by Lucy Monroe
She landed on the dragon shifter’s lap, his arm like a steel band around her.
“What do you think you are doing?” she demanded.
“You will ride with me.”
“If your dragon objects to her riding with Niall, she can ride my horse while I double up with him,” Guaire offered from behind them.
Eirik didn’t bother to answer, he just nudged his horse into a gallop.
“That was rude,” she chided, but the wind swallowed her words.
She doubted he would answer even if he heard her. The Éan prince might not have designs on Talorc’s position as laird, but he was arrogant enough for any royal Chrechte.
He didn’t need clan chief status to believe he had the right to dictate the circumstances of others. And after her first truly deep and long-lasting sleep in months, she wasn’t going to complain too loudly at Eirik’s high-handed methods.
If he was not the kind of man he was, Eirik would never have convinced her father to let her sleep in the dragon’s arms in a cavern in the forest.
Of this she was certain.
Apparently, it was not just Eirik’s dragon that made her feel safe and secure, either. She found she enjoyed riding with him nearly as much as she had riding his dragon through the sky.
Accepting her feelings as unstoppable and her plight as inevitable, when faced with the arrogance of a prince who was also a dragon, she relaxed against him. She trusted him not to let her fall and simply enjoyed the smells and sounds of the forest as they galloped toward the keep.
Eirik felt Ciara relax against him and his dragon rumbled in approval while his raven urged him to rub his head against hers. He gritted his teeth in frustration but settled her more securely in his embrace.
He did not need these urges, but damned if he was going to sit by while she rode a horse with her body pressed up against another man.
Mated Chrechte or not.
Lais woke with a warm bundle snuggled in close against him. He’d been careful not to put his arms around Mairi before sleep and had not moved from the spot in the furs he’d first lain down on. However, she’d cuddled right up to him and seemed content to be there, despite the fact that his hand rested against her back. She was using his other arm for a pillow.
He found himself smiling and excited as hell, his sex hard between them.
The urge to claim her was strong, but remembering her still-healing injuries quelled it—even better than telling himself his honor hung on his ability to control that need.
Her breathing changed then and he knew she’d woken, too.
She tipped her head back and met his eyes, but made no move to leave his arms. “Have we slept very long?”
He looked out the window high in his wall, trying to determine the angle of the sun and then gave a one-armed shrug. He did not want to jostle her. “Not overlong, though we’ve missed the midday meal.”
Then he blinked, thought again and realized he’d had the sun’s shadows backward in his mind. ’Twas dawn he saw out that window, not dusk.
Talorc had let them sleep the whole day and night. For it would have to be some incredible piece of luck for no one to have checked on them in all this time. Lais was not a great believer in the commodity. So, the Sinclair had to know Mairi had spent her night in Lais’s bedchamber and yet, no angry laird had beaten the door down with his fist.
“Lais?” she asked softly, her face still soft from sleep.
“Aye?”
“Is it after?”
“It is, though it is morning and not evening as I first thought upon waking.”
“I think I knew that…I feel too refreshed and healed to have slept only a couple of hours.”
“Do you now?”
“Oh, yes, quite well enough, I think.”
“Are you the healer now?”
“Perhaps I am meant to heal your heart.”
If only that were true. Still, his lips were curved in a smile when he kissed her for the first time. She tasted familiar and yet altogether different from any woman he had ever kissed.
Mairi did not know to part her lips for him, but he did not mind. Their closed-mouth kisses were hotter than any kiss he’d shared before with a woman and went straight to his groin.
He cupped her breast, squeezing lightly and she made a sweet little sound of need. But then a tentative fingertip glided along his sex and he made his own desperate sound of want.
He teased along the seam of her lips, encouraging her to open for him. It took her a few seconds and a couple of moans, but finally, she did.
He let his tongue explore her mouth, while his hand explored her perfect body…very gently. She loved having her nipples touched, but gave a surprisingly strong groan of delight when he caressed the nape of her neck.
He very carefully pressed her back so he could reach her breasts with his mouth and she let him. Making no sound of complaint, though she still had to be tender.
He would not allow her to be hurt further though, so he held her still when she tried to squirm. “Do not move.”
“But it feels too big to stay still.”
“I will not hurt you.”
“I know.”
“If you move, I will stop touching you.”
She stilled immediately and that excited him in a way he had not expected. She had a confused look of pleasure on her lovely face as well. “Lais?”
“Yes, little one?”
“Why does it make me feel needy inside to be motionless like this for you?”
“I do not know; perhaps you like to trust me.”
“Perhaps I do.”
And mayhap he liked her trust, more than he would have ever known and far more than ’twas safe for either of them.
He reached down and cupped both her breasts, rubbing his thumbs over her sensitive nipples. “These are just the right size for me.”
He could see her desire to move in the way her body tensed, but she remained still. “Maybe I was made for you.”
The look in her eyes when she said it was not one of humor, but of deep longing and obvious doubt. If he had thought that doubt was for his worthiness, he would have denied it, but he knew it was for herself.
