Claimed by the Wolf Prince Read Online Free Page B

more than enough allure to keep our men in thrall,” she added, running her hands down her full breasts.
    Distracted and intimidated by the shocking sensuality of the women, Iona was stripped down to her undergarments. The women cooed their surprise at her body, looking at her unblemished skin, her unmistakably feminine curves, with something more than admiration. When they made to remove her sark and corsets, she tried to cover herself, and found that her modesty only provoked gales of laughter. Too proud to protest further, Iona surrendered to the women’s ministrations. As they bathed her and washed her hair, anointed her in oils and rubbed sweet-smelling lotions into her skin, their touches, which were almost caresses, both soothed and stimulated her. She had never before experienced such intimacy. It shocked her, a clandestine pleasure. It made her think of other intimacies. Other pleasures. It made her think of Struan. Whohad abandoned her.
    They dressed her in a rich silk sark, plain white, with satin ribbons at the neck and cuffs. It was her only garment. A bell began to toll. Clang. Clang. Clang. A summoning. Or a death knell. It stopped abruptly. The women, who had been whispering together, got to their feet. Lillias cast an eye over Iona, nodded her satisfaction to the other women, and they once more encircled her. The mood changed, no longer playful but sombre. No longer sensual, no longer intimate, but ominous. Lillias opened the door. No blindfold this time. The circle of women led her out to a long corridor. On shaky legs, her bare feet icy on the rock floor, her heart beating wildly, Iona was led inexorably towards her fate.

Chapter 3
    They must be deep inside the cliffs beneath which they had landed. The place was a honeycomb of chambers and passageways, like a vast beehive. Glimpses from inside her escort cordon showed rock walls glittering with semiprecious stone rising steeply up and up. They were in a corridor tunnelled into the rock, with solid oak doors set at regular intervals. Down a level, then out onto a wide open ledge, the cliff on one side, a dizzying drop down on the other. On, the women led her, until they reached a huge curving staircase, at the top of which they paused.
    The chamber below was enormous, a cathedral-like cavern with a vaulted ceiling hundreds of feet high. Huge fingers of rock hung from the ceiling and thrust up from the perimeter of the cavern floor. The striated rock, glistening with quartz and mineral deposits, glittered and gleamed as if streaked with diamonds in the flickering light of the hundreds of braziers. It was warm and dry. Beneath her feet, there was a carpet, soft and bright, in the same jewel colours as the Faol women’s dresses. Her heart was pounding so hard she felt nauseous.
    They started to descend slowly to the chamber where the Faol people were gathered. There looked to be about two hundred of them, standing in silence, forming a circle. A uniformly striking people they were, and all had about them that same quality Iona had first noticed in Struan. Nature in its most primitive and beautiful form. The kind of beauty that makes you catch your breath. A stillness. A sense of danger, and with it a pull of excitement. Elemental. The word could have been created for them.
    A gap opened in the circle for them. Directly in the centre of the cavern stood a throne. Suspended above it, on a thick silver cord that descended from the highest point in the cavern’s roof, was a huge globe. Lit from the inside, its ghostly light cast a myriad of shadows across the glittering surfaces of the cavern. The moon, Iona realised. The full moon.
    The throne was a massive wooden construction with red velvet hangings. The carpet upon which she stood led directly towards the steps at its foot. A bell pealed once. The Faol people, all save the cordon of women, dropped to their knees as a tall figure, flanked by two wolves, entered the cavern from a fissure in the