Warrior's Moon

Moments after explaining their quest to find Shona’s remaining blood relatives here on Balmoral Island Caelis was speechless from the knowledge imparted by Lachlan.

Shona was not so affected. “You are my cousin?” she asked the laird, her eyes shining with delighted interest. “How can this be?”

She was no doubt thrilled to discover her familial connection to the one of the most powerful Chrechte lairds in the Highlands.

“His mother was human,” Emily, the laird’s wife, offered. “It is not nearly as difficult as you might imagine.”

The Balmoral smiled indulgently at his wife, but shook his head.

“Actually, my great-aunt who left our island to join her mate among the MacLeod was Chrechte. She was sister to my father’s mother.”

Lachlan looked at Shona expectantly. She stared back, uncomprehending.

“You are saying her grandmother was Faol?” Caelis asked his voice near faint with shock.

The Balmoral laird nodded. “Aye.”

“But I’m human!”

“Those of mixed parentage are as likely to be born human as Chrechte,” Lady Emily offered with an interesting look for her husband.

“But my father was human.”

“He was,” Caelis affirmed. He would have been able to tell otherwise; it would have been revealed in the man’s scent.

Lachlan shrugged, apparently unconcerned by the fact his cousin had been human. “His mother was Faol.”

But then, Lachlan’s own brother had been human, with no wolf to share his nature. By all accounts, their father’s reaction to his firstborn being unable to shift had caused resentment and eventually Ulf’s death.

’Twas a sobering lesson not to be dismissed by a man with one Faol and one human child already.

“That explains Uven’s predecessor appointing my da as seneschal.” Shona sighed, the sound filled with weary pain. “My father never told me. Anything.”

The fresh betrayal in her voice sliced at Caelis’s heart.

Lachlan nodded as if he understood. “He was raised in a clan where the Fearghall had a deep stronghold. No doubt he believed he was protecting you.”

“Perhaps he was taught, like we were, that to reveal the true nature of the Chrechte meant death?” Audrey offered, her concern for her friend apparent.

Clearly accepting neither explanation, Shona looked up at Caelis, her expression filled with pained helplessness. “Why?”

Ignoring the others around them, he turned to face her, cupping her cheeks, wishing he had an answer that could take away the pain. “I dinna ken, but this I know: it was not your doing. The lack was in your da, not you.”

“I loved my parents. So much.”

“They loved you, too.” Neither had been effusive in their affections, but in their years among the clan, they’d shown the high esteem they held their only offspring in.

“It does not feel like it.”

She had too many fresh memories to supplant the ones from her childhood, when she would have been certain of their love and care. And maybe that explained how sure she was that Caelis did not love her.

“They made mistakes, but they did not stop loving you.”

“My father had to know how horrible my marriage would be for me and yet he pushed me into it.”

Because her father would have known that Shona was true mated to Caelis or she could not have conceived his child. Caelis himself did not understand why the man had not returned to the clan to tell him of his child.

Shona’s father must have known that Caelis would have claimed his true mate pregnant with his babe, no matter what his laird had dictated.

Instead, the former seneschal of his clan had forced his daughter into a marriage he had to know would be difficult, if not impossible, for her.

Only because she was more human than Chrechte had her body allowed penetration by the baron. Caelis could be grateful for that, because had her body responded like a Chrechte’s, Shona would have been subjected to even more pain.

He was certain of it. The dead baron had been a lecher and a cur.

“He thought you were fully human,” Caelis said to Shona now, knowing it would be little comfort.

“I’m not.”

Caelis would not gainsay her on that claim. There was too much to support her supposition, though he’d never heard of a non-shifting Chrechte exhibiting other traits of their race.

It bothered him that he could not tell what Shona thought about the fact she was part Faol, but there could be no denying it either. Her reaction to her marriage to the baron was far more Chrechte than human and the strange way Caelis and Shona sometimes read each other’s minds could well come from latent Chrechte gifts.

“You do not have a wolf.” Of that he was certain.

Her eyes sparked with unexpected mischief. “I thought you said that you were mine as much as I am yours.”

Relief flooded Caelis. If she could tease, she was not too devastated.

He would never again allow himself to be surprised by the depths of his mate’s strength.

“He’s your mate, then?” the Balmoral asked.

Caelis took a deep breath, surprised at the tension filling him that he had to force himself to ignore. The time had come to declare his intentions before her family.

Shona looked up at him, her emerald gaze questioning.

He leaned down and kissed her forehead before stepping back and facing Lachlan. “You are her closest kin, are you not?”

The Balmoral stood, clasping his hands behind his back. “Aye.”

“Shona is mine.”

The laird did not reply, but his expression challenged Caelis’s claim without words.

“I will marry her.”

Vegar made a snorting sound and turned away. Caelis glared at him, only to shift that scowl to Thomas when a sound very much like a laugh came out of his mouth as well.

“Will you?” the Balmoral asked, the challenge in his tone unmistakable.

Caelis opened his mouth to set the man straight when he caught sight of Shona in his periphery. He was doing this for her, to show her she had value in his sight.

“I am declaring my intent to you to make Shona both my mate and my wife.”

The Balmoral inclined his head, but did not answer. Instead, he turned to Eadan. “Is this MacLeod soldier your father?”

“No.”

Caelis felt that word with the power of a dragon’s blow. He had to lock his legs in place, or he would have stumbled from the pain of it.

“He is not?” Lachlan asked, surprise in his tone.

“He is not a soldier. He is laird, and soon the whole clan will know it.”

“Ah…and is this soon-to-be laird your da?”

“Yes.” Eadan crossed his arms, his mouth set in a stubborn line. “He and Mum are mates.”

Lachlan nodded, his own expression thoughtful. He focused his attention on Marjory. “What of you, little princess, do you call Caelis ‘Da’?”

“I calls him Daddy,” Marjory said in her high-pitched little girl’s voice. “He’s a big dog.”

Caelis found himself smiling at her view of his conriocht, though they would have to teach her discretion in how she referred to him.

Still ignoring Caelis, Lachlan turned to Shona. “You are my cousin, a Balmoral by blood if not by birth.”