by Lucy Monroe
“My dragon will have to kill again, in protection of our people.”
“And I will be here with you to wash away the pain.”
“With your love.”
She nodded. “With my love.”
And that is exactly what she did.
Abigail, who knew much from her correspondence with a learned abbess, had once told Ciara that the philosopher Aristotle had maintained that love was composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.
Ciara thought maybe the ancient philosopher had been part Chrechte, but certainly he’d gotten one thing right. Because her soul was forever entwined with Eirik’s and ’twas most definitely love.
For no other power on earth would have been great enough to break through the walls of fear she’d erected around her heart so many years ago and give her hope for a future that might even one day include children.
It took several days to find the ancient chamber of the Faol, perhaps because Eirik and Ciara were content to spend more time in the sacred caves affirming their love than searching. That, if nothing else, convinced Ciara that Eirik had spoken the truth when he said she was of utmost importance to him.
The cavern was not actually hidden so much as forgotten. Deep in the earth and down another one of those narrow, very long passages, it looked exactly as it had in Ciara’s vision.
“I suppose the Faol stopped coming when there was no Faolchú Chridhe to lay hands on,” she mused.
Eirik frowned and shook his head as he lit the torches on the walls in the stone chamber. “I’m sure Fearghall encouraged any but his chosen few to forget it and the sacred stone’s existence.”
“Whoever decided we did not need to perform our sacred rites because we no longer had a stone to bless them stole so much from the Faol.”
“I am sure the kelle will help you remember them,” Eirik comforted Ciara.
“She did say I would see her again.”
“And you will.” Eirik smiled. “I have the feeling the ancient kelle will be a lifelong friend and mentor for you.”
“You may be right, but as wonderful as that prospect is…” Ciara reached up and kissed her mate, her husband with all the love that welled forth from her heart for him in a continuous fount. “It cannot compete with the certainty I will spend that lifetime with you.”
Eirik’s eyes glinted with moisture she would never comment on as he gave her the brilliant smile she’d seen first the night he admitted his love for her. “Nothing can compete with that truth, faolán.”
Epilogue
The secret of Happiness is Freedom, and the secret of Freedom, Courage.
—THUCYDIDES
Their family and dearest friends joined Eirik and Ciara for the mating ceremony performed by Anya-Gra in the ancient chamber of the Faol. Both spoke their vows with such certainty and love that many an eye grew wet with moisture.
Afterward, they laid hands together on both the Clach Gealach Gra and the Faolchú Chridhe. Chrechte magic swirled in the air around them and each witness of the mating came forward one by one to lay hands on the stone of their people.
The warriors still wounded from battle with the MacLeod Chrechte were first and each was healed so that not even scars remained from wounds so grievous humans would have died. Sabrine, Eirik’s sister, followed with her son.
Then came Mairi. The air around her glowed with green light, but she did not shift into wolf.
Ciara grinned as she looked at her friend. “You can feel her spirit in you, can you not?”
Mairi just nodded, tears streaking down her face.
“You’ll shift with the first full moon after you give birth. Your bairn will be an eagle shifter,” Ciara promised in a voice that was more than her own.
A loud thump revealed Lais’s reaction to the news. The healer who fought like a warrior had fainted.
Ciara motioned for her mother to come forth.
“But I am not Chrechte,” Abigail said.
“The bairn inside you is,” Niall said from beside her.
Abigail nodded and placed her hands on the Faolchú Chridhe. Ciara covered her adopted mother’s hands with her own and drew forth on the connection between the babe in Abigail’s womb and the Faolchú Chridhe. Healing light surrounded them and suddenly Abigail cried out.
“What is it?” Talorc demanded.
“I can hear.” Abigail began to cry and her sister threw her arms around her, babbling words of love and joy.
Then Ciara spoke, again her voice not quite her own. “The lairds must each lay hands on the Faolchú Chridhe.”
Each did, green light bathing them for several seconds, before the men stepped back one by one.
“You are worthy protectors of your people,” Ciara intoned. “On the next full moon, you will gain the form of the conriocht.”
And then she turned to her dragon. “The burden is no longer yours alone to bear.”
“Soon, the Paindeal will be found and the Chrechte will be one people again,” Mairi said, her eyes glowing with blue light.
“But first there is a war to be fought for the hearts of Chrechte turned by the twisted teachings of the Fearghall,” Ciara intoned. “The Cahir must rise again and Chrechte of the MacLeod defeat his own.”
Love and unity would win, but the war would be long and not every battle without loss.
