Wolf Pack Read online

  WOLF PACK

  HIGHLAND WOLVES OF OLD, BOOK 1

  TERRY SPEAR

  CONTENTS

  Synopsis

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Terry Spear

  PUBLISHED BY:

  Wilde Ink Publishing

  Wolf Pack

  Copyright © 2022 by Terry Spear

  Cover Copyright by Rainy Day Artwork

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

  Discover more about Terry Spear at:

  http://www.terryspear.com/

  Print ISBN: 978-1-63311-085-4

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-63311-084-7

  Tee Worrall, thanks so much for loving my books. I always love hearing from you and wish you all the best! Enjoy the trip to the past with the Medieval wolves of old!

  SYNOPSIS

  As wolves, Isobel, her kin, and a Highland slave are on the run from her Icelandic clan and now they must find a way to live in peace in Scotia without anyone discovering they are wolves or Vikings. Wearing traditional Icelandic clothes, sailing a Viking longboat, and speaking Gaelic with a Nordic accent, it won’t be easy.

  Alasdair is the wolf pack leader of his Highland clan, in the middle of adding fortifications to his castle when he spies what he thinks is a small Viking longboat—which can mean raiders and a fight. But what he discovers is two adult wolf females, a nearly grown male, and a female and male bairn on their shores. He can’t imagine the family making the treacherous journey to his land all on their own, but he’s captivated by Isobel, the woman who led her people to what she hopes will be safety.

  Not everyone in his pack welcomes having Vikings living among them though. And Isobel is a wild and unpredictable woman, which fascinates him all the more.

  1

  After five weeks of sailing on the open ocean to Scotia, Isobel and her two nephews and a niece from the northlands, and a Scots slave, all gray wolf shifters, had finally arrived. But the coastline was rocky and dangerous, drifting fog hiding the peril that awaited them. She knew from the tales traders had shared with her Icelandic clan of the dangers that the fierce Scots posed to them as soon as they encountered them.

  They hadn’t had any choice. Once her uncle had failed to take over the clan to become the new chieftain and had lost his life, she and her nephews and niece were considered traitors as well, though they hadn’t taken up arms against him. She’d freed Elene, the Scotswoman, who had taught Isobel and her kin the Scots’ language, because she was a wolf like them and felt a kinship despite having different roots. When her parents’ wolf pack had suffered large losses in their own clan, they had joined up with this chieftain until they could add to their wolf numbers again. It seemed it wasn’t meant to be.

  Isobel’s extended family had been the only wolf shifters in the clan, so she didn’t feel any great loss in leaving the clan behind.

  Elene was the same age as Isobel, just as passionate a fighter, just as eager to escape the tyranny of the chieftain and his people. But for Elene it was different. She would be returning to her homeland. Isobel and her kin were the enemy here. She was thankful Elene had told them to change their names to take on Scot’s names to help hide their origin. Five weeks on the ocean had helped them to get more used to their new names.

  Elene was just as worried about her reception in Scotia. She had been taken prisoner ten summers ago. Her parents had been murdered during the raid. Elene didn’t even know if any of her own kin were still alive up north of here. Certainly, Isobel and her kin wouldn’t be welcomed by Elene’s people, no matter that they had freed her and brought her to safety. And no matter that they hadn’t been a part of the clan that had killed off Elene’s people and taken Elene hostage either. They still had Viking heritage.

  Landing the longboat safely on the beach beyond the breakers was now Isobel’s current dilemma.

  Conall was shouting orders to his younger siblings. He would be ten and five years in two more months. His mother and father had named him Bodolf—wolf leader. Someday, he might be. But not this day. He had balked at changing his name until Elene told him Conall meant strong wolf in Gaelic, so he was fine with that.

  He was a good navigator, but Isobel was still in charge. She was ten and nine and she’d navigated these waters since she’d been eight. Both her mother and father had been eager to teach her how to lead a party to the Scots’ land once her twin brother had been lost at sea. She’d never thought she would be leading her kin on a journey like this while escaping their clan and she had never considered she would be bringing them to Scotia to live. The only way she would have ever gone there was to trade with the Scots, or fight battles, which it often led to.

  Their mother had died in an earlier battle between Norse clans, like Isobel’s own mother and father had. To protect her niece and nephews and herself from ill treatment—or worse, Isobel had hurried them to pack food, water, tools, weapons, and furs, anything they could use to survive on the journey and for when they arrived in Scotia. Then they’d sneaked Elene out of the longhouse where she was staying and had stolen away before the chieftain could decide their fate. They had taken the long, perilous journey in a small longboat her uncle had owned before the chieftain seized it. Isobel had hoped when they made it to Scotia, it would be a new way of life and freedom for them. But what if they became slaves of the Scots? She couldn’t think of that.

  “We will break up on the rocks before we reach the shore,” Conall warned.

