Read Online Claimed by the Wolf Prince by Marguerite Kaye - Free Book Online Page A

sweetness of her cries filled his heart. When she took him in her mouth, he felt as if his life-force were being drawn into her, and he came with an explosive force that cast him into another dimension of feeling. Their coupling had about it a primordial rightness, as if it were ordained. Rocking her gently to another climax as she sat astride him, Struan could have sworn that the world stopped for them.
    Iona shuddered, crying out her pleasure, throwing back her head to the sky in ecstasy, the pulsing and throbbing of her sex causing Struan to cry out his own completion as she collapsed on top of him, her nipples hard against his chest, her mouth soft against his lips.
    They lay thus, listening to the night creatures rustling in the undergrowth around them. They slept entwined, cocooned in Struan’s cloak, as the moon gave way to the sun and the dawn broke. They joined again, for the last time, as the dew settled around them, as the tawny owl returned to its perch in the tree and the capercaillie roused itself for the daily forage. By the time they made their slow, desolate way back to the caverns, the day was well advanced.
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    Eoin was there to meet them. “Where have you been?” He clutched at his brother’s arm. “Struan, is she to undergo a Binding?”
    Struan shook his head.
    â€œThen Marking it must be. You know there is no other way.”
    Struan cast his mind back, over the brief period of his reign. It had brought the clan together, but it had torn him apart. He realised it then. He had been deeply unhappy. And lonely. The years ahead would be lonelier still, now he had had a taste of what it would be like not to be so alone. He looked at Iona, her beautiful face distraught at their impending parting, the scent of their coupling still on them both. There must be another way. There must!
    â€œCome,” Eoin said briskly, “We must prepare for the ceremony, we have little time.”
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    Alone in her chamber, Iona was tended by the Faol women, who were silent and grave, remote, on edge, no longer softly beautiful but glittering, like the hard awesome beauty of the cathedral cavern.
    â€œWhat is happening?” Iona asked them, trying desperately to keep the quiver from her voice.
    â€œDon’t you know?” Kirstin looked surprised. “Has not Struan…”
    â€œHush now,” Lillias said to her. “It is for the prince to know and us to find out.”
    They bathed Iona. They braided her hair. She tried not to think about the coming ordeal. She couldn’t bear to contemplate what would follow. Her departure from Kentarra. She would leave her heart behind, even if she kept her soul. The gown they dressed her in was a rich velvet affair, black, braided with silver, the hem adorned with tiny silver bells.
    â€œYou know it ends tonight, don’t you?” Kirstin said maliciously. “You know the spell you have cast on Struan is broken? He was always meant for me.” Her inner wolf, small but lithe, with silky black hair, appeared suddenly before Iona, its eyes menacing, but she refused to shrink from its gaze.
    â€œKirstin!” Lillias said sharply, and the transformation was reversed.
    The bell began to toll. The women led Iona out along the echoing tunnels and passageways of the caverns, past the throne room where the silver moon suspended over the chair cast a surreally bright light, out through the rock fissure that formed the main entrance, and into the night.
    The moon was full. The skies had cleared to a midnight blue with the ghostlylunar presence suspended almost exactly above the top of the cliffs. It illuminated the path that wound down to a crescent beach. The waves were white-crested, foaming onto the steeply shelving shore, the sand rattling with the force of them as they ebbed and flowed, ebbed and flowed.
    The Faol stood silent and ominous in a circle. At their centre, a fire. Beside the fire, Struan, dressed as he had been