Warrior's Moon

response.

He’d no desire to drop to one knee before her now. She was as likely to kick him in the teeth as she was to agree to marry him.

“If you believe that, there is a great deal to be learned between us before you ask such an important question.”

“Stop reading my thoughts,” he ordered.

And then felt the futility of the demand. Their mate bond only strengthened each moment they were together.

“Furthermore, you will go to my relatives and state your intentions before asking for anything further from me.” She got up from the table, her movements precise and deliberate, her expression and thoughts closed to him. “Make sure the children both take a nap. They have been through an ordeal.”

And with a whirl of velvet skirts and flying auburn braid, Shona flounced out of the great hall.

“Uh-oh…” Eadan looked worried.

“Aye?” Caelis asked his son, hoping the five-year-old understood what had just happened.

Because Caelis did not.

“You’ve gone and made her cross now.”

That Caelis knew. “She becomes irate easily these days, I think.”

Eadan shook his head and Marjory stared at Caelis mournfully. “You’s in trouble. No pudding for you after supper tonight.”

Caelis would have laughed, but he was beginning to suspect his situation was far from amusing.

“Mum only gets scrunchy-faced angry and all quiet when you do something very bad. What did you do, Da?” Eadan asked.

“I wish I knew.”

“Men!” Abigail exclaimed, reminding Caelis she was still there.

“You know why my mate has just abandoned me with our children?”

“Of course I do. The wonder is that you do not,” Abigail retorted, frustration with him turned to pity in the blink of an eye. “As to leaving the children, it’s the one aspect to this situation that can give you hope.”

“Aye?”

“Oh, yes. A woman of Shona’s caliber does not leave her children with someone she does not trust.”

Put that way, but no. ’Twas small compensation in the face of her clear refusal to marry him. “She’s furious I want to wed.”

“No, you idiot, Shona is angry you didn’t ask her properly. She said so. She’s also terribly disappointed she wasn’t here to witness the vows between Vegar and Audrey. Your mate is upset and overwhelmed by all that has happened. It is your privilege and duty to make that better.”

That was a simple pronouncement for the Sinclair to make. She obviously did not understand how impractical Shona’s demands were. “She wants me to travel to Balmoral Island and approach relatives she has never even met to state my intentions toward her.”

“That is not an unreasonable request.”

“Mayhap not on the face of it, but every day I put off returning to my clan, Uven does more to destroy it from within.”

Abigail’s brows rose and then her eyes narrowed. “You have spent the last year training and did not resent the time taken to do so.”

“That is different.” She was a laird and pack alpha’s mate; she should understand that without Caelis having to point it out.

“How?”

“It was necessary.”

“Oh!” Abigail’s expression turned every bit as outraged as Shona’s had been. “You truly are an imbecile. Good fortune on winning your mate with that attitude. You will need it. Desperately.”

And then the laird’s wife was gone, leaving Caelis in a rarely empty great hall.

“Did you make the lady angry, too, Da?” Eadan asked with something like awe.

Caelis rubbed his hand over his face. “Aye, son, I believe I did.”

“I think Margie is right. You aren’t getting any pudding tonight.”

“We don’t serve pudding with supper every evening,” Caelis pointed out reasonably.

Only this apparently was not something small Marjory wanted to hear, because she immediately started crying. “I wants pudding.”

Caelis had no idea what to do.

“You’d better pick her up,” Eadan pointed out as if speaking to a simpleton.

Mayhap that was exactly what Caelis was because he had no idea how he’d managed to upset three females in as many minutes.

Calming Marjory only required a trip to the kitchen for a honey stick, but he worried it would not be so easy to appease Shona’s upset.

* * *

Dressed in clothes dusty and stained with blood from the battle in the forest, Audrey crept on silent feet toward the door of Vegar’s room.

Shona had not come to see her all afternoon and Audrey needed to know how her friend fared. Was she angry about Audrey’s wedding, such as it was?

Had she been too traumatized by the sight of Caelis in his conriocht form? Was she still angry at Audrey for hiding her own Faol nature for the years of their acquaintance? Had Audrey revealing her own wolf given Shona a disgust of her?

The door swung inward just as Audrey reached it, Vegar carrying a tray of food on the other side.

She jumped back, blushing at being caught even though she should be allowed to leave the room if she wanted to. “Vegar.”

“Mate.” He frowned. “You are dressed.”

“I could hardly wander about the keep in my altogether.”

“You are not supposed to be wandering anywhere. You are to be resting.”

“I was resting.” She bit her lip and tugged at her sleeves, noting a tear she had not noticed when donning her dress. “Now, I am going to my bedchamber.”

“This is my room, therefore it is your room.”

“That is hardly an acceptable living arrangement. I could not help noticing that this bedchamber is prepared for multiple soldiers to live in it. I cannot make my home with a gaggle of strange men.”

“You are not making your home with anyone but me.”

She looked significantly at the neatly stored belongings on the other side of the room. The yellow-and-black plaid with narrow red stripes in the pile was the same color as the one Caelis wore. She thought Vegar must share the room with Shona’s mate, but it was quite apparent the small room was meant to house a group of soldiers. Each of the four walls had a small chest against it, which a single soldier might use or share with another. There was room for multiple bedrolls on the floor, though the soldiers would be crowded.

Vegar set the tray down beside his sleeping furs. “Caelis will be staying with Shona.”

“They are not wed.”

“They were not wed last night, but he still marked her with his scent.”

Audrey huffed in consternation. “I thought we had washed away his marking scent.”

“A human would not know.”

“But you are not human.”

“Nor are a good number of the Sinclair’s soldiers.”

“The Chrechte are more plentiful than my mother led me to believe.”

Vegar shrugged. “I dinna know about that, but our numbers are not near what the stories claim they once were.”

“I have never heard the stories.”

“I will tell them to you.”

“Thank you.”