Warrior's Moon

“I’m telling the truth. Can’t you smell it?” she managed to tease.

He nodded, his expression going from uncertain to a full-blown smile. “You aren’t a wolf. Neither is Marjory, but that’s okay. We’ll protect you, Da, Thomas and me.”

She could not look at the adult men without screaming, so she kept her focus entirely on her son. “Thank you, but until you are bigger, I will continue to protect you. All right?”

“I’ll be bigger soon.”

“Yes, I’m sure you will.”

“Shona.” That was Audrey’s voice, pleading and worried.

Shona could not deal with the other woman’s treachery, or what it implied right now.

“Shall we go back to the keep and see what Lady Sinclair has provided to break our fast?” Shona asked her children with a smile as bright as she could make it.

“I’m hungry,” Marjory announced plaintively.

“Then we’ll see you fed.” Caelis leaned down to swoop the child into his arms. “Lady Sinclair’s cooks make delicious, heavy brown bread.”

“Do they have butter?” Marjory asked, patting Caelis’s cheek. “I likes butter.”

“Oh, aye.”

“The laird provides well for his people,” Thomas said, his voice falsely relaxed, tension ringing through his attempts to disguise it.

“He does. Surprisingly so. The Balmoral is the same.”

Testimony to the goodness of the Balmoral laird did not give Shona the comfort it would have yesterday.

“And your clan?” Thomas asked.

“The current laird is more interested in building an army than feeding his people,” Caelis said, disdain in his tone.

“Things have gotten worse then?” Shona asked, thinking it would do her no harm to dwell on something besides these new betrayals in her life.

Because make no mistake, if her father knew of the Chrechte, so had Shona’s mother.

“Aye. It is much worse than when your family made MacLeod land their home. Few humans remain in the clan. Those who do struggle to keep the farms going, but Uven expects much for nothing.”

“He always did.”

“I did not see it.”

“Just as you refused to see the way he treated his daughter. Does she still live?” There had been times Shona thought the other girl would not survive her father’s foul temper.

“She does. She escaped and came here seeking refuge.”

“Was she granted it?”

“Aye.”

“Of course. She is Chrechte, is she not?”

“Nay. Uven’s first wife, his true mate, was human.”

“So am I.”

“When a human and a Chrechte mate, the children of their union have as much chance of being born fully human as Chrechte.”

“Regardless, if you knew this about Uven’s first wife, how could you believe him that I was not your true mate?”

“I didn’t know until later.”

Did she believe him? Shona did not know. Too many lies had been spread over her like the honey of truth, leaving her exposed to the beasts drawn to their sweetness.

Shona took Eadan’s hand and began the walk back to the keep. “I am glad Mairi found refuge. Perhaps she will even find joy here.”

“She is mated, to a Chrechte healer. They are on Balmoral Island at present. She is training with an old seer of the clan.”

“She has the sight?” Shona had always believed such gifts myths.

Now she knew some myths had more truth than what she had always taking as verity.

“She does,” Caelis confirmed.

“As does Ciara,” Thomas added with atypical timidity. “The Sinclair laird’s daughter. You met her last night.”

“I remember.” Maintaining her civility with Thomas was no easy task.

“She believes Eadan has it as well.”

Shona gripped her son’s hand tightly, not willing to exhibit lack of belief in his dreams as she had in the past. “Then perhaps she will help him learn to use his gifts.”

Eadan smiled brilliantly up at Shona, making her attempt at understanding worth the effort. “She told me the dreams are strongest when they are about something important.”

“Like your true father.”

“My lord would not have accepted my wolf,” Eadan said with wisdom beyond his five years.

“I am sure you are right.”

“Hiding your true nature from your parent is a painful thing,” Thomas said in a subdued tone.

Shona cast him a sidelong glance. His shoulders were stooped in dejection.

She could no more help the words that came out of her mouth than the love she felt for friends who had found her as unworthy of truth as her parents. “I told your sister not thirty minutes past, your father is a stupid, vain man, not worthy of either of you.”

Thomas jerked his head in acknowledgment but said nothing.

“We don’t know what it means to be Chrechte other than to keep our wolves the most closely of guarded secrets,” Audrey offered in a voice broken with emotion.

“Then it is a good thing you came to the Highlands where, apparently, others like you are abundant.” Shona’s tone sounded flat, even to her own ears.

With another oddly concerned glance at Shona, Caelis shrugged. “Not abundant, but there are packs in several of the clans.”

“Uven’s favored are many.”

“The MacLeod clan is an exception. The lairds of that clan have been focused on increasing the Faol population for generations, since the first pack joined the clan. Uven has taken that dedication even more seriously than his predecessors.”

“Why?” she asked, only vaguely interested in the reply.

They had reached the keep and the noise of the great hall prevented her hearing the reply, if indeed Caelis made one.

And Shona could not make herself care. Too many thoughts and emotions warred for supremacy inside her head and heart, the cacophony so great inside her, the bustling great hall seemed peaceful by comparison.

Looking around at banquet tables filled with soldiers and other clan members breaking their fast, Shona had no hope of distinguishing which were Chrechte, and which like her, were human. She hadn’t even known her son was one.

Was not even sure it mattered to her if any of the many seated here were humans who were something more. The ones who had mattered, the ones she might have expected to reveal this strange new world to her, had held back their knowledge.

Even her own son had known, through his dreams, what he was. He, at least, she understood fully holding back the knowledge. Shona had already unknowingly revealed her lack of belief in his dreams. And unlike his father, Eadan did not yet have the ability to prove the fantastical claims.

Part of her, that spark of mother love that never went out, was amazed by her son’s belief not only in the dreams, but in himself. Eadan had faith the likes of which Shona had lost the day Caelis repudiated her.

She hadn’t stopped believing in the goodness of others that day, but she’d stopped believing in herself. Shona could not trust her own judgment, nor could she be absolutely sure of her own value.

She wanted to believe she’d been worth more than to be used and discarded, but her own parents had