Warrior's Moon

Chapter 12

Once they were gone and the door had been shut firmly, Shona turned to face Audrey.

The Englishwoman busied herself putting the room to rights, folding Thomas’s bedroll and tucking it under the bed. “It is quiet surprising this Scottish laird has actual beds in his guest rooms.”

“’Tis not common,” Shona agreed, no more eager than Audrey to attack the subject at hand. “Mayhap it is the influence of his English wife?”

“Perhaps. Though even in England, only the most wealthy have multiple rooms reserved.”

“They are not ornate,” Shona observed.

Like the furniture in the great hall, the pieces in bedchambers were simple and functional. It was quite likely that against all expectations, the laird and his lady had guests far more frequently than the usual Highland keep. Audrey’s surprise, however, that there was furniture at all was more than understandable.

“The keep itself is more formidable than I expected of the Highlands,” Audrey added.

“I, as well.”

Suddenly, Audrey’s face crumpled and tears showed in her eyes. “Is this how it will be now? Stilted between us?”

“Saints above, I hope not.”

Audrey laughed, the sound a bit watery. “I did not intend to hurt you. Or betray you.”

“Would you have told me of my own son’s nature?”

“In truth, I hoped to discover more Chrechte and seek the counsel of others. I did not like to think my mother’s perspective the most enlightened.”

“Why not seek out the counsel of your kind in England?” Though if the only Chrechte she had known of was her mother’s pack, then mayhap it was just as well Audrey had not.

“The Chrechte live mostly in the Highlands, or so my mother said. Her small pack went south generations ago, though I do not know why. Perhaps because of the Fearghall among them.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not sure.” Again Audrey looked pained, but not, Shona thought, because of her this time. “I know so little of our kind. I did not realize that not all Chrechte think as my mother did until we came here.”

“Your world has been as usurped as my own,” Shona observed pensively.

“It has, but I am glad. I have always wanted to know others of my kind…find my mate.” The tears spilled over.

Shona could stand it no longer and she pulled her dear friend into her arms. “Come, all is not lost. He clearly wishes to…” Her voice trailed off as she realized she did not have words.

“The term is mate, but I’ll not take him to mate if he thinks I have no value because of the country of my birth.” Audrey’s expression turned mutinous. “That is no different than the Fearghall.”

“You are right.”

“And he cannot say any different.” The militant gleam in Audrey’s eyes was actually quite amusing.

Though Shona would never let her know so. “No, he cannot.”

“He said he is Éan.” Audrey sounded awed by that fact.

“What does that mean?”

“He shifts into a bird.”

Shona remembered something like that being said. “What kind?”

“I don’t know…” Audrey’s voice trailed off and then her eyes lit with certainty. “The eagle this morn. It was him. His animal at least showed his approval for me.”

“He saw you naked!” Shona exclaimed, not sure what she thought of a world where animals were not as simple as she’d always believed. She pulled the other woman so that they sat side by side on the edge of the bed. “Caelis said there are few Chrechte, but I feel as if they are all around me.”

Audrey laughed. It was a small sound, but definitely an amused one. “That is very understandable. But only think, in your husband’s keep and the others around us, there were none other of our kind.”

“How do you know?”

“We would have smelled them.”

“So you can tell?”

“Yes, the scent of animal is very subtle, but it is there. Mother claimed some of the strongest could mask their scent.”

What an intriguing claim. “I wondered if you could identify each other.”

Audrey nodded her expression turning confused. “You told Caelis you did not want to talk about the Chrechte.”

“In truth, I wanted time away from looming and brooding warriors. And an opportunity to work out the issues between us.”

“Yes?” the blonde asked hopefully.

“Yes. You are the sister of my heart. Besides, I do not wish to discuss the laws he mentioned. He was quick enough to dismiss them.”

“Doing so would have cost him a great deal…he must have been truly convinced you were not his sacred mate.” The younger woman bit her lip, looking at Shona with a mixture of worry and earnestness.

“Our laird lied to him. Uven told Caelis that as his leader, he could tell if I was sacred mate to Caelis and that I was not.”

“I would have believed my alpha had he claimed such a thing, I think.” Audrey’s brow furrowed. “I’ve never had an alpha, but I feel the instincts to submit that I do not feel so strongly in my human nature.”

