The sacred stone was necessary for the coming of age ceremony in order for her people to fully realize their Chrechte gifts. Those Éan who did not come into their special gifts could not father or give birth to children, something most Éan considered as sacred a gift as their own Chrechte nature. Worse than robbing her people of this basic need was the fact that the theft of the
Clach Gealach Gra
was no doubt an insidious attempt to guarantee that the remaining bird shifters did not live beyond the current generation.
Her people lived like shades in the forest already, hiding from the wolves and humans alike, hoping the cruel Faol would believe they had succeeded in killing off the last of the Éan. Their numbers were too small to do anything else. Besides, it was not in a raven’s nature to kill. They could defend alongside the hawks and eagles, but they could not go on the attack with them. Since the hawks and eagles numbered less than half of the Éan combined, defensive strengths were their only true alternative. Clearly, their defensive attempt to hide had not worked.
No matter that the last hunting party had not come seeking her kind since she was a wee child and had lost both her parents to such an attack. The wolves still must suspect the Éan continued to exist, if not thrive, and they had hatched this wicked plot to rid the world of the birds once and for all.
She would not let them succeed. She could not. She would find the Heart of the Moon and return it to her people for safekeeping, before her own younger brother had to face his coming of age without the sacred talisman.
The feeling of safety Barr’s bulging arms holding her body so securely to himself gave her was nothing but a vapor, with no substance and far more dangerous. She would never truly be safe in a wolf’s arms. If he discovered her real nature, he would finish the job his hunter’s arrow had started.
No matter how pleasing she found the man, he was and always would be Faol of the Chrechte.
Her sworn enemy.
“What has you going tense, lass? Have you remembered something?” he asked, his deep voice rumbling through her like water rushing over rocks and leaving her insides just as disturbed.
She almost blurted out, yes, she’d remembered he was her enemy. She almost yanked herself from his arms, but she didn’t. Her years hiding her fear and every other emotion while she protected her people gave her the strength to remain outwardly unaffected. She must keep her purpose at the forefront of her mind. That purpose required him to see her as a human female,
as fragile
.
“No. I was thinking about your clan,” she said, twisting the truth but not breaking it.
She had to practice a deception to save her people, but she would not lie for simple expedience. She was no wolf.
“They will not harm you.”
“You’re sure?”
“They would not dare. You are under my protection.”
Inexplicably, her heart caught and pleasure pushed out the pain of their people’s shared past for a single, incredible moment. No one had ever promised her protection before. If the strongest of the Éan’s warriors did, she would tell him she could protect herself and believe it.
But this man, this wolf, was more powerful than any Chrechte she had ever encountered. He
could
protect her. Were he truly her champion he could protect her people.
But no Faol ever stood guardian for the Éan and none ever would.
“You’re claiming her, then?” the other Donegal wolf asked, his tone filled with the same respect bordering on awe he had used each time he addressed Barr.
The giant warrior carrying her said nothing, so Sabrine decided to answer for him. “No one is claiming me.”
The one called Muin gave her a look that clearly said her words carried less weight than his laird’s actions.
She frowned up at Barr. “You are not claiming me.”
“Right now, I am taking you to my home to care for your wounds.”
“Right. Good.” Her head was bobbing and she made herself stop. “No claiming.”
“For now.”
She gasped, then glared, but Muin just smirked. Barr ignored them both.
“Forever,” she insisted.
Barr stopped and looked down at her, his stormy gray eyes questioning. “You do not want children?”
Her heart clenched again, but this time in pain. Though every Éan was taught from birth that the bearing of children was the only way to protect their future as a race, she had decided long ago not to have bairns.
“I would not have children only to leave them orphans when I die.”
“’Tis a morbid thought.”
Perhaps he considered it so, but then he was a wolf, not a raven. No one hunted his people intent on total annihilation. “It is the way of the world.” Her world anyway.
“Not all children grow up orphans. Not even most.”
“Among my people,
enough
do.”
“You remember that, but not who your clan is?” he asked cynically.
She turned her head away, the taste of any lie she would have to tell bile in her mouth.
“It isn’t that you don’t remember your clan, it’s that you don’t want to,” he guessed, sounding quite proud he had worked that out. Never mind that he was wrong.
But in a way, he was right, too. She didn’t want to remember the decimation her people had endured at the hands of his.
She neither confirmed nor denied.
“You’ll tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“Everything.”
“No.” Even to her own ears, the single word swelled with enough horror to drown a small village.
His countenance did not darken; he merely shrugged, jostling her body so the plaid covering her slipped just enough that they were skin against skin on her side.
Her gasp this time was for an entirely different reason than shock. It was pure sensation. Amazing sensation. Make-her-wish-for-the-first-time-to-share-her-body-with-a-man sensation.
She had never been this close to a mate, not outside of battle. And never had another man had the effect on her this blond barbarian did.
He inhaled deeply and she realized with chagrin that he was smelling her arousal.
“Stop it,” she whispered, though why she bothered when the other Chrechte with them had a wolf’s hearing, she did not know.
Barr grinned down at her, his masculine pleasure heating the air around them. “No.”
“You’re not claiming me.”
“Your body says otherwise.”
“My mind controls my body.”
“We’ll see.”
“Would you force me to go where my mind does not want to?”
“I will not force you, but as to your heart ruling your mind, that you’ll have to stop.”
“My heart has nothing to do with this.”
“Call it what you like, but your body betrays your true thoughts on the matter.”
“It betrays nothing but animal reaction.”
“That is an odd thing for a human to say.”
“Humans are animals, too, they simply have one nature, not two like the Chrechte.”