  “We willna.” Isobel cast him a scolding look. She had to keep the younger ones’ spirits up. Libby was spirited, but right now, the girl of five summers looked haunted. She was half hidden under her long wool shawl. Drummond was seven summers and had been born at sea during one of their mother and father’s expeditions. A water giant—his mother had named him—or a sea monster—because he’d been such a big baby and hard to deliver. He loved the sea most of all.

  All of them were drenched in sea water, the sun having dried them off, leaving them caked in salt. They’d survived on fresh fish they’d caught, smoked fish they’d brought with them, flat bread, and fresh water.

  Elene was quiet as usual, as if she were still a slave in the clan’s village.

  “You can speak your mind now,” Isobel said. “You are our friend, not a slave any longer.”

  Elene nodded, her hair as matted as all of theirs was, braided with beads, just like theirs was, though her hair was dark while their hair was the color of spun gold.

  Their cheeks and the tips of their noses wore a red glow from the constant sun, though they’d encountered severe storms also during their journey. The waterproof tent in the middle of the longboat had protected them and their supplies to a degree and they’d taken turns sleeping beneath it. A brazier had provided heat and they used it to cook any fish they had caught.

  Isobel was glad to finally see the shore so close by. But the fog kept drifting in sheets across the shoreline, revealing it briefly and hiding it again. She was afraid they’d break up their longboat before they could reach the shore. Oceanwater was striking the rocks and breaking up, splashing sky high, warning them of the danger of the partially submerged rocks.

  “We need to navigate over there,” Isobel said, pointing to what appeared to be a narrow passage where the water was deeper and she didn’t detect any breaking water, and they might just make it to shore. Then they’d have to hide their Viking longboat just in case they needed to escape to somewhere else. Not to mention they didn’t want it exposed to the cliffs where someone could see it from up above and know they had landed and then the search would be on for them.

  “There’s a cave over there,” Elene said, pointing to treacherous currents flowing into the cave.

  “Let’s make our way there.” Isobel steered them in that direction.

  With the sail down, they rowed toward the narrow passage between the rocks, scraping the sides of the longboat. Everyone’s hearts were beating frantically, and Isobel’s young niece gasped when they hit a rock. They finally managed to maneuver until they could angle into the mouth of the cave.

  When they managed to enter the cave without breaking the longboat up on the rocks, it was dark inside, except for the light shining into the mouth of the large cave. But just as quickly, fog rolled in, swallowing them up, as if to blanket them in secrecy, protecting them from the Scots who might wish them dead.

  Isobel took that as a good sign. The gods were with them—this time anyway.

  Alasdair swore he had seen something in the water—a small longboat—a Viking longboat. He’d seen the red-and-white striped sail first, and then it was gone. Then he saw the longboat and then it disappeared, saw it again, and it vanished yet again behind large swells of waves. But when he reached the edge of the top of the cliffs, he saw naught but the waves crashing onto the rocks a way out from shore and fog quickly enveloping the whole area.

  His brother Hans quickly joined him and slapped him on the back. “I told you there was naught out there. Did you see a serpent again?”

&nbs
p; Alasdair was certain he’d seen a hand-carved figurehead of a dragon at the prow of a small longboat leading the way. The dragon was meant to placate the gods of the sea and ensure its safe voyage. A Viking dragon.

  They hadn’t had any trouble with the Norsemen here of late because of how treacherous the waters were. But it didn’t mean they wouldn’t have difficulties with them at some later date. He had traded with some but fought with others. He never knew when to trust them. Language was a barrier. And their intent—peaceful or not—could be an issue also.

  For a while, Alasdair stared down at the beach, but he couldn’t see anything. Nor could he make out any sounds other than the water crashing into the rocks. With his enhanced wolf hearing, he suspected he would catch the sound of the breaking up of a vessel on the rocks, or men talking, injured or otherwise, as they made it to shore.

  “Dinna worry. If Vikings managed to land on the shore—which they have not, or we would see them—they will never make it up the steep cliffs.”

  The Norsemen were persistent, if nothing else. If they had arrived and not broken up on the rocks, they would find a way to climb up the cliffs, he was certain.

  But what he couldn’t understand was that the sailing vessel had been smaller than what he was used to seeing Viking raiders used. Like a fishing vessel, not a ship sailing on the open seas. Unless they’d had an armada and this one was the only one left or had lost the rest of the longboats in a storm and the rest of the armada was far from here. The other thing that puzzled him was that the figures on the vessel had seemed a wee bit small—not like hulking Viking raiders and that didn’t make any sense either.

  “Do you want to post a guard to alert us if raiders actually do make it to our shores?” Hans asked, when Alasdair didn’t budge from his spot.

  Alasdair wanted to be the one keeping watch. “Is the boar done cooking?”

  “Aye, that’s why I came to fetch you. But if you want me to stay—”

  The sky was darkening, the twinkling of green lights of female fireflies telling prospective males they were ready to mate filled the night.