“Men believe all women have that instinct.”

“Only foolish men believe such a thing.”

“’Tis a teaching of the Church.”

“Do not tell Father John, but I do not believe the Church always has the right of it.”

Shona giggled, some of her despair lifting. “I do not believe that is a concern you need have. Father John is very unlikely to travel to the wild north of Scotland.”

Besides being in his dotage, the jovial man of the cloth with a surprising tendency toward kindness was as round as a boulder and twice as heavy.

“You know, he used to let Thomas and I share in the Sacrament of Communion. Privately, of course.”

“I never understood why you did not partake during Mass.” But Shona found many ways of the English mysterious.

“We were born natural children and many, including the baron, considered us unfit to partake of the sacraments.”

Shona shook her head, not even commenting on her deceased husband’s stupidity. Audrey knew by now that Shona had disagreed with the man on so many things that it was impossible to innumerate them all.

“Are we still sisters?” Audrey asked, her voice small, the vulnerability there heartbreaking.

Shona could only answer one way. And despite her own pain at Audrey and Thomas’s deceptions, she realized there was only one way she would want to answer. “Aye.”

“Thank you.” Audrey squeezed her hand so tight Shona gasped, but she did not pull away.

“Family can hurt each other and still be family.”

“Like your parents?”

“Yes. They did not disown me even though I hurt them gravely with my shameful behavior.”

Audrey made a sound of dissent. “I wasn’t talking about them still claiming you; I meant you continuing to claim them.”

“But of course I would. They were my parents.”

“They hurt you so much more than you hurt them.”

“I am sure they did not see it that way.”

“Then they would have been blind.”

“Nay. I think they saw the real me and were disappointed. They tried to raise me better.” Her mother had said so often enough.

And while Shona had been married to the baron, she’d thought maybe her mother had been wrong. That her behavior as a young woman had been an aberration.

She’d certainly never felt the drive to copulate with the baron that she had to receive Caelis into her body. But that in itself had led to its own guilt.

She’d been duty-bound to share her husband’s bed but had hated every single moment of it.

“What do you mean?” Audrey asked. “You are a woman worth admiration from any direction.”

Shona laughed, the sound as harsh as the pain in her heart.

“I allowed Caelis into my body when we were not even betrothed, and then last night…” She couldn’t go on, her own disappointment in herself too great.

“He is your true mate.”

“In the Chrechte way of things, that may count for much. But I am human.”

“Yes, but, well…” Audrey gave Shona a questioning glance. “You felt compelled?”

“I did, but Audrey, I do not know if that was Caelis’s wolf as I claimed to him, or if simply emotions I thought I’d been long quit of.”

“Does it matter?”

“Only to me.”

“I mean…you will marry him now, won’t you?”

“I do not know.”

“You have no choice…do you?” Audrey looked at Shona and then away, blushing. “I mean, you could be with child again.”

“If Chrechte are as rare as Caelis has said they are, making a child cannot be that easy, even for mates.” Eadan was truly a miracle.

“Oh, I am sure you are right, but still…”

“We did not do that. He insisted on holding back,” Shona admitted, no more comfortable with this line of discussion than Audrey.

But unlike six years ago, at least she had another woman to talk to about it. Shona would never have confided in her mother.

“He is showing his respect for you?” Audrey said doubtfully.

“I am not so sure it was out of respect for me so much as his attempt to draw forth my agreement to marriage.”

“How would withholding himself from you do that?” Audrey asked with all the innocence of a woman who had never been kissed.

Shona felt the heat crawling up her face. “I do not know what your mother told you about the act, but there is great pleasure to be found in it for a woman.”

Too much pleasure for Shona, according to her mother.

“Truly?”

“Aye.”

“Mother…she only spoke of it in terms of her wolf, how her beast could not live without its mate, no matter the cost to her pride.”

“Oh. That sounds horrible.”

Audrey shrugged. “She did not seem overly unhappy to me, though I was but a fledgling woman when she died trying to give birth to another child by my father.”

“Considering the life she must have had among her own people, leaving them for her mate may not have been the tragedy she implied it was.”

“But she hated living without a pack. She told me so many times, saying she was sorry that I had no choice but to follow in her footsteps.”

