Warrior's Moon

deplorable way.

“You are disappointed in me,” he said to Shona.

She nodded, seeing no reason to deny it. “Vegar said he knew of a pack made up entirely of Fearghall.” And their females, but she did not see the need to repeat that distinction at that moment. “Which would imply that others are not.”

“That is right.”

“So you chose to align yourself with Uven’s twisted thinking.”

“’Twas not merely Uven. He believed what he had been taught, as did generations before him.”

“But you are mistaken in believing Caelis was given the option of not following the Fearghall’s ways,” Vegar inserted. “Had he rejected their teachings, he would have been killed as other Chrechte were before and after him.”

A cold chill settled in Shona’s chest. “But you said—”

“The MacLeod are like that English pack. The men are Fearghall, the women Chrechte breeders, supporting the men at the risk of shunning and much worse. Audrey’s mother was very lucky she was not killed by her former pack for deserting them.”

Audrey gasped.

Shona nodded her understanding, if not her acceptance and turned to Caelis. “You broke away.”

“I did.” He did not sound proud, merely determined about that fact.

“I am glad.”

Caelis nodded.

“It makes sense, though, knowing how easily you were convinced to send me away,” Shona mused.

“I did not send you away.”

“It amounted to the same thing.”

“But that was not my intent.”

“Oh, so you intended me to remain with the clan and marry another MacLeod?” she asked, finding that difficult to believe in the face of his possessiveness.

“No.”

“You thought I should remain alone?”

“Why not? I have been.” He sounded put out, like a cantankerous child.

“By your choice.”

It was Caelis’s turn to make that warrior’s sound of frustration. “Yes, by my choice.”

“Finally, you admit it.”

“Is that what you need? Or will only the spilling of my blood do to assuage your anger at me?”

“I am no god to demand a blood sacrifice.”

“I do not know what you want then.”

That was easy enough. “Your admission that you chose the path you took.”

“I already admitted to error.”

And for Caelis, that had been hard. But for Shona, it wasn’t enough.

“You weren’t merely deceived. You were open to the deception because you believed yourself superior to me.” His jaw clenched, Caelis nodded. There was no doubt he was no happier to make this admission than the previous one.

She could but hope that meant he no longer held such unacceptable views. “Your ability to transform into a wolf ’tis a magical thing to be sure, but it does not make you, or Uven for that matter, gods among men.”

“I never said it did.” Frustration-laced shame surrounded her big warrior like a cloud.

He had never said it, but he’d believed it. And mayhap Shona could forgive that, if he believed it no longer, but she would not pretend the blight on his thinking had never been there.

Audrey looked at Shona then, apology in her gray eyes. “My mother did. She thought herself above her mate just as he believed himself of greater value than her. Mother called his wife and the children of his legitimate marriage ‘wretched.’ When I was small, I believed it was her own jealousy and pain showing because she was only his lehman, but once I learned the truth of our natures, I realized she truly believed them beneath her.”

Clearly, her mother’s beliefs hurt Audrey.

“You never showed her prejudices,” Shona soothed.

“You were too kind to be less than me. I loved my half sister and half brothers and they cared for me and Thomas. I knew my mother had to be wrong. Her pack had rejected her for following her mate, but you accepted me as a cared-for friend when all others in your household looked on me as naught but a servant.”

“I made few enough friends among the English,” Shona joked, wanting to lighten Audrey’s dark countenance.

It worked and the blond woman smiled.

“I have learned the wrongness of my thinking,” Caelis ground out, a smile nowhere in evidence on his features. “Uven is unjust in his thinking. He does not respect the ancient ways though he claims to live by them.” There was the pain of being deceived in Caelis’s tone, his expression tight. Vegar watched him with a compassion that surprised Shona, and Audrey with a fascination that didn’t.

“Uven is a blackguard in every sense,” Shona said with all the conviction she felt.

Caelis nodded, no protectiveness toward their former laird like he used to have anywhere in evidence.

“But you are right. I allowed myself to believe and in so doing…I betrayed my true mate and broke sacred Chrechte law just as Thomas accused me of doing. Just as Uven has done.”

She only vaguely remembered Thomas making such a claim upon his first realization of who Caelis was. She could see this admission was of great importance to Caelis, but it had little impact for her.

“You could have ceased your explanations at your acknowledgment of wrong thinking. At present, Chrechte law has little regard from me.”

“But if I had—”

“No.” Shona put her hand up. “Right now, I do not want to hear more of this world I was kept ignorant of for so long. I have more important considerations.”

Later, they had much to discuss. No matter how much she might prefer to avoid doing so. But not at this moment.

Caelis frowned, his shock clear in the gentian blue of his eyes. “What?”

As if there could not be anything more important than Chrechte law. It took all of Shona’s long-fought-for patience not to grind her teeth.

That same Chrechte law had caused the people she’d loved most in her life to deceive her. She could be forgiven for not perceiving it as the great source of wisdom and knowledge Caelis seemed to do.

“Friendship,” she said with no shame. “My dear friend and I have words we need to speak and they do not require the presence of two arrogant warriors.”

“You are expelling us from the room?” Vegar asked, his own surprise even more acute than Caelis’s had been.

“I am.” She nodded for good measure and stared pointedly at the door.

“But I must speak to my mate.”

“I am not your mate. Yet,” Audrey added when Vegar looked to argue. “Perhaps never.”

“You canna—”

“What I can and cannot do is of no concern to you right now, barbarian.”

Caelis grinned at that, getting some kind of amusement out of his friend being taken to task. Warriors. There was no understanding them.

Shona pointed to the door and gave both men equally hostile looks. “Leave.”

“But—”

That was Vegar.

Audrey’s arm came up, her strength reasserting itself as she straightened her spine. She pointed to the door as well. “Now. We would have our privacy.”