A Highland Werewolf Wedding by Terry Spear Page B

smelling every part of the scraped
     and gouged metal, and analyzing the scents. He smelled the two younger McKinley brothers—the
     same two brothers who had arrived late at the church.
    Elaine was taking in the scents also, sniffing around the vehicle as if she was one
     of his wolf pack, not a stranger who shouldn’t want to be involved, not someone who
     was related to the men who had done this. She would memorize their scents and know
     them again if either of them got close to her.
    Her tail was down, while his was straight out, fully alpha, aggressive, in charge.
     She wasn’t cowed, but she wasn’t happy, either. He quickly moved to nudge her face
     in a show of solidarity. She licked his cheek in understanding, maybe trying to tell
     him how sorry she was. She wagged her tail a bit, but it was a sad kind of wag.
    He hoped he could get to his cell phone so he could tell Ian where he was and what
     was going on. He moved back to the minivan and tried to reach in through the window
     with his right front paw. The glass shattered, but the gap between the roof and the
     door now was too narrow to even reach in with his foreleg. He scraped his leg on the
     broken glass, cutting it and swearing inwardly, growling outwardly.
    When he stood, he saw Robert Kilpatrick’s red curls crest the bluff right before he
     saw the rest of Robert’s head. “Hey, Cearnach, whatcha doin’ out here, mon, wearing
     your wolf coat and running with your new girlfriend? Better take care or you might
     get stranded. Then where would you be?” He gave a harsh laugh, his green eyes glittering
     with menace, then he hurried away from the cliff.
    Cearnach would climb the cliff and pay Robert back if he could, but the cliffs were
     so steep here that he’d have a better chance of climbing them if he were a mountain
     goat.
    Then he began to think of what Robert meant. Stranded . How could they be stranded unless… hell . Cearnach ran full out toward the castle ruins.
    He glanced over his shoulder to make sure Elaine was keeping up. She was following,
     her face grim and her tongue hanging out.
    When he reached the path, he looked back again, but he had to stop the men if they
     were attempting to steal Elaine’s rental car. She was close, nearly to the path. He
     jumped up and climbed the few feet to the stone path, then ran as fast as his legs
     would carry him up all the stairs and around the walkway that wound through the cliffs
     until he could see the car park.
    Her car was gone. The car park was empty.
    Damn it to hell.
    Despite the rain, he could smell that two of the McKinley brothers had been here on
     this path. Why would they have been here ?
    He glanced back to see if Elaine was following him. She was nowhere in sight. His
     heart plummeted. He dove back the way he’d come. He was fairly certain that none of
     the McKinleys would harm them. The brothers were just annoyed enough about Cearnach
     crashing the wedding—to their way of thinking—and stirring up trouble that they wanted
     to pay him back. He hadn’t thought they’d go to these lengths.
    He ran as if his life depended on it, frantic that Elaine might have come to harm,
     or that they might have somehow gotten hold of her. But he was certain she would be
     growling, baring her teeth, charging, and snapping her jaws if anyone had tried to
     approach her, and he would hear her feral outrage.
    When he reached the bottom of the long, narrow steps, where they had headed for the
     beach, he didn’t see Elaine. His heart slamming into his ribs, he looked up at the
     steps leading into the tunnel that took them into the inner bailey. She wasn’t anywhere
     that he could see. Not on the stairs, the path, or the beach.
    He smelled the air. She’d been here recently. He ran for the steps leading to the
     castle tunnel, and by the time he’d come to the entrance, she was entering it.
    He’d never seen a more beautiful sight. He wanted to hug the life out of her now