by Lucy Monroe
“The Paindeal disappeared before the Éan stole our sacred stone and the Fearghall was created to find it and return it to the Faol.”
“The Fearghall spend too much time hunting Éan to be hunting the Faolchú Chridhe.”
“The Éan destroyed it.” But even Maon did not sound convinced by his own argument.
Of course, according to the man, Caelis could not be conriocht without it. So, his very existence was proof this sacred stone still existed and was indeed accessible to the Faol.
“Both the Paindeal and the Faolchú Chridhe exist.” There could be no doubt that Caelis believed what he was saying. “Just like the Éan.”
“But we have always known the Éan exist.”
“And the Éan have never forgotten the Paindeal, nor have some of the Faol.”
“So, what? We are to chase after a myth?” Maon demanded.
“Aye, and find them if we hope to save our children’s children.”
“You say Uven held you back from your true mate?” Sean asked.
Maon glared at the forest floor. “He says you were just too stubborn to do your duty by our people.”
“How can I, a Chrechte man, do this duty once I have mated and forged the sacred bond?” Caelis asked.
“You could not,” one of the other men said. “And Uven knew this.”
Apparently, from the man’s tone, this was a well-known fact among the Chrechte.
This proof that Caelis had not lied to her about his last six years of celibacy was something she set aside to contemplate later.
“’Tis why he ordered me not to couple with Shona, but it was already too late.” Caelis huge arm settled across her shoulder.
“You lied to him,” Sean said in a tone that Shona did not understand.
It was almost as if he admired Caelis for doing so.
“Aye. And he never knew my deceit.”
“That is impossible,” Maon asserted. “Our alpha could smell your deceit no matter how you tried to mask it.”
“He is no longer your alpha.”
And Shona began to understand Caelis’s intentions and his need to return to the MacLeod clan. He was not going back to merely exact vengeance on a laird who had lied and put his people’s needs last. Caelis wanted to save others from the same fate. He wanted to lead the MacLeod people with the strength and courage and selflessness that Uven should have shown.
“So you claim.” Maon’s words were defiant, but his conviction lessened with every utterance.
Shona could almost find it in her heart to feel sorry for him. Until she remembered he’d threatened to kill her children.
“Do you really think he will survive my challenge?” Caelis asked with more humor than Shona felt.
“According to your words, you will allow us to live.”
“Uven is more treacherous. He has earned his death, when it comes.” There was no mercy in Caelis’s tone now.
Apparently the Chrechte law of mercy did not extend to despot alphas.
“Because he withheld your mate from you?” Maon asked.
“Because he has killed mates, not just withheld them. Because he has murdered Éan, humans and Faol indiscriminately whenever they have gotten in his way. My own parents were victims of his treachery and he dared put himself in my life as substitute father. Because he lies and teaches lies as truth, knowing they are lies.”
She did not think the others heard the pain in the conriocht’s gravelly tones, but it reached out to the heart she’d tried so hard to protect these past six years. She did not want to feel compassion for him, did not want to feel his pain.
But she could no more help herself than when Eadan scraped his knee and her own ached in sympathy.
“Uven believes what he teaches,” Sean claimed.
Maon paled and looked ready to lose whatever he’d eaten to break his fast that day.
“Nay. He knows the truth. We are only as strong as our weakest link. And without our sacred stone, the Faol were the weakest link in the family of Chrechte for centuries.”
Maon shook his head. “No.”
“Aye.”
Maon did not argue again. He shut up, his expression turning thoughtful. In a thoroughly surly way. If he was acknowledging his wrongheadedness, even if only in his own mind, he certainly wasn’t happy about it.
Was that required response for Chrechte men, she wondered. To be cranky and out of sorts most of the time? Shona found herself laughing at the not-so-absurd notion.
Caelis looked down at her with concern and a yearning she did not understand. “What has you amused?”
“The nature of the Chrechte.”
“You mean our wolves?” Sean asked, sounding puzzled.
“I mean the fact you all seem overly surly, or at least the men do.” Audrey was not so cantankerous.
Caelis shrugged, his massive shoulders making even that small movement impressive and nearly knocking her sideways in the process. “We share our natures with a wolf.”
“You share yours with more.” And he had not told her. Again.
Again he seemed to read her thoughts. “You are not afraid of me like this.”
“No. You are still Caelis.”
“I thought you would be.”
So he had not shown her the wondrous monster. Out of fear? She could not imagine this magical being having such concerns.
Or mayhap, he simply could not show her as he had the wolf. “Can you shift to conriocht at will?”
“Aye, though shifting back cannot happen as quickly.”
“Why?”
“I dinna ken. It could be that when our race was created, a conriocht was meant to spend his time in this form, to better protect our people.”
“Can you shift back now?” she wanted to know.
“Not while threat still exists.”
“We’ve submitted to you,” Sean said. “We would not harm your mate or child.”
“Both Eadan and Marjory are mine,” Caelis growled.
Sean nodded quickly. “As it should be.”
