18 comments/  22910 views/  56 favorites

The Wolf's Mistress

By: anais_v



"Well, come, for pity's sake! Let me look at you."

From the security of the shadowed doorway, Isabel bristled at her brother's arrogant command, but she came all the same. Once, she would have tossed a derisive comment his way, uncaring of the hateful things he'd say -- or do -- in response. But now that she was no longer in a position to gainsay him, it wasn't worth it to goad him.

She entered the elaborately furnished solar that had mere months ago been her father's domain, eyeing her brother warily.

Richard's eyes gleamed in calculation as his beady eyes ran over her, over the low-cut, tight -- gaudy -- gown that had been appropriated from one of her late father's lemans. "Yes. You'll do quite well," he said, well pleased by the efforts of the sour-faced maid who had rudely awakened her moments ago, dressing her with pinching hands. "Let's see if the bastard tries to say no to this!"

Her prior irritation at Richard's ominous early morning summons giving way to anxiety, Isabel said nervously, "He? What are you about, brother?"

Rising from his stately chair -- all the better to intimidate her with his great, reed-thin height, no doubt -- Richard peered down his snub nose at her, saying, "We journey to the Frasers today. Alec Fraser is a proud bastard and won't accept money as the only incentive to ally with me -- so I've decided to use you as added enticement."

Dumbfounded -- and horrified -- at the prospect, Isabel snapped, "But -- but that is madness! Alec Fraser will never agree to be your ally and certainly not with me as an inducement! You are wasting what little time you have like a fool!" she bit her lip in belated caution, taking a step backwards warily, cursing her tart tongue.

She had escaped one tyrant for another since her father's death and had felt the sharp sting of her brother's hand far too many times to count these past few months.

But for once, Richard did not react hotly at her impertinence. Instead, he rocked back on his heels, wagging a chastising finger under her nose, earning a frustrated sputter from her. "Well then -- you had best do your very finest to convince him of your worth, sister. After all, if he does not have you then Hugh MacGregor certainly will and I'll vow you'd rather be serving the Fraser bastard than the old letch."

Isabel's gut clenched at his words. She searched his face desperately, pleadingly, and Richard's eyes glittered with something nasty, his lips twisting into a goading smile as he carefully watched for her response.

"You wouldn't...not MacGregor..." she whispered.

"He's already agreed," Richard cocked a ruddy brow. "Though MacGregor boasts a less skilled set of men than Fraser, it's better than naught. Plus, he's filthy rich. He's willing to give me his protection and pay me a tidy sum for you! The reigning beauty of the highlands, apparently! Bah, there's a joke if ever there was one. You're the only thing of any damned value I have left to bargain with since neither clan will be swayed by the promise of coin alone for what I'm asking," he grunted, before giving her a sneering onceover, saying, "You'd best believe, girl, that it will be one or the other. One would never think that a well-used slattern could be of so much worth, but men will be men, always led by their bloody cocks. We leave within the hour. I'll not waste more time dithering! You'll do it, Isabel or else you know what will happen. Aye, you will do it!"

And then Richard was marching past her and out of the cosy solar with a face like thunder, his shattering news delivered, and though Isabel she would not usually linger in her brother's quarters, she groped her way to the chair he had just vacated, her legs weak, knowing she'd not make it to her place of solace without collapsing.

She glanced around the solar vaguely.

Alec Fraser or Hugh MacGregor. She shook her head, rejecting the prospect of having either man as her future protector. She could flee, she knew. But where to? Her father had earned many enemies -- as had his father before him -- and even her tentative acquaintances would not agree to house her for fear of the reprisals from her brother. She was not worth the effort of protecting. She could hardly blame anyone -- the Gordons had truly made a rod for their own backs over the generations. They had no allies.

Had it been summer instead of dead winter, Isabel's fear may have given way to spontaneity, may well have seen her slipping away from Gordon lands...but what would her fate be, a woman alone and with little coin? Rapine or worse. This was not one of the fairy-tales she'd enjoyed as a child told by a travelling troubadour in which, after the hardships, she would be rescued before the final terrible twist occurred. There would be no reprieve for her.

The nearest nunnery was a good three days' ride away. It would be a miracle if she made it there unscathed -- then there was there fact that she had a terrible sense of direction and should be lucky to find it all. She had never shown a strong obedience towards the teachings of the church, had never wished for a life of divine servitude, but when the option was between that and whoring herself out on her brother's order, the former won out.

Their clan was under threat, it was true, and it was unlikely that Richard's lean army could withstand the imminent attack of the Duncans. Whilst Isabel doubted she alone would bring about the compliance of a potential ally, even should she, she felt little for her clan save for animosity. But amongst her hateful kinsfolk were the few people she'd come to feel affection for over the years, and the thought of them hurt or slain twisted at her gut. Then there were the many children, the many innocents, who would suffer.

In addition to the fact that Richard was now her guardian, there was another thing he held over her -- the thing he had taunted her with as he had left just now, his leverage. Colm. Sensitive, wonderful Colm, their younger brother. If anyone was destined for a life serving God, it was he. He was no future chieftain, no future alpha leader of their pack, and Richard knew this well. He also knew of the bond she and Colm shared, knew that she would do anything to see to his welfare now that Richard was the one lording over them, her parents both dead -- not that her father had cared a whit for Colm when he'd been alive.