GLOSSARY OF TERMS
bairn—baby
beguines—self-running nunnery without vows to the church, not supported by the official church as related to Rome (historically accurate term in the British Isles)
ben—hill
Ben Bristecrann—broken tree hill (a sacred spot to Ciara’s family)
brae—hillside or slope
Cahir—warriors who fight the Fearghall
celi di—Scottish Highland priest practicing Catholicism with no official ties to the church in Rome (historically accurate term in relation to Scotland and Ireland)
Chrechte—shifters who share their souls with wolves, birds or cats of prey
Clach Gealach Gra—(moon’s heart stone) the bird shifters’ sacred stone
conriocht—werewolf (protector of the Faol, shifts into giant half-wolf/half-man type creature)
Éan—bird shifters (ravens, eagles and hawks)
Faol—wolf shifters
faolán—little wolf (Gaelic term of endearment)
Faolchú Chridhe—(wolf’s heart) the wolf shifters’ sacred stone
Fearghall—secret society of wolves intent on wiping out/subjugating other races of the Chrechte
femwolf—female wolf shifter
keeper of the stone—a Chrechte who has a special link to the sacred stone and can utilize its full potential for healing, gifting and bringing forth the protectors of the races (conriocht, dragon and griffin)
kelle—warrior priestess (mentioned in Celtic mythology)
Kyle Kirksonas—River of the Healing Church
loch—lake
mate—a Chrechte’s chosen partner (if it is a mixed mating—Chrechte of different races, or a human mate—children can only result if the bond is a true/sacred one)
mate-link—the special mental bond between true/sacred mates
mindspeak—communicating via a mental link
mo gra—my love
Paindeal—cat shifters (large cats of prey)
Paindeal Neart—(panther’s strength) the panther shifters’ sacred stone
sacred bond (true bond)—a mating bond that lasts unto death and will not physically allow the Chrechte involved to have intercourse with anyone but the Chrechte’s mate
usquebagh—“water of life” (Scotch whiskey)
Read on for a preview of the next book in
Lucy Monroe’s Children of the Moon series
Warrior’s Moon
Coming soon from Berkley Sensation!
“Mummy, they’re giants!”
It wasn’t her son’s excited shout that sent a shard of pain spiking through Shona’s head, but the sight of soldiers
wearing the Sinclair colors approaching at speed—on horses every bit as oversized as they were.
The headache had arrived with the large brown wolf that had paced them for the better part of the morning. Only the pounding in her skull hadn’t left when the beast did.
Terrified the animal would attack, she’d ridden tense in her saddle with a dagger at the ready. However, the wolf had maintained its distance, finally running off just before the noon sun cast its shadow.
Her mind and senses already stretched to the point of exhaustion with what had come before this journey, the appearance of the wolf had pushed Shona that much nearer collapse.
But she would not give up. Her children’s lives and those of two loyal friends depended on Shona maintaining both sanity and composure.
So she had taken her little daughter, Marjory, back from her companion, Audrey, and ridden on.
Shona had hoped her luck would hold, as it had miraculously for nearly two sennight’s of their mad dash north, but it was not to be.
They’d reached Sinclair land late the night before, managing somehow to both evade anyone her stepson may have sent after them and avoid the inhabitants of the clan territories she and her small band had passed through.
Until now.
She had no trouble understanding how her five-year-old son, Eadan, had mistaken the approaching soldiers for giants. These Highlanders would easily stand a head taller, and half again as wide, as any knight who had sworn allegiance to her dead husband.
Considering what was behind her, Shona could wish that these men were of the clan she’d come north to seek refuge with, but she knew she had no friends or family among the Sinclairs. They weren’t likely to take kindly to what they would perceive as an Englishwoman trespassing on their land. Perhaps the laird would approve safe passage through, if only to get rid of her and her companions. She could but hope.
She had to make her way to Balmoral Isle.
It was the only chance they had at safety, her one hope to preserve her son’s life and her own virtue. Or what was left of it.
At Balmoral, she had family, at least, though the relation was somewhat distant. She had no doubt her arrival would come as something of a shock. She could only hope it was not a wholly unwelcome one.
“They’re not giants, sweeting, merely warriors of the clan that makes these lands their home.” Shona tried to infuse her tone with confidence while her own mind screamed with warnings and worries.
“Really?” Eadan asked, his eyes, the same indigo blue as his father’s, filled with awe.
“These are Highland warriors?” Audrey asked, before Shona had the chance to affirm her assertion to her son. “They’re huge.”
“’Tis the way of the Highlands, I suppose.” And among some of the clans that bordered the Highlands as well, like the one in which she’d grown up.
Audrey gave her twin brother a sideways look. “Perhaps you’ve got more growing to do, but I don’t think you’ll reach their stature, even so.”
Thomas looked chagrined. “You don’t know that.”
Shona couldn’t imagine why they were speculating at all. Thomas was English, just like his sister; children of a lesser baron whose holding bordered her dead husband’s on the west and was only a few miles from land claimed by Scotland’s king.
Shona’s sleeping daughter stirred in her arms and she looked down to see pretty green eyes so like her own blinking up at her. “Mama, is there giants?”
At three, Marjory was as different from her older brother as night from day. Petite and quiet-spoken, she adored the older brother who was and had always been big for his age and confident to the point of brashness.
So like his father it made Shona’s heart ache, though she’d never let her children see it.
“They’re the laird’s guard come to greet us,” Shona claimed, her voice maintaining a shocking steadiness despite the blatant lie she’d just told.
One look from her two adult companions assured her they weren’t fooled by her words. But neither of her children were frightened and that was what mattered.
