Warrior's Moon

Thomas, perhaps he would be more apt to help them find safety, if not Shona herself.

“I am going back to bed.” She turned to retrace her steps to her room.

“You are still tired?” he asked, keeping pace with her.

“No.” In fact, she was not, but she wasn’t about to wander the passageways of the sleeping keep, either.

“Then perhaps we can talk?” Caelis asked, sounding less demanding than she’d ever heard him.

Shona stopped at her door, looking up at the only male visage that had ever stirred desire in her.

Even now, after everything, her need for him was a low rumble in her belly. She’d been sure that part of her was dead, but one day in his company and she knew it was not. She wanted him as much as she ever had, but she would not have him.

Forcing the visceral need aside, she asked with no small amount of unbelief, “You wish to discuss the issues between us now, in the wee hours?”

“Aye.”

“’Tis hardly appropriate behavior.” She shook her head. Not to deny him, but in wonder at his audacity.

“I do not concern myself with what is proper.”

“You never did.” But she’d thought he had the honor to make improper behavior right.

He had not.

“There was a time when you would have laughed at this English sense of propriety you seek to hide behind now.”

“I learned why proper behavior has its place.” As protection from what had happened to her, for one thing.

“Please, Shona. Hear me out.”

Honestly? She felt no inclination to do so, but she needed information on what Caelis planned to do now that he’d discovered he had a son. If he’d denied Eadan, all would be so simple. She would have gone to Balmoral Island as planned and thrown herself on the mercy of family relations—however tenuous.

But now Shona feared losing her son to his father as much as her flight from England had been spurred by her terror of losing Eadan to Percival’s evil machinations.

“You will not take my son from me,” she promised Caelis as she pushed the door to her chamber open.

“That is not my intention.”

She turned to face him, still on the threshold, not letting him into the room. “You mocked me once with words that did not match your actions; this time I will not be so easily fooled.”

“Let me explain,” Caelis said again, more plea than demand.

It was so unusual to hear the strong warrior speak thus, she found herself nodding and stepping back to allow him into the bedchamber.

There was a low boxlike chest against one wall and Shona used it to sit on, ignoring the very existence of the bed and hoping Caelis would do so as well.

She would have gone to the great hall, but she wanted someone to overhear her shame even less than she desired to be caught in a compromising position with Caelis.

“I find it odd you were sleeping outside my door,” she said as Caelis paced the room but did not start this grand explanation he had alluded to.

“I was not sleeping.”

“What were you doing then?”

“Guarding you.” Caelis stopped in front of her. “Fighting my need to come inside.”

She almost laughed. “You would have me believe that after you tossed me aside six years ago, your passions for me burn so bright they keep you up at night on vigil outside my room?”

’Twas ludicrous. If he’d been as afflicted by desire for her as she was him, he never would have repudiated her.

“Aye.”

“I am not that naive.” Did he think he had to lie to her to gain access to his son?

Why did he even want Eadan now, when Caelis had been so quick before to reject even the possibility she was pregnant?

Her thoughts whirled in her head like the most complicated court dance.

“Just stubborn.” He sighed, running his hand over his face. “I do not remember you being so stubborn with me.”

Because she’d wanted to give into him and that was her own shame to bear. At least he’d known her truly enough to realize it was in her nature to be obdurate with others.

When she didn’t dignify his words with a reply, he sighed again, looking quite put out. “I have been without physical comfort for six years. You married another.”

“First, I have absolutely no reason to believe you. And I don’t,” she inserted for good measure. “Second, you cannot call what transpired between the baron and myself comfort.”

Not when the old man’s very touch made Shona’s skin crawl and he’d used her as the whore her mother had called her upon discovering Shona was with child with no suitor, much less husband, in sight.

“I do not want to hear about it,” Caelis said with deep feeling.

She had no intention of telling him anything about her life that he did not absolutely need to know. “Rest assured, you will not.”

“Marjory is his.”

Shona gave a single jerk of her head in acknowledgment.

“Eadan is mine.”

This time Shona merely stared, refusing to agree with or deny the statement.

“You would deny it?” Caelis accused, though she’d done no such thing.

“You were the one who told me that if I were pregnant then it would have to be by some other man.” Her fingers curled around the edges of the chest, the grip so hard she could feel her heartbeat in them. “Do you not remember?”

“I was angry at having to let you go. I took that fury out on you.” Guilt washed over his chiseled features. “I did not mean it. I was under orders to cease my attentions to you. I knew those words would push you away as nothing else would. Your loyalty and determination were too strong to give in otherwise.”

She did not know what he meant by orders to cease his attentions, though she could guess, but Caelis had been right about his methods. “You succeeded spectacularly in your efforts. I would have been content to live the rest of my days without seeing you again.”

Because she had wished so strongly for that claim to be reality, it came out with all the conviction her heart lacked.

The candle’s glow was not bright, but it illuminated enough of his handsome face to reveal the pain that crossed it and settled in his gentian gaze. “To my great regret.”

“I do not believe you.” Was it a lie if she wanted it to be true?

Again, he seemed surprised…even hurt…by her lack of faith in him.

“Our laird denied my request to mate you.” There was a ring of sincerity to his tone she could not ignore.

More important, the words rang true with the actions of the laird of her former clan. Uven was not a kind, or even just, man. He had his favorites among the clanspeople and they could expect his support and beneficence. Everyone else had had to sacrifice for the treasured few.

Uven’s own daughter often suffered at his hand, not that Caelis had ever believed it. While they’d had a near-idyllic courtship before Caelis rejected her, the one area they never agreed on was the true nature of their laird.

Her lack of loyalty, as he called it, used to infuriate her then beloved warrior to no end.

Because, unlike her family, Caelis had never been shown the ugly side of the MacLeod laird.

“You are one of his favored,” she reminded Caelis.

“I was.”

She didn’t ask what had happened to change that. The very fact he was among the Sinclairs rather than their former clan spoke of a great breach between laird and vassal. And she did remember her former laird’s true