When news of the Clan Duncans threat had emerged, Richard had given her a choice -- either she abided by him thereby seeing to Colm's wish of joining the monastery, or Colm was fostered with Clan Morgan, a coarse, brutish lot who would jump on his tender demeanour with relish, beating his gentleness from him.

But Isabel has assumed Richard intended to marry her off, securing a fiscally and socially long-lasting alliance with one of the other highland clans as men were wont to do with their daughters or sisters -- not whore her off to the highest bidder.

Alec Fraser was a better bet than Hugh MacGregor if she truly had to choose but Fraser would not have her. The man could charm any female into his bed without so much as a coaxing word -- save for her that was, for when he'd half-heartedly tried a few summers ago she'd given him what for and then some.

Did Richard truly believe that a Fraser would come to the aid of a Gordon after generations' worth of hostility, of violence? That he would risk the well-being of his clan for them? For her?

She thought back to Alec Fraser as she'd last seen him: intimidating, stoic, and devastating in his savage male beauty. But whilst most females swooned over his coarse appearance, Isabel was frightened by it.

Though she'd seen him sporadically since childhood, she, like many others, had raptly followed his rise from lowly, cast-off bastard to chieftain of Clan Fraser and alpha of their pack. He was as revered as he was reviled, his skill as a soldier a thing of lore, the man a living legend. He was fawned over by ladies for much the same reason, although they tended to put a romantic bend on his activities, touting him a heroic knight in the vein of King Arthur rather than the fierce, ruthless warlord he was. Just as equally, he was derided by females for his status as bastard of the late Alasdair Fraser.

He had not given her so much as a passing glance at Elaine MacDonald's wedding at summer's start -- Richard was sorely misinformed in his ridiculous plan. Any flippant desire he may have to get under her skirts -- most likely for the sole purpose of crowing to his clansmen over bedding a Gordon -- was long gone. In fact, she doubted he had noticed her at all, so busy had he been pursuing and then bedding the MacDonald chief's third wife under the old man's nose. Women fell over him in their eagerness to bed him -- literally. While many other things may have changed with him over the years, he would not be the frivolous sort to do badly by his clan, and especially not for an insignificant woman. Though marked with a fierce reputation, he was also loyal, an inborn Fraser trait along with their slovenliness. He would dismiss her and her brother on sight, most likely insulted at Richard's daring if he was not amused by it.

Isabel left the solar in somewhat of a daze, passing her sleepy kinsmen and serfs, flinching at the looks thrown her way some pitying, most sneering. Clearly, they knew all too well of Richard's scheming.

If the Fraser clan was known for loyalty, the Gordons were known for their self-serving nature, their selfishness -- that, and their wealth, what little good it would do them now that they were the target of the highland's most vicious clan, and in addition to that claim, they were also feared as the cruellest pack of their race of people. No amount of money was worth it to any clan to ally with them for the sake of Richard's coin. No one wanted the Duncans as an enemy.

"Lady."

Isabel started out of her daze as she reached the foot of the stairs, the gruff greeting chilling her. She warily eyed the castle's seneschal.

"Yes, what is it?" she frowned at the grizzled man.

"Your brother awaits you in the courtyard."

"He truly means to leave today?"

The man's eyes slipped away from hers, rejecting the appeal in her eyes, her tone. "Best not to keep him, lady."

Isabel turned away briskly, making to remount the stairs, saying, "Then I must pack my-"

"Now, lady."

She bristled at the seneschal, giving an outraged cry as he grabbed at her arm and pulled her across the hall. Many eyes fell upon the two of them struggling, and Isabel cursed the men and women littered about, cursed their silent tongues and shifting eyes, all sending her on her merry-way to her fate as Fraser or MacGregor's leman.

"You are being unreasonable," she hissed under her breath then, tugging on the man's beefy hand as he reached the double-doors leading out of the courtyard. "It will soon be winter -- I must have my cloak at least-!"

He threw her a hard look over his shoulder and she sagged in defeat, looking away, certain that should she struggle, he'd simply hoist her over his shoulder and carry her out bodily on Richard's prior instruction. For all their airs and graces, the Gordons were inclined to barbarianism when it suited them, she thought bitterly.

But the man eventually granted her the concession of allowing a serf to bring her a cloak in small defence of the bitterly cold clime, and then he was pushing her out of the hall, leading her to the stables, towards the parcel of mounted men, her brother Richard at the front.

One of her Gordon cousins hoisted her impersonally up before him, his handsome face cold and ruthless, and then the band of her brother's men were making haste, departing Gordon lands on a swift canter, the chilled air whipping around them as they rode westerly.

"You've no need to fret, girl," her cousin said above her then in his usual monotone manner. "When Fraser's done wi' you, you'll still have a place wi' your clan. I'll not allow your brother to cast you out."

Isabel threw a wary look up at him at the steely promise, and he gave her a brief, unsmiling look, but there was something in his pale blue eyes that chilled her. She had grown before this man, had grown with his own children, and whilst their interaction had been minimum and detached at best, the sudden realisation behind that look -- and his words -- sickened her.

Feeling dirty, she stiffened in the saddle, sitting upright, careful to ensure than not an inch of her touched him, and he gave a short, hard laugh in mockery.

"You need not look like that, Isabel Gordon. You'll not bed the Fraser bastard and turn your pretty wee nose up at me, I'll vow. I always pinned you as a sensible lass. I'll give you my protection. You'll need it."

