than he’d expected. A female, by the looks of it, which was unusual. They rarely hunted alone. The she-wolf began to slow, her flanks heaving from the pace at which she had been travelling. A beautiful specimen with silver-grey fur, the ears and tail tipped glossy black. Part of him baulked at destroying such a lovely creature. Who would believe the merciless Black Conall capable of such compassionate thoughts?
He took aim. Perhaps it was the glint of the barrel that gave him away, but the wolf came to a sudden halt, dropping the bundle she had been carrying in her mouth. Her silver eyes seemed to be looking straight at him. Conall hesitated. Predator that she was, he was loath to kill her. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up as he squeezed the hammer back. He could swear he saw surprise rather than fear in those eyes as they locked on his, then something else. Recognition. His hold on the musket loosened, the stock trembled, drawing it to the she-wolf’s attention. Her hackles rose. Fatally, Conall hesitated. The she-wolf launched herself at him and Conall belatedly pulled the trigger.
The musket ball left the barrel with a loud report that sent the startled sheep stampeding to the far end of the glen, bleating frantically. As the bullet caught her, the she-wolf seemed to pause in mid-air before falling with a sickening thud to the soft grass. Discarding the gun and pulling his dirk from his belt, ready to spare her any suffering if necessary, Conall sped towards his prey.
The dirk dropped unheeded from his grasp as he stared in utter disbelief at the body on the ground. Not a she-wolf, but definitely female. Very female. Naked, and very beautiful, he noted distractedly. She was also bleeding profusely.
Conall dropped to his knees by the woman’s body, just as he had knelt at the side of another woman’s lifeless form, that fatal night nigh on five years ago. He could not believe it was happening again. That familiar feeling, of wanting to reel back time like a line on a fishing rod, of railing at the Fates for colluding against him, made him curse long and fluently as he searched frantically for a pulse, tearing off his shirt to staunch the bleeding as the faint fluttering on her wrist signalled that she was still alive.
The musket ball had passed clean through her thigh. A quick inspection showed him that it had narrowly missed the bone. ‘Thank God, thank God,’ he muttered, tying the makeshift bandage tightly round the wound before hefting his victim over his shoulder and making his way, as fast and as carefully as his legs would carry him, back to the ramshackle castle he, and he alone, called home.
The throbbing ache in her leg awoke her. Sorcha moaned as her hand encountered some sort of binding. The world pitched like a stormy sea when she opened her eyes, so she quickly closed them again. What had happened? Where was she? Think!
Running. Her wolf had been running through a glen. A stream gurgled. She was thinking of bathing in it, anticipating the breathtakingly icy splash of the mountain water on her skin. Then something stopped her in her tracks.
A man.
A gun.
A shot. She had been shot! Why had she not sensed any danger? Why was she not sensing it now?
Squinting through the swirling mists that clouded her vision, Sorcha forced herself upright. She was in a bed. In a large, gloomy room, so dark that she could well have been at home on Kentarra in the cavern bedchambers. Inching carefully to the floor, she limped to the window embrasure and drew back the heavy curtains, coughing and sneezing as the movement threw up clouds of dust. It would have been a pretty room were it not so neglected. The chandelier was clad in cobwebs. The sapphire-blue window hangings, which matched the canopy on the bed, were threadbare and moth-eaten. The nightstand, escritoire and several chests were thick with what looked like years of grime.
She sank back down on the bed, upon which the yellowed linen looked like it had been freshly made up. The bindings on her thigh seemed to be made from the same material. She tugged at the knots.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’
It was him. The hunter. Standing in the doorway. Once again, she’d had no warning, no premonition of his presence. Startled rather than frightened, Sorcha leaped to her feet, only to stumble as her injured leg gave way. He caught her just before she hit the threadbare carpet, picking her up bodily and throwing her back onto the bed.
‘For God’s sake woman, do you want to bleed to death?’
He towered over her, hands on hips, his expression furious, his stance implacable. A wild-looking man in a worn shirt and plaid quite at odds with his air of authority, he glared out at her through a tangle of dark brown hair which reached down to his shoulders. His eyes were fierce, a startling blue, set deep below a brow that seemed to be formed into a permanent frown. A scar cut his left eyebrow in two. There was another little nick in the shape of a crescent on his chin. A hard face softened only by his mouth, which was full and sensual, though it didn’t look as if it did much smiling.
She didn’t like the way he was looking at her, but she could not seem to get her legs moving, and when she sought her wolf, it whimpered in distress and cowered deep inside her. Gritting her teeth, Sorcha made a painful lunge from the bed, only to find herself held fast in a pair of ruthlessly strong arms.
‘For the love of God, will you stay where you are. I mean you no harm.’
