Moon Burning (20 page)

Barr stared at Sabrine over the other woman’s shoulder, his expression bordering on panic. He was clearly demanding she do something, but she was a warrior, not a nursemaid.

“What the hell are you doing holding my mate?” Earc demanded from the doorway.

N
o real ire in his voice, in point of fact, Earc looked amused to no end by his friend’s clear predicament.

Verica finally released her laird, patting his arm for good measure and giving him a watery smile. She turned to face Earc. “You and Barr have brought life back to this clan. I was merely saying thank you.”

“It didn’t sound to me like you were saying anything at all,” Earc teased, the humor more pronounced now in his light brown gaze.

Verica frowned, seeming to come to herself. “What are you doing in my room? ’Tis unseemly.”

“I am your mate, ’tis most seemly. Barr’s presence, however, is open to misinterpretation.”

“No, it is not.” Barr’s glare dared his second to disagree.

Earc merely lifted one dark brow.

Verica shook her head. “For goodness sake, you two are like small boys the way you poke at each other.”

“I have not been called small in more years than I remember,” Barr said, somewhat bemused.

Earc just shrugged. “I have spoken to the priest. Father Thomas can perform our marriage before the evening meal.”

Verica stumbled back, her eyes going wide, her heart rate suddenly the pace of a running wolf on the hunt. Or maybe the hare being hunted. “What did you say?”

Earc approached her, but Verica stepped back and to the side.

He stopped, his brows drawing together, the scent in the air going dangerous from one heartbeat to the next. “You heard me.”

She shook her head in denial.

He nodded, taking another step toward her.

“No.” Sabrine no more understood the other woman’s panicked tone than she had the tears earlier. To this point, Verica had shown nothing but a rather rattled acceptance of Earc’s claim. She’d been grateful, even, that the strong warrior had stepped in to save her brother from an unfair challenge.

All of Earc’s affability disappeared. “Aye. I claimed you as my mate this morn, and I’ll not have any challenge that claim because I have not followed up with human tradition.”

Verica’s eyes rolled like those of a horse not yet ridden when facing a rider for the first time, and she bolted from the room.

Earc swore.

“It appears you need to catch your mate before she makes a break for England.”

Earc gave Barr a sour look. “No need to get insulting.”

Barr shrugged, but a smile played at the corners of his mouth.

Earc shook his head and spun on his heel before taking off after Verica with a wolf’s speed.

Barr’s gaze on the empty doorway, he mused, “I think their mating may be a stormy one.”

“Only until he realizes asking is more effective than ordering when it is between mates.” Though Sabrine could not say for certain that’s what had Verica running. The woman’s scent had turned too much like that of prey for Sabrine to understand what had been going through her mind. Surely she knew that she was safe with Earc.

Or was she?

Verica was raven as well as wolf and Earc was fully of the Faol of the Chrechte.

“Is it now?” Barr’s lazy drawl caressed Sabrine’s insides, bringing forth the desire always simmering under the surface when she was near him.

“Yes.”

“You sound very definite.”

What were they talking about again? Oh, yes. “That is because I have no doubt.”

“I see. You believe I should ask if you would like to accompany me to our bedchamber rather than pick you up and carry you there?”

Her answer was unnecessary as he’d already done just that.

The air around them filled with the spice of their attraction and rather than fight it, she allowed it to wash over her until she was light-headed with the effect.

She did not know how long she had with this amazing warrior of the Faol, but she would enjoy every moment given her. For one thing was certain: there would not be many of them.

 

 

E
arc caught up with Verica by the time she was on the steps. He said nothing, content to wait to ask what the hell she was doing running from him until she had walked off most of her upset.

’Twas something his oldest brother told him worked well with women. Earc had no reason to doubt the other man’s wisdom, for his mating was a happy one.

She didn’t stop in the hall, but went outside, through the courtyard, across the fields and into the forest. The fragrance of summer-sun-heated earth and heather did not mask that of prey. The temptation to go hunting rose and just as quickly settled.

Catching a mate was even more pressing a need. Strange that, when he had not come to the Donegals planning to find his mate, or even hoping for it.

She skirted the area where Earc had fought his challenge; the smell of charred wood and ash hung heavy in the air. The reminder he had been forced to take the life of a fellow wolf today gave him no sense of loss. Rowland may have been Chrechte, but he had been on the verge of destroying his pack. There was nothing to grieve in the loss of a man so evil and selfish.

They did not stop walking until she reached the small brook beyond the clearing. She was silent, looking over the water and then up to the sky. He did not press her for words, content to wait until she told him what had sent her running from the keep.

’Twas not him because she’d made no effort to get away from him since leaving her room, though he had not enjoyed the feeling of her rushing out of the room after his announcement.

Her head tilted back and she gazed up at the sky for long moments of silence before saying, “I changed into a raven for the first time in this spot.”

He looked around them. It seemed a good place for a first shift, but he could not connect to the concept she was both bird and wolf. “I did not know the Chrechte could have two natures.”

“It is very rare, but when two who are different species are true bonded, their children can carry both natures within them.”

It was information none among his pack was privy to, at least to his knowledge. The very existence of the Éan was more myth than reality for the Sinclair pack. “Your parents were sacred mates.” According to what she had just said, it could be no other way.

