Warrior's Moon (34 page)

“I have a mind to get to know Vegar’s English mate and the woman who would tame the MacLeod.”

“He is not laird yet,” Shona pointed out, but ’twas clear these fierce warriors saw Caelis’s place in the clan as foreordained.

“You doubt he will be?” the dark-haired warrior asked.

“Nay.”

The man nodded his approval of her agreement.

Ciara made a very unladylike sound of amusement. “Lady Heronshire, this is my husband, Eirik.”

“He is prince of the Éan,”
Caelis said to Shona in her head.

Shona stood enough to give a half curtsy to the Chrechte royal. “It is an honor to meet you.”

The prince’s eyes narrowed. “There is no mockery in your scent.”

“Nor should there be.”

Eirik’s gaze flicked to Caelis. “The mating link has formed already?”

“It began six years ago,” Caelis affirmed.

Eirik’s nod was both approving and thoughtful this time. “Ciara said your former laird kept you from your true mate.”

“My own idiocy and misplaced loyalty did that.”

Shona had wanted nothing more than for the man to admit his culpability, but she did not enjoy the self-recrimination in his tone in the least little bit.

Patting his thigh, she said, “We have found our way back to each other and that is what matters.”

“I think certain members of the MacLeod will see things differently.”

Confusion washed over Shona. Was the prince warning of the opposition she would face returning to her former clan as the mate of a Faol?

“He is speaking of the Chrechte among the clan. A true mate is sacred and the fact that Uven withheld you from me gives me unquestionable right to challenge him as pack leader and laird.”

Casting a sidelong glance at the man she’d promised to marry, Shona considered his words. “My return to the Highlands was fortuitous, it would seem.”

“Aye, fortuitous indeed,” Prince Eirik agreed.

Ciara nodded, her expression the peaceful one Shona identified with spiritual counselors who truly sought to bring those who followed them closer to their Creator. “It is imperative that Uven be deposed as laird over the MacLeod and we thought we had found the answer in Caelis.”

“But?” Shona prompted, having heard the hesitation in the
celi di
’s voice.

“While the Scottish king will not involve himself in a clan matter so long as the one challenging for right to lead is a MacLeod, garnering the support of the clan is another thing entirely. Uven’s betrayal of Caelis and the proof of that betrayal found in both you and your children will be enough to sway most.”

“Both children?” Shona asked Caelis.

“The very fact that
mo breagha
does not carry my blood is an affront to our bond that can be laid squarely at Uven’s door.”

“What did you say, Da?” Marjory asked in her child’s mixture of English and Gaelic.

“I said you are
my
daughter.”

Marjory beamed up at the big warrior. “You are
my
da.”

“Aye.”

“My da, too,” Eadan claimed firmly.

“Absolutely,” Shona answered at the same time as Caelis said, “Aye,” in his deep warrior’s voice.

Happy with their agreement, Eadan went back to his food. Marjory, who ate small bites provided by Vegar, continued to play with her doll, once again content to ignore the adults around her.

Audrey had turned pensive as they talked and Shona grew worried.

“Is aught wrong, dear friend?” she asked in a side whisper.

Audrey looked at Shona and then Vegar and back to Shona. “What will become of us?”

Shona did not understand the question. Did Audrey mean her and Thomas? The Sinclair had promised to train Thomas in the ways of the Chrechte and Audrey was now married to Vegar.

Sudden melancholy overcame Shona as what these realities actually meant to her. Was she to lose the rest of her family as she had lost first her mother and then more recently her father?

“Caelis,”
Shona said through their mating link, not sure what she expected her mate to do to help.

But the thought of losing both Audrey and Thomas was untenable.

“We will travel to Balmoral Island with them,” Vegar said to Audrey. “Afterward, I will go with Caelis to challenge Uven. I am to be his second.”

Audrey’s expression showed as much relief as Shona felt. They were not to be separated.

*   *   *

D
espite her earlier words on the subject, Marjory
was surprisingly content to get on a horse with Caelis so they could make the journey to the sacred caves for Audrey and Vegar’s mating ceremony. Her daughter resisted riding with Shona at all, however, and made something of a production of switching between Caelis’s and Vegar’s mounts.

