Highland Wolf Pact Read Online Free PDF Page B

forced herself to look, to glance behind her at the wolf, standing tall outside its cage now. If she had been standing, the top of the wolf’s head would have easily cleared her shoulder, maybe even higher. Alistair looked tiny in comparison as he crouched back against a tree. He had drawn a knife from his boot and was brandishing it at the wolf.
    “Stay back!” he insisted in a strangled voice, looking over at Sibyl with wide eyes. “Yer bow! Throw me the bow!”
    Sibyl had forgotten it again. The bow and quiver had slipped from her shoulder and rested on the forest floor. She snatched up the longbow, quickly pulling an arrow from the quiver, cocking it, drawing the string, and taking aim.
    “Shoot it!” Alistair howled, still waving his dirk at the animal.
    The wolf’s shoulders were hunched, head down, teeth bared, but it didn’t attack. Nor did it run. Sibyl wondered at this as the animal turned its head to look back at her. Those blue eyes shifted from hers to the bow she held in her hands, as if it understood she was holding a weapon, and what that meant.
    “Sibyl! Shoot it!” Alistair insisted, lashing out at the wolf with his knife, slicing the animal’s hide across its chest. Blood bloomed in stark contrast to its white fur.
    The wolf howled, reacting instantly, its teeth sinking into Alistair’s forearm and shaking the dagger loose. It sailed some distance away, landing at the feet of Fian. The big, black steed had backed as far away as was possible on his tether and Sibyl noted that Winnie was gone altogether, back down the forest path, presumably headed toward home. That meant she had no horse upon which to escape and cursed herself for her thoughtlessness in not tying the animal up. She would just have to take Alistair’s, she decided.
    Sibyl stood, bow still drawn taut, taking careful aim. This was her one chance and she wasn’t going to waste it.
    A shout to her right, coming from the direction of the stream, startled her, making her heart leap up high into her throat, but it didn’t sway her aim. She knew it was likely one of Alistair’s men but she didn’t care. She would be on Fian and away before they caught her.
    Sibyl’s arrow found its mark.
    The wolf howled, bounding off, and Alistair screamed, a high-pitched sound that echoed in the quiet woods, making the horse behind her whinny and yank at his tether.
    Sibyl lowered her bow, staring into her betrothed’s wide, pained eyes.
    “Ye shot me,” Alistair croaked, staring at her in disbelief and then looking over to see his forearm pinned to the tree on his right, an arrow sunk clean through his flesh and deep into the tree’s bark.
    “My arrow aims true, too, ya ken?” Sibyl kept the tremble from her voice, eyes blazing. She didn’t take her gaze off him as she picked up the quiver and slung it and the bow across her shoulder. “I could have killed you. Remember that.”
    She turned to grab Fian’s reins and ran into the bare chest of a man with thick, dark hair almost as long as her own. Sibyl barely reached his shoulder and she looked up, up, into the man’s face, into his bright blue eyes, her breath catching in her throat. He was a Scot, but he was not one of Alistair’s men, of that she was sure. He wore only a Scot’s tartan plaid, wrapped and belted at his waist, part of it pulled like a sash across his broad, bare chest.
    “I… I must…” Sibyl struggled to find her voice, wrestled her mind for words that would make sense when strung together all in a row. The man’s presence was disarming enough, but the look in those bright blue eyes made her knees feel wobbly under her skirts. “Be… be away.”
    The man didn’t speak, but his look pinned her to the spot. She was mindful of her surroundings—of Alistair’s cries for help, of the big, black horse that had pulled free from his tether and had turned to gallop back up the forest path, of the sound of men and dogs and horses in the distance—but she was far