Bound to the Wolf Prince by Marguerite Kaye Page A

snarl, Eoin sprang forward towards the castle and his prey.
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    Freya Ogilvie woke from a troubled sleep. The straw pallet which comprised her bed was uncomfortable and lumpy, quite unlike the feather mattress she was used to at home. The filthy blanket which was her only covering stank of horse. She was chittering. Though it was August, the keep was icy cold, the flagstone floors and rough walls of the room in which she was being held damp and dank. As usual when she woke, her head ached. The fear and despair she hid from her captors manifested itself each night in a tightly-clenched jaw.
    The single rush light had gone out. Getting to her feet, she felt her way around the curve of the wall to the narrow window which granted her the only view of this desolate island which had been her home for nearly two months. It must be nigh on three since she had first been taken. Since then, there had been two visits from her loathsome captor, the impoverished Earl of Tarbert. Twice she had refused to consider his dastardly proposal. The first time had been easy, as she had been imprisoned for barely a week. On the second occasion she’d rebuffed him again, though truth be told she’d expected to have been rescued by then. The earl had been furious. She’d feared he would violate her, but at the last minute he’d thought better of it. “I will not endanger the legality of our union by forcing myself on you, but you will pay for that little bit of defiance when we are wed,” he’d said ominously, righting his plaid. “And wed we will eventually be, whether you wish it or no.”
    Freya shuddered at the memory. By day she could persuade herself she would never submit. At night, locked in the turret room, whose every stone she knew intimately, she doubted her resolve. How much longer must she rot here? She massaged her throbbing temples. Sometimes she wished he would come, just so that it would be over.
    Stop thinking like that! Outside, the sky had a sullen, ominous look to it. The sea was angry. A summer storm brewing. A movement at the foot of the turret far below caught her attention. The glint of an eye. Standing on tiptoe, she strained to see. Was that dark shape a shadow, or something else? Her eyes widened as it moved with liquid stealth. A wolf. A huge wolf, a magnificent beast, crouched down on its mighty haunches. She could swear it was looking up at her. As if it was assessing her.
    Her mouth dried. She held the animal’s gaze. Or it held hers. She could not tear her eyes away. Surely there were no wolves on this island? The moorland was too bleak. There was not a tree or any other form of cover, save the castle. But wolf it was. Sleek, huge, beautiful. And savage. She could sense it, in the bunching of its muscles under that luxurious fur. Nature at its most perfect, and its most lethal. And its most enthralling.
    Freya tried to haul herself up higher onto the window the better to see. Her calves ached with the effort. Being on the top floor of the keep, the window was not barred. As she leant out, the ground swooped up, making her dizzy. She closed her eyes until the dizziness stopped. When she looked down again, the wolf had gone.
    She must have imagined it. A trick of the light, though it had seemed so palpably real. Then she heard the blood-curdling noises.
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    Eoin’s wolf shuffled back on its powerful haunches, its ears flattened, its eyes fierce. It leapt, impossibly high into the air, its body stretching, arching, soaring through the opening in the tower and into the guards’ room. Three of them, playing cards and drinking, their weapons carelessly discarded on the hearth. He was on the first one before he had even risen from the table, halting the scream in his throat with a vicious snap of his jaws. The other two grabbed their weapons, the blades of the dirks glintingmenacingly. Overturning their chairs to use as shields, the burly Highlanders stared at the wolf in