Free Highland Wolf Pact: Blood Reign: A Scottish Werewolf Shifter Romance by Selena Kitt Page B

taught her how to chant and throw herbs into the scrying pool. Her own soap smelled of heather and silvermoon, but this was sage and cedar, a far more masculine scent they made for Alaric, who protested going around smelling like flowers—when they could get him to bathe, that was.
    Griff lifted it to his nose, sniffing it lightly, giving her an appreciative look as he soaped up his hands and began rubbing them over his chest. She noticed the hairs that curled there, circling his nipples, small and pink, like miniatures of her own. Hers were hard—probably because she’d gotten herself soaked carrying all the water back and forth, she told herself, trying to ignore the soft pulse between her thighs.
    He had told her to go, but she didn’t. Instead, she knelt by the side of the tub, her eyes glued to the way his hands roamed his chest and shoulders and arms, wondering what it felt like to map that fleshy terrain. His hands dipped under the water with the soap, toward areas she didn’t dare peek at.
    Her mother had bid her to tend the man, and so Bridget reached for a washing cloth, dipping it into the water to wet it, and then holding her hand out to him silently for the soap.
    Griff looked at her for a moment, a bemused smile playing on his lips, but he handed it over, watching as she rubbed soap into the cloth, making suds.
    “How’d ye come t’be ’ere, Bridget?” Griff asked, leaning forward when she put a hand on his shoulder and pulled.
    “Tis m’home,” she said simply, standing and moving in behind him so she could scrub his back. His flesh was beautifully tanned, his shoulder blades jutting like wings as he let her scrub, up and down, back and forth. He gave a little groan when she rubbed the cloth hard over his shoulders.
    “Ye like that?” She cocked her head, her fingers digging into the muscle, and he gave another soft moan.
    “Aye.” He rolled his head from side to side. “T’was a long journey.”
    “Where d’ye come from?” she asked, wondering about it, knowing now that his pack had been the same that her parents had left. They had once lived in the same den. “Where’s yer home?”
    “Scotland,” he told her, glancing back in surprise at her question. He was wondering why her parents hadn’t told her. And she was wondering the same thing. “Middle March. Right on t’border b’tween Scotland’n’England. We used t’have a mountain den, back a’fore I was born. M’mother says t’was lovely, wit’ a valley contained in t’mountain range, an’ a stream runnin’ through it. Now we live in a den underground—on MacFalon land. Tis a beautiful place. Reminds me of this.”
    “I’ve ne’er known any other home but this,” she admitted, her fingers digging into the hard, bunched muscle of his shoulders. He let out a sigh of relief at her touch, and another groan when she dug her thumbs into his flesh. “I’m not hurtin’ ye?”
    “No, lass.” He chuckled. “Not likely.”
    She stiffened at his words, withdrawing, knowing he was referring to their first meeting.
    “Do’na stop.” He looked back at her in the firelight. “I did’na mean t’insult ye. It’s jus’… I’ve ne’er met a woman like ye a’fore.”
    “What’s that mean?” She frowned, but she put her hands back onto his shoulders, continuing to knead his flesh like bread dough. He moaned again, eyes closing. He really seemed to like it, and for some reason, that pleased her. “Griff?”
    “Hmmm?” His head tilted forward as she dug her fingers into his shoulder blades.
    “What d’ye mean, ye’ve ne’er met a woman like me?”
    “Where I come from,” he said, hissing when she scraped him lightly with her nails. “Women do’na fight. Wulver women… they’re not warriors.”
    “Ye do’na think a woman should be a warrior?” She frowned, watched the water trickling down his skin in little rivers. There were no scars or marks on the man, and she wondered at it, but then she