her photograph. “She looks young.”
“She’s twenty-five. Old enough to know better.”
Nodding, Conall clicked off the page, disturbed by his reaction to the image, and transferred the file Ashforth provided to his laptop for his own records. “Arrange the flight and a car for three days from now.”
“But—”
“The full moon is in phase, Ashforth. I’m not flying anywhere for three days. Understood?”
The man frowned but nodded. “Of course.”
“Callie and James will be given over to your custody on the morning I leave.” He stood up, towering over the businessman. “And if anything happens to my sister or my beta, or it turns out this girl’s blood cannot cure Callie, by the time I’m finished with you, there’ll be nothing left to bury.”
“Thank you for allowing us to join you tonight,” Peter Canid said as they walked through the Coach House, heading toward the kitchen and back door.
Conall glanced over his shoulder at Canid, his daughter Sienna, and her brother Richard, whom Conall had met a few days ago. The betrothal agreement still wasn’t signed. They had decided to wait until Conall returned unscathed from his hunt. Upon his return, they would sign the agreement and hopefully marry within the next few months, joining their two packs in a powerful alliance.
Between preparation for the hunt and his responsibilities to his businesses, Conall had no time to spend with Sienna. They’d spoken little. Not that it mattered. Once they married, they’d have plenty of time for that.
As for tonight, he felt it only right to ask the Canids to join the pack run. They were to be family after all. His gaze brushed over Richard Canid before turning his attention forward. Not that it particularly pleased him to add Sienna’s brother to his list of familial responsibilities. The wolf was arrogant and spoiled.
“Yeah, it’ll be cute to see such a small pack running together,” Richard sneered.
Case in point.
The little fucker thought he was better than them.
“Small pack they may be,” Peter said, a warning in his words, “but Pack MacLennan are one of the oldest packs in the world. You’re about to experience something extraordinary, son.”
There was a genuine appreciation in Canid’s voice that pleased Conall. The man’s respect for him was honest and true. Conall couldn’t ask for more than that from a father-in-law and ally.
Leading them outside, they faced a good percentage of Pack MacLennan—all of those who lived on Loch Torridon and even a few who had returned home from the city for this special event on the last night of the full moon.
Torridon Coach House sat on the water, surrounded by towering trees. Those trees acted like a trail from the land to the rear of the house, up the hill, interrupted by the single-track road, and then up and up again. Eventually the trees dispersed, baring the rugged moss- and grass-covered rock of the vast mountain peaks.
Conall stood, watching his clan who had crowded in to run with him.
“You may join the pack.” Conall gestured to his people.
Peter and Sienna bowed their heads respectfully and strode toward the others, while Richard walked away without looking at him. He felt tension emanate from his pack members and knew he was not alone in his dislike for the wolf. Perhaps he’d teach him who was alpha here once the shift began.
The tiny villages along the coast of their loch, and the mountains beyond, were scoured for any sign of human activity. Thankfully, they found a climber in trouble and had him airlifted to the hospital in Inverness.
Otherwise they detected no other humans.
Which meant they could run in their true forms.
A werewolf needed to unleash their wolf and the moon seemed to agree. The legends were true. They had no choice but to turn under the full moon. Conall imagined that inconvenient for some, but here the pack had the privacy they needed to turn. Staying in human form all the time was a kind of imprisonment, anyway. When they turned on a full moon, they usually ran and hunted the mountains separately or in small groups. Mostly they did this unscathed as Conall owned not just the land around the loch but the entire estate beyond.
However, it took a lot of coordinated effort to make sure their small drop of earth was safe to run as a pack, and so pack runs were few and far between. It was one thing for a human here and there to witness the presence of a wolf—an animal extinct from Britain for centuries—but