by Lucy Monroe
In a dangerous situation, their more primitive instincts would come to the forefront and help them fight off any attacker. She hoped.
She called a halt to the training and sent the women back to the keep when the sun had moved another hour across the sky.
After the other women, Earc and Verica had left the forest, Barr turned to Sabrine. “You’re a fierce fighter, even with a wounded arm.”
“As a protector of my people, I do not have the luxury of allowing injury to stop me from doing my duty.” Besides, her injury healed more each day. She hoped to be able to fly again soon. “The pain is almost gone anyway.”
“Tell me more about your people.”
It was not the first time he had asked. Though usually, he waited until after she was exhausted and relaxed from their lovemaking. Still, she had managed to deflect the questions with tidbits that could not hurt her people to reveal.
She opened her mouth to do it again, but he put his hand up. His eyes were dark with some unnamable emotion. “Dinna.”
“What?” But she knew.
And he was aware of it. “Answer my question with truth.”
“I always answer your questions with truth.” Even when it was one he did not want to hear.
“Small truths. Tell me about the Éan.”
“I cannot.”
“You can.”
She shook her head. He was her mate, but he was Faol. She could not break her people’s secrecy.
His countenance turned dark. “You yet do not trust me.”
“It is not my place to trust you on my people’s behalf.”
“If not you, then who? This separation of the races must end.”
Shock stole her breath. He thought the Éan could join the Faol? Live among the clans? Impossible. “The separation began with the Faol.”
“And we, the Faol, will end it.”
“You have gone mad. It can never happen.”
“Only because you refuse to trust. According to our legends, all Chrechte once lived together as one People.”
She knew that quite well. “We have been at war twice again the years since the Faol joined the clans.”
“Aye. It is time for the war to end.”
“One man cannot accomplish this.”
“With your help, I can.”
What he sought was not only impossible, it was impossibly dangerous. “Has Earc told you Verica’s story?”
“Verica has shared her past with me. But I am not her father. He trusted the wrong Chrechte.”
“You are right. He trusted himself to protect his family, but all his strength was not enough against the cunning of those intent on the Éan’s destruction. Even now they would destroy our people from within.”
“What do you mean?”
Realizing what she had almost revealed about the sacred stone and the Éan’s need for it to beget the next generation, she sealed her lips tight and blocked his thoughts with all her Chrechte discipline.
“Damn it, Sabrine, you must give me your trust.”
“On my own behalf, I might, but I cannot risk my people.”
“I will not hurt them.”
“You might not mean to.”
“But you believe I will.”
“Yes.” The word came out in a whisper, but he heard it.
His frown was fierce, but worse was the look of pain in his eyes. “You will never accept my wolf.”
She could not make words come. She shook her head, not to say he was right, but because she did not know what to say.
She realized he’d taken it wrong when his entire body went rigid with a stoicism that hid every nuance of emotion. A wall heavier than any she could have constructed came down between them.
She put her hand out to touch him. “Barr—”
He jerked away, for the first time looking at her with the disgust she had always dreaded. Only she knew it was not because of her raven; it was due to her cowardice.
“You are my true mate.” He had never made the claim with anything less than contentment, but his words held no joy now.
“I have not denied it.”
“Not since we began mindspeak.”
His reminder she had tried to deny their bond hurt, though she could not deny the truth of it. She nodded, her throat going too dry to speak.
“You plan to leave me, to return to your people.”
Again, she could do nothing but nod.
“You will steal my hope of children, my one hope of a companion and family.”
She could not gainsay him. Neither she nor he would be physically capable of sexual intimacy with another so long as both lived.
Pain moved through her in a way it had not since her parents’ death. “I am sorry.”
“You are a coward.”
She felt like a coward, but it was not all about her fear. “I have committed my life to the protection of my people.”
“I have offered to share that burden.”
“You cannot.”
“You will not allow me to.”
“Please, Barr …”
“Please what? Please do not bring into the light your plans to betray me, to betray our bond?”
“I cannot be your mate.”
“You are my mate.”
She turned away, unable to stand the look in his eyes any longer. “I cannot be your wife.”
Only silence greeted that pronouncement.
Only the slightest shift of air gave her any warning before his big body slammed into hers, taking her to the ground as an arrow whizzed through the air where she had been standing. Barr was shifting into his wolf form even as they landed against the grass-covered earth.
Another arrow landed in the dirt beside them and Barr rolled them using his wolf’s body before leaping to his feet. He turned and barked, as if telling her to run, and then he started running himself in the direction the arrows had come from.
Another deadly missile barely missed his canine heart as he leapt in the air and then continued in a dead run.
She twisted and rolled as an arrow hit the dirt where she had been. She rushed to the tree line with a crouching run, zigzagging from side to side in the opposite direction. Without the ability to fly, shifting would do her no good.
