Enthralled

Author’s Note

Dear Reader,

This Children of the Moon story occurs in the years between Moon Burning and Dragon’s Moon. It’s a stand-alone romance, but perhaps it will give you insight into how difficult it is for the Éan to make the transition to the clans you read about in Dragon’s Moon. Una and Bryant are very dear to my heart and their story was an emotional one for me to write. Enjoy!

Hugs,

Lucy

PROLOGUE THE BEGINNING

Millennia ago God created a race of people so fierce even their women were feared in battle. These people were warlike in every way, refusing to submit to the rule of any but their own . . . no matter how large the forces sent to subdue them. Their enemies said they fought like animals. Their vanquished foe said nothing, for they were dead.

They were considered a primitive and barbaric people because they marred their skin with tattoos of blue ink. The designs were simple at first, a single beast depicted in unadorned outline over their hearts. The leaders were marked with bands around their arms with symbols that told of their strength and prowess in battle. Mates were marked to show their bond.

And still, their enemies were never able to discover the meanings of any of the blue-tinted tattoos.

Some surmised they were symbols of their warlike nature, and in that they would be partially right. For the beasts represented a part of themselves these fierce and independent people kept secret at the pain of death. It was a secret they had kept for the centuries of their existence, while most migrated across the European landscape to settle in the inhospitable north of Scotland.

Their Roman enemies called them Picts, a name accepted by the other peoples of their land and lands south . . . they called themselves the Chrechte.

Their animal-like affinity for fighting and conquest came from a part of their nature their fully human counterparts did not enjoy. For these fierce people were shape-changers.

The bluish tattoos on their skin were markings given as a rite of passage when they made their first shift. Some men had control of that change. Some did not, subject to the power of the full moon until participating in the sacred act of sex. The females of all the races both experienced their first shift into animal form and gained control thereafter with the coming of their first menses.

Some shifted into wolves, others big cats of prey and yet others into the larger birds—the eagle, hawk and raven.

The one thing all Chrechte shared in common was that they did not reproduce as quickly or prolifically as their fully human brothers and sisters. Although they were a fearsome race and their cunning enhanced by an understanding of nature most humans could not possess, they were not foolhardy and were not ruled by their animal natures.

One warrior could kill a hundred of his foe, but should she or he die before having offspring, the death would lead to an inevitable shrinking of the race. Some Pictish clans and those recognized by other names in other parts of the world had already died out rather than submit to the inferior, but multitudinous, humans around them.

The Faol of Scotland’s Highlands were too smart to face the end of their race rather than blend. These wolf shifters saw the way of the future. In the ninth century AD, Keneth MacAlpin ascended to the Scottish throne. Of Faol Chrechte descent through his mother, nevertheless, his human nature had dominated.

He was not capable of “the change,” but that did not stop him from laying claim to the Pictish throne (as it was called then) as well. In order to guarantee his kingship, he betrayed his Chrechte brethren at a dinner, killing all of the remaining royals of their people—and forever entrenched a distrust of humans by their Chrechte counterparts.

Despite this distrust but bitterly aware of the cost of MacAlpin’s betrayal, the Faol of the Chrechte realized that they could die out fighting an ever-increasing and encroaching race of humanity, or they could join the Celtic clans.

They joined.

As far as the rest of the world knew, though much existed to attest to their former existence, what had been considered the Pictish people were no more.

Because it was not in their nature to be ruled by any but their own, within two generations, the Celtic clans that had assimilated the Chrechte were ruled by shape-changing clan chiefs who shared their natures with wolves. Though most of the fully human among them did not know it, a sparse few were entrusted with the secrets of their kinsmen. Those that did were aware that to betray the code of silence meant certain and immediate death.

Stories of other shifter races, the Éan and Paindeal, were told around the campfire, or to the little ones before bed. However, since the wolves had not seen a shifter except their own in generations, they began to believe the other races only a myth.

But myths did not take to the sky on black wings glinting an iridescent blue under the sun. Myths did not live as ghosts in the forest, but breathing air just as any other man or animal. The Éan were no myth; they were birds with abilities beyond that of merely changing their shape.

