He turned and walked out without another word.
Her heart aching, Sabrine stared after him. She wanted to chase him down and demand he listen to her explanations, but she did not know what they should or even could be.
“He doesn’t know why you’re here,” Verica said with certainty.
“No.”
“Go after him.”
And do what? Beg for mercy when she had so clearly deceived and used him? He was a warrior, like her, not a spiritual leader. Forgiveness was not his first reaction to betrayal.
She would not have thought walking away was, either. He had not yelled at her, or accused her of it, or well . . . anything. He’d simply left and that hurt more than she’d thought it possibly could.
If there had ever been a chance he would love her, it had been destroyed. And looking back over her actions of the past sennights, she did not know what she could have done differently.
Her heart cried out for her to change the situation even now, but her warrior’s mind, taught that betrayal was met with death, said there was no hope.
She said all that she could think to say. “Maybe this is for the best.”
Leaving Barr angry with her should make the prospect less painful.
It didn’t, but it would no doubt make it easier for him to let her go.
And as a warrior for her people, her chances of living out her years to old age were slim. He would not be without a mate forever.
Accepting the inevitability of her own death had been taught since the beginning of her training as a protector of her people. An Éan who accepted that dying for her people was a great honor and most likely inevitable did not hesitate to put her life at risk for those who relied on her for their safety.
Thoughts of that future had never hurt as much as they did in this moment.
“Don’t be stupid.” Verica was unimpressed without doubt. “My mother did not have time to teach me everything about the Éan, but she told me that a Chrechte’s true mate is the most important gift our natures will ever impart to us. You cannot simply dismiss your responsibilities to Barr because they do not easily coincide with those you have toward the Éan of the forest.”
The healer’s intuitive wisdom was staggering, but Sabrine could not give in to the allure of the words. “Not all Chrechte even find their true mate.”
“Those that do should be even more grateful then, shouldn’t we?”
“Earc is your life’s mate then?”
“Aye, and do not think you are going to change the topic.”
“What do you want me to say?” Sabrine sat hard on the bed, causing the
Clach Gealach Gra
to bounce.
“I do not want you to say a thing
to me
. It’s Barr you need to talk to.”
“Nothing I can say will make our reality any easier to accept.”
“What reality? That you love each other?”
“We don’t.” He didn’t love her, at any course, and she should be glad.
Why her heart insisted on bleeding, she did not know.
“What is going on here?” Verica asked, her tone truly perplexed.
“What do you mean? I came to find the
Clach Gealach Gra
. I have found it; now I must let the others know and return it to the Éan chamber in the caves at the sacred springs.”
“So, get Barr to return it with you.”
“I cannot tell him about our people.”
“He is your sacred mate, you
have
to tell him.”
“I will not betray my people.”
“So, what? You plan to betray your mate? You’re leaving and not coming back—that’s why you’re so upset and Barr is so angry, isn’t it?
He knows
.”
“He’s always known. I have not lied to him.” Deceived him, yes, but never actually lied.
“And he’s hurt.”
“Yes.”
“So, don’t leave.”
“I have no choice.”
Once again, Verica looked far from impressed. “Of course you have a choice. If you were dead, then you would not have a choice. As long as you draw breath, you can fight for your future.”
“This from a woman who did not even know the proper way to draw a dirk when I met her?” Sabrine had been fighting when Verica was still being coddled as a child in her mother’s household.
Verica crossed her arms and glared, not giving an inch. “There is more than one way to fight.”
“Is that what your mother told you?”
“Aye.”
“And it worked so well for her.” It might be a cruel thing to say, but the truth could not be ignored.
“I think so. She had years with her sacred mate. They had children and she loved us both so much. She was happy; though it was wrong that happiness was cut short by Rowland’s evil, she still had it.”
“That evil still lives in this clan.”
“Wirp is dead.”
“He was not the only one.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Do you think I am wrong?”
Verica’s look said it all. No, she did not believe Sabrine was wrong. No doubt she would continue to hide her Éan nature.
“You know I am right.” Though it gave her no pleasure to say so. “Yesterday, before Wirp attacked me, someone else shot at Barr and I with arrows.”
“It was Wirp.”
“No.”
“You cannot be certain.”
“I am. He could not have gotten past Barr to reach me in the forest.”
“He was masking his scent.”
“His Chrechte scent, yes, but his body odor? No, the man was rank with hatred. And he wasn’t moving stealthily. He would have left tracks if he had come from the direction of the arrows.”
“Maybe Barr missed them.”
“You think?”
“But . . .”
“I didn’t see him; for him to have gotten to me, he had to be coming from the other direction.”
Verica’s eyes filled with fear. “Who would try to kill Barr?”
“Those arrows were meant for us both.”
“But not necessarily because you are Éan.”
“You think someone is so angry with Barr’s leadership, they have tried to kill him?”
“I haven’t noticed anyone but the elders with that kind of hatred and even most of them have settled into his way of doing things,” Verica admitted. “No one grieved Rowland’s or Wirp’s death with strong emotion.”
Sabrine agreed and that led to one conclusion for her. “While no one truly grieved their passing, that does not mean others did not share the two’s unreasonable hatred of the Éan.”
“You cannot abandon your mate because you’re afraid.” Verica’s shock and disbelief were a palpable presence between them. “You are no coward.”
Barr thought she was and mayhap he was right.
“I will not be the reason Barr is assassinated by one of his own clan members.”
“Like my mother, you mean?”
“No. Rowland was power hungry. He used your mother’s heritage as an excuse for his evil actions.” But someone in this clan wanted Barr dead and she did not believe that person was driven by anything more than a deep and abiding hatred of their brethren with a bird heritage.
