But they had made vigorous love the night before, and she had been a virgin. Even a Chrechte might not be fully healed from the rending of her maidenhead.
Her look turned tender and she leaned down to kiss him. “I am certain I want you,” she said softly against his lips.
“Then have me.”
She did, pressing her wet and slick flesh over his hard member, encasing him in the volcanic heat of her passion.
She began to rock against him, conversely languid and fierce in her hunger. The eroticism of her actions tore through him, making it near impossible to hold back from taking over. Against expectation, his wolf actually helped him, calling on ancient instincts he did not understand but could submit to. He was warrior. He was alpha.
She was his princess though. She could lead and he would allow it. She could take and in his strength, he could give. He cared not if it made sense. It was the ways of things from old.
The caress of her flesh around him drew forth his pleasure, inexorably driving him toward completion until it erupted in a series of violent ejaculations from his cock. The sound that came from her then was like nothing he had ever heard, a high-pitched trilling that ended on a throaty wail as she spasmed around him, bringing forth another wave of ecstasy from him.
He shouted, reared up and flipped them so that she was under him while he was still inside her. His sex should be softening, but it wasn’t, making her feel like a wet, silken fist wrapped tight around him.
Her eyes had gone almost black in their passion, her hair shimmering blue-black in the early dawn light streaming through the east-facing windows high in the wall.
He felt her Chrechte nature right under the surface, beating at his consciousness like bird wings against a door.
His wolf reared up to meet it, howling and prancing in victory inside him. He’d found his mate and he would never let her go.
Unable to do anything else, hoping she was still as hungry as he, he began thrusting inside her, building their pleasure again with impossible speed.
This time when they climaxed, their shouts mingled, making a sound he could easily grow to need with an even fiercer compulsion than that to protect his people.
This was the risk of true bonds, that you would put your mate above the clan, above the pack. When your mate was worthy, that was not a problem, but if not, it led to the kind of pain the Sinclair clan had known.
His mind told him that, but his heart said something else. It said this woman, his Sabrine, his princess, she was worthy.
E
arc woke to the sound of quiet movement. He was alert instantly, rising from his place on the floor to find Sorcha in front of the fire.
She smiled tentatively at him, the dark half-moons under her eyes attesting to how little sleep she had gotten the previous night. “I thought to make our porridge. The laird would not want me to return to my duties in the kitchen without his say so.”
Though she said it as a statement, worried eyes made it a question.
“My instructions are to not allow anyone to speak to you until Barr has the opportunity to do so.”
Her body deflated like a pricked pig’s bladder and the tension roiling around them dissipated enough that his hackles, which had started to rise, settled. “That is good to know.”
“You are really afraid of him, aren’t you?” And they both knew Earc wasn’t referring to Barr.
“Terrified.” Her hands clenched, released, clenched, released several times as she watched the fire catch in silence.
“We will protect you.”
“We?” she asked, sounding dazed.
“Barr, me, Circin.”
“Circin is a boy.”
“Aye, he could not do it alone, but he will one day be your laird. He feels the weight of that responsibility for your well-being already.”
“Rowland felt no such weight.”
“Rowland is a pig.” That was Circin, adjusting his plaid with one hand while rubbing a hand over his face with the other.
She laughed, the sound soft and a little frightened, but amused all the same. She dared to nod. “Aye.”
She quietly went about preparing their breakfast while he and Circin took turns going outside for their morning ablutions. Earc quickly took care of business while keeping his senses alert to potential danger, smoke from the kitchen fires in the keep the only sign the rest of the clan was stirring.
When he went back into the cottage, neither Verica nor Brigit had stirred yet.
He was surprised Sorcha had not woken her daughter, but he kept his own council, puzzling again over Verica’s reaction to him the night before.
A quiet tap sounded on the door, but it may as well have been a clap of summer thunder for the way Sorcha responded. She gasped, fell back and then scrambled away from the fire, away from the door, her expression that of pure terror.
