Highland Wolf Pact: Blood Reign: A Scottish Werewolf Shifter Romance (21 page)

Bridget looked up just in time to accept the sword. The lady held it aloft, hilt resting on one palm, blade the other. An offering. Bridget looked up into her face, into those strange, silver eyes, and saw her own. For one, brief moment, as she reached out to accept the sword, they merged.

Bridget gave a cry, her whole body shaking, the sword clattering to the stone where she knelt, and then, they were gone. The dragon and the lady disappeared. The peak of the eclipse had passed. The marriage of Asher and Ardis was over.

She lifted her eyes to the sun, to the strange light overhead. It was the middle of the day, but it felt as if the moon were shining down, and it filled her with an overwhelming urge. Bridget threw back her head and howled.

It was only then that she realized, she was a wolf. She had no hands to hold a sword. Only big, russet colored paws. Stunned, she turned to look at Griff, and saw he, too, had shifted. Not into a wulver warrior, but into full wolf form. Their eyes met—flashing red and silver for just a moment—before they rubbed noses together, and then Bridget tucked her head under his, a sign of surrender.

She was his, and always would be.

They were one, true mates, just as Ardis and Asher had been. In this form, she knew it in a way she’d never known it before. If she had been a wolf the moment they met, she wouldn’t have ever questioned it. She was his. She belonged to this man.

Griff shook his head, giving a long, sustained howl, and she watched him change. Thick, red fur became long, dark hair. His eyes went from red to gold again. He stood there, naked, surrounded by his kin, holding a hand out to her. He saw her, he recognized her. He loved her. They gave him his plaid, and he wrapped it around himself, looking at her expectantly, smiling.

Bridget did what came naturally. She gave her big, russet colored wolf’s head a shake, and transformed. Her mother was there, putting a robe around her shoulders, and she threw her shaking arms around Griff’s neck, unable to fully comprehend what was happening. Had she really just changed into a wolf—and back again? What did it mean?

“M’love,” Griff whispered against her ear, holding her close. He was so solid, so strong. Nothing about him wavered now. The sacred pool had healed him. And it had, somehow, changed her. “M’one true mate.”

“Aye,” she breathed, clinging to him. “Took ye long enough to b’lieve it, wulver.”

He chuckled. “Look who’s talkin’—
wulver.
”

That’s when she heard it.

Whispered, murmured words, all around them.

She looked at Griff, disbelieving at first, and then, Griff took her hand, turning toward his subjects, turning her with him, to face them all. Even Uldred’s own men. Mayhaps, sometimes seeing was believing, Bridget thought with her own sense of amazement.

“Righ.”

“Banrighinn.”

King.

Queen.

Bridget stared as, one by one, wulver and human took a knee and bowed their heads to the once and future king and queen.

Bridget had always thought of Skara Brae as home, but it wouldn’t be for much longer.

Still, this room, the place where she’d first made love with her one true mate, would always hold great meaning for her. She crouched by the fireplace, warming her hands around the cup of milk she held. It had done a great deal lately to settle her stomach at night, especially nights like these, when she dreamed of the lady and couldn’t sleep.

“Bridget.” Griff called out, his hand searching her side of the bed for her and she smiled.

“I’m ’ere,” she called softly.

“Come t’bed, lass.”

She finished the last of her milk, leaving the cup on the table, before climbing in beside him.

“Up dreamin’ of weddin’ plans?” He chuckled, sliding his arm around her waist and pulling her near. She gave a happy sigh, snugging back against his warmth.

“Oh, I do’na need t’plan a thin’.” She smiled. “Yer mother and m’mother are takin’ care of’t. All I need t’do is put on t’dress.”

“And then I get t’take it off ye.” His hand moved slowly over her hip, under the covers.

“Mmm, aye,” she agreed, feeling him growing hard against her bottom. “Will it be a long trip back to Scotland?”

“Not overlong.” His hand stroked her hip, a soothing motion. “Are y’afeared t’leave this place?”

“A lil,” she admitted softly.

“If it’s any consolation, t’mountain den’ll be new t’me, too, lass.” His lips brushed her temple. “But we’ve got s’many wulvers now that the lost packs have joined us, we need the room. And the witch who kept us from it is…”

“Aye.” Her eyes narrowed as she looked into the fire. “Gone.”

Besides, even if the witch hadn’t burned up with Uldred in the fire, they now knew how to enchant the entrance to any den, the same way they did the temples, and they would simply disappear. No human would ever know they were there. Only wulver eyes would be able to see them, and only when they wanted to be seen.

They were quiet for a moment and then Bridget laughed. “Wolf packs. Raghnall loves his word play.”

“Aye, t’old codger.” Griff grunted, not sounding anywhere near as amused as she was.

Griff had talked overlong about the lost wolf packs, had set out to find them, had asked the old mage about them, when all along, it was wolf
pax
. It wasn’t even wolf pact, if you traced the line far back enough. Raghnall had gleefully told them that there had been many translations of the prophecy over the years since the Latin translation that brought together the rest during the Roman reign of Constantine.

Raghnall had relayed that even the “wolf pact” they lived under was once known as the Wolf Pax, which translated to the Wolf Peace. Translation and time turned it from a time of peace to a treaty to prevent war. A subtle difference, mayhaps, but a big one.

The lost packs Griff had been looking for was really “the wolf pax.” The peace the wulvers would live under, once the prophecy was fulfilled.

“D’ye wanna be more involved in plannin’ t’wedding, then?” Griff asked. “Is that what keeps y’up a’nigh’?”