Until she was in the trees. There it would be easier to hide in her raven’s body than her human one. She climbed the nearest tree, using her injured arm despite the pain it caused. Once she was amidst the branches, she shifted into her raven form, her clothing falling away to land on the boughs below.
She hopped from one limb to the other until she was high in the tree, then she moved to the edge and surveyed the forest with her bird-keen eyesight.
She could see the streak of blond fur rushing through the forest, but saw no sign of the would-be assassin.
Are you safe? he demanded in her head, breaking past the barriers she had put between them as if they were made of nothing more than mist.
I am high in a tree. I can see you.
Can you see our attacker?
No.
Can you see anything?
I can see much of the forest, but I see no man, nor a wolf besides yourself.
There is no scent trail to give him away. There should be a scent. The frustration he felt came across the bond, bombarding her already beleaguered heart.
You can mask your Faol scent.
Aye, but Rowland did not train his wolves that well.
Clearly he did. Or at least one of them.
A vicious curse sounded in her head, but she did not respond. This was the very reason her people could not come out of hiding. Why she could not leave them to fend for themselves.
Even if she could? She would not be safe in the Donegal clan. That was obvious.
You damn well would be. Those arrows were meant for me.
Maybe. He was not universally liked, particularly after allowing Earc to challenge Rowland.
The humans in the clan had believed it was a warrior’s challenge and
had been even more disapproving than the Chrechte over the fight between the much younger Earc and their former laird. No matter how poor a leader he had been, he was a clan member.
Still, she did not believe the arrows had been meant for Barr alone. Her feelings must have given her thoughts away, because Barr cursed again.
I would never be safe amidst your clan.
You damn well would be.
Like I am right now?
Just like it. His wolf’s growl was so deep, she could barely understand the mindspeak.
You will not always be there to throw me to the ground to avoid an arrow.
I will.
How could she argue with such intransigence?
They both knew the arrows were clearly meant for both of them; whether because she was so obviously Barr’s mate or because someone had discovered her Éan nature, she could not be sure. And ultimately, it did not matter.
Staying among the Donegals would be the height of stupidity and she was no fool. No matter what her heart wanted.
Stay in the tree.
While you do what?
Try to find a scent or sign to track.
She hadn’t been in her raven form since the day they met. It felt good—better than good, it felt wonderful—so she agreed.
Having no desire to dwell on the conversation they had been engaged in before the attack, Sabrine used the time to hop amidst the branches, surveying the forest from all vantage points. She saw nothing out of the ordinary.
Her gaze was drawn again and again to the sky, her longing to fly an ache in her breast. She tested her wing, expanding and contracting it, but she could tell it would not hold for flight. A lone eagle flew in the distance, too far from the land of her people to be Éan, but seeing the noble bird caused another ache.
That of homesickness. She wanted to be among her people again, even if it was only the warriors in her group charged with protecting the others.
She wanted to see her brother before his coming of age ceremony. She wanted to hug him in a way she had not since they were separated by her warrior training.
She had lost so much, first her parents and then, by her own volition, the rest of her family as she left them to join warriors who had never managed to take the place of the others.
Now, she was giving Barr up and her heart screamed against the injustice. A true mate bond should never be abandoned. But she felt no more choice than she had the day she’d taken her vow as protector of the Éan.
Everything inside her contracted with an emotional agony she’d hoped never to feel again.
Since making her connection with Barr, she missed her family with a painful nostalgia she had thought long buried.
Memories she’d tried so hard to push so deep they would never see light again rose to the surface, choking her with old emotion that mixed with the new. Her mother teaching her the healing chants even as she sang Sabrine into sleep at night. Her father holding her brother high in the air to introduce the future prince among their people when the baby boy was born. Her brother’s first steps, not to their mother, but to Sabrine.
She had been his favorite and she had abandoned him.
The inescapable torture that knowledge brought to her soul knocked the breath from her bird’s body. She nearly fell off the branch, but she managed to stay perched as more memories choked her.
Her mother’s stories of the time before the Faol turned on their brethren, the Éan. The sound of her mother’s laughter, her father’s voice as he spoke the Chrechte words of ritual in his role as king of their people.
The look on her aunt’s face when Sabrine insisted on joining the warriors for training, denouncing her role as princess. Leaving her family to deal with their grief as she managed her own the only way she knew how to.
Wetness from her eyes rolled onto her feathers, but she ignored it.
Princesses did not cry. Warriors did not show weakness.
The sound of a wolf scratching at the bottom of the tree she was in yanked her attention from the past to the present with a harsh jerk.
The wolf’s pelt was a reddish brown she did not recognize; fear’s metallic taste filled her mouth. She could not fly and she had no weapons with which to defend herself. She went absolutely still as the wolf’s head came up and sniffed the air.
