by Lora Leigh
How could his friend be so certain, however?
The other Balmoral soldier rolled his eyes, his expression mocking. “She’s an eagle. You just got through telling me so earlier today. Since arriving we’ve seen few enough of them in bird form. The fact she started off flying toward her parents’ hut was a dead giveaway as well, don’t you think?”
Bryant could but nod, his attention fixed on the bird of prey swooping through the air, coming closer and closer to his hut with each figure eight she flew. It was as if she was drawn to him, but could not make herself come closer . . . or stay away.
He willed her to give in and come to him, to show his wolf that she recognized the connection between them after denying him last night.
But the bird continued to fly. Perhaps if Bryant took his attention from her, she would feel the confidence she needed to approach.
This Una was so very different from the one in their nighttime visits. That Una had allowed him near without smelling of rank fear; she had even let him kiss her.
He and Donnach had long since finished dressing their kill of the morning. They now worked on tanning leather from a deer Bryant had taken down the week before.
Bryant went back to it.
“Playing hard to get?” Donnach teased.
“Hoping she will come closer if she doesn’t think we are watching her.”
“You do have it bad,” the other soldier opined with something between envy and disgust.
The sound of flapping wings came just before Una landed on the branch sticking out from the hut’s wall. All of the huts had them. Bryant hadn’t understood what the branches were for when he’d first noticed them. Now he did.
The branches were a place for the Éan to perch when they did not wish to shift back into their human form.
His eagle looked interested in the skin and Bryant smiled up at her. “’Twould make a lovely pair of boots, would it not?”
Una cocked her head to one side, then dipped it as if looking pointedly at his bare feet.
He just shrugged. Like many Chrechte among the Balmoral, and some humans, too, he preferred to go without footwear. Though he had a pair of carefully crafted, snug-fitting boots for winter lined with rabbit fur.
A gift from his father that Bryant would not dream of refusing to honor by wearing, though he did so only on the coldest days of the year.
The leather he tanned now was not for himself, but he did not think he should mention he meant to use it as a courting gift for the reticent Éan woman.
“You have a beautiful bird,” he complimented. “I have never seen an eagle so fine.”
Her wings opened, spanning and then laying back against her side, but even her bird’s eyes reflected the confusion of the woman within. She was not used to receiving compliments and that was a shame.
“You do not think a wolf could find the eagle form lovely?” Donnach guessed, surprising Bryant.
He had not considered that possibility, but he would be the first to admit (if only to himself) that his brain was not the first thing engaged when Una was near.
Even in her eagle form, her scent called to his wolf and to the man who wanted to irrevocably claim her.
She jerked her head up and down, affirming Donnach’s assertion.
“You’d be wrong then. The Faol who believe in the ancient laws and ways of the Chrechte can see nothing but beauty in a shifter such as yourself,” Bryant assured her. “My family particularly is happy that the Éan have been found again.”
Una made a questioning sound from her throat.
“My mother’s family has passed down the stories of their Éan brethren for generations. Her grandmother’s granddam was a raven shifter, daughter to one who could shift into dragon form.”
“I didn’t know that,” Donnach said.
“We do not share our heritage outside our family, because most Faol believed the Éan to be nothing more than myth. To claim connection to brethren who had mysteriously disappeared would cause others to call us eccentric.”
“Well, your father is not the average wolf,” Donnach said leadingly.
Bryant smacked the other soldier so hard he fell back a step. Both men smiled, no anger between them, but Una had taken flight.
“Purgatory’s fires,” Bryant muttered. “She startles so easily.”
“She is rather timid, for an eagle. They are the predatory birds, but she acts more like a dove.”
Bryant could not disagree with his friend.
Donnach gave him a friendly push before going back to the leather tanning. “Your family is still eccentric if it claims to be related to a dragon.”
“You think so?” Bryant asked noncommittally, knowing full well the old stories were true.
And being true, then it stood to reason that another dragon either lived or would be born again to the Éan. They were the protectors of their race.
But perhaps they were gone as the conriocht were from among the Faol. None of their race’s own protectors had been born for so many generations that again, most believed the true werewolf with a third form to be nothing but myth.
“You claim to be descendant from the royal line of the Éan?” Fionn demanded in the most querulous tone Bryant had heard from him to date as he limped toward the Balmoral soldiers, a fiercer than normal scowl on his features.
Had Bryant’s mate flown away not because she feared him, but because she saw her father’s approach?
He could hope, could he not?
“I did no such thing,” Bryant argued.
“You told my daughter, who is supposed to be visiting her mother and me, not Faol soldiers,” he said toward the sky, where the bird continued her circling flight, “that your grandmother many generations back was daughter to a dragon shifter.”
“Aye.”
“Are you so ignorant you do not realize that is to claim to be descendant of the royal lineage?” Fionn asked scathingly.
“Perhaps I am. Our family did their best to preserve our history from generation to generation, but at some point it must have become enough simply to teach our children that the Éan were real and our own family.”
