Her Scottish Hero (Scottish Wolves Book 3)

  Her Scottish Hero

  Theodora Taylor

  Copyright © 2023 by Theodora Taylor

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Want a FREE Theodora Taylor Book?

  Join Theodora’s mailing list to get a free welcome book along with newsletter-only exclusive stories, author giveaways, and special sales.

  CLICK HERE FOR

  YOUR FREE BOOK

  Contents

  1. Leora

  2. Leora

  3. Alban

  4. Alban

  5. Leora

  6. Alban

  7. Leora

  8. Alban

  9. Leora

  10. Alban

  11. Leora

  12. Alban

  13. Alban

  14. Alban

  15. Leora

  16. Sadie

  17. Alban

  18. Leora

  19. Alban

  20. Alban

  21. Leora

  22. Alban

  23. Alban

  24. Leora

  25. Leora

  26. Leora

  27. Leora

  28. Dorie

  29. Alban

  30. Leora

  31. Leora

  32. Alban

  33. Leora

  34. Leora

  Epilogue

  Meet Your New Fated Mate

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Special Thanks to My Ruthless Patreons!

  Also by Theodora Taylor

  About the Author

  Leora

  I answered the knock on my door to find Joanna, the postmaster’s new helpmate on our farmhouse’s front step, hunched over and wheezing with her hands on both knees.

  She tried to talk but only managed, “You’ll … you’ll …”

  Poor thing. She was completely out of breath. Most likely because of the distance she’d had to travel from her stead to ours at the furthest edge of town. While six months pregnant.

  I opened my mouth to offer her what appeared to be a much-needed glass of water.

  “You’ll never guess what came in the mail!” Joanna gasped out before I could.

  She waved a letter in the air. “I was sorting through all the mail as my Benefactor instructed me to do when I saw this letter addressed to you. It came all the way from Scotland!”

  I eyed both her and the letter warily.

  Like me, Joanna wasn’t from Saint Albert Village. Or SAV, as the abbreviation-happy PEI outsiders called what they assumed was a human Mennonite farming community.

  The postmaster’s new helpmate had only been wolf-mated a few months ago. So she remained in that special time of an SAV new arrival. Excited to be here and hopeful that her pregnancy would result in the birth of a boy.

  It would. My eleven-year-old daughter had told me the village's newest arrival was expecting a boy. And Dorie might be toothless, but her nose had never been wrong. Joanna would soon be “ascended,” as they called it here, to the position of wife.

  I’d forbidden Dorie from making such announcements years ago, though. So the postmaster’s new helpmate wasn’t aware of her incoming fortune. She hadn’t yet turned mean and prideful as the other wives in our community had.

  She still considered herself one of us. For the time being, she was a fellow helpmate. Until she produced a son, she was morally obligated to assume a role of complete servitude to her Benefactor, the male who had wolf-mated her.

  As nice as Joanna was now, she’d soon come to look down on me and the rest of the helpmates once she became a wife. That was as predictable a cycle in Saint Albert Village as the full moon rising and setting each month.

  But Joanna didn’t know any of this. Yet. And she also didn't appear to know about the humility rules around mail. According to the Saint Albert Discipline: helpmates (always spelled with a lowercase h, even when placed at the beginning of sentences) were expected to humble themselves to their Benefactors (always spelled with a capital B) in every way.

  This meant we weren’t allowed to handle mail ourselves. It all had to go through our Benefactors. Only wives had the privilege of sending and receiving mail without oversight.

  I wasn’t surprised she didn’t know about this, though. None of us helpmates had been told about any of the extra helpmate rules until we gave birth to girls.

  Still, her naïveté made me cringe inside. Twelve years ago, I’d been as ignorant as her. I'd come to Saint Albert freshly wolf-mated to Joshua Beiler, the eldest son of Jeremiah Beiler, our community bishop. I’d bristled with excitement because I had no idea back then. No clue that the SAV Wölfennite rules were nothing like those of the Wölfennite pack I’d left behind before turning eighteen.

  I assumed I was at the beginning of the same journey my parents had undertaken when my mother agreed to be wolf-mated to my father. And I assumed it would include at least three children, the same as my loving parents.

  But I knew better than that these days, and my chest seized with a now-familiar fear.

  I could get in trouble with Joshua merely for having this conversation. He wouldn’t give me time to explain what happened. He never did. Not even when I broke the SAV Discipline rules on accident. Not even when I broke rules that weren’t actually in the SAV Discipline at all. Often he made up new ones for the sole purpose of finding an excuse to reprimand me.

  Looking at the letter in Joanna's hand, I could already feel the hot sting of his reprimand stick across my skin.

  I should send her away with a polite request not to tell Joshua she stopped here first.

  But the letter had come all the way from Scotland—a place I’d only ever seen on a globe. And if Joshua got a hold of it first, I’d never find out what was inside the envelope.

