The Wolf's Mistress

"Well, come, for pity's sake! Let me look at you."

From the security of the shadowed doorway, Isabel bristled at her brother's arrogant command, but she came all the same. Once, she would have tossed a derisive comment his way, uncaring of the hateful things he'd say -- or do -- in response. But now that she was no longer in a position to gainsay him, it wasn't worth it to goad him.

She entered the elaborately furnished solar that had mere months ago been her father's domain, eyeing her brother warily.

Richard's eyes gleamed in calculation as his beady eyes ran over her, over the low-cut, tight --

gaudy

-- gown that had been appropriated from one of her late father's lemans. "Yes. You'll do quite well," he said, well pleased by the efforts of the sour-faced maid who had rudely awakened her moments ago, dressing her with pinching hands. "Let's see if the bastard tries to say no to

this

!"

Her prior irritation at Richard's ominous early morning summons giving way to anxiety, Isabel said nervously, "

He

? What are you about, brother?"

Rising from his stately chair -- all the better to intimidate her with his great, reed-thin height, no doubt -- Richard peered down his snub nose at her, saying, "We journey to the Frasers today. Alec Fraser is a proud bastard and won't accept money as the only incentive to ally with me -- so I've decided to use

you

as added enticement."

Dumbfounded -- and horrified -- at the prospect, Isabel snapped, "But -- but that is madness! Alec Fraser will never agree to be your ally and certainly not with

me

as an inducement! You are wasting what little time you have like a fool!" she bit her lip in belated caution, taking a step backwards warily, cursing her tart tongue.

She had escaped one tyrant for another since her father's death and had felt the sharp sting of her brother's hand far too many times to count these past few months.

But for once, Richard did not react hotly at her impertinence. Instead, he rocked back on his heels, wagging a chastising finger under her nose, earning a frustrated sputter from her. "Well then -- you had best do your very finest to convince him of your worth, sister. After all, if he does not have you then Hugh MacGregor certainly will and I'll vow you'd rather be serving the Fraser bastard than the old letch."

Isabel's gut clenched at his words. She searched his face desperately, pleadingly, and Richard's eyes glittered with something nasty, his lips twisting into a goading smile as he carefully watched for her response.

"You wouldn't...not MacGregor..." she whispered.

"He's already agreed," Richard cocked a ruddy brow. "Though MacGregor boasts a less skilled set of men than Fraser, it's better than naught. Plus, he's filthy rich. He's willing to give me his protection

and

pay

me

a tidy sum for

you

! The reigning beauty of the highlands, apparently! Bah, there's a joke if ever there was one. You're the only thing of any damned value I have left to bargain with since neither clan will be swayed by the promise of coin alone for what I'm asking," he grunted, before giving her a sneering onceover, saying, "You'd best believe, girl, that it will be one or the other. One would never think that a well-used slattern could be of so much worth, but men will be men, always led by their bloody cocks. We leave within the hour. I'll not waste more time dithering! You'll do it, Isabel or else you know what will happen. Aye, you will do it!"

And then Richard was marching past her and out of the cosy solar with a face like thunder, his shattering news delivered, and though Isabel she would not usually linger in her brother's quarters, she groped her way to the chair he had just vacated, her legs weak, knowing she'd not make it to her place of solace without collapsing.

She glanced around the solar vaguely.

Alec Fraser or Hugh MacGregor

. She shook her head, rejecting the prospect of having either man as her future protector. She could flee, she knew. But where to? Her father had earned many enemies -- as had his father before him -- and even her tentative acquaintances would not agree to house her for fear of the reprisals from her brother. She was not worth the effort of protecting. She could hardly blame anyone -- the Gordons had truly made a rod for their own backs over the generations. They had no allies.

Had it been summer instead of dead winter, Isabel's fear may have given way to spontaneity, may well have seen her slipping away from Gordon lands...but what would her fate be, a woman alone and with little coin? Rapine or worse. This was not one of the fairy-tales she'd enjoyed as a child told by a travelling troubadour in which, after the hardships, she would be rescued before the final terrible twist occurred. There would be no reprieve for her.

The nearest nunnery was a good three days' ride away. It would be a miracle if she made it there unscathed -- then there was there fact that she had a terrible sense of direction and should be lucky to find it all. She had never shown a strong obedience towards the teachings of the church, had never wished for a life of divine servitude, but when the option was between that and whoring herself out on her brother's order, the former won out.