Earc stood and moved between her and the perceived threat even as the door pushed open, the small cottage having no bar to drop in place as many that surrounded the keep did not. Circin joined Earc, creating a wall between the frightened woman and the Chrechte, who was a disgrace to the name, coming through the door.
Rowland stopped short and glared at Earc and Circin when he saw them. “What the devil are you two doing here? Is she selling her favors all over the clan now?”
The sound that came from behind them would make any wolf proud and it did not emanate from Sorcha. Though Earc could hear the shuffling movements of her rising to her feet and backing against the wall.
Verica’s voice cracked across the cottage like a whip. “You dare make such accusations, you miserable, murdering knave!”
“I’m your laird, missy, and you’d best not forget it.” Rowland’s eyes narrowed in affront, his scent going rank with bitterness.
“The hell you are!” Earc stepped forward, forcing the man to back up a step though they were not yet in touching distance. “But I will make sure Barr hears you’ve challenged him for the right to lead this clan.”
Rowland didn’t have the intelligence to look cowed by that promise. “I didn’t challenge that fool boy for anything. But this clan belongs to me and one day it will be mine again.”
The sheer blind arrogance of the bastard robbed Earc of the breath to speak for a moment.
“You’ll be dead long before I leave these people to be led by another, and it would never have been you.” Barr’s voice, laced with a power that Earc had never heard there before, filled the cottage.
Rowland spun to face the other man. His lips moved, but no word issued forth, his gaze darting around the small dwelling, as if looking for an escape. “I meant no offense,” he finally spluttered, “’Tis merely my shock at finding my fancy piece entertaining others in my absence.”
“Sorcha is no whore and you’ll shut your foul mouth if that’s all it has to say.” Circin’s tone once again carried the seeds of his future leadership.
“She’s got two warriors in her cottage before breakfast. What do you call it?” Rowland sneered, sounding much more confident in his foul assumptions than his attempts at apology to Barr.
The air around Barr fairly shimmered with his fury. “My protection.”
The confusion on Rowland’s face made Earc want to retch. The man did not understand why Sorcha needed protection, or more likely, he did not understand why Barr felt the need to give it.
Calling him pig was an insult to swine.
“My sister was here all night and the woman’s daughter. What kind of evil does a man have to be to see what you see in that?” Circin demanded in disgust.
“For all I know your sister was helping entertain you two,” Rowland spat out, proving once again he lacked the intelligence of a flea.
Circin moved forward, no doubt intending to challenge the older Chrechte, but Earc could not allow it.
Rowland was no longer young, but he was not weak and he would fight dirty. Without-honor-or-conscience dirty. Something Earc had yet to teach the Donegal soldiers to combat.
If the two men fought, Circin would die and Verica would grieve. Earc did not know why, but that thought was untenable. He also liked the brash young man who had once challenged the Sinclair laird for the right to the lands containing the sacred springs.
With the speed of his wolf, Earc stepped in front of Circin and sent a blow to Rowland’s jaw in the same moment. “You’ll apologize to Verica for your disgusting accusation or you will face me in challenge.”
Rowland had staggered but not fallen. Scowling, he rubbed his jaw, a bruise already starting to form there. “You don’t have the right to challenge me over the bitch. She’s no kin to you.”
“She’s my sister,” Circin said furiously.
There was nothing for it; he had to take drastic steps.’Twould not be so bad. “She’s my mate. Mate law supersedes all other.”
Verica’s shock reached him and wrapped itself around Earc, though she said not a word. Circin growled in satisfaction, his scent still holding anger, but happiness as well. And if Earc did not know it was impossible, he would have thought the youth had planned events to take just this turn.
Barr’s expression did not change, his support of his second complete. He faced off to Rowland. “In the extreme unlikelihood you survive Earc’s challenge, I will meet yours for leadership of the Donegal clan.”
“I made no challenge.”
