Warrior's Moon

to become a married man’s lehman.

Her position as such had gone against the teaching of their race, or so Audrey’s mother had insisted. She’d shared little enough of them with her children. Both Audrey and Thomas were almost wholly ignorant of their people’s ways.

Audrey’s current stupefaction lay in the fact Shona had welcomed this man… any man, really…into her bed. A human, she was not driven by the instincts of an animal sharing her nature toward their mate.

At least, that was what Audrey had always believed. She’d never noted her father being particularly weak with longing toward her mother or abundant in caring toward the children the English Chrechte had born him.

“Water can be brought to your chamber,” Caelis said grumpily to Shona, ignoring Audrey altogether.

“Nay,” Audrey immediately denied, refusing to be intimidated by the huge Chrechte. She would protect Shona’s reputation even if the baroness was not currently up to the task herself. “My mistress will have a bath in the loch.”

Shona could wash off the scent of this man’s seed at the very least. Though it was unlikely she would be able to remove it entirely.

The humans would be unaware of Shona’s nighttime visitor, but the wolves would know Caelis had staked some sort of claim.

Audrey smiled at Shona, trying to give the other woman a message of her own unwavering support. “Lady Abigail told me of one nearby that is used by the clanswomen.”

She was not worried about finding the loch. Her wolf’s senses would lead Audrey to the water easily enough.

“You aren’t bathing outside these walls with naught but this Englishwoman to guard you,” Caelis pronounced.

Though the wolf had not left his mark on Shona’s neck, his air of possession was as strong as if he had.

Shona shrugged, doing her best to hide her discomfort at climbing from the bed as naked as the day she’d come into this world, but climb from it she did and Audrey could have cheered. “Then you may accompany us as our protector.”

Audrey frowned. She was not sure that was a good idea at all.

The warrior opened his mouth to argue and then shut it again without uttering a word. Maybe he realized what an easy victory he had just won from the stubborn Shona.

Audrey was not so sanguine. “We traveled all the way from England without need of your guard. Your presence is hardly needed for our morning constitutional in the Sinclair’s loch.”

“You would risk your lady’s safety?” he asked, addressing Audrey for the first time.

“There is no risk.”

“You are naive if you believe that.”

She’d been accused of such more than once. It never made her smile. “I am not so naive as to believe you have her best interests at heart.”

“That is not your judgment to make.”

“You think not?”

“Enough.” Shona had pulled on her shift and a wrapper, the one Lady Abigail had offered the day before.

Audrey had been surprised Shona had decided to dress the night before instead of using it. Though maybe she had not seen it?

“I have already told Caelis he can accompany us as guard, Audrey. I will expect Thomas to as well. You know that had I a choice these past sennights, I would not have left my children’s protection to our small band.”

Audrey could not deny it and guilt assailed her. “I know it.”

Caelis waved at Audrey imperiously. “Wait in the hall for us to join you.”

“I will not.” He may have compromised the other woman’s virtue beyond redemption, but no further damage would be done to Shona’s reputation or innocence this morn.

“Do not speak to her that way,” Shona said sharply before either Audrey or Caelis could talk further. “She is my friend, not my servant and if you expect to be in our company you will treat Audrey with the respect due her.”

Shock upon shock, the grouchy warrior inclined his head toward Audrey. “Pardon my offense. Will you please wait in the hall?”

“No.”

He glared.

She crossed her arms and frowned right back.

“I am not going to ravish her…again.” The devilment in his eyes said more was coming. “At least, not at this moment.”

The loud sound of a hard smack against flesh came only a second before his wince of pain. He looked over his shoulder at Shona. “What was that for?”

Her dear sweet Shona, who had not a violent bone in her delicate human body, or so Audrey had always thought—her one dire threat to the dead baron aside—hauled back and punched Caelis right in the jaw. “I am no doxy to be spoken about thus. If your words were true last night, then I am something of far greater import to you. Don’t you ever make light of the privileges I’ve given you against my better judgment. You’ve done that once and near destroyed my life and that of our son in the bargain. I’ll not stand for it again. Do you hear me?”

“I believe Sir Percival has heard you clear back in England,” Thomas said from the doorway, Marjory and Eadan standing by his side watching the exchange with wide-eyed startlement.

“Mama, you hit the nice man. It’s not nice to hit. You said so,” Marjory censured her mother.

Another time, Audrey would have found the exchange diverting. At present, she worried for what Shona might say in response.

Shona, clearly beyond reason or caution gave such a venomous glare to the warrior, Caelis should be very glad there were no such thing as snake shifters. “He is not a nice man. He is an arrogant, tell-all, useless MacLeod soldier!”

Marjory and Eadan stared at their mother as if she had grown enough heads to become the Hydra of mythology. Audrey did not blame them. They had never seen their mother upset like this.

Not even when she was burying her father and terrified for the very life of her son.

Caelis had been slightly amused through it all, including the surprisingly well placed hit to his jaw, but when Shona called him useless, he winced, his expression turning so bleak Audrey almost pitied him.

“Mama!” Marjory remonstrated, regaining her sense and showing none of her usual timidity.

Though admittedly that side of her nature rarely ruled between Marjory and her mother, the child knowing without doubt how very much the former Scotswoman adored her.

Shona spun to face Marjory. “Why do you think he’s so nice?” she asked with undisguised bewilderment.

Marjory shrugged. She pulled away from Thomas to cross the room and stand near Caelis, who sat on the bed, the lower half of his body covered by the bedding.

The child took the big warrior’s hand with her tiny one. “I don’t know, Mama. But I know it. He’s nice. Not like Percy. You should not hit him.”

Shona’s eyes shown with wetness, but she conjured a smile for her daughter. “I am glad you find him so. Perhaps one day your mama will as well.”

“You have to, Mum.” The desperation in Eadan’s tone was hard to hear. “Or we can’t be a family.”

The hopeless expression that crossed Shona’s features said she wasn’t as certain of that fact as her son was. For her part, Audrey wasn’t either.

If Caelis pressed the matter, Shona would have little to say about it. Particularly after she had allowed him into her bed again.

Audrey shook her head at her friend’s predicament. She knew not how to fix it. “Come, we will all bathe in