Maon made a scoffing sound.
“You do not agree?” Shona asked, ready to defend her children against even a man who shifted into a wolf.
His beast was nothing compared to the beast who claimed loyalty to her. And as with his wolf, Shona found it all too easy to trust Caelis’s conriocht, even if she could not yet bring herself to trust the man.
“The Fearghall are taught that there is no value in humanity,” Maon said. “A human child would not be claimed by a Chrechte warrior under his authority.”
“Uven’s own daughter was human,” Caelis said.
“Was?” Sean asked.
Caelis gave the other Chrechte a measureing look. “She shifts now, thanks to her Éan mate and our sacred stone.”
“How could her mate have drawn on the power of our stone?” the warrior Shona did not know asked.
“He did not.”
“Then why say thanks to him?” Maon asked, for once sounding more curious than antagonistic.
“He saved her life after her father and Ualraig, the blackguard her father meant her to mate, beat her and left her for dead.”
Shona noted that not one of the men looked surprised by the news, but neither did they look particularly comfortable with it.
“Is he the one who killed Ualraig?” Maon asked.
“You are so sure Ualraig is dead and not a deserter like me?”
“There was naught but ashes left of our warriors, but we know the difference between human ash and dirt.”
“Aye, Laith killed him.”
“Ualraig was the most powerful of Uven soldiers.”
“Nay, he was not.”
“You bested him many times in training but Uven never promoted you to his second,” Maon observed, again without the overt anger.
“Aye. I would not mate with another Chrechte, much less the man’s poor daughter.”
“You couldn’t.”
“He did not know that.�
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“He would have killed you if he had.” There was no doubt in Maon’s voice, or the faces of the other three.
Shona shivered. This world was new to her and there were many things about it she still did not understand, but she was struck with the certain knowledge that Uven would have killed her mate if the laird had known of the bonding between Caelis and Shona.
“He could no kill my da,” Eadan said resolutely.
“Nay, he cannot now and the past does not matter,” Caelis agreed.
Maon nodded, shocking Shona.
“Are you Uven’s new second?” Caelis asked of Maon.
“No.”
“Why not?” Shona could not help herself asking.
Curiosity often drove her when she should leave well enough alone.
“I refused the assignment to go after his daughter.”
“What?” Even in his not-quite-human voice, Caelis’s shock was palpable.
“He was not a good father to his human daughter.”
“Yet you would have killed my children,” Shona said with more confusion than anger.
She was doubting her own words even as she spoke them.
“Chrechte do not kill children.”
“You said—”
“What I believed would undermine my opponent with emotion.”
“Oh.”
“Jon did not kill the woman.”
“Audrey.”
“He could have.” Shona had thought so at the time.
“Aye.”
“Vegar would not take the risk he might.”
“A man protects his mate.” Maon’s shrug should have been casual, but there was an air of grief about him.
And Shona remembered something from her old clan. “Jon was your younger brother.”
“Too young to come on this quest.”
“But Uven sent him anyway. And you defend the man.” Shona could not understand it.
“He was my alpha. It was not my place to question him.”
“You said was.”
Maon looked at Caelis and then away.
“A Chrechte of honor values all life. An alpha worthy of loyalty extends both his protection and his consideration to those who swear fealty to him.” Caelis spoke gutterly, but never had Shona heard him say words more humane.
“Members of our clan starve while Uven fills his belly with prey.”
Caelis growled, but made no other reply to that claim.
Maon looked at him. “To be conriocht, the stone had to find you worthy.”
“Maker of the stone, aye. The stone is but a way for us to connect to our Creator.”
“You used to be Fearghall.”
“I accepted truth when I heard it.”
Maon nodded. “Taking over the clan will not be easy. Some must die.”
“Fewer than if the clan stays in the hands of an unscrupulous man.”
“This is what you were talking about earlier, isn’t it?” Shona asked Caelis, certain in her heart she was right.
“Aye.”
“Da is alpha,” Eadan said.
“You’re sure of that, are you, boy?” Sean asked with a smile.
Caelis growled, though Shona did not understand why.
Sean flinched but smiled. “I wasn’t questioning your alpha status, conriocht.”
Suddenly, Shona found herself sitting alone with both children, her snarling mate towering over them all. “I warned you: I can smell a lie.”
Sean jumped up, shifting into wolf form between one blink of her eyes and the next. He didn’t attack Caelis, but ran in the other direction.
Caelis looked after him; she could see his entire body tense with the need to follow.
“Go after him,” she instructed.
“Nay.” The fury in his tone made the word more a bark than anything recognizable.
He would not leave her and the children unprotected.
“Sinclair’s soldiers will be here soon enough. I will go after him then.”
Suddenly another wolf streaked past, which she recognized as Maon. She’d thought he was coming around, but then she’d thought Sean was completely won over already.
The sound of a loud bark came through the brush, then breaking branches, snarls and yelps, followed by a howl cut off mid-vocalization.
