Highland Wolf Pact: Blood Reign: A Scottish Werewolf Shifter Romance by Selena Kitt

whate’er knowledge he’s ’ere t’seek. An’ I do’na feel ye should give it t’him.”
    “How d’ye know anythin’ about me?” Griff asked, still keeping his tone conversational. He wasn’t going to take the girl’s bait, no matter how she set the trap.
    “I know enough.” Bridget snapped a carrot between her teeth, chewing noisily. The vegetable clearly hadn’t been fully cooked. “I know ye’re full’o’pride. Ye’re boastful, ye’re rude, ye b’lieve ye’re entitled. Not only t’whate’er ’tis ye wanna know ’bout t’lost packs’o’wulvers, but ye act as if ye’re king of ’em a’ready.”
    “Bridget,” Aleesa warned, shaking her head.
    “Accordin’ t’prophecy, I am.” Griff smiled, a little smugly, he had to admit.
    He heard Aleesa gasp, and she put her trembling mug back on the table to gape at him. Her blue eyes stared into his, her head cocked, and he knew she was seeing, maybe for the first time, the color of his eyes.
    He wondered if they were their usual, strange, gold color, or if they had suddenly flared red. He sometimes could feel when it happened, especially when he was angry, but not always. The older man was watching too, a look on his face that had not been there previously. It wasn’t frightened, like the dark-haired wulver woman, it was harder, more knowing, and resolute.
    “Wha’ prophecy?” Bridget looked between her parents, frowning, and then at Griff. “I know of no prophecy about t’king of wulvers. Ye’re an arrogant, assumin’ fool.”
    “Mayhaps ye do’na know as much as ye think ye do.” Griff blinked at her and Bridget glared back, grinding her teeth. He could hear it.
    “T’red wulver?” Aleesa’s voice trembled almost as much as her mug had in its journey from hand to table. She glanced at her husband, meeting his eyes, and something passed between them.
    The gray-haired wulver stood, towering at full height, looking down at Griff and snarling, “That’s not a claim t’make lightly.”
    “It’s mine t’make.” Griff stood, too, and it happened so fast that both women at the table jumped back in shock when Griff shook his dark mane of hair and shifted instantly from man to wulver-warrior. His half-wolf form was formidable, twice his normal size, with a wolf’s head but a man’s body, his fur a dark russet color, his eyes blood red, flashing.
    He didn’t need to see himself to know.
    He saw it in their eyes.
    He saw it on Bridget’s already pale face that went stark white at the sight of him.
    Not to be outdone, the older man shifted, too. His mane of hair turned to gray fur and teeth, as the two wolf-men faced each other across the table, growling deep in their throats, threatening each other, dark lips pulled back from their canines in warning.
    “Enough!” Aleesa cried, standing and holding a palm out to each wulver, as if she could keep them apart. “Violence’s forbidden ’ere. If ye wanna ’ave a pissin’ contest, go do it top side, d’ye hear me?”
    Griff shifted back first, with a shake of his big, russet-colored wolf head, and the older man followed suit, but the tension hadn’t eased in the slightest. Griff felt the hair still standing up on the back of his neck as he faced the gray-haired wulver.
    “If he really is t’red wulver…” Aleesa murmured to her husband. The gray-haired man’s lip curled, and Griff saw, he didn’t know what to believe.
    “I am t’red wulver,” Griff insisted. He’d been called such in his own pack for so long, he wasn’t used to being doubted. “Ye’re addressin’ yer future king.”
    “Ye’re no one’s king yet, pup.” The other man leveled him with a long stare. “And ye’re addressin’ Alaric, t’Gray Ghost, swordmaster t’yer father, Raife, and ’is father a’fore ’im, and senior guardian of this temple. Ye’ll stand down, or I’ll be glad t’remind ye of yer place ’ere.”
    Griff had the impulse to fly across the table, to take him on here and