Many could be forgiven for believing tales of their prince nothing more than legend. For who had heard of a man shifting not only into the form of a raven but that of the mystic dragon from ancient tales as well?

ONE

The Forests of the Éan, Highlands of Scotland

1144 AD, Reign of Dabíd mac Maíl Choluim, King of Scots, and the Reign of Prince Eirik Taran Gra Gealach, Ruler of the Éan

Una stood in shock, terror coursing through her like fire in her veins, burning away reason, destroying the façade of peace she had worked so hard to foster for the past five years.

Her eagle screamed to be released. She wanted to take to the skies and fly as far as her wings could carry her until the sun sank over the waters and the moon rose and set again in the sky.

The high priestess, Anya Gra, smiled on the assembled Éan like she had not just made a pronouncement that could well spell their doom.

Faol were coming here? To the forest of the Éan? To their homeland kept secret for generations. For very good reason.

Reason Una had learned to appreciate to the very marrow of her bones five years before.

“No,” she whispered into air laden with smoke from the feast’s cooking fires. “This cannot be.”

Other noises of dissent sounded around her, but her mind could not take them in. It was too busy replaying images she’d tried to bury under years of proper and obedient behavior. Years of not taking chances and staying far away from the human clans that had once intrigued her so.

She’d even avoided Lais, one of the few other eagle shifters among her people. Because he’d come from the outside. From the clan of the Donegal, the clan that spawned devils who called themselves men.

She’d not spoken to him once in the three years he’d lived among their people.

The grumbling around Una grew to such a level, even her own tormented thoughts could not keep it out.

For the first time in her memory, the Éan of their tribe looked on their high priestess with disfavor. Many outright glared at the woman whose face might be lined with age, but maintained a translucent beauty that proclaimed her both princess and spiritual leader.

Others were yelling their displeasure toward the prince of the people, but their monarch let no emotion show on his handsome though young features. He merely looked on, his expression stoic, his thoughts hidden behind his amber gaze.

The dissension grew more heated. This was unheard of. In any other circumstance, Una would have been appalled by the behavior of her fellow Chrechte, but not this day.

She hoped beyond hope that the anger and dissent would sway their leaders toward reason.

“Enough!” The prince’s sudden bellow was loud and commanding despite the fact he was only a few summers older than Una.

Silence fell like the blacksmith’s anvil.

Emotion showed now, his amber eyes glowing like the sacred stone during a ceremony. “We have had the Faol among us on many occasions these past three years.”

Those wolves had only come to visit. Una, and many like her—justifiably frightened by the race that had done so much to eradicate their own, had stayed away from the visitors. She’d avoided all contact and had not even stolen so much as a peek at any of them.

Not like when she was younger and let her curiosity rule her common sense.

But Anya Gra said these ones, these emissaries from the Sinclair, Balmoral and Donegal clans, would live among the Éan for the foreseeable future.

Live. Among. Them. With no end in sight.

Una’s breath grew shorter as panic clawed at her insides with the sharpness of her eagle’s talons.

“It is time the Chrechte brethren are reunited.” Prince Eirik’s tone brooked no argument. “It has been foretold that this is the only chance for our people to survive as a race. Do you suddenly doubt the visions of your high priestess?”

Many shook their head, but not Una. Because for the first time in her life, she did doubt the wisdom of the woman who had led their people spiritually since before Una was born.

“Emissaries are coming to live among us, to learn our ways and teach us the way of the Faol.” This time it was another of the royal family who spoke, the head healer. “We will all benefit.”

“We know the way of the Faol,” one brave soul shouted out. “They kill, maim and destroy the Éan. That is the way of the Faol.”

“Not these wolves. The Balmoral, the Sinclair and the Donegal lairds are as committed to keeping our people safe as I am.” The prince’s tone rang with sincerity.

The man believed his own words. That was clear.

But Una couldn’t bring herself to do so. No wolf would ever care for the Éan as a true brother. It was not in their violent, often sadistic and deceitful natures.

“It is only a few among the Faol today who would harm our people. Far more would see us joined with the clans for our safety and all our advantage.”

Join with the clans? Who had conceived of that horrific notion? First they were talking about having wolves come to live among them, and now their leaders were mentioning leaving the forest so the Éan could join the clans?