Enough of the history of the Chrechte had been lost because of the divisions caused by their own warlike natures and the secret feud some Faol waged against the Éan.
“You are not a bird,” Fionn accused.
SEVEN
Una arrived, dressed much as she had been the night before, and only then did Bryant realize she had disappeared from the sky. It shamed him that he had been so busy arguing with her father, he had not noted her departure.
She stood at a slight distance, but her attention was so clearly focused on what was being said, he had no doubts her curiosity had been aroused. His wolf preened at the thought of their mate showing interest in their history.
Bryant spoke to the old man, but gave a warm smile to his eagle. “I never said I was.”
“Yet you claim a royal raven in your antecedents.” The glare Fionn cast was leveled at Bryant and Una alike.
“I did not realize that being descendant of a dragon meant that,” Bryant reiterated.
Though, it would stand to reason then that if any of the Éan were dragons, it would be Prince Eirik. However, if that were the case, surely the Éan would not continue to hide like fugitives in the forest.
A dragon could raze entire villages and would be practically impossible to kill in his shifted form.
Bryant focused on what he did know and Fionn could accept it for the truth it was, or not. Regardless, it was family history he wanted to share with Una. Perhaps she would not fear him so if she realized the past’s weight on his actions of the present.
“The last bird shifter born in my family was my grandmother’s sister. She was raven and so beautiful many Faol and human alike in our clan vied for her hand in mating.”
“What happened to her?” Fionn asked in a tone that said he knew it hadn’t been good.
The old man was right, but not beca
use of anything a wolf had done. Unless you counted a man impregnating his beloved wife as a sin against her.
“She died in childbirth.”
Fionn’s expression softened slightly. “And her child?”
“Took after his father as wolf.”
“If she was raven, then your clan wolves would know of our existence before this. And Prince Eirik claims that most of the Faol are wholly unaware of our existence any longer.”
“The Balmoral have always believed the old stories and remember the ancient ways of the Chrechte with more dedication than other clans.”
“So?”
“Each bird shifter in our family kept their nature secret, though the reason why was another knowledge lost over time.”
“So, your clan knew nothing of her heritage.”
“Some knew, but most did not.”
“And her husband.”
“Knew and loved her raven. Why wouldn’t he? They were sacred mates.”
“Bah . . . again with the sacred mates. You talk as if that miracle happens to every Chrechte, when nothing could be further from the truth.” Fionn fixed Bryant with a beady stare. “And it is not the panacea you seem to think it is. Not all is made well and right simply because two people’s animals have a hankering for each other.”
It was far more than that, but Bryant knew from experience with the chronically crabby man that there would be little purpose in calling Fionn out on his gross minimization.
Bryant chose instead to focus on the latter part of the man’s statement. “Perhaps if we Chrechte were better at looking outside our immediate circle for mates, we would find our true bonds more often.”
“Hmmph.”
“It’s true.” Donnach put the leather aside and began cleansing his hands in the bucket of water beside the door. “Our own laird is mated to an Englishwoman.”
“She used to be English,” Bryant emphasized. “And I told Fionn of Lachlan and Emily yestereve.”
“So, one man mated to a human.” Fionn made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “What does that prove?”
“Our lady’s own sister, Abigail, is also true mate to the laird of the Sinclairs. His blacksmith shares a sacred bond with a sister to our laird’s second. And Lachlan’s second is mated to the Sinclair’s own sister.” Bryant listed off the sacred bonds he’d learned of or witnessed in the past few years.
“Hmmph.”
Bryant was coming to dislike that noncommittal utterance, but the expression of interest in Una’s keen hazel eyes was enough to keep him talking.
“Had they not looked outside their clans, much less their packs, none of these Chrechte would have found their true mate.” Couldn’t the old man see what this proved? Did the one Bryant’s wolf wanted to mate? “The Chrechte were never meant to live apart, but to live with one another and the humans.”
“That is not the ancient way,” Fionn claimed with the air of a man having made an unassailable point.
“Says who? We have lost many of the ancient ways, no matter how hard we have tried to keep true to them.”
“That is not the way of the Highlander, either.”
Bryant could hardly argue that point. The clans kept to themselves, developing ties with only a few others for the purposes of trade and waging war. But he knew he was right.
“If our people want to find their true mates, they must be open to mating outside their pack,” he reiterated.
“A man does not need his true mate to live a life blessed by the Creator.”
Bryant opened his mouth to argue, but realized that doing so might be seen as denigrating the life of the man he hoped to make his father-by-marriage. He snapped his mouth shut.
“Aye, what you say is true, but if we are to continue into the future, we must have more children,” Donnach inserted. “Too many matings are not blessed by children.”
It was Fionn’s turn to open his mouth and then close it without uttering a word of argument. For Donnach’s words were true as well.
While the clans around them grew, the Chrechte’s numbers fluctuated, but did not increase. Some packs had undeniably shrunk. There were rumors that a pack to the south had grown to numbers unprecedented, but none could confirm the MacLeod pack’s true size, nor that of their clan in actual fact.