She grabbed the plaid, trying to adjust it so her skin was not burning along his. He would not let her but continued walking, keeping her pressed close to him.
Arrogant wolf.
C
urious clanspeople surrounded them as Barr carried her into the compound nearly an hour later. Each wore the red and black plaid of the Donegals.
One older woman peered at her and Barr with knowing amusement. “So, it would appear you had a successful hunt, then, laird.”
“Aye, I found the lass in the forest.”
“In her all together by the look of it.”
A young boy asked, “Did a wild animal attack her and steal all her clothes, do you think?”
“Aye, lad, that’s just what happened,” Barr lied without a second’s hesitation.
“She looks a wee bit worse for the wear,” the old woman said. “Best get her to the keep. Let Verica have a look at her.”
The words surprised Sabrine. She knew humans could be kind, but this woman belonged to the clan that had stolen the sacred stone. In Sabrine’s mind all Donegals were cruel and selfish, like the wolves that had made the clan their home.
She didn’t have much time to ponder the thought before she was in the keep itself.
It was not as large as some of the clan buildings she saw on her nightly flights, but it was bigger than any dwelling among the Éan. Barr carried her into the main hall, where three long tables made a U shape at one end and a large fireplace warmed the other. No chairs sat in front of the fireplace, but that didn’t stop a small group of soldiers from congregating there to sharpen their weapons.
Barr walked past the soldiers after giving them a cursory greeting. One asked who she was and Barr called her his guest. This elicited curious stares, which Muin clearly intended to satisfy as he joined the soldiers by the fire.
Barr did not seem to care as he continued across the vast room, around the tables and toward a staircase.
Stepping onto the first riser, he bellowed, “Verica!”
And then he took the stairs two at a time, managing not to jostle Sabrine despite his speed. His grace did not surprise her—wolves were not clumsy—but his care for her comfort did.
A beautiful woman, petite in stature, stepped out of a room off the landing. Presumably the Verica the old woman had referred to and Barr had called for. She had hair the same color as Sabrine’s but with bits of dark red mixed in. The nearest Sabrine had seen to anything like it was a hawk and golden eagle shifter. He had dark brown hair with streaks of gold like his second shifting form’s feathers. It was extremely rare for a shifter to be born with both their parents’ animal forms. She’d only ever heard of three her whole life and one was long dead.
Sabrine could not imagine what had caused this small woman’s coloring until she got closer and the woman’s scent became clear.
She smelled like a wolf.
No other shifter had the true black hair of the raven but the raven itself. Which meant that this woman was a wolf-raven dual shifter. The only way that could happen was for one of her parents to have been each.
Horrified by the implication of that knowledge, Sabrine stared in mute shock at the other woman.
Who in turn glared at Barr. “You bellowed?”
“This woman needs a healer.”
“What did you do to her?”
“Do not dare ask such a thing.”
“Why not? Am I supposed to pretend Circin doesn’t seek my services nightly for wounds you inflict?”
“Your brother is to be laird one day; he must be a strong warrior.”
“He’s still a boy.” The tiny woman did not seem in the least intimidated by her oversized laird.
Either she was fearless, stupid or amazingly good at masking the scent of her emotions, a skill the Faol did not share to the same degree as the Éan.
Sabrine decided she was going to like this woman.
“He would not thank you for saying so. A Chrechte who has reached sixteen summers without ever wielding a sword in at least mock battle is a disgrace.”
“Circin is no disgrace!”
“Nay, but his trainers are.”
Something moved in the woman’s face, a flicker of disquiet at the mention of the trainers. “I discouraged Circin from training with the older Chrechte of the clan when he was younger.”
“You will have to explain your reasons for doing so after you see to this woman.”
“This woman’s name is Sabrine, and well you know it, Donegal laird.” Sabrine gave Barr a frown.
He smiled in return. “I wondered if you had lost your voice with your memory.”
“You’ve lost your memory?” Verica demanded and then turned back to Barr. “Why did you not say? An addled brain can be very dangerous. She could appear normal and then simply fall asleep and not wake up.”
Barr let loose another one of those bone-chilling subvocal growls. Both women flinched.
“She will not die.”
Verica nodded as if by saying so, the laird made it so. “Someone must watch her through the night.”
“I will do it.”
“You? But you’re the laird!” For the first time, the wolf-raven woman looked rattled. She’d taken her leader’s nudity in stride, though that was not surprising considering men in the Highlands still battled and hunted in their natural-born state as often as not. “She’s not your mate, is she?”
“I’m no wolf’s mate,” Sabrine said with more certainty than she felt.
Her reactions to the giant Faol were either explained by knocking her head in her fall to the earth or a connection she could never risk acknowledging.
Not only for the safety of her people but for her own safety as well. The Éan would never accept one of their own mated to the enemy.
She could be killed for treachery, but at the very least she would be banished. And her people could not stand the cost of losing her.
Both Donegals gave her varying looks of speculation. Barr’s bordered on confident assurance. Verica’s was tinged with surprise, but she didn’t ask the question shimmering between them.
Instead, she indicated a room across the landing. “Let’s get her lying down.”
Barr started moving, but he didn’t stop at the room his clanswoman had pointed to. He went to the next door and shoved it open.
“You’re claiming her?” Verica asked, managing to sound completely scandalized this time.
Why did people keep asking him that? And he didn’t bother to answer on this occasion, either. And really. Did Verica need to make it sound like Barr could do far better? Sabrine would make a strong mate for any man, even the big laird. If she planned to ever take a mate. Which she didn’t, and especially not a wolf shifter.
Instead of answering for him, like she had with Muin, Sabrine pinched Barr. Good and hard. He could give assurances himself this time.
He jolted and then stared down at her. “What was that for?”