Una’s eagle fought for control, the desperate need to get away growing with each of her rapid heartbeats.

“In the future, we will have no choice,” Anya Gra said, as if reading Una’s mind. “But for this moment in time, we must only make these few trustworthy wolves welcome among us.”

Only? There was no only about it. This thing the royal family asked, it was monumental. Beyond terrifying.

It was impossible.

“You ask too much.” The sound of Una’s father’s voice brought a mixture of emotions, as it always did.

Guilt. Grief. Relief. Safety.

Stooped from the grievous wound he had received at the hands of the Faol when rescuing Una from their clutches, he nevertheless made an imposing figure as he pushed his way toward the prince and priestess.

The leather patch covering the eye he’d lost in the same battle gave her father a sinister air she knew to be false. He was the best of men.

And forever marred by wounds that would never allow him to take to the skies again . . . because of her.

“You ask us to make welcome those who did this,” he gestured toward himself in a way he would never usually do.

He ignored his disfigurements and expected others to do the same.

“Nay.” The prince’s arrogant stance was far beyond his years, but entirely fitting his station as the leader of their people. “I demand you make welcome wolves who would die to protect you from anything like that happening again.”

“Die, for the likes of me?” her father scoffed. “That would be a fine day, indeed, would it not? When a wolf would die to protect a bird.”

“Do you doubt my desire to protect you and all of my people?” the prince demanded, with a flicker of vulnerability quickly gone from his amber eyes.

“Nay. My prince, you love us as your father did before you, but this? This risk you would take with all our safety, it is foolishness.”

Suddenly Anya Gra was standing right in front of Una’s father, her expression livid, no desire for conciliation in evidence at all. “Fionn, son of Micael, You dare call me foolish?”

Oh, the woman was beyond angry. Even more furious than Una’s father had a wont to get.

“Nay, Priestess. Your wisdom has guided our people for many long years.”

“Then, it is my visions you doubt,” the celi di accused with no less fury in her tone.

Una’s father shook his head vigorously. “Your visions have always been right and true.”

“Then you, and all those who stand before me today,” she said, including everyone at the feast with her sharp raven’s stare. “All of my people will give these wolves a chance to prove that not every Faol would murder us in our sleep.”

“And if you are wrong? If they turn on us?” her father dared to question.

Una’s respect for her parent grew. It took great strength to stand up to Anya Gra, spiritual leader and one of the oldest among them.

“Then I will cast my fire and destroy their clans without mercy,” the prince promised in a tone no one, not even her stalwart father, could deny.

Her father nodded, though he looked no happier by the assurance. “Aye, that’s the right of it then.”

Prince Eirik let his gaze encompass the whole of their community, his expression one of unequivocal certainty. “I will always protect my people to the best of my ability. Welcoming these honorable men is part of that.”

Una noted how he continued to push forth the message that these wolves were good men, trustworthy and honorable.

He was her prince and she should believe him.

But she couldn’t.

She knew the truth. Not that she hated all wolves. That would make her like the Faol who had taken her and done the horrible things they had done with every intention of killing her in the end, as they would kill any Éan they came across.

No, she would not share the unreasoning prejudices of her enemy and hate an entire race, making no distinctions between individuals.

But she could not trust them, either.

TWO

Bryant and his companions rode into the clearing deep in the forest. Their guide, Circin of the Donegal clan, pulled his horse to a stop without a sound.

The six Faol soldiers also pulled their horses to a stop.

“Now what?” Donnach, the other Balmoral wolf sent by their laird to act as diplomat to the Éan, asked.

“We wait,” Circin said, his youth belied by his confidence.

In line to be the next leader of the Donegal clan once the acting laird, Barr, had trained him to his station as both laird and pack alpha, the youth was an extremely rare shifter with two animals. Not that Circin’s triple nature was common knowledge, but Bryant and the others, if they were looking, had witnessed the other man shift into his raven the night before.

Since Circin’s clan believed him to be wolf, that meant the Chrechte had a dual animal nature: both Faol and Éan.

“Why aren’t you one of the emissaries?” Bryant asked him.

