Wolf's Castle Read online

  Table of Contents

  WOLF’S CASTLE

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Epilogue

  WOLF’S CASTLE

  MADELYN HILL

  SOUL MATE PUBLISHING

  New York

  WOLF’S CASTLE

  Copyright©2014

  MADELYN HILL

  Cover Design by Celairen

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, business establishments, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials.

  Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Published in the United States of America by

  Soul Mate Publishing

  P.O. Box 24

  Macedon, New York, 14502

  ISBN: 978-1-61935-471-5

  www.SoulMatePublishing.com

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  To my husband, Mark.

  When I stated I wanted to write a book,

  you simply said, “Go for it.”

  Thank you for your unwavering support and love.

  Acknowledgements

  My family has supporting my writing since the beginning. Ariana, Giuliana, and Christian – I love you more than words can express.

  Without my sounding board, I would have hovered in the slush pile forever. Misty Simon, your humor and insight has helped me more than you know. And to my early readers, Vic and Andrea, we shared a lot of laughs—thank you!

  If it weren’t for an impromptu visit to Boldt Castle in Alexandria Bay, New York, this story may have never been written. The inspiration of the love behind the building of the castle and the charming, heart-shaped island was enough to make the romantic in me sigh. And when I arrived home, I set off typing.

  Chapter 1

  Isle of Mac Tìre, northwestern coast of Scotland, 1725

  “Cease struggling.”

  Muscle-strapped arms enveloped her, dragging her from the angry waves as if Poseidon himself was saving her from a watery grave.

  “My father!” The storm raged, adding to the anguish tearing her heart apart, piece by piece. “He pushed me forward, and then. . . Then he went under.” A pitiful, animal-like cry emanated from her as wind buffeted her body.

  Her rescuer’s arms tightened their steely grip as a deep voice commanded, “He’s gone.” She cringed at his voice—cold, remote, and lacking sympathy.

  Vivian Stuart ceased the futile struggle, too exhausted to continue. Each breath taxed her strength as she coughed up water and fought to breathe. Aye, she’d inhaled the entire sea as water clogged her lungs, suffocating her from inside.

  She glanced over her shoulder to see who had rescued her, then wiped at her eyes to clear her blurry vision and rid them of the salty seawater. Her efforts made them sting further.

  Her impression of her rescuer remained vague, but he carried her with ease. He was strong. She sensed the strength of him through their sodden clothing, but she was too tired to care who led her from the icy tomb. Too tired to fight the demons of the storm that lashed about them, splintered the boat, and ripped her father from her life.

  The murky light played about the area as she looked over the stranger’s shoulder and attempted to find any evidence of her servants. She saw their shadowy figures through the storm. Loyal Bernard dragged his wife ashore, slapping at Nessa’s back, who choked and spat up water. Just as Vivian praised God for their survival, she damned the sea for stealing her father.

  Dear God, she cried silently. Her father was gone and now she was stranded with a stranger. Tears deluged her eyes and raced down her face, mixing with the rain and water whipped up from the sea. Never had she experienced such heart-clenching tragedy.

  The stranger inspected her, a scowl on his face. A foreboding shiver inched over her body as she shook from the cold, rain, and his stiff countenance.

  The man muttered a curse as water sluiced over his dark hair, which boasted a thick streak of gray. Vivian tore her gaze away from the man and rested her head against his chest, too weary to shy from his grasp. She did not give a damn if he was a friend or a foe ready to tear her apart like a beast.

  As the man trudged further up the beach, she spied a castle arched across the skyline, brooding beneath a shawl of mist and rain.

  “Who are you?” the man asked, his thick brogue as loud as a clash of thunder and tinged with a mixture of disdain and curiosity.

  Taken aback by his harshness, she stammered, “I . . . I am Vivian Stuart. We were to visit Laird Alexander Maclean.” Her heart pounded against her chest as she panicked about the question and even more so the answer.

  He tipped his head, regarding her through intent, soulless blue eyes. “My father ‘tisn’t here.”

  “That cannot be,” she gasped. Their journey had been for naught. Her father’s craving to work with a fellow alchemist had proven to be his folly. Grief consumed her in a fresh wash of dread.

  “Oh, I assure you, lass, it can be.” A wolfish frown tugged at the corners of his mouth. “I would ken—because I killed him.”

  Chapter 2

  Killed his father?

  Her heart lodged in her throat as she struggled out of his grasp. He caught her before she tumbled onto the beach. She fought him and one thought drove her—she must find safety.

  Mayhap, in the slimmest hope of a miracle, her father survived.

  “My father! We must find him.”

