She pressed her hands against her temple, trying to stem the pain. Flynn was right. She had to shift. As a wolf, she had wicked teeth, a growl, and a vicious bite. She could howl, letting anyone who was in the castle know where she was.
“We have to go up through the castle. Take our chances at leaving through the postern gate. We have no other choice,” the other man said.
Footfalls headed her way. Lengthy, hard strides echoing off the rock walls.
Shift, damn it, Julia said to herself. She concentrated, commanded herself to shift. Pain streaked like needles through her brain, and the footfalls died.
Until that damnable icy cold hand shook her awake again. “Julia, they’re coming.”
She meant to say, “I know.” But she couldn’t get the words out. Knowing and doing were on opposite sides of the scale. Just keeping focused on the rapidly encroaching footfalls was effort enough.
“I will die fighting for you, my lady,” Flynn said. He gallantly saluted her with his sword flat against his chest and then strode forth.
At first, alarm filled her as she worried Basil would kill the lone Scotsman, her brain still barely able to hold on to any reasonable thought. Then she reminded herself that Flynn could no longer feel any pain. Not like she could.
“Damn it to hell,” Basil cried out.
“It’s Flynn,” another man said. He gave a dark laugh. “He’s protecting the castle while Laird MacNeill is searching the countryside for his cousin.”
The footfalls that had stopped so suddenly began again.
So close. Too close.
She tried to shift gain. Her head split in two.
“Julia?” Flynn yelled. The sound was hauntingly deep and cut through the darkness that swallowed her whole.
Her eyes opened to see Basil round the corner and stalk toward her, black eyes glittering with menace, face red with fury, stout, determined, and menacing. “You are awake, lass. This won’t do.”
He meant to knock her out again.
“I may not ever get the castle back, although I have plans since Silverman didn’t succeed in financially ruining the MacNeills, but I vow an oath to my ancestors, I will have the MacPherson lass promised to my kin to call my own. Besides, she’s a direct descendant of the Duke of Argyll, Chief of the Clan Campbell.”
“Ah, that’s why you want her. Think you can get special concessions from the Duke’s family then?”
“No, you fool. I want her because it’s my God-given right.” Basil didn’t say anything for a minute and then added, “Although the fact she’s a Duke’s descendant sweetens the mead a wee bit.”
But her family, knowing the truth of the matter as the history was orally passed down from generation to generation, had no written proof of the connection to the Duke, also known as the Marquess of Kintyre and Lorne. Did Basil?
She summoned the urge to shift. It was like the electrical current to a light switch was turned off. She had her fingers on the switch, but when she pushed it up, nothing happened. Except for the damnable pain. She wished she could turn that off with a flick of a switch.
Basil was nearly on top of her now. Flynn moved to stop him, swinging his claymore and cutting Sutherland in half, but the ghostly sword had no effect.
Julia prayed that she would shift. And then without realizing she was changing, her blood and bones melted in a comfortable heat, wrapping her up, and instantaneously her bare skin was covered in fur, her teeth long and sharp, but her eyes blurry.
She was now a wolf tangled up in a sheet, and her head hurt just as much as before.
She made a panicky little woofing sound that couldn’t have gone any further than a few inches from her nose.
“Hell,” Basil said, reaching her. “Shift back.”
She growled, but the sound seemed stuck in her throat. Still, Basil didn’t strike her like she thought he would. He must not have realized how out of it she still was.
“I don’t have another muzzle with me,” the other man said.
“Knock her out then,” Basil ordered.
So he didn’t have the courage to do his dirty work this time. When she had been a helpless woman, that had not been a problem.
The man hesitated.
Basil shoved at him to do it. She bared her teeth. She didn’t think she looked very scary. She didn’t think she was wrinkling her nose as much as she would have because every hair on her head felt excruciating pain.
“Now.”
She snarled, a deeply threatening sound. At least it sounded scarier to her this time.
The man wouldn’t draw any closer. “She’ll bite.”
“Omega wolf,” Basil said with hate, then drew back his booted foot, and she feared he’d kick her in the head and knock her senseless.
She struggled violently to get loose of the sheet. Basil jumped back.
She freed herself and wanted to lunge at Basil’s throat, but she swayed so unsteadily on her feet, she was sure she’d collapse instead. Just a feather of a touch against her shoulder and she’d topple right over.
Basil cast her a sickly evil grin that told her she’d had it. That even as a wolf—a half brain-dead wolf—she stood no chance against him.
