A Highland Werewolf Wedding - By Terry Spear Page 0,27

sky was, it looked like it might any minute. The outer guard hairs on Elaine’s and Cearnach’s thick coats repelled the water, keeping the downy, soft fur close to their skin dry and warm from the bitter cold wind.

She stopped to observe the castle, looking at it in awe and with reverence. The massive stone structure truly was a sight to behold. Anyone who had wanted to storm the castle must have had a death wish.

His own kin had put a few holes in the walls back in the early days just to make a statement concerning the Kilpatricks’ thieving ways.

He stood beside her, listening to her heart pounding and the way she was panting and resting for a bit. He was damned angry about his car, but all he could think of was escorting one beautiful she-wolf out to dinner later tonight. Thinking in that direction was strange because he was always business first, pleasure second.

He nudged at her to join him and they continued searching away from the castle, around a bend in the cliffs so they couldn’t see the ruins any longer. That’s when he spied the debris straight ahead. The ragged remains of his minivan. His ire rose instantly.

The van looked like a flattened aluminum can, resting on its top, tires sticking straight up in the air. Cearnach raced over to the vehicle, smelling every part of the scraped and gouged metal, and analyzing the scents. He smelled the two younger McKinley brothers—the same two brothers who had arrived late at the church.

Elaine was taking in the scents also, sniffing around the vehicle as if she was one of his wolf pack, not a stranger who shouldn’t want to be involved, not someone who was related to the men who had done this. She would memorize their scents and know them again if either of them got close to her.

Her tail was down, while his was straight out, fully alpha, aggressive, in charge. She wasn’t cowed, but she wasn’t happy, either. He quickly moved to nudge her face in a show of solidarity. She licked his cheek in understanding, maybe trying to tell him how sorry she was. She wagged her tail a bit, but it was a sad kind of wag.

He hoped he could get to his cell phone so he could tell Ian where he was and what was going on. He moved back to the minivan and tried to reach in through the window with his right front paw. The glass shattered, but the gap between the roof and the door now was too narrow to even reach in with his foreleg. He scraped his leg on the broken glass, cutting it and swearing inwardly, growling outwardly.

When he stood, he saw Robert Kilpatrick’s red curls crest the bluff right before he saw the rest of Robert’s head. “Hey, Cearnach, whatcha doin’ out here, mon, wearing your wolf coat and running with your new girlfriend? Better take care or you might get stranded. Then where would you be?” He gave a harsh laugh, his green eyes glittering with menace, then he hurried away from the cliff.

Cearnach would climb the cliff and pay Robert back if he could, but the cliffs were so steep here that he’d have a better chance of climbing them if he were a mountain goat.

Then he began to think of what Robert meant. Stranded. How could they be stranded unless… hell. Cearnach ran full out toward the castle ruins.

He glanced over his shoulder to make sure Elaine was keeping up. She was following, her face grim and her tongue hanging out.

When he reached the path, he looked back again, but he had to stop the men if they were attempting to steal Elaine’s rental car. She was close, nearly to the path. He jumped up and climbed the few feet to the stone path, then ran as fast as his legs would carry him up all the stairs and around the walkway that wound through the cliffs until he could see the car park.

Her car was gone. The car park was empty.

Damn it to hell.

Despite the rain, he could smell that two of the McKinley brothers had been here on this path. Why would they have been here?

He glanced back to see if Elaine was following him. She was nowhere in sight. His heart plummeted. He dove back the way he’d come. He was fairly certain that none of the McKinleys would harm them. The brothers were just annoyed enough