  Deep furrows creased the man’s brow. In the pits of his eyes, she saw not only sorrow but contempt. Then they shuttered against all emotion as she grappled for strength.

  “Your father is gone.”

  The words bit at her and the thin veil of sanity that she clung to. Her clumsy, loving chemist of a father was her life. He wasn’t dead, regardless of what she had witnessed. If she deemed it not true for now, perhaps it would remain so in the future.

  And now, a confessed killer held her. The lunacy of
the situation rushed in, scuttling about in her mind. She tried to move, but his arms tightened around her.

  Vivian looked back toward the water. Her maid and butler dragged themselves down the narrow path masquerading as a beach. Their chests heaved from exertion as their skin shone blue. Planks wrenched from the boat and other debris swept onto the shore as a painful reminder of the huge wave that had submerged their boat and ripped her father away from her.

  What was she to do?

  “Salvage what you can,” Laird Maclean’s son commanded her wide-eyed servants as he entered a cave.

  “There’s nothing to salvage,” she heard Bernard mutter.

  The cave was carved out of the stone wall of the cliff. She cringed at the eerie dankness. They made their way through a maze of pathways and stairwells until the atmosphere changed from slick stone to dusty carpets and sealed doors. Strange how the cave led directly into the main part of the castle.

  Laird Maclean’s son gazed down at her, but Vivian ignored him and tried to steady her breath and regain control of the urge to flee. For if she had a mind to it, she’d leap from his hold and dive back into the sea, despite the power of the waves.

  Was she being led to her doom?

  “Where are you taking m’lady?” Bernard asked with a hint of bravado, though fear laced in his tone.

  “Silence.”

  Bernard cleared his throat. “See here, m’laird, ‘tis concerned we are.”

  The man stilled. Vivian shivered as all of the muscles of his chest and arms tightened and a glacial chill filled the narrow corridor.

  “To her chamber,” he said in a rumbling low voice that raked along her spine.

  Bernard ceased speaking, but she still found their presence brought a modicum of security to the situation.

  The man kicked open a bedchamber door.

  The room was dim save for the murky evening light misting through the mullioned windows, tattooing the flooring with a grid pattern. Damask bed coverings and a canopy hid the monstrous mahogany bed. Dust billowed as he paced across the thick area rug. Unceremoniously, he placed her in the wing-backed chair by the unlit fireplace.

  He faced the servants. “Go below. A servant will show you to your quarters.” His tone was gruff and grated on her every last nerve.

  Vivian shivered and her teeth began to chatter. Och the chamber ‘twas so cold. Water dripped from her soaked dress, staining the chair beneath her and puddling on the floor. The stranger hastened to the door, then glanced at the fireplace. He stopped and turned back to her, no emotion on his face. “I’ll have a maid bring food,” he said as he lit the candelabra and sconces before slamming the door as he left.

  The vile man had ordered Nessa and Bernard downstairs, leaving her amongst filth and gloom and eerie silence. No matter, their presence wouldn’t tame the terror that memory of his words sent racing through her mind once again.

  I killed him.

  Was it true?

  She used a candle to ignite the peat stacked in the fireplace. It lit, then smoked, as musty dung scented the air.

  She rubbed her hands up and down her arms to try and warm herself as she glanced about the room. Dear God, what was she to do?

  Evidence of evil surrounded her. Stone gargoyles flanking the fireplace looked like demons poised to snare their prey. Soot and ashes covered the fireplace and soiled the tapestry hanging above the mantel. Cringing, she picked up the candelabra and held it closer as she examined the scene depicted in the weaving.

  Centaurs, pigs, and bulls with glowing red eyes cavorted in a circle. Horns jutted from their flared snouts. In the center, a hulking gray wolf stood erect, the limp body of a woman draped over his arms. Blood flowed from the woman’s throat.

  Vivian gripped her neck with a shriek. The scene was so vivid, she imagined the slice of teeth tearing through her skin. She turned from the disturbing scene.

  Pulling at the scratchy neck of her gown, she walked to the armoire situated near the door. Her fingers shook as she pried the lock open. The armoire had few options but what was there hung neatly, as if waiting for her to make a selection.

  Even though she worried for Bernard and Nessa, she would stay in the room. She had no idea what was outside the door and no protector. Bernard was a stout man who’d stop at nothing to protect his dear wife, but Vivian had no one.

  Trembling hands hampered the choosing of a nightgown as nervousness pushed her to be done with her nighttime ritual in half the time it ordinarily took. If she was quick enough, she could retreat behind the drapes of the bed, secure from the probing eyes of the wolf in the tapestry and the vision of the man who had greeted her.

