Her Kilted Wolf by Tabitha Conall

Her Kilted Wolf
    by
    Tabitha Conall
     
    The Colliding Worlds Series #1
     
    In Scottish castles, the ghosts were real. Real…and plentiful. As Mattie Sloane followed her Alpha through the stone halls of the Stronghold, she kept away from the walls. Ranked sixth in the North American pack, she’d never admit to being scared of ghosts, but that didn’t mean she wanted to walk through one.
    From behind her, a voice whispered, “Have you seen the girls here?” Ripped and blond, Xavier chased skirts wherever they went–and often caught them.
    “Shhh.” Mattie didn’t even turn to see who he was talking to before she spoke. “They’ll hear you.” Not only did their hosts have the same werewolf hearing they did, but the seven North American wolves had nearly reached the Great Hall where their Alpha, Darius Bishop, would be greeted by the Scottish Alpha.
    When she glanced at Xavier, he smiled at her, but did as she’d ordered. And well he should—she’d whupped him good on her way up the pack rankings. She was the highest ranked wolf Darius had brought with him to Scotland, and the only female. If Xavier or any of the others dared to show her any lip, she’d put them in their place, violently and decisively.
    It wouldn’t be the first time.
    The Great Hall doors stood open. As they turned to enter, the seven of them naturally fell into place, three soldiers on each side in neat rows, with their Alpha in the center. Darius paused a moment, letting the wolves and other creatures in the hall notice them before he started forward, his six lieutenants in step.
    “Darius!” The Scottish Alpha, Lachlan MacPherson, strode toward them, his long legs eating up the distance. “Indulging in a little pomp and circumstance, I see.”
    Darius clapped his hand into Lachlan’s. “I always like to make a good first impression.”
    They both sounded like they were joking around, but Mattie knew better. Darius and Lachlan were friends and allies, but that wasn’t the case with many of the other attendees to the meeting. Many were ‘potential’ allies—and just as potential enemies.
    Still, rumors said the vampires were preparing a campaign to send a world-walker to the ‘world’ closest to them. And if the vampires were going to launch a preemptive play like that, the werewolves needed to do the same. Thus the meeting.
    Mattie didn’t know all of the history of the colliding worlds. What she knew was that the dreams of the people of Earth launched those other worlds into being—a world with vampires, a world with werewolves, a world with dragons. Each of those worlds, or dimensions, as the sciencey people called them, drifted toward Earth as though pulled there by an invisible string, until finally the world overlapped Earth and the two “collided” into the same space-time and became one.
    Each time they collided with a world, new creatures and myths and nightmares joined them on Earth. For the most part, the people on Earth never knew what kind of dreams created a world or what might burst forth when they collided with it. But there were a few, rare people who could world-walk—could jump to other dimensions and come back again. They could warn Earth of what was coming, and could even forge alliances with the creatures in the other worlds before they ever collided.
    To let their enemies forge alliances with the new world’s inhabitants while sitting around and doing nothing was unpardonable. The wolves and whatever allies they could gather needed to find a world-walker and launch a campaign of their own.
    Mattie tuned back in to the conversation going on between Darius and Lachlan. “So I hear you’ve got peace talks coming up with the Humans Firsters,” Lachlan said. “Bold move.”
    “I’m hopeful,” Darius said. “But we each have our problems. Any peace talks in your future?”
    Mattie knew Darius was referring to the ongoing dispute between the British and Scottish wolves about who should rule the island.