favors. There were small nicks all over his body from fang and claw, but nothing grievous. Shona’s heart rejoiced and she did her best to convince herself ’twas because he stood between her children and the wolves that would harm them.
While two kept him occupied, the other came running toward Shona, its sharp, drooling fangs bared.
The young Sinclair soldier moved in front of her just as the wolf reached them, taking the first bite to his forearm. He grappled with the wolf valiantly, but Shona knew he would not hold the beast off for long.
She readied her dagger. She could not send her children running, though the temptation was great.
There was no way little legs could outrun those intent on doing them harm. Eadan and Marjory had grown quiet. Their eyes round with shock, they clung to each other and huddled near Audrey.
They should have been terrified, but they seemed more dazed and clearly held no fear of the woman who had become a wolf.
Though Shona’s son had been seeing such things in his dreams, for goodness knew how long.
Audrey moved closer to the children, standing over them protectively. Her own teeth bared, growls sounded from her throat that were suspiciously similar to those Audrey used to make when she was angry with the baron.
It put a new light on claims she had made that she was angry enough to scratch the man’s eyes out.
Shona shifted her stance, prepared to enter the fray between the wolf and the soldier trying so valiantly to protect her.
An unholy roar sounded, and a second later the wolf fighting the young soldier went flying, landing in a broken heap nearly fifty feet away. The great beast had snapped its neck and tossed the giant wolf as if he weighed no more than a ball of yarn sniffed toward Shona, his eyes the same gentian blue as Caelis.
And she realized this, this…
She could hardly believe what her eyes told her to be true. This creature was nothing like the wolf Caelis had shown her and yet there could be no doubt in her heart they were one in the same.
Shock coursed through her, leaving her lungs empty of breath and her heart racing.
Standing over seven feet tall and twice as wide as even the biggest warrior…like Caelis as a man, hair covered his face and body, his features that of a cross between wolf and man. His hands had five fingers, like a man’s, but each digit ended in a daggerlike claw. His feet were the same: five toes tipped with sharp-pointed nails that would gouge a hole in man or beast with brutal efficiency.
He stood upright, like a man, his torso, arms and legs shaped much as they were when in his human form but bigger. A lot bigger.
The long canines that showed when he growled toward one of the wolves inching forward on its belly were like his canine counterpart, but his snout was only slightly protruding, the man behind the beast there to see if one was looking.
And Shona was looking.
She wanted to reach out and touch him. Badly.
This wondrous beast was the father of her child.
The young soldier beside her crossed himself with his good arm before cradling the other close to his chest and starting to mutter fervent Hail Marys.
The wolves had stopped their attack, three of the four surviving Chrechte approaching Caelis on their bellies. The last one—she thought mayhap it was Maon—stood off at a distance, his hackles raised, his low growl at once fear-filled and menacing.
Caelis ignored them all as he moved within a breath of Shona. He did not touch her, but she could sense his desire to do so.
She reached out and took one of his great hands into hers and brought it to her face, laying the claw-tipped fingers against her cheek.
The huge body stilled completely, air barely moving his chest in and out. “Mate?”
The guttural voice was not quite human, but the word was understandable. What he was asking was not.
She did not know what he needed, so she gave him what she wanted. She stood on her toes and reached up to touch the light hair covering his face. It was soft to her touch, his jaw beneath strong and firm.
She trailed her fingers down his neck to his enormous, muscular chest, covered in the same soft short brown hair. “’Tis a wondrous monster you are.”
“Monster?” he asked in that growly voice.
“Wondrous.”
“You do not fear.”
“I have naught to fear.”
The sound of vicious snarling made Caelis tense.
“He challenges you,” Vegar said.
Caelis nodded, though his attention remained on Shona.
She stepped back. “You have things to attend.”
His gaze finally moved from hers, but not to where Maon was making his continued anger clear. No, Caelis looked down at Marjory and Eadan.
Their son was looking up at him with awe and a deep happiness Shona was not sure she understood. Marjory didn’t look any more worried than Shona felt.
’Twas as if her small daughter sensed that the great beast was their ally and seemed comforted by it.
Caelis dropped to one knee and Shona had to stifle the urge to laugh. Did he think that made him less intimidating? He still towered over her, much less the children.
Marjory didn’t seem to care. She let go of her brother and approached Caelis with no sign of trepidation.
The Sinclair soldier made as if to grab her back, but a growl from Caelis had him scurrying away. His courage showed, however, in the fact that he did not keep going but remained nearby.
“He doesn’t know you are nice,” Marjory declared with a frown for the soldier.
“I am not always nice, little princess.” The words came out a little garbled in Caelis’s guttural tones, but Marjory didn’t seem to have any difficulty understanding.
“You are nice to me.”
“Always,” he vowed.
She nodded, popping her thumb in her mouth and reaching for one of his pinkies. He let her wrap her hand around it, giving Shona a bemused look.
It was a strange expression on such a fearsome countenance to be sure.
Eadan approached. “I will be like you one day, Da.”
Shona whipped her head around to stare at Caelis. “Is that true?”
“I dinna ken.”
“I do,” Eadan said as he sidled right up to his father and climbed onto the bent knee. “My dreams said so.”
“Then it will come to pass.”
“I have to save the Paindeal
“What?” Shona asked, her voice going faint.
Eadan smiled reassuringly at her from his perch that made him almost of a height with his grown mother. “Not for a long time yet, Mum. Do not worry.”
She nodded, inexplicably glad her son was only five years old. Whatever destiny called to him, she had years yet to love and live with him as her own dear boy.
The snarls had not stopped the entire time Caelis interacted with the children and now they grew louder, the challenge in them obvious even to Shona.
Caelis lifted both children into his great arms and turned to face the one remaining defiant wolf.
“Submit,” he barked in unmistakable command.
Maon shook his wolf’s head, hackles raised, his fangs bared in threat.
The stupid Chrechte stared Caelis in the eye until Shona’s man-wolf let out a bone-chilling growl. The other
