by Lucy Monroe
She did not know how long she had with this amazing warrior of the Faol, but she would enjoy every moment given her. For one thing was certain: there would not be many of them.
Earc caught up with Verica by the time she was on the steps. He said nothing, content to wait to ask what the hell she was doing running from him until she had walked off most of her upset.
’Twas something his oldest brother told him worked well with women. Earc had no reason to doubt the other man’s wisdom, for his mating was a happy one.
She didn’t stop in the hall, but went outside, through the courtyard, across the fields and into the forest. The fragrance of summer-sun-heated earth and heather did not mask that of prey. The temptation to go hunting rose and just as quickly settled.
Catching a mate was even more pressing a need. Strange that, when he had not come to the Donegals planning to find his mate, or even hoping for it.
She skirted the area where Earc had fought his challenge; the smell of charred wood and ash hung heavy in the air. The reminder he had been forced to take the life of a fellow wolf today gave him no sense of loss. Rowland may have been Chrechte, but he had been on the verge of destroying his pack. There was nothing to grieve in the loss of a man so evil and selfish.
They did not stop walking until she reached the small brook beyond the clearing. She was silent, looking over the water and then up to the sky. He did not press her for words, content to wait until she told him what had sent her running from the keep.
’Twas not him because she’d made no effort to get away from him since leaving her room, though he had not enjoyed the feeling of her rushing out of the room after his announcement.
Her head tilted back and she gazed up at the sky for long moments of silence before saying, “I changed into a raven for the first time in this spot.”
He looked around them. It seemed a good place for a first shift, but he could not connect to the concept she was both bird and wolf. “I did not know the Chrechte could have two natures.”
“It is very rare, but when two who are different species are true bonded, their children can carry both natures within them.”
It was information none among his pack was privy to, at least to his knowledge. The very existence of the Éan was more myth than reality for the Sinclair pack. “Your parents were sacred mates.” According to what she had just said, it could be no other way.
“Yes.” The wealth of meaning in that one word hit him with the force of a blow from Barr’s fist.
“You hoped for the same.”
She gave him a measured sidelong glance. “Truthfully, I thought never to mate at all.”
“Why?”
“To risk discovery of my raven is to risk death.”
Surely she did not fear him. “I will never harm you.”
“You aren’t like the men of my clan.” It was not outright agreement, but it was close enough.
“Nay, I am not.”
Instead of being comforted, she grew more agitated. Her breathing quickened while perspiration formed on her forehead and upper lip, the smell of her distress bringing a howl to his wolf’s heart.
It was his job to protect his mate, from everything that might harm or cause her serious emotional turmoil. His father had taught him that truth, but Earc’s wolf would have made itself known regardless.
She chewed on her lower lip, her hands twisting in her skirts.
“I love my brother.”
“As you should.”
“The clan relies on me as their healer.”
“Are there no others?”
“None who apprenticed with a master healer like my mother, who taught me to treat a wide range of ailments.”
“The Donegal clan is lucky to have you.”
“I don’t want to leave.” She looked up at him with beautiful blue eyes that pleaded for understanding.
He could not deny her, but he still did not understand why she was so upset. He wasn’t going to marry her and return to the Sinclair holding this very night, or even in the next year or two. “You are not going anywhere.”
“As your mate, I would one day, sooner than later, be forced to leave my family.”
“As I left mine behind to come here.”
“Yes.”
“I have parents and siblings to share with you among the Sinclairs.” Could she not see the benefit?
“I am all Circin has.”
“I will become his brother as well with our mating.”
“What good will that do him with you leaving to return to the clan of your birth?” she asked, her tone accusing and anguished all at once.
And all at once he understood her reticence about the mating. “It will be years before I would return.”
“I don’t want to leave at all.”
He could have reminded her that as his mate, she had no choice but to go where he went. He could have assured her that all would be well, that she would love life among the Sinclairs, but something held all those words back.
He looked down at her, at this woman who had suffered so much loss already in her life and still served her clan with her healing arts. She was not bitter or twisted by her sorrow, but she pulled back from wanting more.
How could he not be moved by such strength matched by equal vulnerability?
“There is only two days’ journey between the Donegal keep and Sinclair’s castle.”
“Is there?”
“We can visit my family yearly.”
“Visit?” A tendril of hope sounded in her voice.
“Aye.”
“So, we would live here, among my clan?”
“Among our clan.”
“We could stay with your family for a sennight, or more, each year.” The eagerness in her tone made him smile.
She reached out as if to touch him but then pulled her hand back.
He grabbed her hand and brought it to his face. That strange charge like miniature lightning arced between them.
She looked up at him shyly. “I like when you smile.”
“I like when you smell of joy rather than sorrow.”
“You care if I am happy.” Wonder and astonishment laced her voice.