“Nay.” Bridget snorted. “I’m more interested in trainin’ than wearin’ a dress. Besides, it brings all t’women together and gives ’em somethin’ else t’do besides cook.”

“Aleesa and Kirstin seem t’be gettin’ along well,” Griff said softly, treading carefully.

She knew it might seem like a sore spot, her adopted mother reuniting with her blood-born daughter, but Bridget didn’t begrudge them any of the time they spent, the things they now shared together. She was happy for them both. And that Kirstin’s son, Rory, was back to his old wulver self, all healed—at least, physically. And Aleesa was getting to know her grandson, and her son-in-law, The MacFalon, as well as her daughter.

“Aye, I’m glad,” she said, truthfully. “Aleesa’s been so busy teachin’ Sibyl how t’be temple priestess, she’s spreadin’ herself thin. But I think she loves havin’ everyone around, after being alone s’long.”

“I’m still reelin’ over that.” Griff sighed.

Bridget put a hand over his on her hip. “I know y’are… but doesn’t it seem fittin’, somehow, that Raife and Sibyl will stay here in the temple as the new guardian and priestess?”

“I s’pose.” Griff sounded doubtful.

“They were both called t’do it,” she reminded him. Griff had come a long way when it came to believing in things like magic and prophecies and one true mates—but the idea of being “called” into service in the temple was still a stretch for him. “And we can come visit. We will, all t’time.”

“Aye,” he agreed. “And I’m ready t’lead the pack. I think it’s one of the real reasons they decided t’stay here. So there’d be no conflict…”

“They love ye,” she reminded him. “And they know tis time.”

“When does Raghnall get back?” he wondered aloud, changing the subject.

“Before t’weddin’, I hope.” She smiled to herself. “He’ll be the closest thing to a grandfather t’bairn’ll have. At least on m’side.”

She smiled, remembering that day when Raghnall had sat her down, while Griff slept off the poison, and told her how he’d found her, abandoned, at the door of the temple on the Isle of the Dragon. It had been the one time Aleesa and Alaric had met Raghnall—when he brought her to them to raise. He said he knew she was part of the prophecy, somehow. That she was fated to be trained as the temple guardian and priestess on Skara Brae.

Bridget still didn’t know who her parents were—but Aleesa and Alaric were wulver, like she was now. They loved her, had raised her—and she didn’t mind anymore that she didn’t know her parentage. Besides, when she’d asked Raghnall about them before he left on his journey to meet up with the Dragon and the Lady, he’d smiled and said, cryptically, “There is always more to the story, m’dear.”

So mayhaps, someday, she would know.

“The… what?” Griff sat up on his elbow, staring down at her. “What did y’say?”

“Hm?” Bridget turned her head to look at him, feeling warm and sleepy from her milk.

“Did ye say… bairn?”

Bridget stopped breathing. “Did I?”

“Are ye wit’ chil’, lass?” Griff’s eyes glowed red in the firelight. She loved when they did that.

“Aye,” she breathed, biting her lip. “I was goin’ t’wait after t’wedding to announce it but…”

“When were ye gonna tell me?” he growled, turning her toward him and putting a hand over her lower belly. It was slightly swollen, but she’d made the excuse that she was getting fat on all the cooking the wulver women did, and Griff hadn’t questioned her.

“Now.” She grinned, watching him pull the covers back and dip his head so he could kiss her navel.

“Asher,” he murmured, flicking his tongue over her skin. “Or Ardis, if tis a girl.”

“We could call him Arthur,” she suggested with a smile. “If tis a
human
boy.”

“But yer wulver now,” he reminded her. “T’will surely be a wulver.”

“I do’na know.” She shrugged. “Everythin’ has changed—but ye got me pregnant before I was wulver, y’ken?”

He chuckled. “Well, I s’pose it makes life interestin’. Donal and Kirstin are human parents who have a wulver child. We could be wulver parents who raise a human one.”

“But Kirstin can change again,” she reminded him. “All t’wulver women can change as they wish now.”

That had been the part of the prophecy no one had understood, or translated, or seen coming. The cure for the wulver woman’s curse had always lain with the dragon and the lady, with Asher and Ardis and their marriage. Somehow, Bridgit’s transformation from human to wulver had completed a circle that had changed every wulver woman’s curse of having to change, without warning, during her moon time, or during birth.

No wulver woman was a slave to her cycles anymore.

Darrow’s wife, Laina, whose cycles had long since stopped, but whose daughters’ were just beginning them, had wept like a child in his arms when they’d discovered this fact.

“Thank God fer that,” Griff agreed, resting his cheek on her belly and looking up at her, his eyes a soft, glowing red in the firelight. “I’m really goin’ t’be a father?”

“Aye.” Her fingers tangled in his long, dark hair. “Are ye happy ’bout it?”

“Ye make me t’happiest wulver alive, lass.” His hand moved up to cup her breast. “I ne’er would’ve b’lieved I could be s’happy in this or a thousand lifetimes.”

“So are ye ready to tell me ye b’lieve in magic?” she teased. “In destiny? In prophecies? In one true mates…?”

“Do’na rub it in.” He laughed, rolling his eyes. “Ye know I b’lieve… in
us
.”

“Aye.” She opened her arms and he went to her. It seemed that everything had worked the way it was supposed to after all. The prophecy was large, and they had played their parts, but according to the wulver—and human—women who read the text, it was still unfolding. Mayhaps it always would be, as Raghnall said, because everything was a circle that came around again.

But for now, all was as it should be.

At least, Bridget thought with a smile as Griff kissed his way over the swollen mound of her belly where little Ardis or Asher slept, dreamless…

Until the story continued…

The End

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