A Highland Werewolf Wedding (26 page)

The dogs in the kennel were barking so loudly that Elaine could hardly hear anything
else as she slammed the kennel door, her heart pounding furiously as she quickly locked
herself in.

For the briefest instant, she thought maybe Cearnach had been right. She should have
stayed in the keep until they knew for sure everything was safe.

She shook her head. She couldn’t have done it. If she had to do it all over again,
though, she’d have armed herself with one of Cearnach’s swords. She knew how to use
one.

Secure the back door, she thought, but before she could turn to race that way and
lock it, a man said in a harsh voice, “Hello, dear sweet Elaine, my mate, my darling.”
Though his voice was roughened with age, it couldn’t be anyone other than Kelly Rafferty.
“’Tis a treasure you were seeking, lass, when you returned to Scotland. ’Tis a treasure
you have found.”

The blood drained from her face, her head becoming so light that she could barely
stand.
Kelly
Rafferty
.
Him.

She turned around, afraid to see him, and saw the brute, older. He had the same leering
expression as he devoured her with his green eyes. His long red hair hung around his
shoulders and he was naked.

“You,” she said, gasping out the word and wondering if he was like Flynn, a ghostly
visage, not real. She had to admit he looked damn real.

“Who hit you?” he said darkly, his gaze focusing on her bruised cheek as if he wanted
to kill the bastard himself.
He
was the only one allowed to beat on her.

She reached up to touch her bruised face but stilled her hand.

He couldn’t be real. She couldn’t be mated to two wolves. She wanted to die. She probably
would be dead as soon as Kelly knew she’d taken Cearnach as her mate. No, he’d want
to keep her, abuse her, ensure she knew she was his property forever.

“
I
am the treasure you are seeking,” he said again as he moved toward her, and she realized
that he must have slipped around the back of the kennels as a wolf while everyone
else was a distraction. “You are mine.”

No, no, no
. She hadn’t been his for centuries.

“You’re dead,” she said, her voice a whisper.

She couldn’t seem to catch her breath, to react. She’d feared and hated this man for
the year they’d been together. She’d wanted to escape him, free herself from her bond
to him. Every time he’d struck her, she’d wanted to fight back and kill him.

She’d known beyond a doubt, with all the passing years, that he was dead.

He had to be dead.

He smiled, the look so sinister that she knew he’d take a belt to her again, break
her jaw, beat her until she barely lived. She wouldn’t let him this time. She wouldn’t
let him beat her ever again.

“Why come for me now?” She backed toward the locked door, her legs wobbly from the
shock of seeing him, her thoughts in turmoil as she tried to recall anything that
would have clued her in that he had always been alive.

“I killed the last of my crew that had left me for dead,” he said, standing still,
not drawing any closer now.

“No, no,” she said, recalling the words of one of his men who had come for her. “Your
crew said that your quartermaster murdered you because you cheated him. After he killed
you, they left
him
for dead because of what he’d done to you.
He’d
betrayed you. Not them.”

A sinister light glowed in his eyes. “My quartermaster? So they thought to make you
feel they were justified in killing Terrance? He’d punished them for infractions on
the ship, and the men wanted him dead also. They quickly turned on both of us, knowing
that if one lived, the survivor would make them pay for their traitorous deeds. Which
I did anyway. I never cheated my quartermaster out of his fair share of the treasure.
He was worth his weight in gold to me.”

Despite his apparent fondness for Terrance, Rafferty was a cold-blooded murderer,
a pirate, a thief, a demon. So were his men. Cutthroats, every last one of them.

The only good she’d seen in Rafferty was that he’d loved his father, as much as he
could love anyone. The drunken, whoring man had drowned himself accidentally after
going on a drinking binge while Rafferty was away at sea. It was the only time she’d
ever seen Kelly’s eyes moisten with tears. Yet he’d quickly hidden his feelings behind
a mask of indifference, swearing that his father’s love of whisky had been his undoing.