“I am sure there are benefits. I missed my clan when I left Scotland as well. There is safety in living among those who are family even when they are not related, but there are curses as well. Among the MacLeod, those were far worse than the blessings for a mere human like me.”

At the time, she’d believed it was simply that she was not part of Uven’s inner circle. Well, she hadn’t been, but not because of any reasons she might have surmised.

“What do you think our future will hold?” Audrey asked with a look of longing at the door.

“I do not know, but whatever the future will hold, we will face it as family.”

Audrey squeezed her hand. “Family.”

“Your mate is formidable.” Vegar thrust at Caelis with his sword.

Caelis swiveled in time to deflect the blow, directing the other man’s sword into a downward arc with his own. “She has always been stubborn, but there is a hardness to her now.”

“Among the Éan, a woman has never had the luxury of remaining too soft, no matter how tender her nature upon birth.”

Caelis could not argue with that. Life in the forest, hiding from the Faol intent on destroying their kind had honed the Éan into a people of impressive strength and fortitude.

“It would be easier to plan for the future if she had the same forgiving nature she had before leaving the Highlands.”

“Life changes us. You for the better,” Vegar said without apology and a strong thrust with his sword.

Caelis fell back from the powerful movement. “Not soon enough.”

“If you had come to your senses as a youth, you would just be another dead Chrechte who dared to challenge your laird’s teachings. Now you will be the one to destroy his hold on the MacLeod.”

“I do not think Shona cares if the MacLeod find relief from Uven’s tyranny.”

“Do you blame her?” Vegar asked.

“Aye. We were her clan.”

“She left.”

“Aye, to marry another.”

“Again, I ask: Do you blame her?”

And Caelis understood his friend had intended his question to have deeper meaning. An inquiry he was not sure how to answer. It was not rational, or even right, but Caelis was jealous of the man who had called his true mate wife for five years and claimed Caelis’s son as his own.

He knew his actions had led to the circumstances he found so distasteful, but that did not make them any easier to bear.

In truth, the knowledge that his rejection after claiming her body had led directly to Shona being forced into another man’s bed gutted Caelis.

Worse, Shona had made it clear that marriage had not been an idyll for her.

Thinking of her enjoying another man’s attention was disturbing enough. To acknowledge she’d had a duty to suffer that which she found objectionable troubled him much more.

The flat of Vegar’s sword landed across Caelis’s shoulders, knocking him out of his reverie. He tripped forward, regaining his footing and spinning to face his grinning friend.

“Lucky blow.”

“Luck had nothing to do with it. Your inattention, on the other hand…” Vegar let his voice trail off mockingly.

“I have much on my mind.”

They fell back to sparring.

“More to do with your mate than your upcoming challenge, I’ll wager.”

Caelis could not deny it, though he did his best to focus on their mock battle.

“My guilt is as great as my jealousy,” Caelis admitted to his fellow Cahir with unexpected candor.

A sharp prick on his arm told him his friend had scored a hit. Both men jumped back, cursing.

Caelis swiped at the thin trickle of blood coming from the shallow cut. “It is a good thing we are not on the training field with others right now.”

They were on the deserted secondary training ground separated from the keep and the other tract used by the Sinclair in preparing his soldiers for battle.

“We would not easily live this down,” Vegar said with chagrin.

Caelis realized something only his great agitation had prevented from being immediately apparent. The injury would not have occurred if Vegar was not distracted by his own mate worries as well.

“We are distracted.”

“You think?” Vegar mocked, making no effort to deny it.

“She’s not going to forgive you easily.”

Vegar shook his head with disgust. “Which one? Your mate, who is a mama bear with the Englishwoman, or mine, whom I have managed to offend beyond redemption?”

“Both, I’d say.” Caelis lunged forward, knocking Vegar’s sword from his hand so easily, it couldn’t even be considered a victory.

This time, the other man’s curse was more colorful and vicious.

Vegar rolled and grabbed his sword as he came up into a fighting stance again. “I am a trained protector among the Éan, now Cahir. I will prevail.”

They had trained together in the secret, elite group of warriors begun centuries ago in response to the Fearghall. The last remaining Cahir lived among the Balmoral and were now busy training warriors from the clans determined to fight the Fearghall’s despicable endeavors to rid the world of all Chrechte but the Faol.

