by Lucy Monroe
Caelis gave chase after the retreating Chrechte, running faster than she’d ever seen man or beast. Even after the head start Caelis putting the children down had given Maon, he easily caught up with the big wolf. Caelis grabbed the ginger wolf by the scruff of its neck and shook the animal.
Maon went limp and Caelis carried him back to the group, where the other three wolves had not moved the breadth of a single canine hair from their position of submission.
Caelis threw Maon to the ground and then barked, “Shift!”
All four wolves transformed to their human forms. The transition was no less magical for her having seen it before.
Shona recognized two of the warriors, one of an age to her and the other younger. Maon, the self-proclaimed leader, was three or four years younger. She had not immediately recognized the youth she had known six years ago in the angry man he had become.
A fearsome warrior to be sure, he stood leader over men both older and younger than him. Only one man appeared a complete stranger to her.
He looked younger, too, but Shona knew from Caelis that could be deceiving.
All stared at Caelis with varying degrees of respect—even Maon, though his was tempered by that unbanked fury he’d displayed from the moment of his arrival in the clearing in his wolf form.
“You are conriocht. It is not possible,” Maon snarled, his defiance barely tempered.
Vegar’s brow rose mockingly. “And yet here he stands.”
“There is no sacred stone for the Faol anymore. The Éan stole our Faolchú Chridhe.” Maon looked at Vegar with loathing, his disgust with the situation clear. “And you are this one’s friend.”
Caelis backhanded the man, knocking him back several paces. “He is my friend and you’d do well to remember that.”
“Wait until Uven hears about this. He’ll find a way to stop you. I could have, if these fools had not submitted.” Maon glared at his fellow Chrechte.
“He’s conriocht, guardian of the Faol chosen by the Faolchú Chridhe, our own sacred stone, to be our protector and leader,” said the older man Shona had recognized. She thought his name was Sean.
“If he was chosen, it was with a purpose to do the Fearghall’s bidding, but he’s living here among the Sinclairs and the Éan. He’s a disgrace.”
This time, Caelis kicked the stupidly stubborn man, his roar of fury even giving Shona pause. Not that she feared him, but he was an impressive beast. And he was definitely angry.
“What is a conriocht?” Audrey asked, her voice uneven.
Shona had not even noticed her friend had shifted back to her human form.
“It is an ancient term for werewolf…man and wolf combined,” Vegar said, his big body blocking Audrey’s naked one from anyone else’s view.
Interesting. Considering both Caelis’s reaction earlier that day and Audrey’s response to being seen naked in the loch by Vegar in his eagle form, Shona assumed the Chrechte were less concerned with nudity than their human counterparts.
Audrey pulled her shift back on and spoke with the sheer white fabric over her head. She looked equally skittish and fascinated by Caelis’s savage form. “I have never heard of such a thing.”
“Before yesterday, I had never heard of…” What had Caelis called himself? Oh yes. “Shape-changers.”
Audrey replied, “But none have three forms.”
“That is not true,” Vegar said. “Chrechte with parents of two races can sometimes shift into two animals, both wolf and bird. It is rare, but it does happen.”
“Truly?” Shona’s blond friend had managed to get the shift settled into place.
But honestly, it did little for her modesty as see-through as it was.
Vegar didn’t seem impressed with its covering properties, either, glaring at one of the MacLeod Chrechte whose gaze had strayed from Caelis to Audrey.
Vegar nodded in response to Audrey’s question, doing his best to bind her wounds even as he helped Audrey cover herself with her dress.
Caelis stood to his full seven feet and spare inches tall, towering over them all. “I am conriocht and I claim my right as alpha to the MacLeod. Follow me.”
Sean and the other two MacLeod soldiers who had submitted in wolf form immediately dropped to one knee with right fists pressed to their hearts and heads bowed toward Caelis.
Maon remained standing, his stance defiant, though he kept his distance from Caelis.
“Or what?” Maon asked with only a marginally less antagonistic tone.
“Or you die. My conriocht nature will be revealed at my choosing and no other’s.”
Shona wanted to protest. Not the killing of the odious man. Maon would have killed Caelis without a qualm, and Shona as well. Worse, he would have killed or stolen her children. Either was not a fate she would ever wish on them.
Nay, she wanted to protest the opportunity to live. “How can you trust his vow of fidelity? Or any of theirs, for that matter?”
What was the submission of a wolf worth when he had the deceitful heart of a man?
Caelis looked at her, his gentian blue eyes the one familiar thing in his conriocht face. “I can smell a lie.”
“You did not smell them approaching. They masked their scent,” Audrey pointed out, awe for the feat lacing her tone.
“In my human form, I may not smell the masked scent. In my wolf form, that almost never happens. As a conriocht, they cannot lie to me, or mask their scents at all.”
“Impossible!” Maon looked impressed despite his denial. “None can smell our passing when we do not will it.”
Caelis ignored him and looked at Shona. “You will have to trust me.”
He wanted her to believe in him when she’d learned six years ago to do so was to set herself up for untold pain. “My children’s lives are in your hands.”
