His Judas Bride Read Free Page A

ventured with that remark.
    “Once we get to McDunnagh Castle you can ask the man who will.”
    The man who will?
    “Hell, you can even show him your credentials too.”
    “My—Lord McDunnagh?” She almost fell off her horse. Sagged to the spinning ground and lay there. “You mean you’re not Lord McDunnagh? I thought…I… Why, you told me to stop in his name.”
    He jerked his head. “You see that man there?”
    She did.
    “That’s Wee Murdie. You see that deer on his shoulder?”
    That too.
    “A wager.”
    Kara’s stomach flipped all the way down to her boots. If he now said See your retinue being herded back down the pass ,she couldn’t bear it. The anger, the humiliation, the terrible way this had all gone wrong. And herself, not even in Lochalpin yet.
    “But Lord Ewen swore. He swore to my father he would meet me here, and together…”
    “Well, he couldn’t. I think you’ll find Lord Ewen has more important matters than meet you here or anywhere.”
    By which he probably meant drinking and wenching. She shut her mouth with a snap. Was it so bad if Lord Ewen cared less about the wedding than she did herself? It might even be he had no interest in bedding her. For that she should be grateful because it seemed her sisters’ reactions were the right ones. But if this man wasn’t Lord Ewen…
    “And here was me laboring under the misapprehension my fame was legendary, Princess.”
    Legendary? She jerked her head up, dragging herself from her contemplation. One only had to look to know why Kendrick had tried so hard to get her attention earlier. However much was said of Ewen McDunnagh, whatever affront he desired to offer her, his plaid wouldn’t look as if it cleaned Lochalpin glen and every other one in the vicinity on a daily basis. He wouldn’t be surrounded by this bunch of bandits. Or have that hellhound with him. Or bead his stallion’s mane with animal skulls.
    But there was one man who would. Oh, how terrible was this?
    She lowered her eyelashes. “A pity the same can’t be said of your modesty.”
    “I hardly see you’re in much of a position to go talking of such maidenly virtues.”
    “And you’re not one to talk, sir. Period.” Despite feeling a blush spread to the roots of her hair, she endeavored to retort. “Ogling what you can’t ever have. Isn’t there a word for that?”
    “Hell, now let me think.” He creased his lips, creating ridiculous dimples on his cheeks. “Nice?”
    “Sir, you should have made yourself—”
    “And miss what you showed me?”
    Just the same. Callm McDunnagh, the Black Wolf. Lochalpin’s famous guardian. Why, his hair wasn’t even black. And he didn’t look anything like the kind of ruthless, bloodthirsty monster who’d sold his soul to the devil.
    To think so was particularly stupid of her. When she’d looked at herself in the dark well in her father’s castle, after doing the very same, she’d still seen a woman.
    How could she be so stupid? The Black Wolf? The man who didn’t let the rain into Lochalpin Glen on a wet day. The Black Wolf who… She swallowed the perishing thought that she had been meant to marry him, courtesy of her father, five years ago.
    If she went on, she’d need to be more careful. Whether man or monster, intelligence said the Black Wolf could not be bought, bargained with, cajoled, or duped. Indeed, it was said he’d cut the throat in five seconds flat of anyone he suspected of the merest hint of duplicity.
    So now he’d disposed of her retinue, she needed to start praying to the god she’d abandoned that he better not find out the real truth of why she was here. And why her father had ordered Morven’s murder.
     

Chapter Two
     
     
    Her name was Morven, and she was his wife?
    The damned bitch never said that there were five of them that day, taking turns of Morven in every way.
    She never said he’d loved her.
    “Jeez, Callm, just slow down will ye, for Christ’s sake, man?”
    As Callm urged his