Moon Burning (6 page)

They stopped their practice when Earc returned with the Chrechte hunting party.

“Did the boar get the best of you?” The hunters looked as beat up as the soldiers Barr had been training.

“You can damn well smell the blood.” Earc’s nostrils flared. He was clearly in no mood to be teased. “You know we caught our prey.”

But the final kill had obviously been a hell of a lot harder than it should have been with three wolves, even if only one of them could control his change.

Earc would mate soon enough and gain the ability to shift at will. That was one thing Barr and Talorc had argued over. Talorc maintained that sex constituted a mating. The wolves in his pack not born with the ability to shift at will like Barr could had to wait until mating to make that happen. To his knowledge, only the white wolf and its descendants were born with that ability. Others had to have sex after their transition to adulthood in order to control the change. It made little sense to Barr, but then there was much in his world that remained a mystery.

The inability to shift at will put Sinclair warriors at a tactical disadvantage to clans like the Balmoral, who had no such mores assigned to sex outside a mating.

He did not know what the Donegals practiced.

Circin and Fionn came forward, carrying the boar on a sturdy branch between them.

“Fionn looks like he wrestled the boar before you killed it.”

“Let’s just say he needs to learn a subtler way to hunt.”

“You instructed him?”

“He didn’t listen well the first time.”

Barr doubted the pig had been the only one in the forest who Fionn had to defend himself from. Earc was a patient man, but he was not a saint.

“I got the lesson,” Fionn said in a weary voice.

“That is what matters, but if you fail to listen to my second again, it won’t be his wrath you face.”

Fionn winced but nodded. “Understood.”

 

 

S
abrine was sleeping when Barr returned to his room to check on her.

“I gave her a calming drink of steeped herbs,” Verica explained. “She was restless and wanting to get up.”

“Are you sure it’s safe for her to slumber?”

“She’s only dozing, not in a deep sleep.”

“Your senses are finely honed.” It was not always a simple matter to distinguish between the two.

“It helps me in my role as healer.”

He found that easy to believe. “Explain to me why you held your brother back from training with the older Chrechte.”

Circin was by far the most dedicated of their trainees. He obviously hungered for the kind of mentoring he’d gotten among the Sinclairs and now received from Barr and Earc.

Circin would make a fine laird one day, but he was years behind where he should be in his training.

“I wasn’t ready for him to be a man.”

“Your words ring with truth, but there is something more.” Like with Sabrine earlier.

Verica fussed with the blanket over the dozing woman. “Nothing you need concern yourself with.”

“I am your laird. Everything about those in my clan concerns me.” As much as it was not a position he would have had by choice, now that he had the responsibility, he would uphold it completely.

“That is a laudable sentiment to be sure, but some things are private.”

“If you have a reason for distrusting the other Chrechte in this clan, I need to know.”

“I have nothing more than a feeling. I won’t make accusations without substance.”

He had to respect that. “I’ll admit, I wish some of the others showed your reticence to gossip.”

Her lips twitched. “We’re a small clan. Word travels faster than footfalls in some instances, but curiosity makes it go even faster.”

“I noticed.”

“Did questions about your captive keep you from training?”

“Nay.” He was a warrior, not an old woman. Gossip didn’t keep him from his duties. “And she is not my captive. Sabrine is a guest.”

“So, I can leave the room?” Sabrine demanded from the bed, her eyes opening. “I was under the impression”—and she gave Verica a measured look—“that I was not to do so.”

“For your own protection, I would prefer you not leave this room unaccompanied.” There, now that was mindful of her feminine sensibilities, wasn’t it?

Talorc’s wife insisted a woman preferred not to be dictated to. Barr could allow his guest to think she had a say in the matter, but the truth was he would have his way.

“I need protection among your clan?” she asked, not sounding as surprised by that as she could have been.

“You are a stranger to them. The Donegals are not overly friendly with those they do not know.”

“You think I will get my feelings hurt?” The disbelief tingeing her voice was rather naïve on her part, he thought.

But then she had suffered memory loss. Perhaps she had forgotten how easily a human woman’s emotions could be damaged. Even the Chrechte women of his former clan took exception to things he never saw as beyond innocuous.

“You are not yet sufficiently recovered to venture out of this room. You need healing rest.” He patted her uninjured arm in what he hoped was a consoling manner. “You’re fragile and must conserve your strength.”

She stared at him with blatant incredulousness for three full seconds before she blinked, and then nodded. “Right. I’m weak and need my rest.”

His senses had prepared him for her argument. This sudden capitulation startled him.

“Aye, that is exactly what you need,” Verica replied before Barr had the chance. “Tonight at least, you’ll take late meal in bed.”

“You’ll see to it?” Barr asked.

Verica nodded. “Brigit and I will have our meal in here as well.”

He was tempted to join them, but the clan still needed his visible presence as often as possible, to solidify his role as their laird in all their minds. The healer and her young apprentice would be good company for Barr’s mysterious and much too alluring guest.

