"Thank ye." She swallowed, trying to find her voice. It was caught in her throat, breathy. "I'm truly anxious to see my kin, if-"
Donal dropped her hand, turning to give a whistle that startled her. Thankfully, the tree was still there behind her, giving her legs more strength than she felt they actually had in the moment.
"That's t'call of a kestrel," she observed, admiring his ability to mimic the bird.
"Aye, 'tis," he agreed, turning toward her again.
In the distance, Kirstin heard a horse's hooves.
She swallowed as Donal leaned toward her, hand above her head, against the tree. He was a big tree of a man himself, his body thick and muscled. She swore she could feel every one of them tensing in front of her, every last sinew stretch and bulge of his veins. He was only inches from her and she wondered, briefly, if he might be about to more than just chastely kiss the inside of her pulsing wrist.
Then she glanced up and saw he had hold of the two arrows in the tree above her head. He was slowly working them out of the trunk, his breath coming a little faster with the effort, his bare knee grazing hers.
"The kestrel's a sound heard both in city and forest," he explained, giving the whistle again, even though she could hear his horse coming to the call.
She couldn't help noticing the way his dark hair brushed the plaid over his shoulders. He likely kept it long, like most Scots, to remind them of their wildness-their closeness to nature, and the animals that lived there. Animals that, perhaps, man himself had once been.
"So it won't alert t'enemy?" she guessed, thinking of his bird call as she heard the horse whinny nearby, pawing at the forest floor, announcing his presence.
"Aye, wise woman." Donal showed straight, white teeth as he smiled down at her, yanking the arrows finally free with a sudden jerk. She gasped at the motion and bit her lip as the big man turned to his horse. "Here's Kestrel now."
"Yer horse is named Kestrel?" She laughed, looking at the big, spirited, fearless black beauty as Donal grabbed the reins and tugged the war horse nearer to her.
"Ye were naughty, Kestrel, givin' away me position," she scolded as the animal drew near.
It wasn't too afraid of her, now that she was human again, but all animals could sense the difference between wulver and human. It took Donal's comfort to get the big, black nose lowered in surrender, nuzzling her shoulder.
"I forgive ye." She smiled, petting the soft velvet of his snout. "He did'na like me much when I was a wulver."
"He did'na know ye." Donal smiled, watching her rub her cheek against the horse's nose.
"He's beautiful," she confessed, smiling up at Donal.
"Kestrel thinks t'same of ye, lass." Donal put his boot in the stirrup and pulled himself into the saddle. Mounted, he seemed like a giant, his smile brighter than the sun that shone through the trees behind his head as he held a hand out for her.
She didn't hesitate. She grabbed the arm he offered and slid onto the horse, settling into the saddle behind him. She sat astride, like any good Scotswoman would, although she wore nothing under her plaid.
"Do ye ride?" he asked over his shoulder.
"Aye." She nodded against his broad back, her arms going naturally around his waist. Her fingers could feel the hard muscle of his abdomen, even through his plaid.
"Good." He smiled-she couldn't see it, but she could hear it in his voice. "Then I won't hafta tell ye t'hold on."
Kestrel took off like a shot and Kirsten gasped, holding tight to Donal MacFalon while clenching horse flesh between her quivering thighs. She pressed her cheek against his back, clinging to him, feeling the steady rhythm of the animal beneath them both as they headed back toward the castle.
But that was nothing compared to the animal Kirsten felt coming alive within her since she'd seen this man and caught his scent across the clearing.
She felt Donal's thighs flexing against her own as he guided the horse on a path through the woods, and the scent of the man, even though she was currently a woman and not a wulver, made her salivate. Her whole body seemed to want to melt against his on the saddle, as if the motion of the horse could drive them together and make them one.
He didn't have to tell her to hang on-but she did. She hung onto him as if he was her second skin, as if she could crawl inside him. She clung to him, trembling, not understanding her own feelings at this closeness, at the way they moved together on the saddle.
Kirstin thought she felt him chuckle at the way her fingers locked feverishly around his waist, at the way she clutched him between her legs, and wondered if he knew she was bare and exposed beneath her plaid.