Their clan was under threat, it was true, and it was unlikely that Richard's lean army could withstand the imminent attack of the Duncans. Whilst Isabel doubted she alone would bring about the compliance of a potential ally, even

should

she, she felt little for her clan save for animosity. But amongst her hateful kinsfolk were the few people she'd come to feel affection for over the years, and the thought of them hurt or slain twisted at her gut. Then there were the many children, the many innocents, who would suffer.

In addition to the fact that Richard was now her guardian, there was another thing he held over her -- the thing he had taunted her with as he had left just now, his leverage. Colm. Sensitive, wonderful Colm, their younger brother. If anyone was destined for a life serving God, it was he. He was no future chieftain, no future alpha leader of their pack, and Richard knew this well. He also knew of the bond she and Colm shared, knew that she would do anything to see to his welfare now that Richard was the one lording over them, her parents both dead -- not that her father had cared a whit for Colm when he'd been alive.

When news of the Clan Duncans threat had emerged, Richard had given her a choice -- either she abided by him thereby seeing to Colm's wish of joining the monastery, or Colm was fostered with Clan Morgan, a coarse, brutish lot who would jump on his tender demeanour with relish, beating his gentleness from him.

But Isabel has assumed Richard intended to marry her off, securing a fiscally and socially long-lasting alliance with one of the other highland clans as men were wont to do with their daughters or sisters -- not whore her off to the highest bidder.

Alec Fraser was a better bet than Hugh MacGregor if she truly had to choose but Fraser would not have her. The man could charm any female into his bed without so much as a coaxing word -- save for her that was, for when he'd half-heartedly tried a few summers ago she'd given him what for and then some.

Did Richard truly believe that a Fraser would come to the aid of a

Gordon

after generations' worth of hostility, of violence? That he would risk the well-being of his clan for them? For

her

?

She thought back to Alec Fraser as she'd last seen him: intimidating, stoic, and devastating in his savage male beauty. But whilst most females swooned over his coarse appearance, Isabel was frightened by it.

Though she'd seen him sporadically since childhood, she, like many others, had raptly followed his rise from lowly, cast-off bastard to chieftain of Clan Fraser and alpha of their pack. He was as revered as he was reviled, his skill as a soldier a thing of lore, the man a living legend. He was fawned over by ladies for much the same reason, although they tended to put a romantic bend on his activities, touting him a heroic knight in the vein of King Arthur rather than the fierce, ruthless warlord he was. Just as equally, he was derided by females for his status as bastard of the late Alasdair Fraser.

He had not given her so much as a passing glance at Elaine MacDonald's wedding at summer's start -- Richard was sorely misinformed in his ridiculous plan. Any flippant desire he may have to get under her skirts -- most likely for the sole purpose of crowing to his clansmen over bedding a Gordon -- was long gone. In fact, she doubted he had noticed her at all, so busy had he been pursuing and then bedding the MacDonald chief's third wife under the old man's nose. Women fell over him in their eagerness to bed him -- literally. While many other things may have changed with him over the years, he would not be the frivolous sort to do badly by his clan, and especially not for an insignificant woman. Though marked with a fierce reputation, he was also loyal, an inborn Fraser trait along with their slovenliness. He would dismiss her and her brother on sight, most likely insulted at Richard's daring if he was not amused by it.

Isabel left the solar in somewhat of a daze, passing her sleepy kinsmen and serfs, flinching at the looks thrown her way some pitying, most sneering. Clearly, they knew all too well of Richard's scheming.

If the Fraser clan was known for loyalty, the Gordons were known for their self-serving nature, their selfishness -- that, and their wealth, what little good it would do them now that they were the target of the highland's most vicious clan, and in addition to that claim, they were also feared as the cruellest pack of their race of people. No amount of money was worth it to any clan to ally with them for the sake of Richard's coin. No one wanted the Duncans as an enemy.

"Lady."

Isabel started out of her daze as she reached the foot of the stairs, the gruff greeting chilling her. She warily eyed the castle's seneschal.

"Yes, what is it?" she frowned at the grizzled man.

"Your brother awaits you in the courtyard."

"He truly means to leave today?"

