Trapped by the Bond

ix hours through the kind of Scottish landscape postcards love and I had learned to distrust. Pine trees, black lochs, hills t

e on Blackmuir ran to two hundred pages and I had read all of it twice. A thousand square miles of forest and loch. Duncan Blackm

roup of wolves to walk into a pack house, smile at its Alpha, and find t

with warm windows. I stopped the car and listened to the rain and the tick of the cooling engine. Then I took the small silver pin wit

his early sixties with silver hair and eyes the colour of a winter sky. He

ld come before the week was out. They did not s

oes not take m

iona has kept a plate for you. You will wan

lves have lived in the same rooms for years. Underneath it I caught something faint and clean, like gr

the sharpest eyes in the building. She set a plate of lamb and p

re thin. The Council do

us documents. The

member kindness. "You will want to know about the

veryone who sig

cond. Then she picked it up aga

om the rain and a basket of herbs under her arm. She was tall. Black hair pulled back and coming loose at the temples, a long face with a narrow jaw and

the ground shift and my own wolf, usually silent and sardonic, sit up in my chest and howl. The bond is not a metaphor. It starts i

Her voice was low and flat. "Isla

who yo

basket down with a thump. "Fiona, I need the drie

east cottages while I sat with my heart going like a bird in a box

ed Fiona, and asked Duncan

said. "The green door. There is a lock o

o a room with a narrow bed, a writing desk and a view of nothing but rain. I set my bag down and counted

ne kn

the bond came up through me again, hot and insistent. She stepped in past me w

to ruin my fa

been doing with the pack's land. Whe

I was born. Do you know what happens to a pack w

s own territory and lies about it in the le

hand flat on my chest, over the bond, and the heat

she said. It wa

es

brings him down, half this pack will blame me before they blame you, because everyone knows a daughter can always be got at." He

ask for i

akes tw

oticed my own hand moving until it was on her waist, over the wool of her jumper. She smelled of rain and herbs a

t matters. She kissed me hard and angry and over too soon,

in my hair and she said my name, and it sounded like a curse and a blessing at once, and I stopped thinking about the audit and the ledger and the exits. She

over her knees and her hair in her face, and I stood by the window w

et a pack get close to me. A woman could be used to get at an auditor, and a fated mate could be used more easily than most. Bu

esk, pulled her jumper straight and came toward me, and she rea

careful," she said

ually

the warmth of the last hour drained out of the room. "You are here to find out what my father has been hidin

leaned in close and said the next words into my ear

e you came through the gate." She s

th my hand still raised and the bond still pulling at my chest, and I counted my exits