Because Donal MacFalon seemed determined to give her the ride of her life.
2
"Kirstin!" Sibyl's eyes widened, at first in shock, then in happy surprise.
Kirstin slipped into Darrow's room, afraid of what she might find. Donal came in behind her-he'd shown her to Darrow's room himself-and stood just inside the half-open door, watching as Kirsten crossed over to a bed so big it made the giant, wulver man in the center of it appear small.
"Sibyl." Kirstin cupped the Englishwoman's sweet, freckled face, brushing her auburn hair away and kissing her cheek, so very glad to see her whole and unharmed, after her sacrificial ride from the wulver's den to Castle MacFalon. Donal had assured her Sibyl was fine, but it was good to see it for herself. "How is he?"
"He'll live." Sibyl sat back down in the chair beside the man's bed, continuing to tear sheets to make dressings. Sibyl frowned at the wulver tossing and turning on the mattress. He gave a low growl in his sleep, shaking his head, and for a brief moment he hovered between human and wulver form-a sight Kirstin was used to, but one that gave both Sibyl and Donal pause. Sibyl met Kirstin's gaze and she saw tears in the redhead's eyes. "No thanks to the cowardice of Alistair MacFalon."
Kirstin swallowed hard at the name, seeing a dark cloud pass over the Englishwoman's face. Sibyl had been promised to Alistair-Donal's older brother, who had been laird of Clan MacFalon until his recent demise-and had been willing to sacrifice herself in marriage to a cruel man she didn't love in order to save the wulver pack.
Sibyl couldn't have known-and Kirstin certainly hadn't realized, when she put the Englishwoman on a horse and sent her away from the wulver den, heading back toward Castle MacFalon-that Alistair was setting a trap for the wulver warriors, using his betrothed as bait. He'd also kidnapped Darrow's mate, Laina, just in case the wulvers decided not to pursue the Englishwoman who had been living in their midst.
But it had been Alistair's intention all along to lure the wulver army out of their mountain den and destroy them. Kirstin had heard the story, told by the wulver warriors, of Alistair's cowardice and treachery. She'd heard them talk of the way Darrow had demanded single combat blood rite-a fight to the death between two men. It was a codicil in the wolf pact intended to avoid all-out war between the Scots and the wulvers.
Alistair had refused to fight or to honor the wolf pact, which his own father had signed in blood, until the crowd shamed him into it. Kirstin knew the coward had called for a stand-in, but not even his own brother, Donal, would step up for him. The wulver warriors told the story of Alistair MacFalon's cowardice, how he'd cried like a little girl when Darrow began to best him, begging for the fight to be called off, because Laina was, in fact, not dead after all, as the Scotsman had boasted.
And when Alistair had her brought out as proof, bound and bloody but very much alive, he'd used the distraction when Darrow's back was turned to run the wulver through. What Alistair hadn't counted on was a wulver's strength, determination, and incredible resilience. Darrow had managed to turn and lop off the coward's head before collapsing at his mate's feet.
Kirstin had heard the story told a dozen times before she left the den, but she didn't really understand its reality until she saw it in Sibyl's red-rimmed eyes. She couldn't imagine what the poor woman had been through and she put her arms around her in comfort before turning her attention to the wulver recovering from his wounds in bed.
"I'd like t'take the opportunity once again to apologize fer me brother's heinous actions." Donal spoke from the doorway, looking between the two women. "I can'na say't enough. And I hope, in some way, I can make up fer-"
"You can stop with the apologies, Laird MacFalon." Sibyl looked at him fondly, her eyes softening as she saw him standing guard near the door. Kirstin saw the way the woman looked at Donal, with such great affection, and instantly, her body reacted in a way that had never happened before. Kirstin's spine stiffened, her hands clenching into fists, and deep in her chest, she felt a growl rising, even though she was in human, not wulver, form. She swallowed it down, confused by her own response, hearing Sibyl's voice praising the laird of the MacFalon Clan. "You've been more than generous with your time and your resources, Donal."