Rowland joined Barr at the head table before the food had been brought in from the kitchens. Though the older Chrechte had showed no happiness at being forced by his king to cede his leadership, he always ate with Barr. Earc said it was because Rowland still considered the head table his.

After learning what he had today, Barr wasn’t sure how long he would allow it. The man’s presence only fanned the slow-burning fury his inadequate former leadership caused in the new Donegal laird.

“I heard you called me an idiot, boy,” the old man said in querulous tones as he sat down.

Barr was fairly certain none of the men he’d been training had said anything, but the training yard was near the kitchens. And there had been a group of watchers during the entire training time. Barr could easily have been overheard.

“I heard you neglected to train men eager to do their duty by the clan.” The old man opened his mouth to speak, but Barr forestalled him. “Worse, I’ve seen with my own eyes how badly you taught those you did bother to train.”

“Now you listen here—”

But Barr had heard enough. He leaned down until their faces were inches apart. “No, old man, you listen to me. I am your laird and you will address me as such if you need to address me at all. You lost your position through idiocy and neglect, but if you think to challenge me for the right to lead this clan, think hard. I
will
kill you.”

Rowland’s grizzled visage twisted in a scowl. “You need to show respect for your elders.”

“Respect is earned.” So far, the only thing this man had earned from Barr was a swift kick.

“I led these people since my dear friend and our rightful laird was killed while hunting when Circin here was but a boy.” He indicated the untrained heir with a gnarled finger. “That is deserving of respect.”

For his part, Circin looked less than impressed by Rowland’s claim. Certainly no affection toward the older man showed in the future laird’s expression or manner.

Rowland may have taken Circin’s father’s place as leader of the clan, but he’d not fulfilled his role of mentor for the man’s children.

“It would be if you hadn’t done such a piss-poor job of it.” He wasn’t about to sugarcoat his words for the sake of the man’s ego.

Rowland tried to look dignified, but it was too far a stretch to Barr’s way of thinking. “We do not need to discuss this here.”

“We won’t be discussing anything at all. Challenge me, or shut the hell up.”

“With age comes wisdom.”

“For some, and some of us turn into fools,” Osgard said.

The old man was the only other Sinclair who had accompanied Barr to the Donegals. It had not been by choice, but rather his only option in the face of his actions in regard to their former laird’s mate. Osgard had taken his banishment from the Sinclair clan hard but accepted it. He’d earned the punishment and both knew and acknowledged it.

The confused thinking he’d shown back at the Sinclair hold that had led to his unacceptable attitudes had diminished away from the constant reminders of memories that had clearly grown too heavy to bear. Though he still had days he spent in his room, lost in a past too real for him to fully forget.

Barr nodded toward Osgard. “I could use your eye during training tomorrow.”

“I’m a cantankerous old bastard. You think your trainees can stand the lash of my tongue?”

“They stood the knock of my fist today.”

“Real potential as warriors then.”

“Aye.”

He saw the grins and ducked heads their words caused out of the corner of his eye.

“Bah!” Rowland stood up and stomped out of the hall.

“Good riddance.” Osgard tugged on a beard more gray than white but getting there. “I hear your hunt was more successful and less bloody than our Earc’s.”

“’Twas the same hunt until our laird decided to go seeking naked women rather than game,” Earc said with a knowing grin and a wink.

Osgard snorted. “Are you saying you don’t prefer a nice clean-smelling woman over a sweaty boar? Only I’m thinking you would do your hunting right here.”

Earc, tough warrior and staunch Chrechte, blushed like a youth in the throes of calf’s love. “I’ll not be hunting women
anywhere
at present, thank you.”

“If you say so.” Osgard sounded unconvinced.

“I do.”

“All right then.”

“All right.”

Barr listened to the exchange with growing amusement. He did not know who Osgard believed Earc had set his eye on, but the old warrior had certainly struck on something.

“Was she nude when you found her?” Earc asked in an obvious bid to turn the topic.

“Aye. Bleeding and unconscious, too.” The memory of Sabrine’s state still had the power to make him growl.

Chrechte around the hall flinched, some even making barely aborted movements to bare their throats.

“What happened to her?”

“She doesn’t remember.”

“That’s troubling,” Osgard said. “I knew a soldier once. Took a blow to the head. Forgot his wife’s name and where to find their cottage. ’Twas dead within the week.”

“From the blow?” Circin asked.

“Nay, from his wife. She found him sleeping in a widow’s bed.”

The table erupted into guffaws and backslapping, but Barr did not laugh. “She will not die.”

Osgard gave him a long, shrewd look. “It’s like that, is it?”

“H
e’s got her in his bed and insists on being the one to watch over her through the night as Verica has said she must be,” Circin said.

“He has now, has he?” Osgard asked.

“Surely you jest,” one of the other old Chrechte men said from his seat at the other table. “She’s a stranger we know nothing about. You cannot take her to mate.”

“You dare attempt to tell me what I can and cannot do?” And who said anything about mating? To be sure, his wolf felt uncommonly possessive, but Barr was not yet certain his naked lady of the forest was the one he was intended to claim.