Maon came trotting back a moment later, his muzzle covered in blood, his hackles still raised.
Caelis dropped to a crouch and met the wolf with pats from his oversized beast’s hands, growls and croons that could be nothing but praise and thanks. Though Shona did not pretend to speak wolf.
Caelis stood. “There is a stream that way. Go wash the blood of battle away.”
The wolf obeyed and Shona clamped down her desire to point out that he still hadn’t sworn fealty. Sean had as good as, but without conviction.
Caelis turned to the remaining two wolves. “Chrechte law states my mate and family are paramount. Speak your intentions to follow or defy me now.”
The man Shona had never met stood. “I am not of the MacLeod clan.”
“And yet you do the laird’s bidding.”
“I was ordered by my alpha to accompany the others on this quest.”
“To destroy me.”
“And the other Uven considers a deserter.”
“We were to bring you back,” the other MacLeod Chrechte said.
“To what purpose?” Shona had to wonder.
“To make an example of your mate and the other one.”
She frowned. “Why do you not name him?”
Did this man think he was too good to speak the name of another he considered a deserter?
“We do not know which of the warriors lives.”
“Oh.”
Caelis did not offer the name of his fellow soldier. He glared down at the two men. “Choose now.”
“I cannot swear fealty,” the non-MacLeod said, but raised his hand in supplication at Caelis’s growl. “I have been raised Fearghall from birth. You demand I abandon my brethren. My father.”
“He is pack alpha,” Shona guessed.
The man looked startled at her perception.
She rolled her eyes. “I’m a human woman, not an idiot.”
“I give my word that no harm will come to you, your mate or your family by my hand or instigation.” The man put his fist over his heart and bowed his head again. “You are conriocht, blessed by all that we hold sacred.”
Caelis nodded. “I accept, but you will not go free.”
The man did not look surprised at all by Caelis’s pronouncement.
“And you?” Caelis demanded of the other soldiers.
Both men dropped to their knees and bowed their heads, speaking vows in what her father had once told her was the ancient language. She’d thought it was ancient Gaelic. Now she knew differently.
’Twas no doubt the original language of their people.
Caelis relaxed marginally and barked something back at them she did not understand.
He turned to her. “There is no more danger.”
She did not ask if he was certain—not after the way he’d known Sean’s heart even when the man presented the face of a friend.
“What happens to them now?” she asked.
“They’ll be trained by me.”
* * *
Caelis watched, unsurprised, as the Sinclair approached, his countenance grim. Though Shona and even the other wolves had seemed oblivious, Caelis had heard the other soldiers moving quickly through the forest for the past several minutes.
His conriocht had sensed the approach of the alpha as well, though Talorc moved with absolute stealth.
Caelis turned to the laird. “You heard it all?”
“Aye.” Talorc’s frown was fierce. “You are conriocht.”
“You make that sound an accusation.” If Shona’s own glare were directed at him, it would have made even Caelis cringe. “He saved our lives.”
“He revealed his third form to humans and to Faol who ar
e unaware of the return of our race’s protectors.”
Maon returned from washing himself in the stream, having transformed back to man. “I shifted first.”
Caelis wasn’t worried about the Sinclair’s anger, though he respected Maon for his honesty and willingness to have that ire directed at him. But nothing would have kept Caelis from shifting to his fiercest form when his mate and children were in danger; Talorc should have been well aware of that fact.
Dismissing the other alpha’s wrath from his mind, Caelis focused on regaining his human form now that his family was no longer in imminent danger. Heat suffused his body and the air compressed around him in a way it did not when he shifted back and forth from his wolf.
A moment later, he swayed on his feet, his perspective that of a man again. Shona rushed over and offered her arm.
He did not make the mistake of smiling at the gesture or refusing her help. The woman was half his width—even as a man—and more than a head shorter, but he leaned slightly on her shoulder regardless. The force of her spirit more than made up for what she might lack in stature. Had she been born Éan, Caelis had no doubt Shona would have become one of their guardians as the princess, Sabrine, had been before her marriage to the laird of the Donegal.
Shona directed him toward a tree. “Lean here.”
He stumbled forward, grateful when his back was against the solid trunk.
He was always dizzy after shifting from his conriocht…and hungry. He could eat a boar.
Talorc gave him a sympathetic look he was sure no one else saw—and if they did, would not understand.
But Talorc and the Balmoral pack alpha had also been chosen through the sacred stone as protectors of their people.
Not all on the Chrechte council were aware of this fact, which only went to prove that despite their efforts to live as a single people, trust between them all was not assured.
Thus far, there was only complete disclosure between the lairds of the Sinclair, Balmoral and Donegal clans. The others on the council only knew the barest facts about the Éan’s return to the clans.
None of them knew about Prince Eirik’s dragon form or about the return of the Faolchú Chridhe to the Faol.
Ciara, the newly appointed celi di of the Faol, followed advice given to her through visions by an ancient celi di. She was insistent the time had not yet come to reveal the sacred stone’s return.