John Campbell whisked her through the corridors of the castle and back to the Great Hall. Her heart pounded harder with each step they took and as she looked up at him and he looked down at her, she found herself smiling. There was something about him that was almost familiar. As if they had known each other their entire lives.
As they burst through the doorway and began back down the aisle the scenes around her were not pretty ones. She could see members of the Rose family in bloodied heaps on the ground and Lord Rose was nowhere to be seen. She covered her eyes and willed the bloodshed to disappear, but there was something appealing to her curious nature, she wanted to know what was happening. She could tell that Clan Campbell were different and she needed to know.
As John wrapped an arm around her and the priest began to read out the vows Muriel smiled and sighed with relief as she caught sight of her brothers. They looked up at her and smiled back shyly, as if they didn’t know what on earth was happening.
As she and John were declared man and wife, her head was spinning. She turned and saw wolves looking up at her with adoring eyes and John himself seemed to growl as he leant in to kiss her for the first time. As their lips met she felt like putty in his arms. He was so big, so powerful and so incredibly sexy she could barely pull herself away. She looked up into his eyes and ran her hands down his bare shoulders, feeling an intense heat that was rising from within him.
The congregation cheered and John quickly swept Muriel up in his arms before he began to charge back down the aisle with her flung over his shoulder. The only causalities she could see seemed to be people she did not know or recognize and she felt herself relax some more as John charged with her back through the castle.
In her bedroom he closed and locked the door behind her before he turned and stared. His eyes were so big and deep, it was as if she could have fallen in and never been able to climb out.
“That was… fast…” she panted.
“It was essential,” John said, “There was no time to lose.”
“But, why?” Muriel was trying not to sound too rude or overbearing. Her heart was still racing, and although she was intrigued by him, she was also nervous.
“You were being lured into a trap,” he said sternly, “Lord Rose would have harmed you if you had gone with him.”
Muriel felt her skin go cold.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“The Roses were going to destroy Clan Calder,” he began, “They have been travelling around the highlands and forging false alliances… once they have gained a way into a new clan, they overtake and destroy it.”
Muriel couldn’t believe what she was hearing. The real threat wasn’t Clan Campbell and their huge wolves… it was the sneaky and duplicitous Rose Clan.
“We got wind of this several months ago and we have been on the hunt to defeat them ever since.” He continued. “We got here just in time.”
“The hunt?” Muriel asked curiously.
“Aye,” John snarled. “The Rose’s have left a path of destruction… my pack and I have hunted them down and finally caught up with them… none of them will survive by the time we are through.”
Muriel shuddered and she remembered how all of the casualties in the Great Hall seemed to be from Clan Rose.
“You saved me?” she whispered.
“Aye,” John smiled. “And I wed you instantly so you would never be vulnerable again.”
“But why?” she gasped. “We don’t even know one another.”
John took a step forward and took hold of her by the shoulders before he looked at her deep in the eyes and spoke softly…
“Our Clans have crossed paths before… many, many years ago… and it has been written in the stars ever since that you and I should come together to start a new blood line… a new clan… one so powerful it shall rule the whole of Scotland.”
Muriel looked up at her husband. She didn’t know much, but she did know that she trusted him entirely. There was a sincerity in his words, and in his actions. She had felt something between them the second she had laid eyes on him. The complete opposite of what had happened when she had first seen Lord Rose. He had made her skin crawl and she had known there was something disloyal and evil lurking beneath his surface. Now John had come and saved her and her family from making a terrible mistake.
“My parents…” she began, “Do they know?”
John shook his head.
“No,” he said, “The Rose’s have been deceiving people for generations. But, Clan Campbell is very different to any other clan you will have ever come across before,” he smiled.
“In what way?” Muriel whispered.
“Here,” he reached out and took her hand, “Let me show you.”