Warrior's Moon

save others from the same fate. He wanted to lead the MacLeod people with the strength and courage and selflessness that Uven should have shown.

“So you claim.” Maon’s words were defiant, but his conviction lessened with every utterance.

Shona could almost find it in her heart to feel sorry for him. Until she remembered he’d threatened to kill her children.

“Do you really think he will survive my challenge?” Caelis asked with more humor than Shona felt.

“According to your words, you will allow us to live.”

“Uven is more treacherous. He has earned his death, when it comes.” There was no mercy in Caelis’s tone now.

Apparently the Chrechte law of mercy did not extend to despot alphas.

“Because he withheld your mate from you?” Maon asked.

“Because he has killed mates, not just withheld them. Because he has murdered Ean, humans and Faol indiscriminately whenever they have gotten in his way. My own parents were victims of his treachery and he dared put himself in my life as substitute father. Because he lies and teaches lies as truth, knowing they are lies.”

She did not think the others heard the pain in the conriocht’s gravelly tones, but it reached out to the heart she’d tried so hard to protect these past six years. She did not want to feel compassion for him, did not want to feel his pain.

But she could no more help herself than when Eadan scraped his knee and her own ached in sympathy.

“Uven believes what he teaches,” Sean claimed.

Maon paled and looked ready to lose whatever he’d eaten to break his fast that day.

“Nay. He knows the truth. We are only as strong as our weakest link. And without our sacred stone, the Faol were the weakest link in the family of Chrechte for centuries.”

Maon shook his head. “No.”

“Aye.”

Maon did not argue again. He shut up, his expression turning thoughtful. In a thoroughly surly way. If he was acknowledging his wrongheadedness, even if only in his own mind, he certainly wasn’t happy about it.

Was that required response for Chrechte men, she wondered. To be cranky and out of sorts most of the time? Shona found herself laughing at the not-so-absurd notion.

Caelis looked down at her with concern and a yearning she did not understand. “What has you amused?”

“The nature of the Chrechte.”

“You mean our wolves?” Sean asked, sounding puzzled.

“I mean the fact you all seem overly surly, or at least the men do.” Audrey was not so cantankerous.

Caelis shrugged, his massive shoulders making even that small movement impressive and nearly knocking her sideways in the process. “We share our natures with a wolf.”

“You share yours with more.” And he had not told her. Again.

Again he seemed to read her thoughts. “You are not afraid of me like this.”

“No. You are still Caelis.”

“I thought you would be.”

So he had not shown her the wondrous monster. Out of fear? She could not imagine this magical being having such concerns.

Or mayhap, he simply could not show her as he had the wolf. “Can you shift to conriocht at will?”

“Aye, though shifting back cannot happen as quickly.”

“Why?”

“I dinna ken. It could be that when our race was created, a conriocht was meant to spend his time in this form, to better protect our people.”

“Can you shift back now?” she wanted to know.

“Not while threat still exists.”

“We’ve submitted to you,” Sean said. “We would not harm your mate or child.”

“Both Eadan and Marjory are mine,” Caelis growled.

Sean nodded quickly. “As it should be.”

Maon made a scoffing sound.

“You do not agree?” Shona asked, ready to defend her children against even a man who shifted into a wolf.

His beast was nothing compared to the beast who claimed loyalty to her. And as with his wolf, Shona found it all too easy to trust Caelis’s conriocht, even if she could not yet bring herself to trust the man.

“The Fearghall are taught that there is no value in humanity,” Maon said. “A human child would not be claimed by a Chrechte warrior under his authority.”

“Uven’s own daughter was human,” Caelis said.

“Was?” Sean asked.

Caelis gave the other Chrechte a measureing look. “She shifts now, thanks to her Ean mate and our sacred stone.”

“How could her mate have drawn on the power of our stone?” the warrior Shona did not know asked.

“He did not.”

“Then why say thanks to him?” Maon asked, for once sounding more curious than antagonistic.

“He saved her life after her father and Ualraig, the blackguard her father meant her to mate, beat her and left her for dead.”

Shona noted that not one of the men looked surprised by the news, but neither did they look particularly comfortable with it.

“Is he the one who killed Ualraig?” Maon asked.

“You are so sure Ualraig is dead and not a deserter like me?”

“There was naught but ashes left of our warriors, but we know the difference between human ash and dirt.”

“Aye, Laith killed him.”

“Ualraig was the most powerful of Uven soldiers.”

“Nay, he was not.”

“You bested him many times in training but Uven never promoted you to his second,” Maon observed, again without the overt anger.

“Aye. I would not mate with another Chrechte, much less the man’s poor daughter.”

“You couldn’t.”

“He did not know that.”

“He would have killed you if he had.” There was no doubt in Maon’s voice, or the faces of the other three.

Shona shivered. This world was new to her and there were many things about it she still did not understand, but she was struck with the certain knowledge that Uven would have killed her mate if the laird had known of the bonding between Caelis and Shona.

“He could no kill my da,” Eadan said resolutely.

“Nay, he cannot now and the past does not matter,” Caelis agreed.

Maon nodded, shocking Shona.

“Are you Uven’s new second?” Caelis asked of Maon.

“No.”

“Why not?” Shona could not help herself asking.

Curiosity often drove her when she should leave well enough alone.

“I refused the assignment to go after his daughter.”

“What?” Even in his not-quite-human voice, Caelis’s shock was palpable.

“He was not a good father to his human daughter.”