“Our children.” The ferocity of his tone brooked no denial.
She did not give him one.
“Do not risk them then.”
“You would have me kill them without mercy?”
She spun away before words that would condemn her more than the MacLeod wolves could pass her lips. But when had anyone shown her mercy?
Caelis hadn’t. Her parents hadn’t. Certainly the baron had not, using her body when he saw fit despite knowing how little she wanted it. And the current baron would take what he wanted without remorse if she allowed herself to be within his grasp.
“You are stronger than all of us.” The words were in Caelis voice, but they had not been spoken aloud.
She heard them in her head.
Fear that had not taken hold during or after all the strange revelations of the past days rose now over her like a spectre. She could withstand much, but what would happen to her children if she lost her reason?
A hairy, oversized hand landed on her shoulder. “’Tis the mate bond.”
“What, what’s the mate bond?” Audrey asked.
“He…I…no…” She shook her head beyond the ability to accept one more unbelievable thing, particularly one so very intimate and invasive.
If Caelis had access to her mind, he had known exactly how much he had hurt her six years ago. And still he had repudiated her.
He had known her desperation, her hopes, her fears and he had rejected her despite them all.
“No,” he barked, the giant beast’s expression pained in a way she could not comprehend. “I do not read your thoughts.”
“You are reading them now!” she accused.
He shook his head, a sound that was no human word she’d ever heard coming out of his mouth.
She looked around her, wondering for one terrible moment if any of it was real. Or was she living in some twisted dream?
The impossible did not happen. She had believed because she had seen. But what if all she had seen were fevered imaginings of a mind lost to reality? She must be mad. Mayhap that explained all of it, this new world that was too wondrous for the mundane life she led.
She had never thought
to see Caelis again. He hadn’t wanted her. How could she believe he was really here, laying claim to her, Eadan and another man’s child?
’Twas beyond imagination.
But she had imagined it. She must have.
“I am dreaming. You are not here at all.” She could not help that her words came out more accusation than statement.
Her fantastical warrior had made her believe.
“Och, lass, stop this. I am here. You are here. ’Tis no dream.”
“But…”
He shook his great head, tenderness she had not seen in those gentian blue depths for more than six years. “You are not dreaming.”
“You—”
A claw pressed against her lips with the softness of a butterfly. “Shh…”
Chapter 15
A sacred mate’s ability to share words through a mental bond is one of the greatest gifts of mating.
—ABIGAIL OF THE SINCLAIR
Tears sprang to Shona’s eyes, though she knew not from where. Surely she was past crying her stress away.
Caelis’s hand moved to cup her cheek, the palm so big it covered part of her temple and neck. “You are mine. I will not allow you to be harmed.”
Vegar snorted. “Aye, you’re his mate right enough. Under no other circumstances would he have revealed his conriocht so quickly.”
“But…” She looked up into mesmerizing blue eyes. “I heard your voice. Inside my mind. You know I did.”
“Aye.”
“That is not normal.”
“I stand before you a conriocht. ‘Normal’ does not define your life now, if it ever did.”
“But…”
“You are mine.” He said it again. Inside her mind.
She pulled away from him, his touch too much in that moment when she feared a connection of such magnitude she could well lose herself in it. “Can you hear my thoughts?”
“Only when you direct them to me.”
“But I didn’t…what I was thinking. You knew.”
He shrugged. “I do not understand it, but it was as if each thought was an accusation from you to me.”
“I wanted to say it, but stopped myself.”
He nodded, as if that explained it. She didn’t know if it did, but if this mindspeak between true mates was real, then Shona would have to be far more careful what she thought loudly around him.
“What will we do with them, then?” Vegar asked.
“Take them back to the keep.”
“And then?” Audrey asked as Shona wanted to.
“Then we extend mercy and the opportunity for submission, as Chrechte ancient law dictates.”
“They had no mercy toward us.” And if Chrechte law was so merciful, then how had so many of his kind died to war as he’d claimed?
Of course, two wolves lay dead in the clearing. Men who would never return to their families or homes. Men, Shona suddenly realized, she’d probably known at one time.
The thought made her queasy even as she worried that allowing the others to live put her children at risk.
“Mum, Da will make it all right,” Eadan said.
Shona looked down at her son and tried for a smile. Her son’s worried look indicated her attempt was less than successful.
“These men have been taught to disregard the honorable ways.” Caelis looked with regret down at their son. “As was I. I learned a new way. Perhaps they can, too.”
Audrey didn’t reply and Shona had nothing to add. Caelis claimed she was stronger than the need to withdraw mercy.
Mayhap he was right.
But in that moment, she could be glad the decision was not hers to make.
“We will go into the forest. Vegar, you go to the keep and fetch more of the Sinclair’s soldiers.”
“And some coverings for the men. They are naked,” Audrey pointed out as if no one else had realized yet.
So, she still had the modesty Shona had always thought such a deep part of the younger woman. She’d simply…what? Accepted Vegar seeing her naked because they were mates?
This mating business had a lot to answer for.