“It doesn’t matter, old man,” Earc said, so disgusted he could barely stand to look at the man. “You’ll not survive mine.”
“You would allow a fight between a younger warrior and his elder?” Rowland demanded of Barr in whining tones. “It would not be fair.”
“You sound like a child deprived of his treat. If you wanted to avoid being challenged, you should have kept your foul mouth shut.” Not an ounce of sympathy sounded in Barr’s tone.
“I refuse. I’ll leave the clan,” he said as if making a great concession. “But I won’t fight two giants like yourselves.”
“Your actions and attitude show you as a threat to this clan and your behavior toward Sorcha breaks pack law. Banishment is not an option.”
“Pack law does not apply to humans.”
“When you live among them, it does.”
“That is absurd. They are as nothing compared to us.”
Barr turned to face Sorcha. “Can I assume from his free use of the distinction between humans and himself that Rowland has revealed aspects of his nature unknown to the rest of the clan?” Even in his interrogation, Barr was careful not to reveal secrets of their people.
Sorcha nodded, the sour smell of her sweat attesting to her continued fear.
“What did he tell you?”
“He—”
“Keep your mouth shut, slut! You know what will happen if you don’t.”
Barr moved so quickly, none but Earc probably saw him reach out and backhand the grizzled Chrechte so hard, he flew backward, landing against the wall so hard the cottage shook. “Speak out of turn again and I will gag you.”
Barr approached the now visibly shaking Sorcha. “You have naught to fear from him any longer.”
Sorcha nodded, her eyes wide and filled with tears she valiantly blinked back. “He can become a wolf.”
“He told you this?” Barr asked.
Sorcha shook her head. “He showed me. He said if I did not do what he wanted, he would rend Brigit limb from limb as he had done my husband.” Each word came out labored and halting, a sob snaking past her tightly clenched lips after she was finished speaking.
Verica reached out and squeezed Sorcha’s hand. “Never again.”
Sorcha looked at Barr with near-hopeless despair. “You’ll never win in battle against him.”
“I killed my first wild boar on a hunt when I was eight; this wolf man holds no fear for me.”
Since the Chrechte did not go through their first change until hair began to grow on other places than their heads, this was an impressive feat.
Earc could match it, adding one year.
He looked at Rowland with contempt. “You’ll not make it past the first challenge.”
“I apologize,” Rowland said quickly, though the words were clearly sour in his mouth.
“Are you satisfied to withdraw your challenge?” Barr asked Earc.
Earc turned to Verica and repeated the question to her. She looked at him with too many emotions for him to name, but predominant was that old grief he had noticed the night before. “I’m not. He does not mean the words.”
“What do you want? Me to debase myself before the whole clan?”
“Yes. If you apologize more politely to me before the soldiers in the hall over nooning meal, I will accept your words.” There was something in her expression that said she knew without doubt the older Chrechte would never accept those terms.
Rowland shook with bitter fury, the power of a very strong wolf right under the surface. “I’ll do no such thing, you worthless bitch daughter of a filthy raven.”
Verica’s gaze shot to Earc’s, a new emotion overriding every other.
Fear
.
He did not know what caused it, but it did not matter. He smiled at her; he’d claimed her as his mate. She might not understand what that meant yet, but she would learn. He would
always
protect her. From anything.
He turned back to the bastard causing his new mate such distress. “We will meet in the forest in thirty minutes’ time. If you do not come, I will hunt you down and end your miserable existence without hesitation.”
Rowland finally had pulled together enough thought to be truly afraid; it showed in the panicked whites of his eyes. But it was too late.
Barr looked at Circin. “Assemble the Chrechte in the clearing near the small loch. All of them. Any who refuse to show will be considered outcasts from this day forward.”
“You cannot do this. The king guaranteed me my place in the clan,” Rowland tried one last time.
Barr was unmoved. “And your actions have destroyed the gift he gave you.”