“She’s pretty out of it,” the other man said, yet he still didn’t draw any closer.
Basil took a step toward her, hands clenched in meaty fists. “You’re mine, lass, as it always should have been. Only I didn’t learn of the contract until it was almost too late.”
She wanted to tell him it was too late. That she was mated to Ian. That he could do nothing about it. Unless he killed Ian. Her heart stuttered. Had he planned to ambush Ian in the woods?
“Strip off your shirt,” Basil ordered the other man.
So focused on Basil, she’d barely paid any attention to the other man. But now that she watched to see if he’d obey Basil’s commands, she noticed he was just as tall and broad-shouldered, but his hair was several shades lighter brown, his nose more pronounced, and his chin less prominent.
“What?” he asked in surprise.
“Hurry, you fool. Give me your shirt.”
The man yanked off his plaid shirt and then handed it to Basil. He pulled out a dirk and sliced the shirt into strips, glancing with a sneer at her at one point. When he was through, Basil said to his cohort, “Grab her muzzle.”
The man didn’t move toward her. Even though her head was clearing, she was still groggy and not in really great shape to fight them, but she would do her damnedest.
“If I have to tell you again…” Basil left the threat hanging between them.
Looking ill at ease, the man stalked toward her, and she snarled and snapped her teeth at him. His eyes huge, he jumped back and glanced at Basil.
“She’s all growl. Do it!”
The man swallowed hard and inched his way toward her. She’d never bitten a man before, never even fought with a werewolf before. It seemed unfair that she had such big teeth and he was sorely disadvantaged, but the way her head was hurting meant she was just as disadvantaged, and whatever ill deeds Basil planned for her would make her even more so. She lowered her head, bared her teeth, and with every muscle filled with tension like a tightly wound spring, she readied herself to attack.
Basil moved around behind her so fast that she turned quickly to see what he was up to. Her vision blurred, and a wash of inky blackness filled her mind. With a piece of the torn shirt, he tried to encircle her snout, but she snapped at him and her teeth clicking hard echoed off the walls. He jumped back, cursing.
The other man grabbed her around the back, and she swung her head, biting at him and connecting with his shoulder.
He cried out. The iron taste of blood stained her mouth, and she quickly let go, knowing it would only take a little more pressure to crush the bones in his shoulder. But she couldn’t do it.
His hand clasped over the injury, he collapsed on his butt, screaming in pain. With the distraction, Basil got the upper hand, looped a strip of cloth over her muzzle, and tied it tight.
She jerked her head, trying to free herself to no avail.
Basil struck her in the head with a powerful fist. With a jolt of thunderous pain, the darkness again claimed her.
Draped in the sheet and slung over Basil’s shoulder, Julia woke to find she’d shifted and was human. A piece of fabric was tied around her mouth to keep her quiet, and two more strips bound her wrists and ankles. She tried to discern where she was and what was happening.
“The postern gate is closed, damn it,” Basil whispered to his henchman.
The man groaned in pain.
“Shut up or I’ll kill you, you fool,” Basil warned him. Then he stalked off past the stables.
She couldn’t keep a clear head, but she could smell the horses and the hay as Basil carried her near the stables. They were headed toward the main gate, she thought. How come they didn’t take another way out? Surely, the main gate would be watched.
The trapdoor to the secret tunnel beyond the moat was blocked, the injured man had said. That’s why they had to chance leaving through one or the other of the gates.
Then they walked into the stables. “Saddle a couple of horses… forget it. You watch her.” Basil laid her down on a stack of hay and then led a horse from one of the stalls and began saddling him.
“They’re back,” the man warned.
Basil let go of the horse’s reins and peeked out the stable door. “Hell. All right. We’ll get the horses, and as soon as they’ve entered the keep, we’ll ride out of here.”
Julia closed her eyes against the pain in her head. Then she tried to roll off the stack of hay, intending to make her way out of the stable any way that she could. She successfully rolled off the haystack but hit the ground hard, her head splintering again, and succeeded in knocking herself out.
Groaning with pain, she came to when Basil hoisted her onto the saddle on her stomach. To his credit, he helped the other man up into his saddle with a few muttered curses, and then he mounted the horse she was riding and nudged it toward the door.
“They’re searching the inner bailey, and several are headed inside the keep,” Basil whispered, beads of sweat clinging to his forehead. “Only two are at the gatehouse now. It’s our only chance.”