“Take the children with you,” Shona implored Vegar. “Please.”
“No, Mummy. We need to stay with you and Da,” Eadan immediately denied, reaching for his father with the first sign of true fear Shona had seen in her son this whole time.
Caelis lifted the boy without hesitation, saying something in a low voice that brought a relieved smile to Eadan’s features and a nod of agreement.
Marjory latched onto the conriocht’s leg, her thumb tucked into her mouth. Caelis’s giant hand rested carefully on her head, the gesture both gentle and clearly protective. Neither child showed signs of being overly upset by what they had witnessed, though both very obviously did not want to be separated from their savior.
Considering her son had barely survived his stepbrother’s machinations and Marjory had spent two sennights on the run with her mother and friends, they might well consider this day less upsetting than Shona did.
“The big dog keep us safe,” Marjory said around her thumb.
Shona found herself laughing and was glad to see that Caelis did as well. It was a strange, more guttural sound coming from his conriocht throat, but amusement glittered in his eyes. He was clearly not offended by being referred to as a dog.
Eadan frowned. “He’s not a dog, Margie. He’s our da.”
Marjory did not look overly concerned by her brother’s chastisement.
There was no joviality in Caelis’s expression when he fixed his gaze on the MacLeod Chrechte. “We will go into the forest and await the other soldiers.”
“Why? You’re just going to kill us anyway.” It was Maon, of course.
Incredibly, Caelis laughed again. “Do not presume to speak for your fellow Faol. They have already kneeled to me. All that is left is for them to speak their vows. You are no longer their leader and you were never their alpha. They were taught lies like you but recognize the truth when they see it.”
Maon shut up then.
At Vegar’s insistence, Audrey agreed to leave with him. He would see her wounds tended to immediately. The young Sinclair soldier also took his departure, his fervent praying finally ceasing, an expression of pain twisting his untried features.
Caelis laid his hand on the soldier’s shoulder and the Sinclair man earned even more of Shona’s respect when he barely winced at the contact. “Tell the Sinclair I owe a debt of gratitude and honor to this man.”
The soldier looked up at the massive conriocht with shock.
Caelis met his gaze. “You put yourself between my mate and danger. ’Tis not a debt that will ever be fully repaid.”
“Teach me to fight the wolves,” the young soldier said.
“Why?”
“To better defend my laird and our clan.”
“In time, you will train with the Chrechte, just as all his soldiers do.”
“’Tis not the same. We don’t know their true natures when training.”
“You believe you can learn to best a Chrechte warrior in his beast form in battle?”
“If you teach me, I do.”
“You have the heart for it. I will train you.”
“You cannot do that!” Maon exclaimed.
Caelis spun around and glared at the man, his hand clenched at his side. “Do not challenge me. My patience with you is at its limit.”
Maon fell silent, his expression mutinous.
Shona could not help admiring the stubborn determination of the other man, even if he was more wrongheaded than her stepson, Percival, and his father combined.
Shona took Audrey’s hand and led her toward the forest, surprised and yet not when the others followed her, Caelis at the rear with Eadan still perched on his arm.
Despite the men’s apparent submission, Shona kept Marjory well away from the MacLeods who had been willing to kill them.
Her head was too filled with her own thoughts to listen to Caelis as he
spoke in that strange guttural voice to the men he used to call friends. She was peripherally aware that he talked about things like sacred Chrechte law, the Fearghall and something he referred to as the Cahir.
The three who had already shown Caelis submission in their wolf forms listened with a great deal more attention than Shona. Maon argued and insulted and yet, Shona began to realize he wanted to believe.
And that is when she put her own worries aside and started listening, too.
“A time is coming—’twill not be in our lifetime, but that of our children’s children—when a great blight is coming up on the people of our nations. An illness so great it will wipe out entire packs as though they’d never been. Without our sacred stone and the help of healers, the Chrechte will cease to be.”
Maon frowned. “We have healers among the Faol.”
“Not enough. We will need the Éan and the Paindeal.”
“The Paindeal,” Maon scoffed. “They are legend and nothing else.”
“That is what most of the clans believed about the Éan before they learned the truth,” Caelis said.
“What do you mean?” Shona couldn’t help asking.
“Until a year ago, the Éan lived like ghosts in the remote forest.”
“Why?”
“Because of the Fearghall,” Maon answered, though he did not sound as proud of that fact as she would have expected.
“Aren’t they safe, now that they are among the clans?”
“The Éan are only safe when the Fearghall cease to exist.”
“That will never happen,” Maon scoffed.
“You think not?” Caelis challenged.
“He is right.” Shona moved cautiously around the Chrechte men so she and Marjory could sit on the other side of Caelis. “As long as there is hatred among men, people like the Fearghall will exist.”
Caelis gave an unhappy rumble of agreement. “But we will do our best to expose them among the Chrechte and help those who have been taught the lies to know the truth.”
It was a laudable goal, but she did not think every Fearghall was just misguided. Uven was a prime example.
That man got entirely too much joy out of believing himself superior to others. He would have been a terrible laird even if he’d been entirely human.