She shivered at the ominous promise of his last words and though she'd deigned to ignore him, she couldn't help but utter with mocking bitterness, "You mean you'll still have me after I've been tainted by Fraser or MacGregor, Cormac Gordon?"

Her cousin grunted above her, dismissing her sarcasm, "You'll do your duty to your clan and your pack, girl."

She thought his words rich considering she'd lived her whole life being referred to as runt by her kin, all of them sure to tell her that she was a shame upon the clan and pack with her half-mortal blood from her mother's side. Unlike her two brothers and everyone else in the pack, she had no inner beast, did not experience that shift from her current form to the form of a beast as the others did. Yet despite their disgust of her tainted blood they were happy enough to whore her out to the highest bidder for their own needs with the explanation that she did it for the good of her pack.

The rest of the journey passed in wordless silence, the steady pat of the horses' hooves against the treacherous paths grating on Isabel's nerves. The pace was relentless, Richard allowing a brief stop only once before he ordered for his men to remount again. The sun dipped, the chill heightened, and still they continued the arduous journey to Fraser lands.

As dark circled them and they no doubt rode closer to their goal, Isabel thought of Alec Fraser, thought of their childhood acquaintance with hope: Once...once, we were friends, were we not?

Or, if not friends, they'd both been on equal footing. But then, he was no longer the gaunt, quiet, young boy he had once been with his sunken eyes and his skinny body, she reminded herself. Gone had been any last shred of vulnerability at their last meeting.

Indeed, her father, should he have been alive and foolish enough to have attempted it, would no longer have been able to beat him. What did Alec Fraser owe her, the girl who had stood by, petrified, as her father had thrashed him time and time again when he had lived them after her father had taken Alec's mother as mistress? Isabel had been so weak, so fearful, she had never said a word, had never stood up for him despite how much she'd desperately wanted to. Her cowardice still shamed her to this day -- but she'd soon grown out of her terrors. A black eye, a bruised arm, a winded stomach had all been worth deflecting her father's ire from Colm.

Staring blindly at passing forestry, she knew she could not lie to herself.

She was doomed to be the plaything of Hugh MacGregor. Her cousin Cormac had been wrong -- she need not worry being cast out by the Gordons since it was inevitable she would not survive her time with the old man after he'd finished with her.

***

Alec tossed back the last of his ale, thumping his tankard against the scarred surface of his table, crying out for more.

A busty serf -- Beth or Bertha, he hardly knew -- poured him a healthy measure, pressing her breasts into his arm in invitation as she attended him.

Alec grinned at her, giving her a light pat on the rump in thanks, before turning back to his trencher and his men.

"-so I had the blonde above me and the red-haired wench attending me below. Ahh, 'twas was bliss, I tell you!"

Alec shook his head at the crude story. "Come, man," he clapped his cousin across the shoulder. "There are bairns about," he said mildly, tossing his head towards the litter of children running amok in the hall.

Gavin Fraser shrugged. "Aye, well seeing as how a fair few are probably mine, I've no complaint against their tender sensibilities being abused."

Alec shrugged, skewering his meat on his dirk, but before he'd popped the succulent morsel into his mouth, a white-haired brute entered through the heavy doors of his hall, his long strides thundering across the rush covered floor, his heavy brow lowered in a scowl.

"Ivan?" Alec nodded calmly, biting the meat, chewing steadily as he watched the older man.

"You've a visitor, chief," the Norseman said, every line of his body drawn taught. "Richard Gordon and his men."

The ribald chatter and laughter around the long table hushed at Ivan's statement; Alec's serfs and kinsmen looked towards him raptly, and a fair few of them drew their dirks in greedy anticipation of vulnerable Gordon flesh to skewer.

"What's he playing at, showing his cursed face here?" Gavin bit out beside him in offended outrage.

Alec considered the faces poised towards him. Each mirrored the distrust and abhorrence on his cousin's face. The prior hum of contentment and ease filling the hall was now heavier, darker.

"Whatever he wants I'm not interested -- send him on his way," Alec shrugged, but Ivan lingered, shifting from foot to foot in an uncharacteristic show of sheepishness.

"He said you'd want to meet with him. Said -- said he had someone you'd be wanting to see."

Gavin grunted. "That catamite needs to be taught-"

"Oh, aye?" Alec cocked a brow, giving in to idle curiosity.

"His sister. Isabel Gordon."

Alec felt his sardonic smile slipping, bemusement misting his mind.

"Chief?"

He glanced vaguely at Ivan, the reams of faces poised towards him, waiting for his reply, a blur.

"Well -- what should I tell the swine?" Ivan persisted.

"Tell him to fuc-"

Alec held up a ceasing hand, stilling his cousin's scathing instruction.

He took a healthy swallow of ale before wiping an arm of his mouth. "Send them in."

In his peripheral, Alec saw Gavin look from Ivan's retreating back to Alec in disgust. "What the devil are you playing at?"

Shooting his cousin a brief look, Alec returned automatically to his ale, sipping at the comforting liquid. "Nothing better going on, is there? Might as well see what he's about."

"You mean you want to ogle the Gordon bitch," Gavin muttered under his breath, his handsome face twisting in hostility, and before Alec could clip him around the ear, a loud, brash voice was declaring from the front of his hall:

"Well, you certainly landed on your feet, didn't you?"

