A Highland Werewolf Wedding - By Terry Spear Page 0,99
moved toward her, and she realized that he must have slipped around the back of the kennels as a wolf while everyone else was a distraction. “You are mine.”
No, no, no. She hadn’t been his for centuries.
“You’re dead,” she said, her voice a whisper.
She couldn’t seem to catch her breath, to react. She’d feared and hated this man for the year they’d been together. She’d wanted to escape him, free herself from her bond to him. Every time he’d struck her, she’d wanted to fight back and kill him.
She’d known beyond a doubt, with all the passing years, that he was dead.
He had to be dead.
He smiled, the look so sinister that she knew he’d take a belt to her again, break her jaw, beat her until she barely lived. She wouldn’t let him this time. She wouldn’t let him beat her ever again.
“Why come for me now?” She backed toward the locked door, her legs wobbly from the shock of seeing him, her thoughts in turmoil as she tried to recall anything that would have clued her in that he had always been alive.
“I killed the last of my crew that had left me for dead,” he said, standing still, not drawing any closer now.
“No, no,” she said, recalling the words of one of his men who had come for her. “Your crew said that your quartermaster murdered you because you cheated him. After he killed you, they left him for dead because of what he’d done to you. He’d betrayed you. Not them.”
A sinister light glowed in his eyes. “My quartermaster? So they thought to make you feel they were justified in killing Terrance? He’d punished them for infractions on the ship, and the men wanted him dead also. They quickly turned on both of us, knowing that if one lived, the survivor would make them pay for their traitorous deeds. Which I did anyway. I never cheated my quartermaster out of his fair share of the treasure. He was worth his weight in gold to me.”
Despite his apparent fondness for Terrance, Rafferty was a cold-blooded murderer, a pirate, a thief, a demon. So were his men. Cutthroats, every last one of them.
The only good she’d seen in Rafferty was that he’d loved his father, as much as he could love anyone. The drunken, whoring man had drowned himself accidentally after going on a drinking binge while Rafferty was away at sea. It was the only time she’d ever seen Kelly’s eyes moisten with tears. Yet he’d quickly hidden his feelings behind a mask of indifference, swearing that his father’s love of whisky had been his undoing.
“I hired men to watch you for years. Ever wonder why all those beta wolves who’d expressed an interest in you suddenly just… vanished?” he said, breaking into her thoughts, his tone cold and imperious.
Her stomach fell. He was crazed with vengeance and willing to murder.
“You… killed my suitors,” she whispered, barely able to get the words out. “You were dead,” she said again. “Your men told me so. You never returned to dispute their claim.”
Innocent. The men who had courted her had been innocent of any crime. She’d never suspected they’d been murdered. Just disappeared from her life. She’d always believed they had chickened out, been afraid to take up with an alpha.
She clenched her teeth and narrowed her eyes. He’d murdered them.
She knew—even if he hadn’t come clean with her when she’d asked him before—that he had killed her parents. “You… murdered… my… parents.”
“Lass,” he said, coaxing her to see him for what he truly was. “You cannot still believe that. I never harmed your parents. I was there to pick up the pieces of your shattered life after they had that unfortunate carriage accident.”
Unfortunate. Her thoughts were whirling around and around as if in a tidal pool, threatening to drown her. He’d had so much control over her life once her parents died. What if her uncles had survived?
Her mouth dropped open. How had Lord Whittington known to arrest her uncles? Who had told him they would be arriving at port?
She’d always suspected that someone they’d stolen from had recognized them when they disembarked from the ship. What if Lord Whittington had prior warning instead? What if Rafferty had known all along where her uncles were going? And had planned to murder them to ensure they didn’t get in the way of him mating with her?
Rafferty had been furious when her uncles said they were taking her with them