The man's eyes slipped away from hers, rejecting the appeal in her eyes, her tone. "Best not to keep him, lady."

Isabel turned away briskly, making to remount the stairs, saying, "Then I must pack my-"

"Now, lady."

She bristled at the seneschal, giving an outraged cry as he grabbed at her arm and pulled her across the hall. Many eyes fell upon the two of them struggling, and Isabel cursed the men and women littered about, cursed their silent tongues and shifting eyes, all sending her on her merry-way to her fate as Fraser or MacGregor's leman.

"You are being unreasonable," she hissed under her breath then, tugging on the man's beefy hand as he reached the double-doors leading out of the courtyard. "It will soon be winter -- I must have my cloak at least-!"

He threw her a hard look over his shoulder and she sagged in defeat, looking away, certain that should she struggle, he'd simply hoist her over his shoulder and carry her out bodily on Richard's prior instruction. For all their airs and graces, the Gordons were inclined to barbarianism when it suited them, she thought bitterly.

But the man eventually granted her the concession of allowing a serf to bring her a cloak in small defence of the bitterly cold clime, and then he was pushing her out of the hall, leading her to the stables, towards the parcel of mounted men, her brother Richard at the front.

One of her Gordon cousins hoisted her impersonally up before him, his handsome face cold and ruthless, and then the band of her brother's men were making haste, departing Gordon lands on a swift canter, the chilled air whipping around them as they rode westerly.

"You've no need to fret, girl," her cousin said above her then in his usual monotone manner. "When Fraser's done wi' you, you'll still have a place wi' your clan. I'll not allow your brother to cast you out."

Isabel threw a wary look up at him at the steely promise, and he gave her a brief, unsmiling look, but there was something in his pale blue eyes that chilled her. She had grown before this man, had grown with his own children, and whilst their interaction had been minimum and detached at best, the sudden realisation behind that look -- and his words -- sickened her.

Feeling dirty, she stiffened in the saddle, sitting upright, careful to ensure than not an inch of her touched him, and he gave a short, hard laugh in mockery.

"You need not look like that, Isabel Gordon. You'll not bed the Fraser bastard and turn your pretty wee nose up at me, I'll vow. I always pinned you as a sensible lass. I'll give you my protection. You'll need it."

She shivered at the ominous promise of his last words and though she'd deigned to ignore him, she couldn't help but utter with mocking bitterness, "You mean you'll still have me after I've been tainted by Fraser or MacGregor, Cormac Gordon?"

Her cousin grunted above her, dismissing her sarcasm, "You'll do your duty to your clan and your pack, girl."

She thought his words rich considering she'd lived her whole life being referred to as runt by her kin, all of them sure to tell her that she was a shame upon the clan and pack with her half-mortal blood from her mother's side. Unlike her two brothers and everyone else in the pack, she had no inner beast, did not experience that shift from her current form to the form of a beast as the others did. Yet despite their disgust of her tainted blood they were happy enough to whore her out to the highest bidder for their own needs with the explanation that she did it for the good of her pack.

The rest of the journey passed in wordless silence, the steady pat of the horses' hooves against the treacherous paths grating on Isabel's nerves. The pace was relentless, Richard allowing a brief stop only once before he ordered for his men to remount again. The sun dipped, the chill heightened, and still they continued the arduous journey to Fraser lands.

As dark circled them and they no doubt rode closer to their goal, Isabel thought of Alec Fraser, thought of their childhood acquaintance with hope:

Once...once, we were friends, were we not?

Or, if not friends, they'd both been on equal footing. But then, he was no longer the gaunt, quiet, young boy he had once been with his sunken eyes and his skinny body, she reminded herself. Gone had been any last shred of vulnerability at their last meeting.

Indeed, her father, should he have been alive and foolish enough to have attempted it, would no longer have been able to beat him. What did Alec Fraser owe her, the girl who had stood by, petrified, as her father had thrashed him time and time again when he had lived them after her father had taken Alec's mother as mistress? Isabel had been so weak, so fearful, she had never said a word, had never stood up for him despite how much she'd desperately wanted to. Her cowardice still shamed her to this day -- but she'd soon grown out of her terrors. A black eye, a bruised arm, a winded stomach had all been worth deflecting her father's ire from Colm.

Staring blindly at passing forestry, she knew she could not lie to herself.