Alec glanced across the way as Richard Gordon made his grand entrance, his sister following behind him -- though he'd have been hard pressed to identify her, bundled up in a thick, expensive looking cloak that made a mockery of even his finest garments.

Crude insults were hurled across at siblings, and Alec said, his voice ringing out, "Get on with it, Gordon."

Richard stopped midstride, hesitating for a moment, clearly torn between giving into the malice floating in his eyes when a gentler tongue would serve him better. He glanced around Alec's hall, taking in the sea of antagonistic faces, and said in a clipped voice, "Perhaps we can speak privately?"

Alec shook his head, saying dismissively, "Nay, I keep no secrets from my clan," and he held up a ceasing hand as the man would seat himself at his table. "Ye've not be invited to seat yerself at my table."

Gordon took no offence, turning away from him, a cat's smile playing over his sharply featured face as he looked towards his sister. Alec watched, annoyed, as the man made a grand show off relieving her of her cloak before folding it carefully over his hands, his eyes all the while on Alec.


The Wolf's Mistress



"Come, sister," Gordon clucked at her, still watching Alec. "Greet our host."

Exhaling sharply at the display that met him, Alec watched the girl at Gordon's side with appreciative eyes. She glanced quickly, nervously, at her brother before sending a brief curtsy Alec's way.

"My -- my lord," her eyes met his briefly before she dipped her head, clasping her hands before her, looking down. Submissive, subservient.

His cocked stirred, and he shifted in his seat.

"Well?" he said flippantly then, passing Gordon a suspicious once over, even as he watched the girl in his peripheral.

When it came to lasses, he had few preferences -- blonde, red or dark-haired, he didn't give a whit so long as they had a face that wouldn't curdle milk and so long as they enjoyed bed-play as much as he. But Isabel Gordon with her dark beauty appealed to him in a very specific way that he couldn't not deny nor quite understand. He was annoyed by his swift response to her for he was not short of amenable women and would not do himself a disservice by mooning about what he could never have like a green lad. But he got over his automatic reaction to her. He'd ever been an admirer of fair women and Isabel Gordon was certainly a welcome sight in his hall.

"I am in need of your...expertise."

"What?" Alec frowned, trying to clear his mind. He tried to focus as Gordon approached him, stopping a few feet away.

"I need you. As an ally. My father's so-called bastard son thinks to usurp me as alpha. He is claiming that his slut of a mother married my father first. He has nothing to prove it, of course, but he's getting...braver, shall we say?" Richard's thin lips twisted, a look of unease passing over his usually smug face. "We cannot fend off their pack alone."

"Oh, aye? Why should I care?"

"If they wipe out you Gordons, they'll be doing us all a favour!" Gavin crowed beside him, and his kinsmen roared approval.

Alec threw his cousin a sharp look, for it did little good rising to likes of Gordon and his goading presence.

"Wipe out the Gordons, you say? My sister here, you mean? For she is a Gordon. The defenceless women and children? Raped and slain?" Richard spread his arms expansively, and Gavin's previously aggressive expression dimmed for a moment.

Gordon's words left a sour taste in Alec's mouth, too. He did not advocate brute violence against innocents, but surely the man was exaggerating, no doubt thinking of playing at warfare to prove himself, to assert his authority now that his swine of a father had passed, leaving him as the clan's chief -- and alpha. A bloody joke.

"Do not think to guilt me in aiding ye. I'd not spit on ye were ye set aflame, nor would ye me. Ye've allies. Go to them. This is yer war."

"No one else will do as well as you, curse you," Gordon said in reluctant praise. "You Frasers have fought against the Duncans before, you-"

"At war with the Duncans?" Alec uttered low, sitting straighter in his seat, a chill passing over him despite the roaring fire in the hearth beyond.

His cultured tones dropping, his burr deepening, Gordon said, "Aye, wi' Reese Duncan, bastard of Lydia Duncan. I'll reward you richly, Fraser-"

Alec grunted, looked away, refusing the prick to his conscience, for he knew well enough what the Duncans were capable of. Aye, Richard Gordon had not been exaggerating.

"We don't want yer filthy money," Gavin all but hissed, the prior spark of conscience that had lit his blue eyes before suddenly darkening. "And it's no wonder the Duncan bastard's insane, being of both Duncan and Gordon blood. Christ almighty, the buggar never had a chance!"

Richard Gordon's milk white cheeks developed a blotchy, pink stain. His eyes narrowed. "You're fools to be so proud. Other than your lands and cattle, your clan and pack is lean in all ways. Fraser Castle is nothing but a pile of bricks! Aye, sneer all you want," he mocked at the wave of dissent that met his words. "Think what a tidy sum could do for your dwelling, your kinsmen? Especially with winter fast approaching."

Gordon's cajoling words of promise ringing in his ears, Alec stared around the careworn hall, still standing despite centuries of warfare and revelry -- and only just. Frasers had never been wealthy; it wasn't in their make-up to be prosperous in any way but on in battle. Aye, the money would do them good, but no amount of coin was worth risking his clan's welfare for the benefit of the Gordons.

"It's not only my money I was intending to gift you with, Fraser," Gordon continued, his voice bleeding into Alec's tentative thought-process on the matter, and so-saying, the man suddenly grabbed at his sister and placed her before him, presenting her like a trophy. But Alec had guessed at this from the off, for why else would he have brought the girl here?

"I saw the way you watched her at Elaine MacDonald's wedding -- I saw how you watched her all those years you were living on Gordon lands. How you've watched her today. Like a starved dog hungering over a tasty morsel. Don't deny it!"

