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

and something passed between them. How long had it been, Griff wondered, since the parents had seen their daughter? Forty years, mayhaps? The older wulver woman turned back to Griff, asking, “She found ’er one true mate, then?”
    “Aye, The MacFalon.” He had already told her he didn’t believe in magic—he wasn’t about to tell her he didn’t believe in “one true mates” either.
    “The... who?” Bridget looked blindsided. She’d forgotten the fought-over chicken leg. She’d probably even forgotten her loss to Griff at the crossroads, from the confused, surprised look on her face.
    “Donal MacFalon,” he explained. “Son of Lachlan. Brother of Alistair.”
    “My Kirstin’s married t’The MacFalon?” Alaric’s voice was as hard as granite.
    “He’s a fine man,” Griff countered, shaking his head at the old man’s alarm. He could understand it, of course. There was a time when The MacFalon—in fact, all of the MacFalon clan—had actively hunted and killed wulvers. But that wasn’t the case anymore, not since the wolf pact. King Henry VII, who had an encounter with Griff’s grandmother, from which his father, Raife, was born, had initiated the wolf pact. It had resulted in peaceable relations between the wulvers, Scots and English for years.
    “He’s a good husband an’ father,” Griff told them. “An’ a trusted leader.”
    “He’s still laird of the clan?” Aleesa asked, cocking her head in confusion.
    “Aye. He was when I left.” Griff chuckled. “They live in Castle MacFalon.”
    “How?” Aleesa frowned. “I know t’wolf pact was keepin’ the peace b’tween ’em, but... I can’na imagine t’MacFalons allowin’ wulvers t’live in t’castle.”
    “Heh. You’d be surprised.” Griff grinned, remembering how often he was at Castle MacFalon, or Rory was visiting the den. They passed back and forth quite often with no incident. Just thinking about it made him a little homesick. “Besides, Kirstin’s not a wulver anymore.”
    Alessa sat back, truly shocked, whispering, “What?”
    “My mother, Sibyl—she’s a human woman, not a wulver—she’s a great healer,” Griff explained. He tried to think of the best way to present things to her, but decided there wasn’t really a good one. So he just told her. “She found a cure for t’wulver woman’s curse. They found an old text buried in the first den, and she deciphered its meanin’ enough to gather the herbs she needed to make a cure.”
    “The Book of the Moon Midwives?” Aleesa asked, her already wide eyes growing wider.
    “Aye, how’d ye know?” Griff wondered aloud.
    “I know of it,” she breathed. Aleesa looked at her husband, then back at Griff, and finally, her gaze fell onto her daughter—the one who she had not borne, but raised. “No one knew where t’was. Tis where the prophecy’s told.”
    “Aye, m’mother and the wulver women have been pouring over the thing for years.” Griff snorted, sitting back in his chair. “M’mother could only read English. But she got help from Moira and Beitrus.”
    “Beitrus...” A smile flitted across Aleesa’s face. “She’s still alive, then?”
    “Aye, old as t’hills, startin’ t’go blind.” Griff smiled back at her. “…and she’s no longer a wulver either.”
    “What?” Aleesa exclaimed.
    “She’s the one who tested t’cure,” Griff told her. “Insisted, as she was t’oldest, and had t’least t’lose, if it killed ’er.”
    “They let ’er just take it?” Alaric cried.
    Griff chuckled. “No, but if ye knew Beitrus—she’s stubborn.”
    “Aye, that she is.” Aleesa laughed, patting her husband’s hand. “Always was.”
    “Why’d ye never send word?” Griff asked, looking between the two older wulvers with a slow shake of his head. “At least tell us ye were ’ere?”
    “I can’na leave.” Tears sprang to Aleesa’s eyes again and she blinked them quickly away when her daughter looked at her. “Once a priestess