  As she gazed about the room, she shuddered. It was frightfully different from Westington, their home in Perth. Aye, so different and so many weeks of travel away from the eastern coast of Scotland. How she longed for everything familiar—her father, his books, her garden, and working in the library.

  Tears flared again. Her father was gone, his books now nestled in the cradle of the sea floor, washed from her life forever. She wanted to touch the leather that bound them and open the books laden with alchemy knowledge and her father’s coded notes. The ones he’d used repeatedly, the pages smudged with his indelible fingerprints.

  Sobs racked her shoulders. Gulping for air tore at her sensitive lungs and tender throat. She hugged herself to ease some of her loneliness as she slipped into bed and tugged the sheets up to her chin.

  Searching for peace, she envisioned her father and his worn features. His bright eyes that lit with excitement when he practiced alchemy. His gentle manner with her and those within their household. And the way he’d protected her against harm until this day.

  She thought of her father’s library and the time they’d shared in it. How she’d slide her hand along the age-worn wood of a lab table. In her mind, her fingers skimmed over the spot where she had carved her initials when she was seven, earning a stern reprimand from her father.

  Vivian swiped at the tears with the back of her hand.

  She had nothing to recall her father by. No Ussher’s History of the World, with its embossed cover and the pages she’d bent when she’d snuck the book into her chamber at night. Slowly, she’d read each page, absorbing the information Robert Stuart thought too masculine to teach her.

  Vivian kenned it was unusual to recall her father by his books, but where there were books, her father was often amid them. He was so innately a scientist that nearly all conversation and actions revolved around the topic.

  Undone, she inhaled and tried to stop the chattering of her teeth.

  Try as she might, she lacked the strength to force her eyes closed. Each time she tried, a creak alarmed her and they would pop open as fear claimed her. Or she envisioned Laird Maclean’s son barging into the chamber and stabbing her to death. His hair, with that unnatural gray streak, waving crazily with each physical blow. And Vivian was certain she heard breathing outside the damask curtains. Fear gripped her, pinning her beneath the covers as if taut ropes held her prisoner.

  And she swore she heard wailing from within the walls. Was it the wind whipping up its fury outside?

  She gasped as the doorknob clicked. A band of candlelight sliced through the darkness as the door opened.

  “Not to worry, lass,” a frail voice called out. “M’laird sent me to see to your needs.”

  “Oh,” she whispered, trying to summon the courage to lift the curtain.

  The sound of shuffling feet soothed her fears. Surely anyone who moved that slowly wasn’t a threat? Vivian flicked the curtain open with a finger. A white-haired man hunched over the hearth, loading the fireplace with sticks and bricks of peat. He stretched as he placed a gnarled hand on the crook of his back.

  He jumped when he noticed her watching him. A low chuckle rumbled his chest. “Wanted to stoke the fire, I did.”

  She nodded and released a sigh, relieved by the sight of someone other than the man who’d rescued her. Heat reached he
r and she snuggled into the protective cocoon of the bed. “Thank you. Are my servants well?”

  The old man wiped his hands on his red and green plaid then took a hesitant step forward. Nervously he twisted his hands and bowed toward her. “Aye, lass. ‘Tis safe they are in their chamber near the kitchen. Liam is what they’d be calling me, lass. Could you be doin’ the same?” He looked up at her, beseeching her with kind eyes and a ready grin.

  Seeing the easy smile on his weathered face, her fear dwindled. “Vivian Stuart. My father and I were to meet with Laird Alexander Maclean, but he’s. . .he’s not here.”

  Liam gave a sad shake of his head. “Aye, a tragic thing, his death. Can’t say it’s helped m’laird’s temper.”

  Chapter 3

  An icy drizzle pattering against the window woke her. She ducked beneath the coverlet, trying to block out the disruptive noise. It didn’t work, and she groaned as she threw the covers back and pulled herself out of the huge four-poster bed.

  She hadn’t forgotten the forbidding welcome she’d received the night before. It would stay with her for years. Rubbing her eyes to remove the salty grit, she swallowed as she looked around the bedchamber. It was exactly as remembered—horrid to the last detail. Even with the daylight filtering through the window, the room held a bleak, haunting presence. She grabbed the coverlet from the bed and tucked it around herself to ward off the chill of the morning and the unease that refused to leave her.

  She tossed a chunk of dried peat into the smoldering ashes in the fireplace, then stripped off the nightgown and replaced it with her dry but wrinkled and torn traveling gown. She had trouble fastening her stays, so she left them off. Och, Nessa would howl when she caught sight of the crumpled wool, unless her maid had indeed been the one to set the clothes out to dry. After Liam had left, Vivian had slept so soundly, ghosts could have cavorted in her chamber without notice.