Free Taken By The Highland Wolf (The Clan MacGregor Book 2) by Stephanie Marks Page B

his grinning face.
    It amazed me that an evening that had started with such horror could end with so much joy.
    ***
    Later that night Alastair and I awoke to the sound of insistent pounding on the chamber door. The room was still dark, with no sign of the early morning sun on the horizon. We must have only been asleep for a few hours.
    "Sir, miss, ye must come quickly," came Donald's harassed voice through the door.
    I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and hurried to dress myself in my nightgown before wrapping a plaid around my shoulders for modesty's sake. Alastair dressed in naught but his kilt, and opened the door to face a red-faced Donald.
    "I'm sorry to have awakened ye, but there's been a messenger. He insisted that I wake ye both at once. He's brought a package with him."
    "Where is it?" Alastair asked him as we quickly followed him.
    "In your study. Gregory is watching the messenger in there as well," Donald explained.
    "Did he say who it came from?" I asked.
    "No, my lady, he didn't. But with the threats against us I thought it best to keep him here for questioning for the time being."
    The lamps had been lit in the study by the time we arrived and a short young man cloaked in black sat in one of the leather chairs. Gregory, the clansman who had been with us in the library when Camden had been brought before me, was watching him suspiciously.
    "Who are ye, and what brings ye here in the middle of the night?" Alastair asked the stranger, dispensing with the niceties.
    The man—a boy, really, for he looked little older than seventeen years of age—stood and looked toward the wooden box that sat on the large desk.
    "I was sent here with a message for ye, MacGregor," he said.
    "And just who is this message from?" Alastair asked him.
    "I have no name for ye," the boy told him.
    "Do ye expect me to believe that you rode here to deliver me this message without knowing from where it came?" Alastair took a menacing step forward and glared down his nose at the boy. "Or maybe ye simply require some persuading to tell me what ye ken?" he asked quietly.
    The boy swallowed audibly but did not back down. I admired his courage, but it would not help him if Alastair decided that he was a threat. The safety of the clan came first, always. And now we all had to be more careful than ever.
    "Ye do not scare me, MacGregor," the boy said with only the barest of quivers in his voice. Then, suddenly, moving quickly, the boy produced a knife and slashed out at Alastair.
    Alastair lifted his arm to defend himself from the strike and the knife slashed into his forearm. Ignoring whatever pain the wound must have caused, he moved without hesitation, and reaching out with both hands he took hold of the boy's head and twisted it sharply to the side, effectively snapping his neck.
    I watched wide-eyed as the lifeless body of the boy fell to the floor. My eyes traveled from the boy to Alastair and back again, my heart full of sadness. This was not the first time I had seen Alastair take a life. He had protected me from another like him, a man cursed with the wolf, paid by Allina to assassinate me. But I had never seen him take a human life before, and for it to be one so young, even if the boy had been an assassin, shook me.
    "For them to send a boy to try to kill me," Alastair said, shaking his head. "They had to know he would fail." He looked down at the boy's body, an expression of extreme regret on his face.
    "I dinna think he was meant to succeed," said Gregory. "More likely he was meant to be another mark against ye. A spark in this war they're determined to bring to our door."
    "Aye, Gregory, you're probably right," Alastair said, his voice tight with frustration. He walked around his desk and opened drawers until he located a handkerchief, which he pressed to his arm to stanch the blood flow.
    "What about the box?" I asked. I walked over to the large, hinged box and placed a hand lightly on the lid.
    It was well crafted. The wood was a deep,