“I do not think your warrior training will do you much good when wooing a woman,” Caelis observed.

“It has taught me patience, persistence and the ability to take a wound and continue to fight.”

Put that way…“Mayhap I will rely more on my warrior’s training as well.”

“You have already marked Shona with your scent. She will not deny you now.”

“She is not Chrechte.”

“Are the humans who lived among the Éan so different than those of the clans then?” Vegar asked.

The eagle had lived with his brethren deep in the forest until a year ago when their prince led them in joining the clans dedicated to restoring the brotherhood of the Chrechte and all its races. The humans who lived among them were considered part of their tribe in a way the packs had not embraced their own clans. All humans among the Éan knew of their Chrechte natures.

While only a trusted few in each clan were aware of the animal forms the Chrechte among them could take.

But he did not understand how that would make their human brethren different in this case. “What do you mean?”

“If a human woman allows a man to take what they call liberties, she is obliged to marry him. Are clanswomen not governed by the same obligation?”

“Not if the one in question is as stubborn as she is willful.”

“Like your mate.”

“Aye, exactly like my mate.”

“The boy at the table…he smelled like you.”

“He is my son.” It gave Caelis great joy to say it, but the sorrow he felt at their time lost together immediately tempered his gratification.

“What happened?”

Caelis told Vegar the story as they continued their sparring, neither man showing the best side of their control or focus.

“Your alpha lied to you about your true mate?” Vegar’s tone was laden with horror at such an atrocity.

“Aye.” Caelis performed a running leap that ended in a forward somersault, which he leapt out of with his sword pointed at Vegar’s femoral artery. “All Uven cares about is the pack increasing its numbers.”

Vegar kicked Caelis’s arm aside and spun out of reach of the sharpened sword. “You would not be able to get another woman with child once you’d consummated a true mating, no matter what your alpha dictated.”

The fact that a Chrechte could not physically engage in sexual acts with others once a sacred mating had been consummated was one of the reasons true bonds were so revered and respected.

“I did not tell him that Shona and I had made love. Uven was particularly adamant about it and I did not want to disappoint him,” Caelis admitted bitterly.

“He’d put himself in place of your father.”

“To my detriment.”

Vegar grunted an agreement as he narrowly avoided getting dumped on his ass by Caelis’s sweeping foot. “You sent her away without knowing she carried your child.”

“I did not send her away.” Why he had to keep reminding people of that fact, he did not know.

It was Vegar’s turn to come close to sending Caelis sprawling. “You thought your alpha would change his mind, given time.”

“Exactly.” See? The other Cahir understood what Shona refused to accept.

Mayhap one had to be a warrior to think with that kind of strategy.

“But he is Fearghall. He was never going to change his mind about you having a human mate.” Vegar’s words cut down Caelis’s arrogant thinking like a sword going through the heart of a boar.

Shona did not believe Uven would have changed his mind either and clearly expected Caelis to have been equally as wise.

But he had not.

“I realized that too late.” To his shame, Caelis had not opened to the awareness of Uven’s treachery in regard to his mate until several other matters had forced his unquestioning faith in the laird to be shaken.

“She will not forgive you?”

“I dinna ken.” He hoped, but he had no certainty.

“Does she know your plans?”

“I spoke of them, but not in detail. She knows I plan to return to the MacLeod.”

Their swords clanged in rhythmic beats as they fell into a fighting pattern neither could easily break free of or win. It made them both sweat with exertion, but continued to show both their skills in a dull light.

“And?” Vegar prompted after a particularly loud clash.

“She never wants to return to the clan of our births.”

“She plans to live among the Sinclairs?” Vegar’s shock translated to a clumsy move on his part and it was his turn to weep blood from a small gash.

“Shona has family among the Balmoral.”

This time, Caelis was able to compensate for Vegar’s surprise-driven clumsiness and he did not draw blood.

“Are you going to let her go?”

“What choice have I?”

“The same options you had six years ago.”

Caelis stopped moving completely, his sword falling to his side as his friend’s words sank into his warrior’s heart. “My clan or my mate?”

Vegar shook his head firmly, no pity in his expression, only a good dose of disgust. “Giving up or fighting for the woman Providence has decreed as yours.”