expression now was belligerent, but underneath Shona could see the worry in his color-changing eyes as they shifted from pale brown to green in his agitation.
“’Twas not my intent.”
Thomas dismissed the bigger man with a shrug of one shoulder and met Shona’s gaze, his own eyes, which were the same ash gray as his sister’s, filled with worry. “She needs you and if you will go to her I would count it a great favor—not that I deserve one from you.”
“It is not a favor to comfort a friend.”
The look of relief on Thomas’s features was hard to see. He was both so young and all adult protective male in that instant, it hurt Shona’s heart in a good way.
She’d watched him grow from boy to man, and despite his deceptions about his true nature, she was pleased with the outcome.
“I will watch over Eadan and Marjory,” he explained in case Shona had any doubts what his earlier question had been leading up to.
“I as well,” Caelis said, his bad humor seeming to have taken another turn for the worse.
Though, once again, Shona had no idea why. The man’s moods were as mercurial as spring weather.
Shona nodded to Thomas, including Caelis in with a short glance, and then turned to curtsy and take her leave from the laird and his lady.
“I will be up to check on you both after I have settled Emma.” Abigail’s clear concern relieved Shona more than it would have a day ago.
When she’d believed she knew Audrey better than any other. Now, Shona knew that Audrey’s life was dictated by circumstances she still found fancifully hard to believe.
Presumably Abigail had more experience of this world of mates and Chrechte, seeing as how she was married to one.
Before Shona could leave, however, Caelis’s hand clamped onto her wrist like a manacle. He glared at Vegar. “Apologize.”
Vegar sighed and dipped his head slightly. “I did not intend to upset you, Lady Heronshire.”
Caelis growled again.
Shona sighed, vexed beyond reasoning at this point.
“What would you have me call her?
“Aye.”
Shona smacked Caelis’s arm, wincing when it hurt her hand far more than she was sure it had his stonelike muscles. “That liberty is only mine to give.”
“I’ll not have you called by that bastard’s name.”
“I assure you, the baron was unquestionably legitimate.”
“You did not belong to him.”
Without any warning, bile rose in Shona’s throat at the memory of how very much she had indeed belonged to the old man.
Abigail gasped as if she knew and Caelis reached for Shona, but she stepped away, turning to face Vegar.
She forced the sickness away to allow words to travel past her tight throat.
“I forgive you the small slight, but do not expect things to be so easy with Audrey. She’s learned too well in her past how damaging a man’s regard can be when he believes himself above the woman nature has ordained as his mate.”
She didn’t know the whole story of Audrey’s and Thomas’s lives, but she could assume their mother, not the baron, was the Chrechte. One thing Shona was certain of, if only in the possessive, superior way that drove Uven, no Chrechte man would willingly release his shifter children to serve a human master.
As their mother had been dead by the time they were sold into servitude, she had to have been the parent to share her nature with a wolf. The decision to do so had been entirely their father’s.
A father who had no doubt been drawn to his mate as Shona was to Caelis, but who had treated the woman with little concern and even less respect as his
Thomas sucked in his breath as if Shona’s understanding shocked him. Perhaps he
They must consider her an idiot of the first order.
“How did my father realize you were shifters?”
“He said it was the way we moved,” Thomas replied. “He knew the first time he saw us.”
How strange to think of her father being so very adept at perceiving the animal-like grace of the Chrechte when he had been so blind to his own daughter’s misery.
The secrets of the Chrechte must be kept until the day comes when all peoples of humanity are considered one and equal in the sight of all others.
—THE WORDS OF THE CELI DI
Her friend stood silent and still, staring into space. Audrey’s expression bleak; her eyes were wet and tracks for tears showed on her pale cheeks, but she was not crying. At least, not right now.
Shona sighed, her own anger and pain sliding into the background as she observed the younger woman. “He’s an idiot.”
Perhaps they were not the most politic words to speak, but verily, they were no lie.
Audrey started, as if she had not realized Shona had come into the room.
That was quite unusual and Shona now understood why. Her English friend shared her nature with a wolf and had the keener hearing of the beast because of it.
“Are you truly so distressed about the opinion of a man you have barely made an acquaintance of?” Shona asked when Audrey remained silent, her head averted.
The younger woman turned abruptly, her long, pale blond hair flying around her. “He is not the only one whose regard I have lost this morning.”
Shona sighed, not sure if she was ready to go into that particular imbroglio. “You did not lose his regard. He was simply surprised you are English is all. He’s already lamenting his stupidity.”
“And your regard?” Audrey’s ash gray gaze implored her. “Shona…you are the sister my mother could not bear.”
“So I have felt these five years past.” She truly had, which made the betrayal at her friends’ hands that much harder to bear.
“And now?” Audrey asked, her voice trembling with emotion.
“You hid the truth of yourself…the truth of my son’s nature…from me for all of those years.”
“We could not be certain he would shift. Mother told me that not all children born of a mixed mating would have a Chrechte nature. She was not even sure both Thomas and I would shift into a wolf. She died believing Thomas’s nature was fully human.”
“How can that be?”
“My first shift happened a full year before Thomas’s.”
“When was that?”
“With the coming of my menses. It started early and I shifted to a wolf the first full moon after. I was but twelve summers.”