“I do.”
“Like my father with my mother,” she said, almost in awe. “You are not sickened by my raven nature.”
“No.” Why would she even ask that? She had already acknowledged that she did not believe he was like the other men of her clan.
She turned away, a sense of caution surrounding her. “There is a thing you still do not know.”
“Tell me.”
“The ravens have gifts beyond their shifting nature.”
“As do wolves.”
She huffed, as if frustrated by his lack of understanding. “I can sense imminent death in a person.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know how the raven seems to always be able to tell when death is coming within its territory?”
“Aye. It is uncanny, that.”
“Those of the Éan share much with their bird nature, beyond that which others might accept.”
“Explain.”
“If I lay my hands on someone, I can feel if they are going to die.” She said the words without any inflection of emotion, but he did not believe this gift came without great cost to one as compassionate as his mate.
“’Tis a useful talent for a healer to have.” If not a particularly pleasant one for her tender heart.
“Perhaps. It was how I knew my parents did not die in the natural way of things.”
He did not understand and was smart enough not to pretend he did. “Because you did not sense their deaths?” he tried guessing.
“I do not, when the death is caused by another person.”
“Murder.” The foul word left a sour taste on his tongue.
“Or challenge. Or battle.”
That made a bit more sense. Like the ravens who shared a nature with her, she sensed nature’s culling of its inh
abitants. “So, you did not know Rowland would die in the challenge.”
“I would never have gotten close enough to touch him to find out.” Her abhorrence at the very thought rang in her soft voice. “If I had, I would not have known, as his death came at your hand.”
“If your father had really been killed by a wild beast—”
“I would have sensed it before he left our cottage and warned him. My Chrechte gifts had just begun to show themselves. For the longest time, I thought it was my fault, that I had somehow ignored the warning in my raven senses. But later I realized the warning did not come if death was by the hand of man.”
“And your mother?”
“Was definitely murdered.” Everything about the way she held herself, the fierce expression in her blue gaze, the tone in her voice—it all spoke of absolute certainty.
A certainty she had been forced to live with since the tragedy, with no recourse against those she believed responsible. “By the bastard Rowland.”
“I always believed so, but had no proof.”
And no way to bring him to justice if she had, considering the stranglehold he’d had on the Donegal clan and Chrechte pack. “Now he has finally paid the price for his cruelties.” Earc couldn’t suppress a wish the man lived just a little longer so he could kill him again.
“He chose his victim poorly with his words this time.”
“He thought he was targeting Circin.” And the wily shifter would have killed the less-seasoned pup without remorse had Circin made the challenge instead of Earc.
“He meant Circin to challenge him. He was looking for a way to get rid of my brother.”
“Aye.” It had not been an overly clever move, but it would have been effective if Rowland had gotten away with it. Barr would never have allowed it, of course, but Earc had his own reasons for stepping in.
“I owe you so much. You saved my brother’s life; you saved my clan.” The approval in her voice gave him pleasure.
But he was not a man to take credit where it was not fully due. “Barr had no plan to let Rowland live after discovering his gross offense against Sorcha.”
Verica nodded, once again biting her lush bottom lip, turning it red and tempting him to taste. “He is a good man to train my brother to lead one day.”
“Aye, he is.” But Earc’s attention was not on his laird’s positive qualities. He was far too occupied with thoughts of how his mate’s mouth and the tender flesh behind her ear would taste on his tongue.
She looked up at him, her eyes shining with an emotion he had no name for. “But you are still the man who saved him.”
“By claiming you for my mate.” Simply saying the words made the craving between them grow until he could think of little else.
She looked down, hiding her expressive eyes from him, perhaps trying to hide her own desire, but the fragrance of her feminine arousal gave her away. “Yes.”
“The connection between us is strong.”
“It is.” The words were almost a whisper.
“Why do you hide from me?”
“I am afraid of you.”
The words were worse than any blow he had received in battle. He had spent the last month dreaming of this woman, growing more and more enamored of her until the move to claim her as mate this morning had seemed the most natural course to take.
And she feared him.
He stepped back, so that amazing connection no longer hummed between them. Perhaps it was more one-sided than he’d believed. Perhaps his wolf’s senses deceived him. “What have I done to deserve such?”
She clasped her hands in front of her, twisting them as anxiety surrounded them thicker than the morning mist. And twice as cold.
“Answer me.” He would have her words; he was no ogre to be feared by the woman destined to bear his children.
“I could love you,” she said, her voice so quiet, it was not even a whisper.
Were he not wolf, he would not have heard. But he was wolf and he did hear and still it made no sense.
“How is this a bad thing? Should a woman not love her mate?”
Her head snapped up at that, fire shooting near-irresistible sparks from her pretty blue eyes. “And what of you? Will you love me, too?”
