Highland Wolf Pact Read Free

out into the breezeway.
    “Yes, very much. I just wish I could ride astride and carry a bow,” she lamented.
    Donal laughed—he had a wonderfully robust laugh that made everyone around him merry—looking down at her with those glittering eyes.
    “If my brother wasn’t such a stick in the mud, he’d let ye.” He dropped her a wink. “Scots women do’na ride side-saddle. And I know many a woman who could outshoot me brother.”
    “Well then I’d like to be a Scot, please.”
    “When ye marry Ali, that’s jus’ what ye’ll be, lassie. King Henry and yer uncle—er, yer stepda—they’re counting on this marriage t’help squash the border skirmishes.”
    “Yes, I’m a very important pawn.” Sibyl made a face.
    Her uncle, who was now also her stepfather, had used her to gain the king’s favor, assuring him an alliance between a highborn English lady from the Blackthorne family with the MacFalons, who controlled a great deal of the land in the Middle March, would help quell the border skirmishes that cost the crown both money and resources.
    The feudal lands on either side of the border were valuable. Lachlan MacFalon, Alistair and Donal’s father, had done his best to keep the continued fighting between the English and Scottish to a minimum, but after his death, things had degenerated quickly. Alistair, Laird Lachlan MacFalon’s firstborn son, was not the man his father had been, and Sibyl had seen for herself how little respect he elicited in his own men. Alistair could never inspire the respect of the English, whether they were peasants or royalty, like his father had.
    But Alistair was laird of clan MacFalon now and something had to be done about the thieving, poaching, and bloodshed on the border. This was King Henry’s solution—and Sibyl’s uncle had been instrumental in putting it all together.
    “So ye ken what this is all about then?” Donal inquired, eyebrows raised.
    “Oh, I ken.” She nodded, meeting his knowing eyes. “I mostly definitely ken.”
    She understood it quite well. She had just decided that she wasn’t going to be a party to it. She was tired of being played like a pawn in their little chess game. This was the first opportunity she would have to escape and she intended to take it, the moment a chance presented itself. It was at least a week of travel on horseback to the village where they had left Rose, but she knew the family would take her in. She just hoped Alistair wouldn’t put out a reward for her return because anyone in a poor village would turn her in without a second thought if they believed they would be paid for doing so.
    “I’m sorry, lass,” Donal said softly as they walked into the courtyard where the men were waiting with their horses and their hunting gear. She felt their eyes all turn to her, an affect she knew delighted her betrothed. He seemed to like the way men’s eyes followed her around his keep.
    “It’s not your fault.” She smiled up at the man holding her arm, wondering if things would have been different if it had been Donal who was the first son instead of the second, if it was Donal to whom she had been engaged. He wasn’t a bad looking man, and his kind heart and sense of humor seemed to soften his sharp features. “But thank you.”
    One of the men—his name was Gregor, he had made it a point to introduce himself to her on several occasions—nudged his companion with an elbow and leaned over to say something she couldn’t hear. It was something snide and nasty, she was sure, about the Englishwoman who had come to live in their land. She hated being so different—and those differences being so obvious—but there was nothing to be done about it.
    Sibyl pasted on a smile as they made their way across the courtyard toward her betrothed. He was smiling too, although something always felt forced about this expression on his face. Whenever she looked away from him it would fade, and his thin, red lips would sink into a frown. Then,