Both warriors were infinitely patient, making sure that
Eadan felt as welcome as his younger sister. The five-year-old spent as much time with the warriors on their mounts as on his own horse. And somehow, both men remained vigilant to surrounding dangers, even though the contingent riding toward the caves was large.

Thomas accompanied them, of course, as did the laird and his entire family, even the new babe. A full company of Chrechte soldiers surrounded them, including four wearing the MacLeod colors, ensuring that Audrey’s mating ceremony would be better attended than any wedding she might have had back in England.

Pleased for her friend, Shona was nevertheless confused.

She understood Prince Eirik and Ciara coming. Apparently as Vegar’s prince and
celi di
of the Faol, both would play part in the ceremony.

Neither Vegar, nor Audrey, however, was a member of the Sinclair clan. While Vegar was clearly welcome in the Sinclair keep, he had not sworn fealty to its laird.

So why had the man and his family come? For the Sinclair to take his small children—Chrechte or not—from the keep, even on his own land, was to put them at risk.

Shona would have asked Audrey if she knew the reasoning behind such unexpected witnesses to her mating ceremony, but the younger woman was clearly lost in her own muddle of nerves and bemusement.

“You have worn a most perplexed expression the past hour,” Ciara noted as her mare drew alongside Shona’s.

“I have lived the past six years in England, I know, but still I cannot make sense in my mind of your family’s attendance to this mating ceremony.”

“We will also be performing a welcome-to-life ceremony for my baby sister. In ancient times, they were done for all children born of Chrechte blood, but we have lost many of our old ways. We are seeking to renew them now that our sacred stone has been returned to us.”

“Oh.” That made a great deal more sense to Shona. “Would it not be better to wait until the babe was older?”

“Possibly, but my dreams have told me that the stone must be returned to the sacred caves on MacLeod lands. Father prefers to have the ceremony before we take the stone off his lands.”

Shona did not understand the whole import of the sacred stones, but she knew they had special meaning to both the Éan and the Faol.

“Did you not just bring the Faol’s sacred stone back to these caves?” Shona asked, more confused than ever.

“Yes, but now both sacred stones, the
Clach Gealach Gra
and the
Faolchú Chridhe
must be united in the chamber of the
celi di
.”

“The Éan’s stone is to be moved as well?”

“Aye. Anya-Gra will send her successor to live among the MacLeod and serve as
celi di
for the Éan from there.”

“Who is Anya-Gra?”

“Eirik’s grandmother.”

“That would make her queen of the Éan?” Shona asked.

“No,” Ciara answered, adding to Shona’s muddied thoughts. “She gave up her claim to rule in order to serve as
celi di
, just as Eirik’s sister, Sabrine, gave up hers in order to become a protector of the clan.”

“Isn’t she married to the laird of the Donegal now?” Shona tried to remember the things Caelis had revealed to her about his world thus far.

“She is, but before that she was a warrior.”

The thought of a female warrior was surprisingly pleasant to Shona. “Why doesn’t Eirik live with
her
clan?”

“As prince of his people, he does not officially belong to any clan, though he wears the Sinclair colors on occasion.”

Shona had noticed that the man wore a leather kilt rather than a plaid. “As your mate, he chooses to live with your family?”

“He chose the Sinclair clan before we met. It was destiny.” Ciara smiled. “He and my father have a rapport that makes it possible for a prince to live in the same keep as a very stubborn laird.”

“That is good.” Privately, Shona could not imagine it.

The Sinclair did not strike her as an easy man to live in the vicinity of, even if you were willing to swear fealty
and
submission.

“We spend a great deal of time traveling to the other clans where Éan have made their homes,” Ciara said as if reading Shona’s mind. “It helps.”

“Ah.”

Ciara smiled. “Yes,
ah
.”

“You do not mind traveling so much?”

“I miss my family, naturally, but we do not have children, so it is not a great difficulty. I enjoy the relationships I have built in each of the clans over the last year. And I have as much a responsibility to them as
celi di
to the Faol as Eirik has as prince of the Éan.”