“’Tis a man’s duty to care for his mate.”
“Care for and love are not the same.”
“Women may mark the distinction, a warrior does not.”
“Sabrine is a warrior. I’m sure she notes it.”
“Sabrine is a mystery Barr best solve before this clan is put in peril.”
“You think she puts us at risk? She is no Rowland, looking for power at the end of a fist.”
“She comes from a people who all believed were myth.”
“Not all,” she said, reminding him that Verica, too, was raven.
“How could your clan remain ignorant of your dual nature?”
“Éan are taught from childhood to mask their true scent.”
“But the Chrechte nature does not show itself until a body begins the physical journey to adulthood.”
“For the Faol. Ravens do not shift until that time, but the ability to mask emotion and scent is one we are born with.”
“All ravens?” For not all Faol had the gift.
“As far as I know.”
“And this other gift?”
“It is manifested after our coming of age ceremony.”
“You have a ceremony for such?”
“All Chrechte used to, but the Faol stopped performing theirs once they joined the clans.”
“’Twas too wrapped in violence and sexual mating.” He remembered the stories but could not imagine participating in the type of ritual his ancestors had done. Especially at the age the ceremony had at one time been performed.
“The Éan’s is more mystical.”
They had moved from the topic of her fear and he was not ready to let it go, even to discuss the fascination that was the Éan. “You have naught to fear from me.”
“I have everything to fear.”
“I already promised never to harm you.”
“But can you promise never to break my heart?”
“Nay.”
She jerked back and frowned, clearly upset by his answer.
“If you love me as you claim you might, my death in battle would break your heart and I canna promise that willna happen.”
“Oh.”
“I willna ever touch another woman.”
“If you are my true mate, you won’t be able to.”
He grinned. “If I am your true mate, you’ll know my heart though I’m not fond of talking about what resides there.”
The smile breaking over her features made her beauty glow from within. “You’d best watch out then, as the thing I feared most was that we were sacred mates.”
“Why fear such a gift?”
“Look at what it cost my mother.”
“Why do you say that?”
“My father was confident in his ability to protect her. He refused to allow her to hide her raven heritage. She did not tell him of Circin’s and my dual nature. It was something we had to hide from our father as we did the rest of the clan, but Mum was so certain to reveal it would put us at risk.”
How difficult that must have been, and continue to be, for Verica, a woman of rare honesty. “His belief his own warriors shared his honor destroyed them both.”
“Yes.”
“The decision of who to reveal your raven to will always be yours.” It was more than a promise, it was a vow.
She shook her head, the expression in her eyes one of utter disbelief. “No warrior is as understanding as you show yourself to be.”
He almost laughed aloud at that assessment of his character but saw she meant it, so bit back his mirth. ’Twas no understanding to choose to protect his mate with every defense at his disposal, including that of subterfuge when necessary. “I’m glad you think so.”
“You don’t.”
&
nbsp; “I am not always a patient man.” A warrior had to have forbearance, but he was Chrechte and waiting did not come naturally to Earc.
“I gathered that.” She laughed softly. “When you announced our marriage was to be this e’en.”
“Are you reconciled to it then?”
She bit her lip but nodded.
“What concerns you now?” He did not mean to sound provoked, but affairs with a female Chrechte were no less complicated than if she had been human. And after seeing his former laird and lady struggle to make their mating a success, he had hoped if he ever mated, doing so with one of his own kind would make things simpler.
“You make it sound like I have a basketful of them.”
She did, but he suspected saying so would not encourage her to reveal this latest one, so he merely gave her a look he hoped inspired confidences. It worked for his little brothers.
“I am untouched.” She made it sound shameful, instead of the gift he considered it.
For both of them.
“So am I.”
The black pupils of her eyes nearly swallowed the blue surrounding them. “You are?”
“Aye. Talorc discouraged wolves from sex outside of mating.”
“By discourage you mean?”
“He is strongly opposed.” What did she think? That Talorc had levied severe punishments if his advisement went ignored? Perhaps with a past laird like Rowland, such a thought was not so darkly fanciful. “Barr ignored Talorc’s strictures, but I did not. He was my laird.”
Barr said a laird had no right to dictate such personal matters, but Earc did not agree. So long as the laird was not a piece of filth like Rowland.
“So, you have never …” Verica’s soft voice trailed off, but the pink of her cheeks told what she was referring to.
“Never.”
“Not even kissed?” The shock in her tone would have been amusing if it did not make him wonder the same.
Not liking the possibility any other lips had ever touched hers one wee bit, he asked, “No. Have you?”
“No, of course not!” She frowned at him and then bit her lip. “So, how will you know what to do?”
“My da had a talk with all of us boys when we came of age to mate.” Humans might have found his father’s frank descriptions and unrestrained answers to questions embarrassing.