Page 10 of Wolf Pack

“Ja.”

He would be ten and five years in two more months. His mother and father had named him Bodolf—wolf leader. Someday, he might be. But not this day. He had balked at changing his name until Elene told him Conall meant strong wolf in Gaelic, so he was fine with that.

Conall began shouting orders to his younger siblings. “Row. Put your backs into it. Hurry. Go.”

Isobel cautioned him to keep his voice down.

Conall was a good navigator, but Isobel was still in charge. Her mother and father had been eager to teach her how to lead a party to the Scots’ land once her twin brother, Leif, had been lost at sea. She never thought she would be fleeing their home to live in Scotia and taking her young kin there.

“There!” Isobel said, seeing another seagull flying skyward. “Do you see the coast? Ohmigods, and trouble.”

Her heart began skipping beats. She’d been so worried about reaching land safely—though the rocks and currents could be dangerous—that what she now saw meant real danger for them.

Two longships were sitting ashore, partly visible beyond the bend of the cliffs. They couldn’t see whose longships they wereor the men who had ridden in the ships, but they knew they would be close by.

If they caught her and the others, they would return them home for a reward, and she and her kin and Elene would die, or if they were an enemy clan and knew it, they might just outright kill them.

Then they heard fighting above the cliffs some distance from where they were. Their wolves’ hearing could hear so much farther than humans could.

“What do we do now?” Conall asked, his words hushed. “Viking raiders. If they find us, they’ll kill us.”

“Or they’ll return us home for ransom first,” Isobel said.

“Just as bad.”

Drifting fog hid the peril of the rocks that awaited them. If they hit them, they could wreck the ship. Making it to shore would be perilous, and they might not all make it.

She thought they could travel further inland and blend in with the population. Now they had the problem with Vikings fighting the local Scots, who could be just as fierce as the marauders. And either side could want her and her kin dead.

Elene had taught Isobel and her kin the Scots’ language, though it was similar to Isobel’s. Because Elene was a wolf like them, she felt a kinship despite having different roots.

When Elene’s parents’ wolf pack suffered large losses in their clan, they joined another chieftain and his clan until they could add to their wolf numbers again.

It seemed it wasn’t meant to be. Not when Viking raiders had stolen Elene and several women and children from her clan and sold them to other clans as slaves. Because Isobel and her family had been the only wolf shifters in the Viking clan, she didn’t feel any loss in leaving the clan behind. They’d never made friends there.

Elene was the same age as Isobel, just as passionate a fighter, and just as eager to escape the tyranny of the chieftain and his people. But for Elene, it was different. She would be returning to her homeland. Isobel and her kin were the enemy here.

She was thankful Elene had told them to change their names to take on Scot’s names to help hide their origin. Five weeks on the ocean helped them get used to their new names.

Elene was just as worried about her reception in Scotia. She had been taken prisoner ten summers ago. Her parents had been murdered during the raid. Elene didn’t even know if any of her kin were still alive up north of here or if they would take her in.

Certainly, Elene’s people wouldn’t welcome Isobel and her kin, no matter that they had freed her and brought her to safety. And no matter that they hadn’t been a part of the clan that had killed Elene’s people and taken Elene hostage either. They still had Viking heritage.

Isobel hadn’t told her cousins what concerned her, though. They had enough to worry about.

Landing the longship safely on the beach beyond the breakers was now Isobel’s current dilemma and avoiding being seen by the Viking raiders and the Scots fighting them also.

“We will break up on the rocks before we reach the shore,” Conall warned.

“We willna.” Isobel cast him a scolding look. She had to keep the younger ones’ spirits up.

Libby was spirited, but right now, she looked haunted, half hidden under her long wool shawl.

Elene was quiet as usual as if she were still a slave in the clan’s village.

“You can speak your mind now,” Isobel said. “You are our friend, no’ a slave any longer.”

Elene nodded, her hair as matted as all of theirs, braided with beads, just like theirs, though her hair was dark while theirs was the color of spun gold.

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