Warrior's Moon

She shook her head vehemently, her emotion threatening to overwhelm the calm she clung to. “Nothing you say could ever undo what you have done, what I have had to endure these past six years.”

A spasm of regret crossed his face, but it was quickly followed by the obstinacy she’d once found comforting. “You will still listen to what I have to say.”

“I’ll do that,” she said with bite. “Exactly when the Highland clans bow to England’s king.”

She could not imagine in her worst nightmares that day coming and neither could Caelis, she knew.

He scowled when he got her meaning. “Mo toilichte,” he whispered as if the words themselves had the power to heal the breach between them. “There were things you did not know, could not know then.”

“I’m no more your happiness, than you are my warrior.” She shook her head, trying again to step away. “Please. Let me go.”

Perhaps he realized the cost to her to plead with him, or mayhap he simply decided he had held her long enough, but hands so large they covered her shoulders completely dropped and she was able to step away.

“Whatever talking you seek to do will have to wait until the English lady has spoken to our laird.” Niall’s tone left no room for argument.

Surprisingly, Caelis did not make one. He simply nodded. “I will accompany you to the keep.”

The reminder that their discussion had been overheard by others, many of whom could not fail to note the resemblance between Caelis and his near–mirror image son, brought the heat of embarrassment crawling up Shona’s neck. She should be used to it by now, but the sting of humiliation still pricked deeply.

Caelis looked down at her, dark brows drawn down over his blue gaze. “Are you well?”

To answer truthfully was not a luxury Shona could afford, so she merely nodded and indicated they should begin their trek to the keep.

Niall did exactly that, leading them all onto the narrow path, her son’s hand still firmly held in his big warrior’s paw. So tired and stiff from day after day of riding that her limbs did not want to work, Shona trudged behind.

Shona stumbled. Her exhaustion—mixed with the near dreamlike state of the fact she’d come face-to-face with Caelis again after six years and all that had come between—making her clumsy.

Audrey took one hand, giving Shona a reassuring smile, and Thomas offered his arm.

The growl from behind them should have made the young Englishman drop his proffered arm. It certainly sent chills down Shona’s spine.

But Thomas just scowled over her shoulder at the big warrior who had taken up position behind them. “I know what you are, and you forfeited your rights to her. I will offer my friend assistance and if she will take it, I will give it to her.”

Shona felt a prick of humiliation to realize her friends did indeed realize this man was the father to her eldest child, not the man she had called husband for a little over five years.

She thought Thomas’s wording odd, saying what instead of who to Caelis, but she did not mention it. Would prefer not to acknowledge the mortifying truth at all.

Mayhap he considered Caelis every bit the monster the baron’s son was. For six years, Shona had certainly believed that—or at least convinced herself she did.

Regardless of her weakness and past indiscretions, Thomas’s youthful eagerness and firm loyalty touched her.

“Thank you, Thomas.” She reached for his arm.

But Caelis’s hand was there, his body pushing the younger man aside just as he’d done to Niall earlier. “He will not thank you if I have to challenge him over rights.”

Thomas blanched. For the second time in mere minutes, Shona was filled with fury by this man. “You’ll do no such thing! You have no rights to me. You repudiated them when you abandoned me six years ago.”

“’Twas your family that left the clan, not me.”

She stopped, pulling poor Audrey to a halt beside her so Shona could glare up at the man. “Do not even attempt to pretend it was the other way around. I listened to your lies once, but they will never dictate my life again.”

He winced as if her words had wounded, though she knew it was not possible. “Make no mistake: whatever my errors in the past, I will challenge this young one if he tries again to come between me and my mate.”

He spoke of her like an animal, and she wished they were. Animals did not abandon those they chose as mates, but this very human man had undeniably deserted her.

If Caelis had cared at all, he would not have disavowed Shona before her own father.

Choking emotion surged up inside her at the memory and she felt the burn of tears at the back of her eyes. She blinked furiously, adamant they would not fall.

Caelis swore, looking pained, if she could believe it.

She wouldn’t. “I’m not your mate. I’m not your wife. I’m not even your former betrothed.” The banns had never been called. “I am nothing to you.”

Without another word, he took her hand and slid a far too gentle hand for a man who kept threatening others around her waist. She was too tired to continue fighting his help.

He took so much of her weight she was barely walking as they continued up the path.

After several steps in silence, he said quietly, “In that, Shona, you are very wrong. You are not only the mother of my child, you are mine. And I will convince you of that truth. In time.”

“I will never be yours again!” Where the energy or will to shout came from, she could not say, but her voice carried with it all the desperation and conviction she felt in that moment.

Marjory turned back to look at Shona from where she walked hand in hand with Guaire. “Why are you yelling at the nice man, Mummy?”

Nice man? Had her daughter lost her mind? Marjory didn’t like strangers and now she’d decided Caelis, the man who said he would have killed her father if he wasn’t already dead, was a nice man.

Perhaps Shona’s sanity wasn’t as intact as she’d convinced herself. Mayhap this was all some truly bizarre nightmare and she would wake soon.

She could but hope.

Chapter 3

Sacred mating supersedes all claims among the Chrechte, including that of pack leader, celi di and parental authority.

—CHRECHTE SACRED LAW, FROM THE ORAL TRADITIONS

Considering the grandeur of the keep’s size and strength of defense, the actual keep itself was rather sparse. None of the ostentation Shona’s dead husband, the Baron of Heronshire, had been so fond of in evidence at all.

The great hall could easily accommodate a large gathering of the clan, but the silk wall hangings so common in an English baron’s home to denote his wealth and stature were conspicuously absent. No superfluous pieces of furniture graced the cavernous room, either.

The long tables and benches that served the laird and his warriors were plain wood; no special carvings, even on his chair.

Though there was no doubt where the laird and his lady sat, for those two were the only actual chairs at the tables in the hall. There was a grouping of other chairs near the main fireplace, though, which had cushions in the clan’s colors. She had no doubt, however, that the cushions were for comfort rather than show.

The lovely blond woman had a parchment of accounts in front of her that Guaire frowned at upon entrance.