His voice was deep, harsh, as if, like his smile, it was rarely used. ‘No harm?’ Sorcha gazed at him in disbelief. She still couldn’t believe it. Above all else, she couldn’t understand why she hadn’t sensed the impending danger, any more than she sensed it now. She tried desperately to focus her powers, but there was nothing there—not even fear, which should have been. None of the usual cloud of images and symbols she had learned to interpret, to harness and to trust. What was wrong with her?
‘You shot me,’ she said.
‘I aimed at a wolf. I shot at a wolf. And yet…’ Conall shook his head, still quite unable to account for what had happened. ‘Who are you—or rather what are you? Are you some kind of evil spirit, sent to haunt me?’
‘I am real enough, as was the wolf.’
Her accent was strange, but not as strange as her words. ‘Then what happened to it?’
Despite the dull ache in her thigh, which was already fading, despite the failure of her powers, the human’s obvious bewilderment tickled Sorcha’s sense of the absurd. Perhaps she could sense no danger because there was none? ‘She’s right here,’ she said with a hint of a smile, ‘inside me.’
Her voice was like smoke. Her mouth was sinful, redolent of dangerous pleasures. Those lambent eyes, the same silver-grey as the wolf’s, gave her a fey look. Her figure was voluptuous, full breasts with dark, jutting nipples, hips rounding delightfully from her waist; she was as lovely and as luscious as a siren. And as dangerous. ‘You’re Faol,’ Conall said slowly, quite awed by the realization. ‘Clan Wolf.’
‘You know of us?’
‘Your warriors are legendary, but I’ve never heard tell of a female coming to the mainland.’
‘It is rarely permitted.’ She tried, but could not quite disguise the resentment in her voice.
‘Tell me, do you always wander about naked?’
Sorcha grabbed the sheet from the bed and wrapped it roughly around her. ‘I dropped my clothes when you shot me,’ she said tartly, confused by the way his gaze made her pulse thrum like a hummingbird’s wings.
Her skin was lightly tanned, the same colour all over. Her silky fall of hair was so long it caressed her bottom. Fascinated, and appalled by his own blatant display of interest, Conall dragged his eyes away. His shaft hardened with the unaccustomed stirrings of desire, and with it came acute awareness. Of the sweet, heady scent of her. Of the ripeness of her. The tantalizing otherness.
What the devil was he thinking? He ran his fingers through his wild tangle of hair. ‘You should be resting your wound.’
‘It’s not serious. The pain is already fading,’ Sorcha replied. The way he looked at her made her feel as she did when she shifted. Excited. An ache of wanting something intangible. She couldn’t understand it. Not only had he tried to kill her, but he was not at all handsome by Faol standards—and she had been wooed by the most handsome Faol in the pack. She licked her lips, quite innocent of the effect. ‘My leg will fare better without these bindings.’
‘Bandages,’ Conall said distractedly, fascinated by the glimpse of pink tongue on the darker pink plumpness of her lips.
‘Did you apply them?’ She imagined those calloused hands, the surprisingly well-cared-for fingers, on her skin. He was so different from a Faol man in every way. Bigger. Much more muscled. Broader. And his scent was different, too. Salty. Musky. Yet quite definitively male.
‘Yes I did. Luckily it’s a clean wound.’ Conall couldn’t take his eyes off her hand, where it unconsciously stroked her thigh. A gust of desire assailed him. She smelled of hot sun and some other elusive scent, like a wild Highland orchid.
Despite his heavy frown and the wariness he wore like a cloak, his mouth had a humorous curl to it, tilting up at the corners. She couldn’t read him or see his aura, which was as perturbing as it was unusual. It was as if he had placed a tangible barrier between them which made him opaque. Used as she was to almost complete transparency, it was frustrating, but also a challenge, something she could rarely resist. We Faol heal very quickly,’ Sorcha explained.
‘All the same, you need to rest.’ He meant to help her back to bed, but as he moved to do so, she stepped warily backwards, tripping on the sheet, and they fell together onto the bed.
It had been so long, so very long, since Conall had lain next to any woman, far less a captivating creature like this. She was so close he could feel the soft feathering of her breath on his cheek, count the thick dark lashes that framed those mesmerizing eyes, which were locked on his. ‘I should—you should rest,’ he said roughly. But he couldn’t seem to move. He didn’t want to move.
‘I’m not tired,’ Sorcha replied. Though the Faol were an innately sensual race, she had always instinctively guarded against intimacy of this sort. Seeing others’ innermost thoughts, their lives and futures laid bare, made her reluctant to be revealed herself. Knowing all, she had no wish to be known. Until now. Now, all she could think about was being closer still to this forbidding, powerful Highlander. Her body yearned for it. He made her feel safe and vulnerable at the same time. She edged a little towards him. Her toes brushed his legs. .
