Highland Wolf Pact: Blood Reign: A Scottish Werewolf Shifter Romance (11 page)

Griff wanted nothing more than to lift it and carry it for her, if he could.

But he knew it was impossible.

Aleesa was right about one thing. Even if he didn’t believe in destinies and prophecies and all of that, he knew she was right about this—he had his own path, and so did Bridget, and they would have to travel them, alone.

With a sigh and a heavy heart, he ran a hand through his wet hair, put a smile on his face, and went into the kitchen, asking, “What’s t’eat? I’m starvin’!”

He didn’t know what he’d expected—mayhaps dragon heads again, or ladies with silver eyes—but it wasn’t this. He hadn’t expected actual writing to show up in the scrying pool, reflecting the moon’s light from above. And he hadn’t expected how it would be, between him and Bridget, as they stood facing each other across the dark, reflective surface.

Aleesa had fretted, afraid the storm would provide too much cloud cover and prevent the high moon from shining in from above, but the storm had come, as Griff thought it might, while they had spent the afternoon in front of the fire in the kitchen, and it had gone again after dinner.

Before that, Bridget helped Aleesa with some mending while Alaric and Griff sat at the table playing chess. They’d been at it for two days, moving the board to the sideboard when it was meal time, since Alaric had challenged Griff after lunch the first day. The old wulver took forever to make a decision before he moved. Griff was impatient with his strategy, wandering restlessly around the kitchen, snacking idly on boiled eggs and whatever else he could find in the larder before Aleesa chased him out again.

He couldn’t avoid Bridget in so small a space. He tried. He skirted around her chair, where she sat sighing and darning socks, complaining about Alaric’s tendency to get holes in them. He squatted by the fire to warm his hands, glancing back to see her scowling at him. He returned her scowl with one of his own, growling low in his throat, muttering about the storm forcing him to stay inside and the moon that was taking far too long to come to fruit. 

“Are ye always in such a hurry?” Bridget snapped.

Griff raised his eyebrows at her, seeing Aleesa frown at her daughter.

“Yer move!” Alaric called.

Griff stood and went over to the board, taking in the old wulver’s move in a glance. Two more moves, mayhaps, and he’d have him in checkmate. It would be all over. Griff moved his bishop, knocking out Alaric’s rook.

“Gory hell!” Alaric growled.

“Check.” Griff went back over to the fire, squatting down to warm his hands again.

“Do’na worry, Father,” Bridget said over her shoulder to Alaric, who grumbled, staring at the board, chin in hand. “He’s far too impatient. He’s bound t’make a mistake.”

“Yer so overconfident.” Griff chuckled. “I’ve got ’im in check.”

“
I’m
t’one who’s overconfident?” Bridget sniffed, raising her eyebrows, but she smiled back at him. He liked making her smile, in spite of himself.

“Oh damn!” Bridget swore, dropping the needle and thread and holding her finger. A drop of blood appeared on her pale skin.

“Distractible,” Alaric grumbled from the table, not looking over.

“Aye.” Bridget sighed, agreeing.

“Lemme see.” Griff took her hand, holding her finger up in the firelight, and without thinking, he put it into his mouth.

It was a normal, wulver thing to do—a wulver could lick his wounds well in minutes, even bad ones—but Bridget cried out in surprise.

Their eyes locked and she tried to pull away, but he held her fast, tasting her essence against his tongue, salty sweet, intoxicating. It was just a tiny pinprick, a miniscule wound, but he couldn’t bear to see her hurt. Slowly, she withdrew her index finger from between his lips, her own slightly parted as she traced the line of his mouth, her gaze never leaving his.

He felt Aleesa watching them, breath held. He felt Alaric’s gaze, too. And still, he couldn’t look away, couldn’t for a moment pretend he wasn’t feeling it. He didn’t care if her parents were in the room—the woman was his, and he wanted her. The urge to take her was almost uncontrollable. His hands actually shook with the effort it took to hold himself back. His cock was like an iron bar under his plaid, pointing at her like an arrow.

“Does it still hurt?” he asked as she slowly pulled her finger away, putting her hands in her lap. Her breath was shallow, face flushed. He wanted to see the rest of her in the firelight, like he had that first night. He wanted to watch her nipples turn rosy and get hard. He wanted to gaze at the fiery hair between her thighs, to bury his face in her soft wetness.

“I’m a’righ’,” Bridget breathed, glancing over and seeing Aleesa’s face. Her mother was wide-eyed, looking between them like she’d just seen something that really, truly frightened her. “I… I think I need t’lie down fer a while…”

Bridget stood, her mending falling to the floor, but she paid it no mind.

“Call me t’help wit’ supper,” Bridget said faintly over her shoulder to her mother, moving past him, heading out of the kitchen.

“Do’na toy wit’ her,” Aleesa managed after a moment, reaching down to pick up Bridget’s mending. Her eyes burned into his. “If y’intend t’leave ’ere after tonight, if y’intend to find t’lost packs… please, Griff, do’na toy wit’ her.”

“Aye,” Griff stood slowly, handing her the sock Bridget had been mending. “I’ll be in m’room.”

Aleesa gave him a stiff nod, and Griff then retired to his room—their room, really. He stretched out on the bed and thought of Bridget, resting just down the hall from him. He thought about her for what felt like hours, until Aleesa’s voice called him for supper.

And Bridget sat silently beside him the whole meal, their hands brushing occasionally, sending sparks through him like lightning.

But Aleesa was right, and he knew it. He had to get through that night, when they could tell him the location of the lost packs, and then he’d be on his way again. He would take Uri and ride back to the ship waiting in the harbor. He would set sail and work his way to wherever he might find his kin, the wulver warriors he would take back to his own den, to show his father, to claim his rightful place as leader.

