your back on the wine and taken charge of things. I trust your judgment, Fallon.”
“Then trust me on Larena. I need her, Lucan.”
Lucan held his gaze for a moment before he dropped his hand to his side and nodded. “I’ll do as you ask, brother.”
“Thank you.”
“Come then. Let us eat,” Lucan said, and strode to the door.
Fallon glanced at the bed and the rumpled sheets. An image of Larena on top of him, her head thrown back, flashed in his mind. He was determined to have her in his bed every night, even if he had to seduce her each time.
Sonya had already put out the food by the time he and Lucan walked into the great hall. Cara came out of the kitchen with three loaves of bread in her arms, a smile on her face, and her eyes twinkling as she gazed at her husband.
Galen strode into the hall from the bailey rubbing his hands together. He sat at the table and sniffed the air. “Warm bread and milk. I’ve been craving it all night.”
Cara laughed and set an entire loaf in front of Galen. “Make it last longer and you won’t have to raid the kitchen during the night.”
He looked up at her and grinned. “I cannot help when I’m hungry.”
Lucan and Sonya laughed as Galen broke apart the bread then quickly dropped it when it burned his fingers. Ribbons of heat curled from the two halves to disappear above him.
Hayden and Logan came in from the kitchen and filled their trenchers before taking their seats. Conversation filled the hall, bringing back many memories for Fallon.
He watched all of it with interest. When he and his brothers had first returned to find the castle in ruins, he had never thought it would be filled with laughter again.
It had taken nearly three hundred years and a coming war with Deirdre, but the stones were being put aright and people once more filled the castle. They were his family now, his responsibility.
Fallon had known what his role would be the moment he set aside the wine and began to make decisions. It still terrified him that he would make the wrong choice. Yet, no matter what, they followed him.
Cara set two slices of bread on his trencher and kissed his cheek. “I’m so glad you’re back. It wasn’t the same without you around.”
He patted his sister-in-law’s hand and smiled up at her. Cara had a good heart. She opened it to whoever needed her love and attention. There were few people like her in the world.
“Thank you.”
Her smile faded and her dark eyes held his. “Trust yourself and your judgment, Fallon. We’ll get Quinn back.”
He forced a grin. She had always had the ability to read him and his brothers accurately, too accurately at times. “Of course we will.”
“Now eat. You’ve a long day ahead of you.”
Fallon waited until Cara had moved on before he lifted his gaze to Lucan. His brother’s sea-green eyes were somber, but determined. Lucan had always had his back, and that hadn’t changed.
“We go to the village today,” Fallon said. “I know I wanted the fourth tower finished, but it can wait. Galen, you and Logan come with us.”
Galen nodded and stuffed more bread into his mouth. “Are you expecting trouble?”
“Nay, but I’d rather be prepared.”
Ramsey descended the stairs and took his seat. “Would you rather Hayden and I go as well?”
“I doona want to leave Cara and Sonya alone.”
Sonya rolled her eyes and snorted. “You won’t be far.”
“I’ll come.”
Fallon’s heart missed a beat at the familiar voice. He turned his gaze to the stairs to see Larena. Her hair was tied at the base of her neck with a lavender ribbon that matched her gown. He liked her in the simple dress. She wore it with as much ease and confidence as she had worn the fashionable dresses at court.
Larena had learned to adapt in ways Fallon and his brothers hadn’t. They could take a lesson from her.
“If that would be all right,” Larena said into the silence.
Fallon licked his lips and made himself stay seated instead of going to her and pulling her into his arms for a kiss. “That would be fine.”
Larena descended the rest of the stairs and walked to the table. She once again took the seat between Cara and Galen. Fallon wanted her beside him in the seat that was saved for Quinn.
He had all the time in the world to woo her as he became the man he wanted to be. Fallon didn’t like that it might take many years, but he was determined to have her in the end no matter how long it took.
It troubled Fallon that she refused to look at him as she ate. She kept her attention on Cara and Sonya. Occasionally, she would glance at Galen or Ramsey and speak.
Fallon had long since finished his meal and was talking to Lucan about building a few cottages closer to the castle when Larena looked up. Fallon met her gaze and saw the uncertainty in her smoky-blue eyes.
But doubt for what, he didn’t know.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Fallon walked into the village with Lucan on his right and Larena on his left. Behind him were Galen and Logan. He stared at the destruction before him and swore he could hear the screams of the innocents who had died still ringing in the breeze.
The village had been so alive not that long ago, but Deirdre had seen it crushed in her efforts to find Cara. Now, only ghosts lingered in the empty streets and burned-down cottages.
At the far end of the village, tucked away and nestled in a grove of oak trees, was the nunnery in which Cara had been raised. Orphaned and unwanted children had found a home there with the nuns.
Fallon had often gone to the towers to watch them running through the village, their mirth reaching even the castle. There was nothing like the sound of a child’s laughter. It was pure and simple and contagious, hitting a person square in the chest.
The village was eerily quiet now, and that disturbed Fallon more than the fire marks on the castle walls.
“Deirdre did this?” Larena asked when she came upon the first burned cottage. She placed her hand on the door hanging by one hinge.
Fallon nodded. “They killed everyone.”
“Just as they did your clan,” she murmured, and turned her gaze to him.
Fallon looked at her and saw the depth of her feeling. She hadn’t known the villagers, but she felt the pain of their loss. The memories of his clan’s murder didn’t sting as badly as they used to.
He couldn’t change what had happened to his family and clan, but he could make sure Deirdre didn’t kill any more innocents.
Galen kicked at the remains of a door that lay in their path. “I wish I had been here for the first attack. Seeing this makes me want to find the Warriors and wyrran responsible and rip out their throats.”
Lucan sighed. “If we had known Deirdre had sent her army, we might have saved some of them. As it was, we were trying to save Cara.”
“Nay,” Logan said, his usually cheerful voice hard and cold as ice. “It doesna matter how you try. You can’t save them. Not when Deirdre is involved.”
Fallon and the others turned to face the Warrior. Logan’s customary smile and bright eyes were gone. He stared into the empty village as if he were seeing an image from his past, a past full of death and betrayal.
Fallon knew all the Warriors in his castle had a past. Some spoke of them, some didn’t. Logan was one that kept his past to himself, but what Fallon was seeing now worried him more than Hayden’s hatred for the