She was doomed to be the plaything of Hugh MacGregor. Her cousin Cormac had been wrong -- she need not worry being cast out by the Gordons since it was inevitable she would not survive her time with the old man after he'd finished with her.

***

Alec tossed back the last of his ale, thumping his tankard against the scarred surface of his table, crying out for more.

A busty serf -- Beth or Bertha, he hardly knew -- poured him a healthy measure, pressing her breasts into his arm in invitation as she attended him.

Alec grinned at her, giving her a light pat on the rump in thanks, before turning back to his trencher and his men.

"-so I had the blonde above me and the red-haired wench attending me below.

Ahh

, 'twas was bliss, I tell you!"

Alec shook his head at the crude story. "Come, man," he clapped his cousin across the shoulder. "There are bairns about," he said mildly, tossing his head towards the litter of children running amok in the hall.

Gavin Fraser shrugged. "Aye, well seeing as how a fair few are probably mine, I've no complaint against their tender sensibilities being abused."

Alec shrugged, skewering his meat on his dirk, but before he'd popped the succulent morsel into his mouth, a white-haired brute entered through the heavy doors of his hall, his long strides thundering across the rush covered floor, his heavy brow lowered in a scowl.

"Ivan?" Alec nodded calmly, biting the meat, chewing steadily as he watched the older man.

"You've a visitor, chief," the Norseman said, every line of his body drawn taught. "Richard Gordon and his men."

The ribald chatter and laughter around the long table hushed at Ivan's statement; Alec's serfs and kinsmen looked towards him raptly, and a fair few of them drew their dirks in greedy anticipation of vulnerable Gordon flesh to skewer.

"What's he playing at, showing his cursed face here?" Gavin bit out beside him in offended outrage.

Alec considered the faces poised towards him. Each mirrored the distrust and abhorrence on his cousin's face. The prior hum of contentment and ease filling the hall was now heavier, darker.

"Whatever he wants I'm not interested -- send him on his way," Alec shrugged, but Ivan lingered, shifting from foot to foot in an uncharacteristic show of sheepishness.

"He said you'd

want

to meet with him. Said -- said he had someone you'd be wanting to see."

Gavin grunted. "That catamite needs to be taught-"

"Oh, aye?" Alec cocked a brow, giving in to idle curiosity.

"His sister. Isabel Gordon."

Alec felt his sardonic smile slipping, bemusement misting his mind.

"Chief?"

He glanced vaguely at Ivan, the reams of faces poised towards him, waiting for his reply, a blur.

"Well -- what should I tell the swine?" Ivan persisted.

"Tell him to fuc-"

Alec held up a ceasing hand, stilling his cousin's scathing instruction.

He took a healthy swallow of ale before wiping an arm of his mouth. "Send them in."

In his peripheral, Alec saw Gavin look from Ivan's retreating back to Alec in disgust. "What the devil are you playing at?"

Shooting his cousin a brief look, Alec returned automatically to his ale, sipping at the comforting liquid. "Nothing better going on, is there? Might as well see what he's about."

"You mean you want to ogle the Gordon bitch," Gavin muttered under his breath, his handsome face twisting in hostility, and before Alec could clip him around the ear, a loud, brash voice was declaring from the front of his hall:

"Well,

you

certainly landed on your feet, didn't you?"

Alec glanced across the way as Richard Gordon made his grand entrance, his sister following behind him -- though he'd have been hard pressed to identify her, bundled up in a thick, expensive looking cloak that made a mockery of even his finest garments.

Crude insults were hurled across at siblings, and Alec said, his voice ringing out, "Get on with it, Gordon."

Richard stopped midstride, hesitating for a moment, clearly torn between giving into the malice floating in his eyes when a gentler tongue would serve him better. He glanced around Alec's hall, taking in the sea of antagonistic faces, and said in a clipped voice, "Perhaps we can speak privately?"

Alec shook his head, saying dismissively, "Nay, I keep no secrets from my clan," and he held up a ceasing hand as the man would seat himself at his table. "Ye've not be invited to seat yerself at my table."

Gordon took no offence, turning away from him, a cat's smile playing over his sharply featured face as he looked towards his sister. Alec watched, annoyed, as the man made a grand show off relieving her of her cloak before folding it carefully over his hands, his eyes all the while on Alec.