“You think it would be different with you and Barr?”
“Barr is bringing this clan to a better place; I cannot get in the way of that.”
“You are part of
that
.”
For a brief moment, Sabrine admitted to herself that she wanted to be. So, so much. “I have made him hate me.”
“You’ve made him angry. You are an intelligent woman; you can change that.”
“I have never found appeasement one of my strengths,” it was her turn to admit.
A mischievous smile shone on Verica’s lovely face. “Lure him to bed and then tell him the truth.”
“The truths are not mine to tell.” Always, she ran up against that immovable wall.
“They are if you trust Barr not to betray
your
secrets.”
Her heart was desperate to believe that, but her training fought with the desires of her woman’s soul. “What if he tries to force a reconciliation between our people and leads our enemies to us?”
“You really think I would do that?”
Sabrine spun, not caring that he had once again come upon her completely undetected. This time, when she saw her mate, she allowed her deepest inner instincts to lead her. She rushed across the room and grabbed both his arms, as if she could hold him there.
“I am not going anywhere.” He was not smiling, but something in his beautiful gray eyes said he knew the fear leaping in her chest.
“I don’t want to, either, but I have no ch . . .” She stopped, unable to utter the claim again.
Were the words even true? Verica’s earlier challenge demanded Sabrine rethink her defeated attitude.
She was no meek maiden to accept a path that would only lead to more pain for both of them. She was a warrior, like generations of the Éan before her. She was a princess, though she had renounced her claim to lead.
But most important, she was Chrechte and that meant she did not dismiss the gifts her nature bestowed, whatever they may be.
Barr’s return had loosened her hold on the certainty there was no hope for their future. She did not know why, but his clear willingness to fight for their mating could be met with nothing less than her own warrior’s determination.
Could it?
“Wirp was not the bowman,” she said, not sure why those were the words that tumbled from her mouth first. Perhaps they were a test. To this point, Barr had repeatedly refused to acknowledge the very real danger some in his clan posed to her.
“Why do you believe this?”
She told him.
He nodded. “I came to the same conclusion.”
“You did not say.”
“I expected you to realize it as well.”
“And maybe you did not want to give me another reason not to feel safe here.”
He shrugged. “You do not trust me to protect you.”
The concept that she should had never occurred to her. “I am my people’s protector.”
“As your mate, I am your protector.”
“And I am duty bound to protect you.”
“He won’t thank you for leaving because you believe doing so will stop whoever tried to kill him yesterday,” Verica said, showing not the slightest regret at revealing that confidence.
“You think your leaving will keep me safe?” he asked with the pure shock only a truly confident man would feel.
“It is a concern of mine, yes.”
“What exactly?”
The door opened without a knock, Earc coming inside, showing no surprise at finding his laird and Sabrine with his wife. Niall and Guaire followed closely on his heels.
The look Niall gave her left Sabrine in no doubt that Barr had shared her plans to leave with him. Guaire gave her a look that mixed compassion and censure so well, she thought he would have made a very good spiritual leader.
Earc was looking at all of them with an expression of amusement that never seemed far from his features. “Should I be concerned? This is the second time I have found my wife entertaining my friend in a bedchamber.”
Verica smacked his arm. Hard. And blushed even harder.
Barr didn’t laugh, but some of the tension in his body fell away. The thing he invited his friend to do was anatomically impossible and intensified the heat in Verica’s cheeks.
It was Sabrine’s turn to smack her mate. She did it right on the center of his chest. “Behave. You’ll have your healer’s cheeks catch fire and start smoking soon.”
“I note you are not pink-cheeked.” Niall said it with a question in his voice.
She had heard far worse among her fellow protector brethren, and not always from the males. “I am a warrior.”
“Who was as innocent as any pampered daughter on our wedding night.” Barr’s satisfaction at that fact was far too complacent.
And Sabrine didn’t know which part of that comment to take more umbrage at. “We’re not married.”
“We’re mated. You spoke vows that night. So did I.”
Niall was back to glaring. While she wasn’t looking at him, she could feel the fury directed at her from Barr’s brother.
He forgets I do not need a defender,
Barr said to her across their mating link.
He hates me.
Since you plan to leave me, that should not matter.
Oh, there was no small amount of anger in Barr’s growling mental voice as well.
“I will come back.” She said it out loud, wanting the others to hear her commitment as well.
She would not betray her Chrechte vows, no matter the personal risk to her for keeping them. Though, she did not know how to reconcile this with her former pledge to her people. She knew only that mating vows superseded all others, no matter what her warrior’s training dictated.
It had taken her long enough to come to terms with that fact, but she would not let herself forget it again.
She couldn’t; her love demanded she remember.
He stared at her, his eyes searching, and then seemed to realize those words were yet another vow. One she would not break.
“I will go with you.” His were just as solemn of a promise.
From the corner of her vision, she saw Niall cross his arms and nod with certain agreement. Earc made an approving noise, but neither Guaire or Verica said anything.
Sabrine had no doubt that if she looked away from Barr long enough to assess their expressions, she would find agreement on them as well.
None of them understood.
“You can’t.”
“Are you certain of that?” One sardonic brow rose.
It should have irritated her, but all she felt was this awful wash of love go over her. No matter how annoying his obstinate refusal to comprehend their true differences, she found him entirely irresistible.
But she would not let him suffer under the illusion that he could accompany her. “Barr—”
“You are mine.”
“Yes.”
“I will go with you.”
“My people would kill you.”