Warrior's Moon

“You would be surprised,” Caelis replied cryptically.

The eagle followed them to the water, taking up a circular pattern in the sky above the loch.

“You’d best keep your eyes off my mate,” Caelis said loudly.

And rather nonsensically, to Shona’s way of thinking. “He’s a bird. I’m far more concerned about you keeping your back turned.”

Caelis opened his mouth and she just knew he was going to say something about having seen all there was to see already.

The warning look she gave him must have worked, because the shape-changer’s mouth snapped shut and he turned his back so she and Audrey could ready the children and undress for bathing.

“I’m too old to bathe with the women,” Eadan announced, stepping out of his mother’s reach.

Shona was charmed. She could not help it. She was a mother and this sign of furthering independence from her son despite the upsets in his life brought a genuine smile to her lips.

“He’s right,” Caelis agreed, adding that Eadan was of an age to begin his training.

Shona wasn’t so enamored of that particular claim, but her former beloved was being insistent. He pointed out that though Marjory was merely three years, she was already learning how to stitch.

Where he came by this knowledge, Shona could not help but wonder. Apparently the time she had spent sleeping the day before had been a productive one for him in his quest to get to know the children he was so adamant he wanted to claim.

“That is a ridiculous comparison,” Shona argued.

Audrey added, “Thomas did not begin training until he was twelve.”

“And I was never trained completely.” Thomas’s unhappiness with the haphazard way his father had handled his upbringing before ejecting him and Audrey from his home was in the young man’s voice.

He looked at Caelis with admiration and some envy.

“You did right by my son, teaching him how to ride and to pay attention to the knowledge of the world his senses give him.”

Thomas turned bright red and the admiration transformed to full-blown hero worship.

Between the way Thomas looked at Caelis and Eadan’s attitude, there was no question that both Shona’s son and young friend were completely beguiled by the tough warrior.

Since she found his attentiveness toward Eadan and gruff kindness toward Thomas a bit beguiling herself, she could hardly complain about that fact.

She gave in about the segregated bathing without another word, helping Marjory into the water and playing swimming games with her daughter to get her used to the cold temperatures.

Her gaze slid to the men as Audrey took Marjory, so she did not miss when Caelis took Eadan up onto his shoulders. Shona’s heart squeezed in her chest.

The baron had not been a kind or demonstrative man and had no interest in helping Eadan, or Thomas for that matter, to learn anything.

Thinking about the great turns her life had taken in less than a day, she did her best to wash the scent of lovemaking from her skin while Audrey washed Marjory’s hair. Shona was no longer so certain she wanted to deny his claim on her, but she had no desire whatsoever to have their activities the night before announced to all and sundry.

Not by him, as he’d done with Audrey and not by her scent, no matter how much his wolf might want that.

“Here, use this.” Audrey handed Shona the bar of lavender soap they’d brought with them from England.

Shona took the soap, wondering if Audrey had noticed the scent of lovemaking in the bedchamber that morning. “Thank you.”

Nothing else was said while the two women washed each other’s hair. Marjory played in the shallow water nearby with a small duck Thomas had carved for her.

At one point, the eagle swooped down again, this time touching Audrey’s bare shoulder with the tip of his wing. She laughed and shooed the bird of prey as she might a rabbit in the carrot patch.

Caelis growled, the sound quite menacing, though he had not turned around. So, she could not understand how he’d known of the Eagle’s brief visit. She put both from her mind as she and Audrey rinsed away the soap and sand from the bottom of the loch they’d used to get their hair clean.

“I was surprised to find Caelis in your bed this morn,” Audrey said tentatively as she and Shona wrung the water from their hair. Her tone invited confidences without an ounce of judgment.

Nevertheless, a flush of shame warmed Shona’s skin despite the chill of the loch’s water. “He was standing guard outside my door when I woke and went searching for the children.”

Which didn’t begin to explain how the man had ended up in her bed. She couldn’t explain that to herself, either, or the fact she’d wanted him to stay after they’d shared their bodies and their passions.

“I should have remained with you last night, but Marjory wanted the comfort of my presence.” Audrey’s voice was laced with heavy regret and self-censure.

“My virtue is not your responsibility,” Shona stated, finding it painful to acknowledge how very thoroughly she’d allowed her virtue to be imperiled.

“You are a virtuous woman.” Audrey said, as if she knew exactly what Shona was thinking. “Whatever happened in the wee hours did not change that.”

“You know ’tis not the way the rest of the world thinks.”

“The rest of the world can go hang,” Audrey said with more malice than Shona had ever heard in her young friend’s voice. “You are the only one who treated Thomas and I like we mattered. You trust your children with us, but just as important, your hand has been open in friendship from the first day we came to the barony.”

“I understood what it meant to be treated as less.” Shona’s pregnancy had made her less in her parents’ eyes.

And despite how pleasing he found her feminine form, her deceased husband had believed himself superior by dint of English birth and the very basic difference that he was a man and she a woman. He also never allowed her to forget that she’d not come to his bed a virgin.

She’d once reminded him that she would not have come to his bed at all if she had been one. That had precipitated one of the few times he’d beaten her.

“Did you give into Caelis because you did not believe you had a choice?” Audrey asked in a quiet undertone with a quick glance at the warrior’s imposing back.

Shona knew the sister of her heart was not asking about the true mate bond. How could she be? Audrey was still innocent to the strange world Shona had learned of only the night before.

No, Audrey wanted to know if Caelis had forced the issue. And Shona could understand why the other woman might ask such a thing.

Whatever he might be, the man who had rejected her and now proclaimed his desire to keep her was no rapist. “No.”

“You are certain?” Audrey met Shona’s gaze, her own blue one so very earnest.

“I am certain.” Shona almost wished she could answer in the affirmative. It was so clear Audrey could conceive of no other reason for Shona’s rash behavior. “He did not force himself on me.”

Audrey sighed, the relief clear in her gaze, even if the confusion had not diminished. “I am glad.”

Shona looked to where her daughter continued to play, oblivious to the adults’ discussion.

Then Audrey’s head snapped up and she looked over at the men standing with their backs to the bathing females. Shona’s gaze followed her friend’s and she saw that Caelis’s stance had grown rigid, anger coming off him in waves.

Had Thomas said something to offend the giant warrior?

She’d thought her friend more intelligent than that. From the side of his face that she could see, Thomas on the other hand, appeared almost appalled by something.

Eadan was playing in the bushes, pretending to hunt and ignoring them all.

Or so Shona hoped. With the way her son heard things she’d thought it impossible for him to, she did not want him overlistening to this conversation.