Alec cocked a brow. "I'll not," he returned steadily, smiling slightly at the ruffled look on Gordon's face. "I admire comely women unashamedly." 

Richard dismissed this with a flick of his head, refusing to be beaten, clearly. "Aye, but admiring them is one thing, Fraser -- coupling with them is quite another. Say the word -- say you'll join fight for me, and she's yours. Come, it's a gift from God Himself! After all, how else would a bastard like you ever be able to touch the likes of her?"

Gavin hissed in Alec's air, engaged on his behalf. "Thrash him -- want me to do it for you?" he started to rise from the bench but Alec gestured for him to stay.

Beneath the table, his hand flexed, tightening into to the fist he so wished to slam into Gordon's smug face, but he schooled the violent urge, angered by it: he'd been taunted with that epithet -- and worse -- too many times in his twenty-four years to count. It didn't bother him. Then why did he feel his calm teetering so? After all, this was Richard Gordon, an insignificant fool hardly worth the effort of his ire.

"Tempting as the offer may be, I've no wish for a wife. They're more trouble than they're worth-"

Gordon's rich laughter cut him off. "Who said anything about a wife? Do what you will with her - make her a serf, subject her to backbreaking labour: a Gordon serving your every whim, wouldn't that be a sight!" A few of the braver serfs heckled at this, buoyed by the image, and Richard continued, "Or use her as your mistress. If I could get a hefty dowry out of her, don't you think I would? Stupid chit already gave it away for free to Ian MacDonald -- a bloody mortal! She's no untried maid. She'll service you well, man," Gordon promised, getting excited, trying to sell her to him, trying to secure Alec's compliance.

But Alec barely paid him mind, taken aback at Gordon's incentive to secure his compliance, but something else had caught him. 

Ian MacDonald. He stared at Isabel Gordon, watched as she pleated the fabric of her skirts, her hands shaking; he watched as her eyes looked anywhere but at him.

"Why am I no' surprised that ye'd subject the lass to such a fate. At least wi' marriage, ye'd protect her a measure. Ye really are a feckless swine, Richard Gordon. And my answer is still no," he said hardly then, inexplicably feeling the need to hurt the girl -- to make her hate him. "While it's true I imagined her spread before me many a cold night as any stupid fool would suffering his first calf love, I was still green, yet to lay my first woman. Well, Gordon, I've lain my fair share in that time and have come to learn that one is as good as any other. Unlike ye, I've no need to pay for it. No woman is worth what ye want in exchange. Besides, why should I want a well-used wench?"

Something in his gut twisted as Isabel Gordon flinched in the wake of his speech, at the hurt on her lovely face, but he refused to be swayed by her.

Still, Alec was lying in one respect, for he didn't care a whit if a woman was a still a maid or not -- well, he did. He preferred practiced women, those who enjoyed the pleasures of the flesh as much as he. He hadn't the patience for innocent maids, was not aroused by shy timidity in the bedchamber, but for some reason, it rankled that Isabel Gordon had given herself to Ian MacDonald, the black-haired little sod with his princely features -- his sisters' words. It rankled at his male pride, aye, but it was more than that...

A beautiful woman was not a hard find. He had been completely truthful with Richard Gordon -- as a young lad still wet behind the ears he'd looked upon Isabel Gordon, a summer or two older than him, with a kind of reverence: like a sotted knight mooning over his lady fair. But it had been a different kind of attraction, more chaste than anything. He'd been in awe of her solemn, lady-like manner, so different to the ladies of his acquaintance.

Now that he'd had his fill of women, he knew they were all alike. Aside from bed play, they were a burden. She was no different. 

"So that's it, is it?" Gordon spat then. "Aye, just like a bastard to turn his nose up at a fine thing! She was too high for you anyway, you filth."

Alec exchanged an amused look with Ivan. None of his clansmen, however, looked remotely humoured. In fact, their hands were poised before their dirks, ready for the signal to carve a signature into his face, ready to toss his out bodily, giving him a few broken limbs as a farewell gift. Not necessarily out of the need to honour the besmirching of his name, mind, but just out of pure Fraser principle: no Gordon had ever set foot in Fraser lands and walked away in tact - save for to tonight. 

He watched the siblings depart broodingly before dismissing them, staring at his mug of ale.

"Looks like Hugh MacGregor it is then, sister."

Alec's head whipped back to his guests. But that had been no whispered aside to his sister. Gordon had wanted him to hear. 

"Ye can't mean to sell her to him," he said low, eyes narrowed in disbelief. 

"I can and I will. MacGregor has been randy for her since she started her courses -- before, even," he snorted. "Of course, his clan doesn't have your skill in battle, but he'll do. I'm not in much of a position to be picky," Gordon snorted. "But here, Fraser - you seemed shocked! Didn't think a savage like you was capable of such tender, moral feeling," he goaded.

Alec shook his head in disgust. MacGregor was a reprobate. He'd raped his own niece and gotten her with child, the poor lass dying in childbirth. His first four wives had died under mysterious circumstances, and his mistresses were not treated much better once he tired of them. They were a pack without discipline. Everyone knew of his perverted ways, of his abuse. He kept himself to himself up in his expansive keep, a miser with his gold, a miser with his womenfolk who he used and abused. And judging by Isabel Gordon's pale face and desperate eyes, she knew it all too well.