“Yes.” The wealth of meaning in that one word hit him with the force of a blow from Barr’s fist.

“You hoped for the same.”

She gave him a measured sidelong glance. “Truthfully, I thought never to mate at all.”

“Why?”

“To risk discovery of my raven is to risk death.”

Surely she did not fear him. “I will never harm you.”

“You aren’t like the men of my clan.” It was not outright agreement, but it was close enough.

“Nay, I am not.”

Instead of being comforted, she grew more agitated. Her breathing quickened while perspiration formed on her forehead and upper lip, the smell of her distress bringing a howl to his wolf’s heart.

It was his job to protect his mate, from everything that might harm or cause her serious emotional turmoil. His father had taught him that truth, but Earc’s wolf would have made itself known regardless.

She chewed on her lower lip, her hands twisting in her skirts.

“I love my brother.”

“As you should.”

“The clan relies on me as their healer.”

“Are there no others?”

“None who apprenticed with a master healer like my mother, who taught me to treat a wide range of ailments.”

“The Donegal clan is lucky to have you.”

“I don’t want to leave.” She looked up at him with beautiful blue eyes that pleaded for understanding.

He could not deny her, but he still did not understand why she was so upset. He wasn’t going to marry her and return to the Sinclair holding this very night, or even in the next year or two. “You are not going anywhere.”

“As your mate, I would one day, sooner than later, be forced to leave my family.”

“As I left mine behind to come here.”

“Yes.”

“I have parents and siblings to share with you among the Sinclairs.” Could she not see the benefit?

“I am all Circin has.”

“I will become his brother as well with our mating.”

“What good will that do him with you leaving to return to the clan of your birth?” she asked, her tone accusing and anguished all at once.

And all at once he understood her reticence about the mating. “It will be years before I would return.”

“I don’t want to leave at all.”

He could have reminded her that as his mate, she had no choice but to go where he went. He could have assured her that all would be well, that she would love life among the Sinclairs, but something held all those words back.

He looked down at her, at this woman who had suffered so much loss already in her life and still served her clan with her healing arts. She was not bitter or twisted by her sorrow, but she pulled back from wanting more.

How could he not be moved by such strength matched by equal vulnerability?

“There is only two days’ journey between the Donegal keep and Sinclair’s castle.”

“Is there?”

“We can visit my family yearly.”

“Visit?” A tendril of hope sounded in her voice.

“Aye.”

“So, we would live here, among my clan?”

“Among
our
clan.”

“We could stay with your family for a sennight, or more, each year.” The eagerness in her tone made him smile.

She reached out as if to touch him but then pulled her hand back.

He grabbed her hand and brought it to his face. That strange charge like miniature lightning arced between them.

She looked up at him shyly. “I like when you smile.”

“I like when you smell of joy rather than sorrow.”

“You care if I am happy.” Wonder and astonishment laced her voice.

“I do.”

“Like my father with my mother,” she said, almost in awe. “You are not sickened by my raven nature.”

“No.”
Why would she even ask that? She had already acknowledged that she did not believe he was like the other men of her clan.

She turned away, a sense of caution surrounding her. “There is a thing you still do not know.”

“Tell me.”

“The ravens have gifts beyond their shifting nature.”

“As do wolves.”

She huffed, as if frustrated by his lack of understanding. “I can sense imminent death in a person.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know how the raven seems to always be able to tell when death is coming within its territory?”

“Aye. It is uncanny, that.”

“Those of the Éan share much with their bird nature, beyond that which others might accept.”

“Explain.”

“If I lay my hands on someone, I can feel if they are going to die.” She said the words without any inflection of emotion, but he did not believe this gift came without great cost to one as compassionate as his mate.

“’Tis a useful talent for a healer to have.” If not a particularly pleasant one for her tender heart.

“Perhaps. It was how I knew my parents did not die in the natural way of things.”

He did not understand and was smart enough not to pretend he did. “Because you did not sense their deaths?” he tried guessing.

“I do not, when the death is caused by another person.”

“Murder.”
The foul word left a sour taste on his tongue.

“Or challenge. Or battle.”

That made a bit more sense. Like the ravens who shared a nature with her, she sensed nature’s culling of its inhabitants. “So, you did not know Rowland would die in the challenge.”

“I would never have gotten close enough to touch him to find out.” Her abhorrence at the very thought rang in her soft voice. “If I had, I would not have known, as his death came at your hand.”

“If your father had really been killed by a wild beast—”

“I would have sensed it before he left our cottage and warned him. My Chrechte gifts had just begun to show themselves. For the longest time, I thought it was my fault, that I had somehow ignored the warning in my raven senses. But later I realized the warning did not come if death was by the hand of man.”

“And your mother?”

“Was definitely murdered.” Everything about the way she held herself, the fierce expression in her blue gaze, the tone in her voice—it all spoke of absolute certainty.

A certainty she had been forced to live with since the tragedy, with no recourse against those she believed responsible. “By the bastard Rowland.”

“I always believed so, but had no proof.”

And no way to bring him to justice if she had, considering the stranglehold he’d had on the Donegal clan and Chrechte pack. “Now he has finally paid the price for his cruelties.” Earc couldn’t suppress a wish the man lived just a little longer so he could kill him again.