Highland Wolf (Highland Brides, #10)(10)

“Here.”

An oatcake appeared before her face, and Claray’s eyes widened with wonder. She was so hungry she simply leaned forward the few inches necessary and bit into it. Realizing what she was doing, she glanced up to the Wolf’s startled face and took it from his hand as she began to chew the first bite.

Unfortunately, she hadn’t had much to drink in the last four days either. A pitcher of watered-down mead had been brought to her room the first and third day, but that was it. Although several had been brought up on the fourth morning, the day of the wedding. It hadn’t been watered down though. Claray suspected her uncle had hoped that the combination of strong mead and lack of food would make her more compliant. That suspicion had been enough to keep her from drinking more than one glass despite how parched she’d been. Now her mouth was so arid she couldn’t even work up saliva. Not a good combination with hard, dry oatcakes, Claray realized as she tried to swallow and started to choke.

The next few minutes consisted of choking, coughing and desperately trying to catch her breath while the Wolf pounded her repeatedly on the back and tried to force liquid down her throat that she merely spewed everywhere as she coughed some more. When it finally ended, she was sagging against the poor man’s wet plaid, her stomach still aching with hunger, her breath coming in raspy gasps and too weak to do more than moan when he asked if she was all right. It should have come as no surprise to anyone when her reaction to the Wolf draping a plaid over her and urging his horse to move again was to lapse back into a deep sleep that took her away from all her discomforts.



“How is she?”

Conall tucked his plaid back around Claray and met Roderick’s concerned gaze with a grim one of his own. “Sleeping. She needs food and drink. I should ha’e thought o’ that sooner.”

“Ye could no’ ken she had no’ been fed or watered properly while at Kerr,” Roderick said solemnly.

“Watered?” he asked with faint amusement. It was like the man was talking about a horse or dog.

Roderick just shrugged and said, “There’s a clearing west o’ here. We could set up camp for a bit. Let the horses rest while we hunt up some food for her.”

“Or we could just cook the rabbit we have,” he said dryly.

“I somehow do no’ think she’d be happy with that,” Roderick said with amusement.

Conall grunted in agreement, but found himself lifting the plaid again to check on her as he realized she hadn’t even noticed that the bunny, Brodie, was missing. He’d removed it from her lap and passed it to Hamish when she’d fallen asleep the first time. The man had placed the creature in his saddlebag and assured him it would be perfectly happy there. Conall didn’t really care other than he, for some reason, didn’t want Claray upset. He definitely didn’t want her choking again either. That little episode had scared ten years off his life, he was sure. Her face had gone past red to purple and she hadn’t been able to catch her breath. It had been quite alarming. The way she had gone limp against him afterward hadn’t done much to reassure him either. He couldn’t tell if she’d fallen back to sleep or was in a faint, but despite the amount of sleeping she’d been doing since they’d ridden away from Kerr, she was still very pale and still had those black pouches under her eyes.

“So?”

Conall let the plaid drape back over Claray again and glanced to Roderick. “Aye. The clearing in the west. Lead the way,” he said, and followed when the man pulled out ahead to do just that.





Chapter 4




Claray murmured sleepily, smiled and cuddled into the warmth wrapped around her. Only to blink her eyes open with surprise when her shifting brought on a responding movement that saw her suddenly on her back with something heavy thrown across her legs and something else almost equally heavy across her chest just below her breasts. There was also a sleepy grumbling in her ear that blew the hair around her face. It was followed by a smacking of lips and a murmur of unintelligible words.

Despite all of this, it took a full moment for her to realize that the warmth wrapped around her was the Wolf. She’d been resting on top of his chest; however, her squirming around had made the man roll and now he was the one on top. Well, sort of, she acknowledged wryly. Really, he was on his side next to her. But his one arm and leg were cast over her and cuddling her close, while his lips were now . . . well, she wasn’t sure what his lips were doing, though it felt like he was chewing lightly on her ear.

And why was that sending little arrows of heat and tingling through her body?

Claray had no idea, but it did seem to her that getting out from under the Wolf might be a good thing. Especially since she had a terrible need to relieve herself. Fortunately, that was the only discomfort she was experiencing at the moment.

This was the third time Claray had woken up since they’d stopped in what was the prettiest glade she’d ever seen. The first time it had been close to noon, and she’d barely opened her eyes before the Wolf was plying her with ale and mead. Enough to near drown her. Once he’d decided she’d had enough liquids, he’d then produced an entire pheasant for her.

Still warm and on the stick used to roast it over the fire, it had been bursting with the scent of fine seasonings and wild spices, and had honestly smelled like heaven. But despite how hungry she was, Claray couldn’t eat pheasant. She didn’t eat meat and hadn’t for some time. Rescuing, mending and befriending a wee bird with a broken wing had made it impossible for her to eat the meat of flying creatures, and helping Edmund, the stable master at MacFarlane, mend a bull with a broken leg and then having it follow her everywhere like a dog had added beef to the list of things she wouldn’t eat either. By the time Claray was fifteen years old, there wasn’t any meat she could bring herself to consume. She’d explained this quietly to Conall and, much to her relief, while he’d looked surprised, he hadn’t raised a fuss, and she’d then gone into the woods to find wild berries, mushrooms, wood sorrel and elderflower to munch on to ease her hunger. When she’d returned with her selection of foraged food, Conall had been waiting with a couple of oatcakes still warm from cooking on a stone by the fire. Thanking him gratefully, Claray had eaten her meal quickly, and then had curled up on the ground to rest while Conall and his men ate their meat.