  Before Dorie’s birth, he’d read the letters my family sent to me out loud. He'd even allowed me to write letters back with my own hand. Then Dorie was born a girl.

  I was only allowed to write what he dictated aloud to me after that.

  Then what he still referred to as The Tara Incident happened.

  I'd been so relieved when she hadn't shown up at the village wolf-mated to Joshua's younger brother as planned. But Joshua stopped letting me hear any of the letters my family wrote to me after that. Two missives, dictated by him at Christmas and Easter, were the only messages I was allowed to write. And when it turned out Dorie was toothless, even that small permission was taken away.

  No, he wouldn’t ever let me see that letter. If I asked him about it, I wouldn't get the outcome I wanted. He’d either claim he knew nothing of it or reprimand me for inquiring after something I shouldn’t know existed.

  At that point, I didn’t know which would be worse. I’d become used to the physical pain of reprimands. Could I bear the emotional pain of Joshua pretending to have never received a letter addressed to me?

  “Leora?” Joanna asked, crooking her head at me.

  I’d been standing there too long. I had to make a decision.

  “Thank you,” I said, emphasizing each word to keep my voice steady.

  Then I accepted that letter from the postmaster’s naive helpmate. As if it were a small deed—not the biggest risk I’d taken since my own arrival in SAV.

  And I bit back a gasp when I saw it was from my sister, Tara.

  Somehow I managed to give Joanna a friendly goodbye. But as soon as I closed the door, I leaned against it and ripped open the letter.

  Dearest Leora,

  I know you’re still angry at me. I doubt you’ll even answer this, considering you haven’t answered any of the other letters I sent you in ten years. But so much has happened, I had to try writing you one more time …

  The opening lines of Tara's letter continued to swirl around in my mind that night at supper with Joshua and Dorie. I'd read the letter about a thousand times before folding it up and stuffing it in my pocket when Joshua got home, and now it was all I could think about. The twists! The turns! I still couldn't believe my younger sister had somehow ended up the Queen of the Scottish Wolves.

  “May I make the coffee tonight?” A voice tore me out of my hundredth mental recitation of the letter I’d received.

  It took a few blinks for me to realize my daughter was speaking to me, not my sister.

  She looked so much like Tara at that age. I kept her curly dark brown hair in a Double-Dutch Soopfe. My mother used to twist Tara's curly hair into the same inverted braids style to wear under her prayer coverings. Joshua had pale wheat brown hair and light blue eyes. But thanks to my father's Ghanaian genes, Dorie’s skin was only a couple of shades lighter than my sister's.

  She also had Tara's same sharp brown intelligent gaze.

  “Please, may I get the coffee?” Dorie asked, looking between Joshua and me.

  My stomach froze. Something was wrong.

  Dorie never offered to do anything that would keep her in Joshua’s company for longer than necessary. Much less with a please on top. Not unless she sensed Joshua was about to reprimand me.

  I must have done something wrong. But what? I scanned the table for clues. Did I forget t
o light candles? Put out cloth napkins?

  My eyes dropped to my plate—my still full plate. I hadn’t even touched the potato casserole I’d made. That had to be it. Something was wrong with dinner.

  “No, Dorcas. After I talk to Leora about this supper she made, she will make the coffee,” Joshua answered Dorie, confirming my fear.

  Dorie hesitated to stand up from her seat, reminding me even more of Tara.

  Honoring your parents was a sacred rule in all Wölfennite communities. It didn't matter whether your pack spoke English as they did here or a German dialect as they did in St. Ailbe. But both Tara and Dorie had trouble grasping the unspoken “minding without hesitation” part of that foundational rule.

  “Go. Go now before he becomes any angrier,” I warned her in the German dialect we spoke back in St. Ailbe.

  Joshua stood from the table so abruptly that one of his black suspenders fell from his thin shoulder. “What have I told you about speaking in that language I can’t understand!”

  “Sorry,” I whispered, bowing my head.

  But I only looked remorseful. Dorie left the kitchen without another moment of hesitation. She was safe. So no, I didn’t regret breaking yet another one of the rules that weren’t actually in the Saint Albert Discipline.

  Nonetheless, Joshua insisted, “You’ve broken two humility rules this eve.”

  His voice rang with authority as he went over to the silverware drawer. This was where he kept his reprimand stick. As if it was as necessary as a spoon or a fork. According to Joshua, the reprimand stick was a feature of every SAV household. He'd told me that when he brought it out to “correct” my instinct to suggest gentler talking points for his weekly helpmates’ lecture.

  I learned that night he had no problem reprimanding me before writing his sermon for the Wednesday morning services he pastored. I had never dared to call my Benefactor a hypocrite to his face. But I’d thought it. I’d thought it so often over the years.

  And now, it just happened to be Tuesday night again.