He snarled and barked. Though she knew he could not see her through the foliage, she did not doubt those sounds were directed at her.
He turned and loped away, then spun on his paws and took a running leap at the tree, landing high up the trunk. His claws dug into the bark and he began to climb.
Sabrine’s heart stilled in her chest. She knew some of her enemy had taught themselves to climb in their wolf form to better get at the Éan. She had been warned by the older warriors, but she had yet to meet one herself.
She did the only thing she could: she herself climbed higher by hopping from branch to branch, hoping she could reach a height where the wolf’s bigger body could not follow.
Without warning, a giant blond wolf came flying, his leaping body so high in the air he was able to knock the reddish brown wolf from the tree. The reddish brown wolf crashed clumsily to the ground, but the blond wolf landed smoothly on all fours. The other wolf turned and bared his fangs.
The blond wolf leapt. He clamped his jaws on the other wolf’s neck and picked it up, an adult carrying a cub, but there the similarity ended. He sent the smaller wolf hurtling toward another tree.
The reddish brown wolf hit the tree with a thud. He yelped, landed and did not move again.
The blond wolf shimmered and then Barr’s double stood there naked at the bottom of the tree. His scent was like Barr’s but just off enough she could not mistake it.
“Come down, mate of my brother. It is time we met.”
She was so shocked, she shifted without thought and then for the first time in memory, she fell off the branch she’d been perched on. She fell, but her reflexes took over and she grabbed the next branch, landing with a jar to her shoulders. She cried out in pain as her injured arm was strained, but she clung to the branch with her good hand and carefully felt with her feet for purchase on a limb below her. She found it and managed to make her way to the trunk of the tree where she took a seat on a sturdy branch, high enough up that the wolf could not touch her.
In an inexplicable, to her, bout of modesty, she turned her naked body to minimize his view of her.
After all, they were both Chrechte and shifters often removed their clothes communally before taking their other forms.
“Who are you?” she asked to cover her confusion with herself.
“You cannot tell?”
“My guess is Niall, brother to Barr.”
“That would be me. My face isn’t as pretty as his, but we’re identical otherwise.” He turned a scarred cheek toward her.
“No, you’re not identical.”
“That is what Guaire says.”
“Is Guaire your mate?” she asked, though the way Niall said the other man’s name left no doubt as to their relationship.
It was the same tone Barr used to say her name, or had done, before their harsh and painful words in the clearing.
“Aye. He is my true bond.” He sounded so like Barr when her mate was pleased with something that despite everything, Sabrine found herself smiling.
“Who is the Faol over there?” she asked, indicating the still form.
“I was hoping you would tell me.”
That made no sense. “Why did you attack him if you do not know him?”
“He was intent on prey. All I could smell was my brother’s mate.”
“But you do not know me.”
“I know you are family.”
Her heart contracted at the claim. If only that could be true. “I am Éan,” she blurted out.
“I had that figured when you shifted from raven to human.” His sardonic tone made her smile again.
Though it was quickly followed by a frown. “You saw?”
“My face is flawed, not my eyesight.”
“I’d say your face looks pleasing enough to keep your mate on his toes around others.”
His head thrown back, Niall laughed loudly at that.
Men. They could be so vain.
“Do you need help down?” he asked.
“No.”
He nodded, the laughter gone as quickly as it had come. Without another word, he turned away. She had been naked around her brethren before shifting many times, but the Donegal clan must be wearing off on her because once again her modesty was relieved he didn’t watch her make her way out of the tree. Sabrine fetched her clothing on her way down and donned it quickly once she’d reached the ground.
As she adjusted her final pleat, the wolf at the base of the other tree stirred. Niall had not killed him then.
She had been far more interested in meeting Barr’s brother than the fate of the other wolf. It shimmered into human form as it came to consciousness.
She sucked in a sharp breath.
“You know this tree-climbing bitch’s son?” Niall asked.
“He is Wirp, grandfather to Muin.” She wished she was surprised, but she wasn’t.
The old man glared at them from the ground. “You know damn well who I am, whelp.”
Niall had the man on his feet and dangling over the ground between one breath and the next. “Who are you daring to call whelp?”
Wirp’s brows drew together in confusion as fear became a rancid odor around him. “You are not the laird.”
“Nay, I am his brother, the mean one.” Niall’s snarl would have done any wolf proud.
“They don’t get meaner,” Wirp spat.
“Well now, if you think so highly of him, what the hell were you doing trying to climb a tree and get to his mate?”
“I don’t think highly of him,” the old man sputtered.
Foolishly, Sabrine thought. Considering his circumstances.
Niall’s scowl was every bit as intimidating as Barr’s. “You insult my brother?” he asked in a tone both quiet and controlled that still managed to convey Wirp’s imminent death at the wrong answer.
“He mated a raven.” Each word dripped with venomous loathing.