“I hired men to watch you for years. Ever wonder why all those beta wolves who’d expressed
an interest in you suddenly just… vanished?” he said, breaking into her thoughts,
his tone cold and imperious.

Her stomach fell. He was crazed with vengeance and willing to murder.

“You… killed my suitors,” she whispered, barely able to get the words out. “You were
dead,” she said again. “Your men told me so. You never returned to dispute their claim.”

Innocent.
The men who had courted her had been innocent of any crime. She’d never suspected
they’d been murdered. Just disappeared from her life. She’d always believed they had
chickened out, been afraid to take up with an alpha.

She clenched her teeth and narrowed her eyes. He’d murdered them.

She knew—even if he hadn’t come clean with her when she’d asked him before—that he
had killed her parents. “You… murdered… my… parents.”

“Lass,” he said, coaxing her to see him for what he truly was. “You cannot still believe
that. I never harmed your parents. I was there to pick up the pieces of your shattered
life after they had that unfortunate carriage accident.”

Unfortunate.
Her thoughts were whirling around and around as if in a tidal pool, threatening to
drown her. He’d had so much control over her life once her parents died. What if her
uncles had survived?

Her mouth dropped open. How had Lord Whittington known to arrest her uncles? Who had
told him they would be arriving at port?

She’d always suspected that someone they’d stolen from had recognized them when they
disembarked from the ship. What if Lord Whittington had prior warning instead? What
if Rafferty had known all along where her uncles were going? And had planned to murder
them to ensure they didn’t get in the way of him mating with her?

Rafferty had been furious when her uncles said they were taking her with them instead
of allowing him to marry her right away. But why not have a ship accost them at sea?

Because she would have known it was Rafferty’s ship, his men, his plan. He had already
set the wheels in motion to destroy her uncles in another way.

He would have known where they were going. She could see him planning this from the
start. He could have sent word ahead to let Lord Whittington know her uncles were
arriving in St. Andrews on an approximate date.

“You knew about my uncles. That they were hanged,” she said.

“Aye, of course. When I caught up with you, you were beside yourself with grief. Though
you would not share with me what had happened, I learned soon enough what had become
of them.” He shrugged. “They met their fate as so many of our kind do.”

“You had nothing to do with it?”

He didn’t even attempt to hide the wicked way his lip curled up. He stretched his
hands out in appeasement and sighed. “They knew not to take you with them. I warned
them.”

“You murdering bastard. You would have had them killed anyway, whether I had joined
them or not.”

He sighed and changed the subject. “I’ve been here all along. You are my mate and
now we are finally together again. You cannot have another. I encouraged Robert Kilpatrick
to entice you to come to Scotland to find the Hawthorn treasure—’tis me, lass.” He
looked demonically pleased with himself.

“You… you
paid
him?” Her cousin was even in on this? He had known she was still mated?

“Aye. Only he disappointed me. He stranded you with one of the MacNeill brothers.
You cannot know how infuriated that made me. By the time he learned that you were
his cousin, the same one he was to bring to me, it was already too late.”

Rafferty folded his arms, still too far away from her, but as soon as he drew close
enough, she could only think to do one thing. Jam her knee into his naked groin. Bring
the murdering bastard to his knees.

“Can I tell you how encouraging it was for me to spy you on the ramparts late last
night and how discouraging that I could not reach you?” he asked.

“Why have you come for me now? Why not earlier?”

His gaze narrowed on her. “I thought you might have paid my men to mutiny on the ship.
That you paid them to have me killed. I know you wanted to. They murdered my quartermaster
first as he came out of my cabin, thinking it was me. He didn’t stand a chance. Poor
Terrance.”

“Ha! You cheated your crew. You and your quartermaster.” She remembered clearly that
day, hearing the men talking about the spoils and how the captain and the quartermaster
had cheated their crew. One of the men guarding her had overheard, too. He’d glanced
her way as he escorted her to the parlor, as if wondering if she’d tell her mate that
one of their men had learned the truth. Then the man gave her a small smile, as if
to say that if the men mutinied, she would be free of her husband and not to stand
in their way. If she warned her husband, there would be dire consequences for her
also.