  “It's time to receive your reprimand for speaking a language your Benefactor has forbidden and over-spicing his food," Joshua told me.

  So that was what I’d done wrong.

  I’d been so caught up in thinking about the letter Tara had sent I hadn’t remembered to only spice my and Dorie’s side of the casserole.

  My father adored spice. He’d even dedicated a part of our living room to the growing of plants that would allow him to season his food the same as he had before moving to Canada. Cloves, cumin, and curry were only a few of the seeds and leaves I’d been tasked with grinding up into spice jars when I lived in Ontario.

  Dorie loved my cooking, but Joshua acted as if I'd tried to poison him the few times I attempted to serve him anything with more than a dash of salt.

  Joshua held up the stick. It was a little longer than a ruler and stained darker in some places with blood. Mine. “Take off your dress and kneel on the floor.”

  I wasn’t Dorie. I immediately did as he said. But I took special care removing the dress with Tara's letter in the pocket and draping it over the chair's back. Joshua would take the letter from me if it fell out, and I already knew I couldn’t bear that. In less than a few hours, it had become my most precious possession.

  But after I settled it over the back of my chair, I kneeled down before him without any protest whatsoever.

  No protest whatsoever wasn’t good enough for Joshua, though.

  “You’re getting worse and worse by the year, I tell you.” Joshua came to stand over me with a disapproving look. “It’s as if you have gotten so used to my reprimands you no longer bother to try to honor your Benefactor.”

  Either that or I know there is no pleasing you, I thought but didn’t say out loud. No, matter how hard I try, you’ll always find an excuse.

  Being wolf-mated, we didn’t share a telepathic bond as my parents did after my mother went into heat for her second impregnation. But Joshua glared down at me as if he sensed every word I was keeping to myself.

  “Maybe reprimands are no longer enough,” Joshua said. “Maybe I should start extending your punishments to that toothless she-wolf you love so much.”

  “No,” I whispered. “Don’t! Please don’t!”

  “Tell me why I shouldn’t,” he answered with a self-satisfied smirk.

  This was what he’d wanted, I realized with a dull thunk of clarity. Quietly humbling myself wasn't enough for him anymore. He wanted to see how upset he'd made me.

  I did not hesitate to give him what he wanted. I wasn’t Tara. I didn’t have pride. Not when it came to my daughter.

  I castigated myself out loud, listing all my failures of humility. I apologized for being such a worthless helpmate and promised to do better in the future.

  I did this until my throat became raw. And only then did Joshua start my reprimand, his blue eyes glittering with superiority. He hit me with the stick so many times I lost count before he left me in the kitchen, bleeding on the floor.

  “It will be more lashes if you turn to your wolf for healing,” he warned as he walked out the door.

  He didn’t have to tell me that. My wolf whimpered inside of me but knew better than to rise to the surface. Healing in a flash would only make things worse. We’d played out this scenario many, many times in the years since Dorie’s toothless diagnosis.

  Dorie …

  This was the first time he’d threatened her. But I could already sense it wouldn’t be the last.

  A new resolution came over me as I picked myself up from the floor.

  No, I wasn’t Tara. But I’d do anything—anything to protect my daughter.

  And I knew what I had to do now.

  I put back on my dress and made coffee, which I brought to Joshua, where he was writing at his little wooden desk.

  As usual, I received no thanks from him. But I didn’t need it.

  For once, I was happy to stand by while he finished his speech for Wednesday's service. He called it a sermon. It was more like an often repeated lecture from the point-of-view of the helpmates sitting in the pews.

  I waited without complaint, though, and I bid him a solemn good night when he retired to bed. But I didn’t go upstairs right away to the bedroom I shared with Dorie.

  No, I continued to wait until I heard the distinct bray of Joshua snoring.

  Then I went to the desk where he kept his sheafs of blank paper for his sermon lectures …

  And began writing a letter back to my sister for the first time in over ten years.

  Leora

  Act normal! Act normal! Just act normal!

  I pasted on a cheery smile as I approached our Wölfennite pack’s simple white clapboard church. If I acted normal, as if nothing unusual had happened this morning, no one would suspect anything …

  I slowed, all the false bravado leaking out of me. Martha, Susan, and Anne stood outside the church’s wooden doors, gathered in a huddle. The village’s biggest gossips.

  The telling of tales was strictly prohibited in the SAV pack’s Discipline. Right up there with well-known biggies like dressing in immodest ways, using electricity in the home, and driving cars. But, these three she-wolves never concerned themselves with the village Discipline. Especially when there were no males around to see them.

  And they were quite obviously gossiping right underneath the church’s steeple.

  Did they …? Did they know what I did this morning?

  Dread pooled in my stomach, along with a fervent urge to reach into the right pocket of my black dress. I longed to touch the creased edges of the letter I’d memorized by heart. But no …