She just had to believe that the Sinclair was a better man than some who had been in her life. His reputation as a fierce but fair leader even as far south as England had led to her decision to travel on his lands instead of taking a more circuitous route to her final destination.
They rode for another ten minutes before meeting the Sinclair warriors.
Shona halted her horse and the rest of her party followed suit.
“Who are you and what are you doing on our land?” Though the soldier’s words were abrupt and his demeanor nothing less than ferocious, Shona felt no fear. Something about the man speaking made her think he would not hurt them. Perhaps it was the flash of concern in his eyes when he looked at her children.
The big warrior would have been devastatingly handsome but for the garish scar on his cheek, but Shona felt no draw to him. She had only ever wanted one man in her life, and, despite having been married to another, that had not changed. Nor did she believe it ever would. But she did not lament her lack of interest in the opposite sex. Men could not be trusted and she was better off keeping what was left of her heart for her children and her children alone.
“I am Shona, Lady Heronshire, seeking safe passage through your laird’s lands to visit my family on Balmoral Isle.” The words were formal, and she spoke them in flawless Gaelic, her native tongue.
“Did you get that scar in a fight?” Eadan asked.
Audrey gasped, but Shona just sighed. Her son had no cork for the things that came out of his mouth.
The warrior’s attention moved to Eadan and he studied him closely for several seconds before something that could have been surprise and then speculation flared in his gray gaze. “I did. Do you ride as protector of your mother?”
Shona didn’t understand the man’s reaction to her son, unless it was to the fact that such a small child spoke Gaelic so well. She’d spoken to both her children in her native tongue since their births and they both communicated equally well in Gaelic and English. Just as she did.
Her son, mayhap, even better than she did.
Eadan puffed up his little boy chest and did his best to frown like the warriors in front of them. “I do.”
“You sound like a Scot, lad, but you dress like a Sassenach.”
“What’s a sassy patch?” Marjory whispered from her perch in Shona’s lap.
“An Englishman,” the big warrior answered, with a barely there smile for her daughter’s interesting pronunciation of the word, proving he’d heard the quietly uttered question.
“Oh.” Pop. Marjory’s thumb went into her mouth. It was a habit Shona and Audrey had worked hard to break her of, but the little girl still sucked her thumb when she was overly tired or nervous. After two weeks of grueling travel and coming upon men who looked more like giants than soldiers, the tot was no doubt both. Shona sighed again.
This brought the big man’s attention back to her. “I am Niall, second-in-command to the Sinclair laird. My men and I will accompany you to the keep.”
“Thank you.” What Shona really wanted to say was, Thank you, but no.
She’d rather head directly for the island. She was tired of traveling and she wasn’t going to feel safe until she’d gotten the Balmoral laird’s promise of protection for her and her small band.
However, to refuse the hospitality of the other laird would not only be considered rude, but she’d no doubt they would end up traveling to the keep no matter what she might say on the matter.
She’d learned long ago that some things were beyond her control.
The keep was a fortress far superior to that of the MacLeod holding where she’d grown up, and even more formidable than that of her deceased husband’s. The high wall surrounding the laird’s home and guard towers was stone, though the buildings within were crafted mostly from wood.
The keep itself was on top of a motte, the manmade hill only accessible by a narrow p
ath she just knew Niall was going to tell her they could not take their horses on. Even from this distance the keep looked big enough to easily accommodate fifty or more in the great hall. The imposing nature of the holding made her wish her family was of the Sinclair clan. She could do naught but hope the Balmorals lived equally as secure.
The bailey was busy with warriors and clanspeople alike, many of whom seemed interested in the new arrivals. And slightly suspicious, if the frowns she and her companions received were anything to go by. But the overt hostility she might have expected toward those garbed as the English was surprisingly absent.
Niall stopped his horse and the warriors with him did as well. Shona guided her tired mare to a halt, so fatigued she was not absolutely sure she would make it off the horse without sending both herself and Marjory tumbling.
“Should we dismount then?” Audrey asked, her tone showing no more enthusiasm for the prospect than Shona felt.
Shona opened her mouth to answer, only to lose any hope she had of speaking as her gaze fell upon a warrior standing near the open area in front of the blacksmith’s. The man, who was easily as tall and as broad as Niall, wore the MacLeod colors with no shirt beneath the plaid to give him any hint of civility.
His back to them, his lack of interest in the English strangers was more than obvious.
But she could not claim the same apathy. Not when every inch of his arrogant stance was as familiar to her as the mane on her mare’s head.
His black hair was longer than it had been six years ago, the blue tattoos covering his left shoulder and arm a new addition, his muscles bulging more, but she had absolutely no doubt about the identity of the MacLeod soldier standing so confidently among the Sinclairs.
Caelis.
Even the sound of his name in her own thinking made her heart beat faster and her hands tighten into fists.
Betrayer, screamed that voice in her mind that had never gone fully silent though she’d been forced to marry another man. Mine, cried the heart that had learned never to trust again at this man’s feet.
She’d given him her love and her innocence.
He had repaid those gifts with repudiation.