There had been a shadow in Ciara’s voice when she mentioned children. “You have not conceived, but you and Prince Eirik are sacred mates, are you not?”

“We are.” Ciara grimaced. “I do not know if I will ever have the good fortune to bear a child. The
celi di
who mentors me in my visions does not think so.”

“But why?”

“There is a cost to the calling I have been given.” Ciara put on a bright smile Shona did not quite believe. “Sabrine has already provided the next generation for the Éan’s royal line.”

“But you crave motherhood.”

Ciara looked startled at Shona’s perception. “I thought I did a fair job of hiding that fact.”

“You do not wear your desire on your sleeve, but I am a mother and I know the sparkle of that dream.”

“Not all dreams may come to pass.”

“This one will.” Shona was certain of it. “You may never give birth, but you will be a mother.”

Ciara’s stared at her for a long moment before her entire face transformed with a stupefied kind of wonder. “
That
is what she meant. When the time is right, Eirik and I will adopt. Just as my parents claimed me for their own when I was without family.”

Shona did not ask who Ciara referred to as
she
. Even a fully human woman could put two and two together to reach four. The
celi di
was talking about the ancient Chrechte woman she saw in her visions.

“Thank you for revealing the nature of my mentor’s words. She is sometimes obscure.”

“My mother could be that way.” Memories of her mother before and after Shona’s unexpected pregnancy assailed her.

Circumstances had changed so much for both of them. Shona was the first to admit that it had not been easy on her mother to make a new life in England, where she was cook in the house her daughter had been named baroness.

She had loved being a grandmother, no matter what she had thought of her daughter for catching pregnant with no husband in sight.

Ciara’s face was filled with compassion. “She hurt you very much with her disapproval.”

“I am sure Mother thought she was doing right, protecting me from myself and tendencies she thought were damaging.”

“She was wrong.”

Shona almost smiled. Even Audrey had never stated it so baldly before. “Mother wanted what was best for me.”

“Her love was best for you. Withholding it could not alter your course or the woman you had become.”

“With that attitude, you will make a fine mother yourself one day.” It was one Shona shared.

God willing, her children would never doubt her great love for them.

“Thank you.” Ciara beamed. “For your insight and your affirmation.”

The
celi di
left then, to rejoin her husband. The blinding grin that overtook the man’s intimidating features moments later would imply that Ciara had shared Shona’s belief that they would indeed one day parent children they would call their own.

“You are a very special woman,” Caelis said from beside her as his great warhorse nuzzled her mare.

She turned and smiled at him and Eadan, who was riding for this part of the journey in his da’s lap. “I am pleased you think so.”

Eadan grinned back proudly, clearly thrilled to be where he was.

“I am not the only one. Thomas and Audrey sing your praises; even the Lady Abigail is as protective of you as one of her own.”

The words were gratifying, but they brought up another worry Shona had been doing her best to ignore.

“Will Thomas stay with the Sinclairs when we leave?” she asked, her heart twinging at the idea.

Caelis shook his head, the depths of his gentian gaze telling her without words he understood her feelings. “I offered to complete his training and he has accepted. He will wear MacLeod colors.”

Emotion clogged Shona’s throat, but she forced out a heartfelt, “Thank you.”

Caelis had made no secret of the fact he did not like Shona’s closeness to the young Chrechte, but he had still taken care that she would not lose Thomas from her life.

His next words confirmed Caelis’s understanding of the matter. “He is important to you.”

“As if he were my own brother.”

“You have a big heart, Shona.”

“For a long time, I tried very hard not to acknowledge my heart at all.”

“I do not think you were ever successful.”

Looking back at the way she’d accepted Audrey and Thomas into her affections as well as the love she had for her children, which grew daily, Shona thought he might be right.

But she
had
tried.

“I never loved the baron.”

“How could you? Your heart was full of me. Besides, he was a bastard.”

The baron had been neither kind nor considerate, but he could have been much worse and so both her parents took pains to remind her on any occasion they deemed it necessary.