“There must be more children among the Éan than the Faol,” Fionn said disagreeably.
Bryant did not believe him and the way Una shook her head said she denied the words as well. “Your numbers are not so great.”
“Because we lose our brethren every year to the murderous Faol.”
“And we all lose to war.”
“We are not at war with the Faol.”
“I am glad to hear you say that,” Bryant said with a smile.
Fionn met the smile with his customary scowl. “Ye are still at war with us and have been for generation after generation.”
“We are not at war, but there are the murderous among us. I will not deny it.”
“Ye hardly can if you would speak the truth.”
“But not all wolves are filled with the hate that spurs these men.”
“So you say.”
“So I say since I am one of the Faol who would die to protect the Éan.” Bryant had been raised to believe it was his calling to somehow bring his feathered brethren back into the Chrechte fold.
The discovery of the Éan’s tribe had been the confirmation he and his family needed that the time to do so had come.
“Neither I, nor any of the soldiers who traveled here with me, would kill our Chrechte brethren for no more reason than that their animal takes a different form from our own.”
“If that is true, you are an exception.”
“Nay. These blackguards who work in secret to destroy, they are the anomaly among the Faol.”
“You would have me believe your nature is not violent?” Fionn sneered at the deer hide Bryant had continued to work on.
“We are predators. We hunt. As do your people, but we hunt with a purpose, not for sport.”
“The purpose of the Faol is to see the eradication of the Éan.”
“Nay!” Bryant’s usual good nature slipped and the warrior in him came to the fore. “You accuse what you do not know and without cause.”
“You dare say I have no cause?” Fionn’s fury burned like a lightning fire in the summer’s driest forest.
The old man’s walking stick came up with speed, and had Bryant not moved just so, it would have struck his head rather than his shoulder. He did not move completely out of the way, because he’d been taught by his father to always preserve the dignity of his elders.
“Papa . . .” Una’s soft, horrified tones interrupted, her eyes filled with fear as she insinuated herself between Bryant and Fionn. “You must not!”
Bryant laid a hand on the smaller curve of her feminine shoulder. “Let him speak his piece. If he does not, it will only continue to fester.”
Una spun on him, her expression still tinged with fear, but filled with a bigger portion of disbelief. “You do not think my father has spoken his piece? When does he not rail against the wolf, against what happened to him because of me?”
“Daughter . . . ’twas not you. My loss is at the hands of the evil Faol who hurt you so grievously.” The brokenness in the old warrior’s voice was hard to hear.
“And it is a Faol you need to rail against,” Bryant reiterated. “So, do your railing, old man.”
Like the blow to his shoulder, Bryant could take it easily.
“Old man? Whom do you call old?” Fionn demanded with genuine affront.
Bryant kept back his humor with effort, but he did it. “You claim to have cause to dye every wolf with the same bubbling vat of vitriol. So, let me hear it.”
“Your people took my daughter. They did unspeakable things to her. She has not been the same since we got her back. Her spirit is broken.”
Una stood there, her face suffused with color, her expression equal parts horrified
embarrassment and remembered pain. But in her eyes?
In that beautiful hazel gaze, Bryant saw nothing but anger. Anger at the Faol? Anger at her father? Anger at Bryant? He did not know, but ’twas not the muted light of a broken spirit.
“She doesn’t look broken to me,” Donnach observed, agreeing with Bryant’s private thoughts.
Bryant let his smile through this time. “Nay, I would say she appears more a woman ready to break something. I’ve seen the look often enough on my own mother’s countenance to know it well.”
“I’m not . . . I wouldn’t . . .” Una couldn’t seem to get out a full thought and in a strangled tone at that.
“What is it, daughter?” Fionn asked with all the appearance of a man who had no thought to how furious his words had just made the woman before him.
“My private business is mine,” she finally said in a deadly tone, all signs of her timidity hidden beneath the heat of her offense.
“Aye, it is.” Fionn’s easy agreement surprised Bryant.
Una, for her part, did not look much appeased. “Then you should not have brought it up.”
“Aye, but the fool can already see what his brethren did to me with his own two eyes, and yet he denies it.”
“I deny no truth, but your words are wrong.” Bryant rarely gainsaid his elders. His parents had taught him better, but this he would not bear.
“These men who hurt you and the woman my wolf longs for, they are not my brethren any more than they are yours. All Chrechte are brethren in spirit, but in the end each man must stand alone before his maker to have his actions judged.”
“You are a fool.”
Bryant bristled at the blatant insult. “I am a warrior who would see the division between the Éan and the Faol at an end.”
“And then see the true end of the Éan. That is your plan, is it not?” The accusation in Fionn’s tone sparked doubt in his daughter’s gaze.
“No.” Bryant was so damn frustrated. “Speaking to you is the same as conversing with a rock.”
Una’s breath escaped with a shocking sound of amusement, her fear completely in abeyance for the first time that day.
When all three men turned their regard on her in question, she blushed and then shrugged. “It is only that my mother has often said the same.”