For the first time, Alec looked at her. Properly. 

My God -- beautiful. So chaste, so pure, even in spite of Ian MacDonald's taking of her maidenhead. What was it about her that still stirred him after all these years, that caught his attention? Wanting what he couldn't have, most likely. If he'd gotten under her skirts, easing the itch that had first arisen as he did with any other woman he liked the look of, he'd think nothing of her now, he reasoned.

He took in Richard Gordon's freshly hopeful face. He looked at the girl, her eyes finally trained on him -- equally as hopeful.

Then he looked away, looked at his tankard. There was the answer. Dismissal.

He could not endanger his pack for the Gordons sake. Could not ally with the clan who had killed his step-father. He could not ally with the clan who had taken his mother from him - after all, she'd died birthing Samuel Gordon's offspring after he'd taken her as leman some years ago. Nay, he could not and he would not.

And though something in his gut twisted at the decision, he turned away from the guilt gnawing at him. Curse it; he had nothing to feel guilty about!

"Wait!" 

He stiffened at the feminine appeal, lifting his eyes to imploring, liquid eyes, the jeers from his men and women sounding distant. He hardened himself against Isabel Gordon, lifted his tankard and sipped at the warm ale slowly, his stomach roiling in slight protest, now sickened by the drink.

Isabel Gordon moved out of her brother's hold, ran the length of the long table, stopping before Alec's chair, lowering herself at his feet, the submissive position stirring something within him best left dormant. 

She grabbed at his hand curled around the tankard, her fingers cold and biting, her eyes large and pleading as she peered up at him.

Alec looked at her pale hand on his scarred, sun darkened one. Loveliness against coarseness.

"You - you cannot be so unfeeling, Alec-"

He snorted at the whispered reproach. "You know nothing about me, lady," he said brusquely, pulling his hand harshly out of her hold, staring straight ahead all the while acutely conscious of her kneeling before him. "Your brother asks too much - I'll not recklessly lead my pack to-"

"But you'll lead me to it? You'll lead me to MacGregor? Or lead me to a certain fate, my clan at the mercy of the Duncans?"

Alec winced at her softly spoken words. 

"This is your brother's war - not mine," he bit out, pushing away from his table, standing, dragging her to her feet.

He took her by the shoulders, intending to push her away but she refused the rejection, hands fisting his linen tunic, saying swiftly,

"I'll do anything Alec. Anything-"

Alec snorted and uttered low, "Anything? Aye, I'll bet. I need no more serfs, lady, and I've plenty of women to take my ease on -- even should I not, ye'd never give yerself to me freely and I've no stomach for rape nor for a frigid wench, lying there to be taken, stiff as a corpse. So what would I get out of this cursed bargain? Naught-"

Isabel Gordon shook her head quickly. "It wouldn't be like that; I would come to you willingly. I would please you. I would please you," the frenetic promise floated up to him, fogged his mind.

A small hand flattened on his chest, rubbing a slow circle over him.

The whispered words tugged low at his gut, her little caress burned him. Alec searched the sweetly featured face poised towards him, and then his eyes jerked to the tentative hand still stroking him.

His balls tightened in needy response. All that and she barely touched him! Curse her. Curse all Gordons! His birth father's words echoed through his head, raw and bitter.

Ne'er give yer heart to a lass! Once ye do, ye'll have given them everything and they'll leave you, lad! Aye, they'll leave ye for the next man and leave ye wi' nothin'!

Physically, Isabel Gordon and his mother were complete opposites, the former dark and abundantly feminine, the latter fair and delicate. The proud, easy-going Alasdair Fraser had been crippled by his mother's abandonment, and so too had his step-father after him when the fickle, greedy woman had started an affair with Isabel Gordon's father, leading ultimately to his step-father's death.

Beyond their looks, Isabel Gordon seemed to share a fair few traits with his late mother, namely that she was trouble -- she'd already bedded a MacDonald when she'd been betrothed to a Morgan, though lord knew what had gone awry there -- and he'd heard a fair few rumours of a romance she'd had with the Cameron chief's heir.

She'd aroused Alec's interest with a few mere looks as a lad, but he was no lad now. While he knew he'd more than be able to guard himself against her wiles as he did every other calculating female, the fact remained that, if he agreed to fight Gordons cause, it would undeniably be mostly for the lass's benefit, out of guilt and conscience.

He caught her maddening, caressing hand then in a vicelike grip, caught and held her away from him. 

Bending low to meet her slight height, he uttered for her ears alone, his eyes never leaving hers -- hoping to disturb her, hoping to earn an outraged slap from her, "You know exactly what I'd want, woman. I'd want no serf out of ye. No quick coupling. There'd be nothing chaste about it. I'd use ye well. Fraser's whore, a bastard's whore, that's what they'd call ye Aye, everyone," he repeated at her wide-eyed look of distaste. "I'd use ye when I wanted where I wanted. Ye'd likely bear my bastards the rate we'd go at it -- after all, for what ye'd cost me, I'd be sure to get my use of ye. And after I'd tired of ye, I'd send ye packing. So -- do you still say ye'd do anything?"

He watched as Isabel Gordon stared at their joined hands before tossing her head back, her loose raven hair gleaming blue in the fire-lit hall. "Yes," she said firmly, her green eyes flashing with something he didn't care for. "Now, what do you say?"