He could not stand to see such a look in her eyes. “Mayhap you were. I only know I am a very lucky man to be touching you like this right now.”
Her smile was like the sun coming from behind the clouds.
He leaned down and took one of her berry-ripe buds into his mouth, laving it with his tongue, gently tugging it with his teeth and suckling until she whimpered, the scent of her sex calling to him with increasing urgency.
He followed the enticing aroma, moving until his face was between her thighs.
“What are you doing?” she asked, her voice tinged with shock but a lot more desire.
“Saving your virtue,” he said just before his first delicate lick along her most intimate flesh.
She tried to jerk her hips, but he was ready for her, his hands holding her legs apart and still.
“Lais,” she whined.
And he liked that sound, so like a wolf’s whine but she was human.
“Remember, sweet one, do not move, or I stop.”
“I can’t help it.”
“You can.”
He caught the gush of wetness his words elicited in her with his tongue. Entranced by her flavor, he alternated between lapping at her entrance and tonguing the swollen, wet passage he craved sinking his sex into, until a steady litany of pleas fell from her lips.
She wanted him, but she needed release. She did not yet know what that was though, so she begged with incoherent words for something she could not name.
To know he had this of her, this innocence. That he had the ability to introduce her to the ultimate pleasure for the very first time caused his cock to pulse with needs of its own.
He shifted his head so he could swirl his stiffened tongue around her pleasure spot and he heard her turn her head into the bedding as she screamed int
o the furs.
It did not take long from that moment to bring her to completion, but he did not stop in his ministrations to her and she broke. Writhing against him until a second climax overtook her and she screamed his name, the sound muffled by the furs she had stuffed into her mouth.
He reared up on his knees between her thighs and touched himself, his stroke harsh and quick. When he erupted with his own orgasm, it took every bit of his self-control to keep his seed on his hand and not bathe her in it, marking Mairi as his.
Chapter 11
I am not one who was born in the custody of wisdom; I am one who is fond of olden times and intense in quest of the sacred knowing of the ancients.
—GUSTAVE COURBET
The ride back to the Sinclair fortress took less than an hour, every moment both pleasure and torture for Eirik.
By the time they were all assembled in the great hall again, this time without the twins and with Guaire, Eirik was in a piss-poor mood.
Nevertheless, he stood beside Ciara’s chair, his hand resting on the high back, his expression daring anyone to make something of his choice of where to stand.
Talorc gave him an amused smirk but said nothing. Abigail’s smile was much more innocent, though the look of worry she gave her adopted daughter did not sit well with Eirik’s dragon.
There was no safer place for Ciara than with him and all assembled should realize that.
Talorc leaned against the mantel of the empty fireplace, his stance deceptively relaxed. “You are in a better frame of mind to discuss whatever it was that had you worried yesterday?” he asked Ciara.
She nodded. “I’m feeling much more myself.”
The Sinclair inclined his head in a silent gesture of thanks toward Eirik. “That is very good to hear. Your mother and I have been concerned.”
“I am sorry.”
“There is nothing to apologize for. You are our daughter. It is our job to worry.”
Just as it was Eirik’s job to be concerned for his people and now this clan he belonged to. That concern meant he needed answers about the Faolchú Chridhe.
He had a hard time accepting that Ciara had said nothing to Talorc before this. Eirik’s dragon trusted her, but he was not sure this time his beast’s instincts were right.
Despite the protectiveness he felt toward her and the intimacy of sharing her dreams the night before, Eirik was not certain he could trust her with the Éan’s safety like he trusted her adopted father.
Ciara nodded, her green eyes glittering with worry. “I’ve been having dreams.”
“I am aware.” The laird frowned. “If I could stop the nightmares, I would.”
“They’re not all nightmares.” She flicked an unreadable glance toward Eirik.
Though he could guess what she was thinking. Her visions of the Faolchú Chridhe were naught to do with him, but her dream self had as good as told him that her dreams were sometimes about Eirik.
He got the impression she blamed him for the dreams, though they were hardly his fault. Still, that look had not been one of censure. He’d received plenty of those from her and knew intimately their expression.
He frowned in thought and caught a glimmer of fear in her green gaze before she adroitly masked it. Her Chrechte talents were well developed, but he could still smell traces of her apprehension. It did not appear anyone else did, however.
’Twas odd, that, and why the fear?
Because she was not an Éan and had learned somewhere along the way to fear her Chrechte strengths as much as she relied on them. She did not want him to know about the nature of her dreams about him, which meant they were no doubt of a nature to interest him.
She would learn she could hide little from him, and nothing he set his mind to learn.
“She has the sight,” Mairi interjected softly, innocently unaware of the sub currents between Eirik and Ciara.
The Sinclair stared at his daughter, the clan chief clearly nonplussed. “Like when you dreamed about Abigail with the bairn?”
Abigail reached out and touched Ciara’s shoulder. “I thought that was the result of your Chrechte senses becoming aware of something and making it known through your dreams. Are you certain that is not the case?”