  “Nay, let’s eat. You’re right. I just imagined seeing a serpent in the sea. ‘Tis naught but my imagination playing tricks with me.” Which happened from time to time as unpredictable as the weather was along the coastline.

  2

  Alasdair was the pack leader of thirty wolves—his brothers, Hans and Rory, and their sister Bessetta—and the other wolves he’d taken into the pack who had needed guidance and were agreeable to his rule. Not that they didn’t have squabbles among them, but since there were fewer of the wolf shifters than humans, they did tend to stick together.

  “While we were cooking the boar, what were you doing?” Bessetta asked, then took a bite of her cooked meat in the great hall.

  “Alasdair was watching the ocean for the Viking raiders about to attack our village and the keep,” Hans said, the storyteller of the bunch. “We should have worked faster on finishing the wall.”

  Everyone looked up from their meal to see what Alasdair had to say about it. Even though they could guess Hans was making up a story, the threat of Vikings on their land could be real.

  Alasdair shrugged and took a bite of the boar. Alasdair and his siblings had been born to their mother at the same time—well, a few blinks of an eye apart. He was the oldest, Bessetta, the youngest, and Hans was the next oldest, Rory in between him and Bessetta.

  “Tell us what you think you saw,” Rory said, “before Hans makes up more of a tale and we don’t know what to think.”

  “I thought I saw a Viking ship sailing on the ocean headed for our shore. But you know how it is with the waves kicked up by the recent storms and the fog rolling in, covering everything in its path. I’m not sure what I saw, or if I saw anything at all.”

  All eyes were upon him still, as if they believed he had seen something, and the danger could be very real to all of them. But if he had thought so, he would have had someone serving on guard duty, watching the beach.

  “But?” Rory asked.

  Alasdair shook his head. “It looked like the size of a fishing longboat, but the prow had a dragon figurehead. And the sailors looked like wee bairns.”

  Everyone laughed. That certainly didn’t inspire fear in them.

  “That’s why I dinna believe it was anything more than my imagination. If it was not just me imaging things, they would still have to navigate the rocks and climb the cliffs. Not an easy feat, either one.”

  “Yet you were able to envision that much,” Bessetta reminded him, sounding like she believed he’d seen what he thought he’d witnessed.

  “The fair folk,” Rory said. “Naught more.”

  “Aye,” Hans said. “Do you think we should post a lookout, just in case what you think you might have seen is true?”

  Alasdair ate some more of the boar, then nodded. “Aye. You can schedule the men for the duty. I will take watch before dawn.”

  “I will take watch before gloaming,” Bessetta said.

  They all did their part in the clan—men and women alike—though if they had to deal with Vikings, he didn’t want his sweet sister to learn the hard way that what he’d seen was right.

  He nodded. “As a wolf.”

  “Aye.” Though Bessetta could fight well with a sword and sgian dubh, he still wanted her to serve on duty as a wolf.

  She could run faster, howl even, if she spied the enemy. Though as a human, they could howl also. If Vikings were making the dangerous climb up the cliff face, he would think of them as his foe.

  “I can go with her,” Rory said.

  Alasdair ate another slice of boar. “Nay. We have work to do, sleep to catch up on, guarding of our village and castle. If Bessetta canna do this on her own, she will stay at the keep, and you will go instead.”

  “Nay,” Bessetta said, giving Rory a reproachful look.

  Rory smiled at her, loving to tease their younger sister.

  “If they are below the cliffs and Bessetta or anyone else on guard duty hears them trying to climb up, if they are far below, dinna howl. Just return and report what you’ve seen. But if anyone doesna hear them until it is too late, howl and run like the wind. Dinna try and stop them. A well-placed arrow not only could kill you—” Alasdair said.

  “But reveal the truth about us,” Hans said. “Which is much worse.”

  It wasn’t that they thought if one of their people died it didn’t matter. It did. As a wolf pack, they were close to each other—family, kin, and more. One death greatly affected them all. But if any of them died as a wolf, they would turn into their human form. They couldn’t let on they were wolf shifters to non-wolf shifters. When they battled it out with other clans, they only did so in their human form. Though if they were wholly outnumbered and could slip away into the woods, they could remove their clothes, hide them to return for them later, shift, and run as a wolf.

  Alasdair noticed then that Bessetta had left the great hall and he looked around for her.

  “If you are looking for Bessetta, she is off shifting in her chamber so she can run to the cliffs and see if you were right or no’,” Hans said.

  Alasdair let out his breath and leaned over closer to speak to him more privately as other conversations were shared over the meal about catching dragons in the water, seeing the fair folk, and other such things. “Go with her, just to make sure no one has breached the cliffs. If everything is quiet and you see no trouble, then you can leave her to her task and return until it’s your turn to be a guard, Hans.”

  “Aye, will do.”

  Alasdair trusted his sister to do a good job watching for trouble but if the trouble had already breached the top of the cliff, he didn’t want her to be running for her life.