Conall’s erection hardened. He should move. He meant to move, and he did move, but in quite the opposite direction from that he intended, pulling her to him, so that they lay breast to breast, thigh to thigh. Her nipples were hard. His shaft was harder. Her breath was a whisper on his skin. Some irrevocable internal command compelled him to kiss her. So he did.
Sorcha had never allowed any man to kiss her, but as Conall’s lips touched hers, resistance was the furthest thing from her mind. His mouth was warm, every bit as sensuous as it looked. He tasted dark and dangerous. A rush of heat flushed her, from her neck down, her belly up, as his tongue touched hers. He pulled her hard to him and kissed her more deeply. It felt as intense as her shifting did. Her nipples peaked against the rough expanse of his chest. Her pulses began to flutter unevenly.
She was lying on top of him, the hard length of his erection pressing into her belly, his hand cupping her bottom. His breathing was as ragged and harsh as his appearance. His stubble rasped her delicate skin, yet his mouth was a delight. As he rolled her onto her back, she could almost taste the scent of their arousal, a bittersweet blend of salt and spice. Running her fingers across the span of his shoulders, she marvelled at the power in his bunched muscles. So this was what a man felt like? So different from what she had expected.
She tried to tug his shirt free from his belt, wanting to test the feel of his skin. His firm hand on her wrist halted her. His lips deserted hers. For a long moment he gazed at her in bewilderment. She had a fleeting glimpse of it then, his essence. Dark, hard, glittering like the rocks which formed Kentarra’s citadel. Then, as he rolled himself off the bed with an exclamation that sounded horribly like disgust, it vanished as quickly as it had appeared.
Chapter 2
Conall cursed, struggling to extinguish the flame of desire that seemed unaccountably persistent. He had forgone any right to desire long since. ‘I don’t know what possessed me,’ he said brusquely, concentrating on righting his plaid.
‘Nor indeed do I.’ For the second time in less than an hour, Sorcha fought her way through the mists which engulfed her usually clear head. ‘Who are you? And what is this place you’ve brought me to?’ she asked, surprised that she had not thought to do so before.
‘You’re in Castle Kilfinnan. My home.’ Seeing the surprise on her face, Conall laughed harshly. ‘Did you take me for a poacher? Or a sheep rustler? Aye, I can see from your face that you did. They’re my sheep that wolf I took you for has been slaughtering. These are my lands. And this is my castle.’ He made an ironic bow. ‘Conall Macpherson, Laird of Kilfinnan at your service,’ he said with a twisted smile.
It made sense now, that air he had about him, a sort of natural authority. ‘Sorcha Tolmach, Princess of the Faol,’ Sorcha riposted, irked by having misjudged him, and even more irked that he had noticed.
‘A Princess! What the devil are you doing travelling about the Highlands unchaperoned?’
‘That’s none of your business.’
‘It most certainly is, while you’re on my lands, under my roof.’
Sorcha sighed dramatically. ‘I am going to visit my elder brother. And despite what my other brother Eoin might say, I don’t need his permission to do so.’
‘Nor anyone else’s I take it? If you’ve a vengeful husband trailing in your wake…’
Sorcha gave a gurgle of laughter. ‘Faol don’t marry as you humans do. We take a life mate, but I have not yet agreed to be claimed. So you need have no fear of having to face one of our legendary warriors.’
‘I have no fear of anything nor anyone alive.’
He said it not boastfully but bleakly. She met his eyes, like chips of blue granite, and shivered. ‘I believe you,’ she said softly.
Conall shrugged. ‘So you are not married—claimed. Why is that?’
‘’Tis not for the want of trying, on my brother’s part. Since Eoin took a life mate himself, he has been overly keen on my doing so, too.’
‘But you’re set on disobeying him, are you?’
Now it was Sorcha’s turn to shrug. ‘It’s not that,’ she said, twisting the end of the sheet with her fingers. ‘It’s just that none of my suitors have been the one destined for me.’ She blushed faintly. ‘I have a gift for knowing the future. When I meet my life mate, I’ll know immediately.’
Conall raised his heavy brows. ‘You can foretell?’ he queried sceptically. ‘You’re some sort of witch?’ It would explain her effect on him.
‘My powers are not dark,’ Sorcha said indignantly.
Intrigued, Conall sat back down on the bed beside her. The mattress sank under his weight, rolling Sorcha towards him. ‘What about the past, can you see that?’ he asked, deliberately leaning even closer.
‘No.’
‘I’m glad of that. No one would wish to view my past.’
Her heart was pounding. Not wolf-fast but slow, heavy. The scent of him was wrapping itself around her. He was close enough for her to count the hairs in the rough stubble on his chin. ‘Why not?’
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