“Yes.” Ciara’s hands twisted together in her lap. “It is not the first time. And they aren’t all happy like that one.”
“Have you seen something that concerns us?” Talorc sounded more curious than convinced.
Were the Faol of the Chrechte so far removed from the ancient ways that they did not know about the seers among them?
Perhaps the Éan joining the clans would save more than their race.
When Ciara bit a lip obviously already swollen from such abuse, Eirik wanted to pull her into his arms and promise all would be well. “I believe so, yes.”
“Tell me about the dreams,” Talorc instructed far more gently than was the irascible laird’s wont.
She flicked a glance up to Eirik and then over to Abigail, before settling her attention back on the laird, her discomfort with the topic obvious. “I’ve had them since I was a small girl.”
The laird nodded encouragingly.
“I saw members of my old clan in their Chrechte forms, but not always the ones they showed to the rest of Donegal pack.”
“What do you mean?”
Ciara turned a concerned gaze on Eirik.
Certain he knew what she worried about revealing, he nodded. “He knows already.”
The shoulder under his hand relaxed infinitesimally. “In my dreams, I saw Circin and his sister as ravens, flying in the sky.”
Talorc’s shock could not have been greater. “How?” He shook his head. “You must have seen them when awake at some point.”
“No. I knew Lais was an eagle, though he denied it to the whole clan.”
“Not even Wirp knew,” Lais said in a voice soft with awe.
“You are not convinced,” Ciara accused her adopted father.
The Sinclair winced. “I want to be, but ’tis so fantastic.”
Ciara drooped, but then squared her shoulders and looked directly at the laird. “There is a secret you hold, one that your father died for.”
“Others in our pack know as much,” Talorc said almost apologetically.
“But they cannot tell you the details of that secret. I can.”
She lifted her right hand and examined it as if her delicate fingers might hold the answers of the universe. “Were my hand that of a saint, I would not have made the many mistakes I have, I think.”
Color drained from the Sinclair’s face. “How did you…”
“She’s told you how and now you need to stop your doubting,” Abigail said with such an expression of angry exasperation, Eirik didn’t like his friend’s chances of finding joy in his marital bed that night.
“Aye. I am sorry for doubting you, Ciara.”
“I have never lied to you, but you know I have hidden much. It makes you distrustful, I understand.”
Talorc looked pained and Abigail on the verge of tears.
“Enough of this,” Niall said in his gruff voice. “We all believe you, Ciara.”
She nodded, but her gaze was far away. “I dreamed of my father’s death, and then my mothers. Hers years before it happened, and ’twas so bloody I dismissed the dream as nightmare. I wasn’t prepared.” Her voice had turned hollow. “I still see her in dreams.”
“Oh, Ciara.” Abigail looked like she wanted to hug the younger woman, but she must have seen what Eirik did.
Ciara was barely holding her emotions in check and it didn’t take a Chrechte’s senses to discern that.
Ciara began to speak again, her tone void of the emotion swirling in her emerald eyes. “I began dreaming of the Faolchú Chridhe when I was barely out of leading strings. I did not know what it was at first, but then I told Galen about my dreams. I thought he would make fun of me.”
“He didn’t,” Eirik interjected with certainty.
She looked up at him briefly and shook her head. “He believed my dreams were prophetic, that I would lead him to the wolves’ sacred stone. At first, he made it a game, taking me into the forest to search. Those were such happy days, but then our da died and Galen changed.”
“It was no game for him.” And never had been, of that Eirik was certain. Particularly in light of the fact that if his sister was the keeper of the stone as her new friend Mairi claimed, Galen would have had the bloodline to call on the power of the stone as well.
“Or the friends who shared his hatred of the Éan.” His voice came out harsher than he meant it to be, but the thought of one such as her brother having the power of a Chrechte’s sacred stone was chilling.
“No. It was no game for them. That’s what we were doing that awful day, when Luag smelled ravens and decided to go hunting instead of searching for a myth. Galen had started bringing his friend along on our searches, but neither of them listened to me about where to look. They were so convinced they knew the right of things.”
“And yet they were completely deceived,” Lais said.
Ciara took a deep breath and let it out. “Yes.”
“Luag did not believe in your dreams.” Eirik was certain the Donegal wolf would never have gone hunting the Éan children if he had. The Faolchú Chridhe would have been far too important a find.
“Not like Galen did, no.” She bit her lip again and Eirik’s dragon rumbled in his chest. “He wanted to believe he could have the power of the stone.”
“If he was your brother, he would have been able to call it forth,” Mairi said with utter conviction.
Ciara did not reply, but Eirik nodded his agreement. The Sinclair did not appear happy at that possibility.
Guaire asked, “You never found signs of the stone?”
He’d been silent thus far, but Eirik could see the seneschal taking things in and weighing their import. Eirik had noticed the human doing so before, when working with Eirik and the laird to settle the Éan among the clan.
When he made an observation, it was always on target and of benefit. Talorc was lucky to have such a seneschal.