He’d lost sight of what he was here to do. He’d let himself get distracted by a woman. But he was focused again as he stood across the sacred pool from Bridget. Focused and determined. He kept hold of that focus well, until the moon hit its highest point, until she shone her silver face down into the pool, and Bridget reached her small, trembling hands out, palms up, to him, and whispered, “Mirror me.”

He didn’t respond, not at first. He wasn’t even sure what she’d said, until she repeated it, louder this time, her voice shaking. “Griff… mirror me.”

He glanced at Aleesa, at the other end of the pool, her palms up. Alaric stood across from her, doing the same.

“I need ye.” Bridget lifted her eyes to his, glinting in the moonlight. “Please, Griff…”

Slowly, he lifted his hands, palms out. They weren’t touching, couldn’t of course, they were too far away, but he felt her just the same. He felt her skin, her palms small and trembling, touching his own. It wasn’t possible, but it was so.

“Griff,” she murmured again, giving a little cry. “Oh Griff…”

Oh hell. His mouth went dry. His cock swelled. He felt her little mouth against his, as if he were tasting her sweet lips right that moment. How was it possible? His heart hammered in his chest like he’d been running for miles.

“Y’know I do’na b’lieve in magic, lass,” Griff said, his voice far more hoarse than he expected it to be.

“Ye do’na hafta b’lieve,” she breathed. “Jus’ look.”

“What am I watchin’ fer? Fey folk? Sprites?” He gave her a smile and saw a flicker of one on her lips. “Magical writin’ on t’walls?”

“Aye.” She nodded. She was breathing hard. So was he. What was happening? “Writin’… in t’pool…”

“Nothin’s happenin’,” Griff said. His hands were trembling and he tried to still them.

“Oh aye, tis happenin’,” Bridget replied, glancing down into the pool, just briefly. “Look!”

He did, and he saw. There, in the pool, was writing. It rippled and moved with the water, but it was writing. He blinked, trying to clear his vision, but the writing stayed. Then he saw the same words, glowing on the monoliths that lined the walls of the cavern. It was backwards on stone, unreadable, but when it was reflected in the pool, it was quite clear.

If it weren’t for those ripples breaking the surface…

“Look a’me, Griff. Look a’me...” Bridget urged. She smiled when he met her eyes, and he saw a hint of silver in them, like the moon. “Aye, that’s it… concentrate… focus on me…”

He could only see it out of the corner of his eye, because he was staring at Bridget, but the more they focused on each other, the more still the pool became—and the clearer the writing.

“Aleesa, write it down,” Alaric called.

“Aye,” the wulver woman agreed. She had pad and ink and was recording the words by the light of a small lamp on her end of the pool.

Griff wanted to look, wanted to read the words for himself, but every time he tried, the pool would ripple again, blurring it all.

“Look t’me,” Bridget urged, reaching her hands out, as if doing so would touch him, and somehow, it did. She was over there, all the way across the pool, and yet their hands were pressed, palm to palm. He felt her breath on his face, could smell her sweet scent. Heather and silvermoon. “Can ye feel it?”

He nodded. He could. And for a moment, it actually frightened him.

“Do’na look away!” Bridget insisted, calling for him across the water. Griff’s gaze lifted again to hers, saw a flicker of a smile on her face as she caught his attention once more. “Aye, good… concentrate… hold steady…”

Every time he looked away from her, the writing would begin to fade, as if the two of them together were powering the light of the moon itself.

“Tis ridiculous,” he muttered, squinting down at the water. “What’s it say? Does it give ye t’location of t’lost packs?”

“Aye!” Aleesa assured him. “But I will’na b’able t’write it down if ye do’na concentrate!”

“Madness.” Griff grumbled again, but listened to Bridget when she called out to him across the pool.

“Tis ye, Griff,” Bridget called to him, her fingers spreading wider, as if she were matching her palms to his. “We’ve ne’er been able t’see it this clear. Yer t’reason. Yer t’red wulver. Tis yer destiny, Griff.”

Her words shook him to the core. For all his talk of not believing in prophecies or destiny, her words moved him. Just an indication that leaving his home and kin to follow this path, to find the lost packs, was the right one for him, filled him with hope and pride. When he’d decided to come to Skara Brae to find this temple, he’d made the fastest, most impetuous decison of his life—at least, it had felt that way once he’d been on the ship. And when he was asking around, trying to find out anything about the temple on Skara Brae. And even when he was at the crossroads with Uri, feeling like an idiot, calling out to no one.

But Bridget had been there. The temple was here. The answers, too, were here. He wasn’t ready to admit that prophecies and destiny were real or anything—but he couldn’t discount them, either. Not now, not after this.

Griff wanted to look down, to read the words Bridget spoke of, but he didn’t. Instead, he looked at her, feeling something he’d never experienced before in his life. He wouldn’t have been able to describe it if he tried. Bridget had captured him, with her voice, her presence. She was everything, in that moment. The moon. The sun. The universe.

“Hold me, Griff,” she murmured. She spoke with a voice so soft, he shouldn’t have been able to hear her, but he did. “Do’na lemme go.”

“I’ve got ye, lass,” he whispered. His breath was coming fast, as if he was working hard.

“Oh Griff, I…” She gave another small cry and he felt a sudden surge of energy sing through his whole body. It actually made his knees feel weak, and he almost went to them. “Please, hold on, hold on...”

“Aye, lass.” His whole body strained with the effort it took to stay focused. But he wasn’t about to stop, to let her go. He wasn’t sure if he was carrying her, or she was carrying him, or mayhaps they were carrying something together.

“I’ve almos’ got it all,” Aleesa called, sounding hurried, rushed. She was writing as fast as she could.