The most important being: he would keep her children safe.

She stopped her pacing and took a deep breath. More than any other consideration, that one swayed her.

The world was an even more danger-filled place than she’d known on her escape from the barony, which had been her home for all of her children’s lives.

Caelis, as conriocht and eventual laird of his own clan—because she was certain he would wrest control of the MacLeod from Uven—was in a better position to protect Eadan and Marjory than most.

Marrying him, however, meant returning to the clan that had been only too willing to see the back of her and her parents. Because they were human. Though she hadn’t known that was the reason at the time.

She would still be a human in a clan with too many who had been taught to see her as inferior for her humanity as well as her gender.

It was untenable.

She hadn’t suddenly sprouted angel’s wings, nor would she. She had no great magical ability to shift into another form and that was not about to change. Or would it?

Caelis had told Maon that Mairi could now shift into wolf form. Apparently, she hadn’t been able to do so before. That’s why Uven had treated her so badly.

He had not been pleased to have a daughter who was not fully Chrechte.

Could she shift now only because her father had been a wolf? Or was it some inevitable response to being mated to a Chrechte?

Though hadn’t Caelis said her mate was an Ean? That would make her husband a man who shifted into a bird.

And Mairi now transformed into a wolf. Wasn’t that what Caelis had said?

Had Caelis destined her to become like him without telling her? Was he hiding something of great magnitude from her?

Again?

She stormed to the door and pulled the heavy bar up so she could fling it open.

“Why are you out here?” she demanded of the man who was exactly where she’d known he would be.

“Where else would I be?” he asked, sounding far too reasonable.

“In your own bed.”

“I do not sleep in a bed. Vegar and I prefer furs.”

“You sleep with Vegar?”

He rolled his eyes at the nonsensical notion. “We share a room. As Cahir, it is preferable to the soldier’s quarters.”

“Why? Do you hide secrets from even your fellow soldiers?”

“You know I do.” Caelis looked confused by her question. “Not all the soldiers in the keep are Chrechte.”

“Even the Chrechte don’t know everything about the Cahir.”

“That’s so like you.”

“What do you mean?”

She glared at the fur on the floor.

“And you sleep on the floor like a barbarian?”

“Soldiers are not afforded the luxury of a bed.”

She knew that, but she didn’t say so. It felt like giving him ground. And she could not afford to do that.

“Where did you sleep all the years you lived in our clan?” he asked, as if making a point.

In a pile of blankets near the fire in the main room of her family’s small hut. The laird before Uven had been willing to have a human as his seneschal, but that had not extended to Shona’s family being invited to live within the keep. Only now did she realize why that was.

Not only had the man been Fearghall and therefore of the mind that Chrechte were superior to those without an animal nature, but he had a secret to protect.

The Sinclair had human soldiers and servants living in his keep, but the MacLeod’s home was nothing like the Sinclair’s. Not in size and not in security.

And if she was not mistaken, Caelis expected her to return and live in that very keep.

“That is entirely beside the point.”

“If you say so.”

“Do not patronize me!”

“I would not.”

“Hah.”

“You are upset.”

She crossed her arms over her chest and glared up at him. “And you still haven’t figured out why, have you?”

His blue gaze turned wary and she noted he did not answer immediately.

Dolt.

“I dinna care for you insulting me across our mating bond.”

“I’m sorry.” She hadn’t meant him to hear that, which only made her angrier. “Even my mind is not my own.”

“Stop yelling at me inside your head and I’m sure it will be.” He sounded so reasonable, she wanted to smack him.

Sucking in air, she pushed the urge away. “Don’t tell me what to do in my own mind.”

This man brought out a side to her nature she had not even realized was there.

He sighed and rubbed his hand over his face. “I will try not to.”

“Just tell me one thing, oh great Chrechte male.”

His jaw went hard and the gentian blue of his eyes turned dark. He hadn’t liked her sarcasm and she didn’t blame him, even if she was too angry to guard her tongue.

“Aye?” he bit out.

“Have you made me into shape-changer without telling me?”

He seemed to be counting off something in his head because his lips moved silently, forming numbers in sequence. “You believe I would do that?”

“You did not tell me the truth six years ago. You did not tell me about your conriocht until you had to show me.”

Caelis’s entire demeanor went from barely contained annoyance to tired frustration in the blink of an eye. “Let us discuss this in your chamber.”

“I don’t think so.” Letting him into the room where the bed was didn’t seem to be the most intelligent move she could make this night.

“Then we will not discuss it.” He turned away from her and sank back to the fur he had placed on the floor, letting his head rest against the wall and his eyes close. “Go back to bed, Shona.”

“I wasn’t sleeping and you are well aware of that fact.”

“I cannot help that.” The weary defeat in his tone confused her.

“You will not just dismiss me.”

“We cannot have this conversation in a hallway.”

He was right, of course. What had she been thinking to speak so openly about his secret in a passageway anyone might walk down? “I apologize.”

She had no doubts, however, that he would have been aware if anyone were near enough to hear their words. She might lose sight of where they were, but she did not believe he ever did.

He nodded, though his eyes remained shut, his head turned away.

“You will not look at me?” she asked, bothered much more deeply than she wanted to be by the slight.

He must have heard the quaver in her voice she’d done her best to suppress because his eyes snapped open, their blue depths fixed on her. “You are my mate.”

“And that makes it all right to ignore me?” If so, that was an aspect to mating that would not endear the

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