“Your men wanted vengeance. Their actions had nothing to do with me,” she said.

“I nearly died,” he said, as if he hadn’t heard her, caught up in the past, a faraway
look on his grizzled face.

She realized then that he’d thought he was invincible. That by ruling with an iron
fist, he could force his men to do as he bid, no matter what. He’d been wrong. The
money his crew thought they were owed had been enough of an incentive to mutiny.

“You were dead,” she said again.

“Nay, Elaine, my love. I
nearly
died. Vengeance was mine. After years of tracking down my would-be murderers and
learning that you were not behind the mutiny, I finished the last of them off and
contacted your Kilpatrick cousin, recalling he had some interest in you.”

She wanted to close her eyes and reopen them to see him gone.

“Tell… me… the… truth. My parents. You murdered them. It wasn’t an accident.”

He shrugged. “I don’t know why you insist on learning the truth. There were too many
of us in competition. I wanted their ships, their manors, and you in the bargain.”

“You didn’t really want me. You wanted the properties that my parents bequeathed to
me.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, love. I wanted you. Desperately, I wanted you. Your father
would not agree.”

Her lips parted in surprise. Her father had tried to protect her?

“If you wanted me so badly, you wouldn’t have waited that long to come for me,” she
growled.

He let out a heavy sigh of exasperation. “You’re right. You always were a canny lass.
I was shipwrecked on that blasted island. And then I didn’t remember who I was for
over a century. I didn’t recall that I had a mate, or that I was the captain of a
fleet of pirate ships, or that my bloodthirsty crew had thrown me overboard to fend
for myself.

“I didn’t even remember I was born in Ireland, but everyone said I had an Irish accent,
and I had to be from there. So when I was able, I returned to Ireland. I recalled
having been a sailor, so I began to work aboard ships again. Then the memories came
flooding back. All of them at once. You. My men. The treasure. The mutiny. I had to
make things right. First, the men had to go.” He stalked toward her again.

Her heart beat frantically. She had to keep her head. If he struck her, he could knock
her out. He’d done it before. One blow to the head.

She would be defenseless against him. What did he plan to do? He couldn’t spirit her
away from here. Not like he was now, naked, not with the castle defended by the MacNeill
clan, who would fight him to the death.

The dogs in the kennel were still barking wildly about the commotion outside, though
a few were quiet, watching her through the gates of their kennel rooms. No one but
the dogs would even hear her scream.

Would she have enough time to turn and unlock the door, or could she catch him off
guard and knee him where it would hurt most?

“Your solicitor told Robert you mated a MacNeill. You can’t have another mate. If
you come quietly with me, I won’t have him killed like I did the others who dared
approach you with the notion of mating. Wolf law, Elaine. I was first. The others
who wanted you are all dead. In this case, I have every right to take my pound of
flesh. Remember that.”

Unless
you
are
dead.

“He’s not the only reason you should leave here, Elaine, sweeting. You remember Calla?
The pretty wolf whose wedding you attended?”

Elaine’s stomach fell and Rafferty smirked. “Aye. Lady MacNeill called her to arrange
your wedding to her son, and she was on her way here when I… stopped her. The she-wolf
is conveniently tied up. I don’t care anything about her, so if you’ll leave with
me, I’ll release her unharmed. The time to make a decision is running out.”

The bastard could be lying. Then again, what if he wasn’t?

“They won’t let me leave,” she said.

“Make a run for it, dearest. Unlock the door. The car’s in the inner bailey. Jump
into it and drive off. It’s the only chance you’ll have at getting away from them.
You know you can’t have the MacNeill bastard who wants you. Cearnach? Is that his
name?”

She couldn’t stay here. Not with Cearnach when she was still mated to Rafferty. She
had to leave Argent Castle. She had to get away. Away from Rafferty. Away from this
new home that she couldn’t have.

But Robert had her ID, her money, everything.

No, it was in the car. If she could disable Rafferty and get to her rental car and
all her personal items, she could escape. But Calla. What if he really had Calla?