***

Isabel paced the small chamber, restless. She approached the door again and pressed her ear to it, listening to the raised voices beyond, the roars of protest, the shouts of displeasure -- both male and female -- clashing, all trying to be heard.

How long had she been in this stale smelling room since Alec Fraser had ordered a hostile serf to take her away from his hall? She had not had a chance to say a further word to her brother, no farewell. Good riddance. But what was to become of her now?

She peered warily around the chamber, illuminated only by the moonlight and a single candle the maid had begrudgingly acquired for her, taking in the single chest, the bed pallet. Other than these two things, the room was bare. Although the room was immaculate, the blanket over the pallet straight and un-creased, she rejected the inclination to perch against the pallet fearing that, should she settle upon it, a swarm of insects would come for her. Save for this small room, Castle Fraser was a sty, and she'd not chance it.

In the end, she curled herself on the floor, leaning against the cold stone wall, watching the door with hard eyes, but half the night passed without the Frasers' violent debate in the hall ceasing.

Though she was glad to be tucked away from the spectacle, the anxiousness of not knowing what was to be done with her mounted. Time dragged by, and she felt herself wearying as the sky darkened further, exhausted from the emotionally fraught day, but no sooner did sleep claim her, she was starting to wakefulness by a thunderous crash coming from below, the sound so loud it felt as if the stone walls trembled.

She came quickly to her feet just as the chamber's door was pushed open to reveal Alec Fraser standing at the threshold.

He looked grim, his eyes running over her briefly, before he closed the door behind him.

He walked past her, removing his tunic, his large hands moving next to his plaid. He hesitated, and Isabel felt her face heat.

"My lor -- Alec?" she said softly after a long, heavy silence after he'd removed his plaid and stalked to his pallet completely nude before spreading beneath the thin blanket, flinging a thick arm over his eyes.

He grunted, and she took that her cue to continue.

"Thank you --I mean, I-"

"Ye've nothing to thank me for. I didn't agree to do it for ye."

At the cool pronouncement, Isabel wavered, warily taking in Alec's suddenly set jaw.

"Gordon doesn't stand a chance against the Duncans. Reese Duncan is a vicious bastard. For once, yer brother wasn't talking out of his arse."

Eyes still covered with his lightly furred, thickly muscled arm, Isabel wished she could see him, wished she could read him. Softly, she said, "Then why did you agree to ally with him?"




The Wolf's Mistress



Alec shifted onto his side, leaning up an elbow, his eyes running over her as she shivered against the wall opposite him.

"He's payin' us a fair amount for our service, and, well," he looked away, pleated the coarse fabric of the blanket for a moment, "there were those who were kind to me when I lived on Gordon lands," he uttered, before saying in off-hand tones. "Is auld Ida still about?"

"Ida?" Isabel said in surprise, scanning his face. He looked mildly interested as he awaited her response but for some reason, she wasn't completely convinced by his blasé enquiry. Ida had doted on Alec, it was true, gifting him with copious oat-cakes and bannocks, a fond mother-hen when he was so in need to mothering. That he still re-called her after all this time surprised and touched her. "Yes, she is..."

"Aye? Good. Braw lass, that one," he shoved his hands behind his head, turning onto his back again, staring idly up at the stained ceiling.

Something in Isabel's chest constricted, warmth filled her numbed body. He cared about old Ida, remembered her after all this time. Why did that shock her? Perhaps because she was so use to being around perfidious men, she thought bitterly, thinking of her late father and her swine of a brother. Alec's easy nature bemused her; he had no reason to enter into hostilities with the Duncans but yet he was. Because he was an honourable man. Oh, she'd known that that from the start, but it was one thing to be honourable to one's own clan -- her brother being an exception, for his motives in seeking aid were self-motivated. He didn't care a whit for his kinsmen. He'd been coddled all his life, lived a life of privilege and yet he'd turned out bitter and hateful, looking out only for himself. But Alec Fraser...

"Are you cold, lass?" the man in question said softly then, bringing her back to herself. "'Tis long been said a body can warm another better than anything else."

Isabel stiffened at the teasing cadence that softened Alec's burr, at the smoky look that entered his sky-blue eyes.

"Let me warm you."

She'd always been frightened of his intimidating, coarse physicality, by his stony façade whenever she'd chance upon him, that the evidence of his humour was bewildering. It made her edgy. This was not the savage chieftain throwing her over his shoulder, demanding she submit, that she had expected -- that the stories had painted him as. He was asking her, inviting her to come to him. Asking for her to honour their bargain. She could turn her face away and he'd not lift a finger to make her yield like many other men would, she knew.

But she'd not. She'd not renegade.

She approached the pallet slowly, staring at Alec's nude upper body, the light from the single-candle highlighting the hard, taut musculature of his torso, highlighting the array of scars, scraps and wounds bisecting his bronzed skin, some pale and faded, some freshly pink.

Pushing her slippers from her cramped feet, she climbed into the bed as she was, feeling foolish, and a chastising cluck sounded in her ear.

"Seeing as ye've come to me wi' only the clothes on yer back, ye'll be regretting getting that, er, fetchin' gown rumpled. Take it off, lass."

"Richard -- Richard thought it would entice you," Isabel murmured, laying stiffly beside him, refusing his softly delivered order.

"Entice, you say? Well, it's certainly eye-catching. But ye've no need of pretty frocks, Isabel Gordon. Ye draw the eye well eno' just as is."

Isabel scoffed at that, even as something in her belly tightened sweetly at the little speech. Isabel said in mocking dryness, "The Frasers are famed for a few things -- poetry isn't one of them. Am I an exception to the rule, my lord, or are you always so...sweet?" she arched a brow, shuffling across the bed until she lay at the very edge, moving onto her side so she could scrutinise her bed partner.

"Sweet?!" tawny brows rose high. Alec Fraser looked quite offended. "Truth be told, lass -- I suppose ye've caught me off my guard. When I pictured myself in bed tonight, I didn't imagine I'd be lying next to Isabel Gordon."

Isabel bit her lip in embarrassed modesty at the wistful inflection to his voice. Of all the women Alec Fraser could - and had - woo into bed, she found herself quite humbled in a purely feminine way, her vanity roused. She thought back to the her brother's words in the hall, but of course, Richard had been laying it on thick when he'd referenced Alec's past interest in her.

"Isabel Gordon," Alec said again, shaking his head slightly. "Has a Fraser ever bedded a Gordon? I cannae recall it, although I've heard a fair few stories about my great grandfather Callum Fraser having a hankering for one of your lot. He was as ugly as a mule's rear-end, mind, so I reckon he didn't have much success. Gordon women have always been known for their looks if naught else, after all."

"Charming. But you know," she mused dryly, eager to draw this out and to delay the inevitable "he could well have thrown her over his shoulder and done away with her."

"Aye, I suppose," Alec shrugged, and Isabel shot him a long look at his perfect seriousness. He met her look squarely, his eyes...wondrous.

Isabel bristled beside him, feeling a fool as she belatedly realising just what that look of his meant, what that wistful bend to his voice earlier had suggested. A notch on his ever increasing bedpost, that's what. No doubt he had worked his way quite successfully through the various clans by now. But she was more annoyed at herself, annoyed by her abused reaction.

"As I recall," she said then, wincing slightly at the prim, clipped retort, "you bedded my cousin a while back. Helen Gordon." She arched a brow at her new protector, daring him to sputter a denial.

But he did no such thing, as she'd have expected from any other male in his position. Instead, he gave her a sheepish look before saying defensively, "I'm not promised, nor married. I made the lass no assurances. She's been wed long eno' to her ancient husband and I wasn't her first foray into extra marital play-"

Isabel threw him a jaundiced look for his casual, practical explanation. "Well then, I don't know why you're so awed about bedding a Gordon, if that's the case. Tell me, do you bleat this same line to all your women? To Annie Macdonald, for example? 'N er thought I'd get up a Macdonald skirts, now lift them up like a good lass.'"

Her poor attempt to mimic his gravely burr saw his lips twitching slightly but before he could say aught, Isabel continued in the same sardonic manner, getting quite enthused, "and I'm sure you said the same to her step daughter Elaine MacDonald right after-"

"That chit?" Alec's roughly handsome face took on an abused look. "I'd not bed her."

"Rumour has it you did," Isabel shrugged lightly, smoothing at the coarse blanket over them. "And I don't know why you're looking so injured -- she's very pretty."

"Aye? Well I like my women with a bit 'o meat on their bones, a bit of softness to cushion me, if you ken what I mean. Aye, I see that ye do," he mocked softly, reading her embarrassment well, even in the low lightning. "And yer wrong - I never bedded yer cousin. We, er, never got that far, at least."

"Oh, I see," Isabel nodded after a moment, folding her hands primly over the abrasive blanket. "Then I'll be your first Gordon after all."

"Now, lass," Alec frowned then, shifting uncomfortably on the pallet, his normally steady, easy expression dropping, uncharacteristic awkwardness claiming him. "I didn't mean it like that-"

"I'm sure you didn't," she returned kindly and his frown become a scowl, his forehead furrowing, lowering, 

"You'll not be just a conquest to me, Isabel Gordon," he said, softly, correctly guessing at her veiled ire. "I'll not crow about bedding ye - seeing as how everyone will know it, it'd be pointless anyhow," he added thoughtfully, before continuing in the same soft, sober tone. "Ye've no need to fear that from me, lass."

Alec's hand landed heavily on her covered hip beneath the blanket at the close of his little speech that had warmed and caught at her hard heart more precisely than any syrupy love words ever could have.

For a long moment, Alec Fraser seemed content to stroke her hip, and when Isabel chanced a shy, nervous glance his way, it was to see his eyes closed, his mouth slightly parted, his breaths gentle. 

Why, he's fallen asleep, she thought in surprised disbelief. 

Yet though there was relief for this reprieve, there was also something suspiciously similar to disappointment. She shrugged the traitorous feeling away, shamed and annoyed at herself.

Despite her avowals to rest, mindful of how trying the following day would be for her, she found herself looking across, staring at his relaxed face, at the strong, square and slightly cleft chin, at his slackened jaw. Oh, but he was beautiful - more beautiful than a man had any right to be, especially one so obviously uncaring of his appearance if his overlong tangle of sun bleached hair was anything to go by, his weather beaten, scarred face -- his untidy, careworn clothing. 

None of these things detracted from his attraction, and were that not enough, his easy manner, his honourable core, would have won her round just the same. She had sorely misjudged him those few times she'd seen him since him since they'd both entered into adulthood. He was not cold and unfeeling. 

Devastating, she thought then. 

Help, she closed her eyes, turned her face to the wall. Let me not soften towards him. 

***