He would think a man who shared his nature with both a raven and a wolf would make a better bridge for the gap between the two races than a pure wolf.

“I lived among the Éan for a year after Barr married Sabrine, but I told no one except the prince and Anya Gra of my wolf. We all felt it best at the time.”

Considering the shared past between the two races of Chrechte, Bryant had no trouble understanding why that decision had been made. “Just as your clan isn’t aware you are a raven?”

“Some in my clan know,” Circin admitted easily.

And then something became clear to Bryant. Circin had shifted where Bryant and the others could see him because he trusted them. “You are acting as a bridge even if others do not know it.”

A faint blush darkened the laird-in-training’s cheeks. “The trust between the Chrechte brethren must start with the individual man.”

“And woman,” one of the Sinclair warriors added solemnly.

They all nodded. Highland Chrechte understood the value of all their people. Among the clans, human women were often seen as chattel, but the Chrechte were not like that.

Ancient laws dictated that all had their place before the Creator. Man was nothing without woman and woman was nothing without man. Just as the Éan were not complete without the Faol and the Faol were not complete without the Éan.

The different races of Chrechte had been created for a reason and it was not the role of any individual to try to change that. No matter how misguided and downright evil the actions of some of the Faol.

He still found it hard to believe that in only a few generations the memory of the other races of the Chrechte had been taken from the Faol, leaving the wolves to believe they were the only shape-changers in existence.

Now, others besides just Bryant’s family knew and believed their ancient stories were more than simply that. They were a history of people that had indeed lived and still did live, if in secret deep in the forest for the past centuries.

One day, wolves and the birds would unite with the Paindeal, their cat-shifting brothers and sisters, again as well. It had to be so.

Bryant had not been chosen as emissary by accident. He passionately desired the reconnection of their races.

Had been raised since he was a whelp to believe the time would come when the Éan would be accepted once again among the Faol. Must be accepted.

The desire to make it so was imbedded deep inside him and he would see it to its conclusion.

The Éan needed to join the clans as the Faol had done, for all their good and safety.

Tucked against a branch high in her tree, Una watched in her eagle form as the six Faol warriors followed Circin of the Donegal and her own prince on horseback into the village, riding past the base of the trees in which most of the Éan made their dwellings.

Where there had once been a couple of caves prepared for the humans who stumbled upon the Éan’s secret homeland to live in, the village now had several huts. They were for the mostly human families that had chosen joining their tribe over death, or had been born into it since an ancestor made that choice. Very few Éan dwelt among them, those mated to a human or who had been injured in some way that prevented flight.

Her father was one such bird. The home he shared with her mother was at the base of the very tree in which Una perched. She had wanted to live with them when they’d been forced to leave their home among the trees, but her parents had both refused.

She would be safer in their old home high above, they said. A bird should not live on the ground, her father claimed. Their home should not be abandoned, her mother insisted. And Una had known that they were right on all points.

So, she had stayed in the humble dwelling built in the giant ancient oak tree by one of her ancestors.

However, the five years since her horror had been lonely ones. Her parents did not know it, but Una never invited others to share the space that echoed with the loss her family had endured because of her curiosity and disobedience.

It was not just wolves she had a difficulty being in close proximity to. There were only a select few she could stand to be nearby, and the children. The little ones caused no panic in her.

Thanks be to the Creator, because Una’s one contribution to her tribe hinged on her ability to be near the young ones.

Her thoughts of the children ceased as the warriors drew close enough for her eagle’s vision to make out details of the wolves sent by the clans to somehow prove the improbable . . . that a Faol could be trusted by the Éan.

The warriors were huge, appearing even bigger as they got closer. Some few among their people, like Prince Eirik, shared such stature, but it was not so common among the Éan as the Faol to stand head and shoulders above human men.

One wolf in particular caught her sharp eagle’s eye. Wearing the blue and green plaid with thin yellow stripes of the Balmoral, this one wore no shirt with his kilt. The muscles on his arms and torso bulged with strength. A triangle of dark hair to match that on his head covered the skin of his chest made golden by its exposure to the sun.

Brown hair brushed his broad shoulders, the hairs on his face neither clean shaven, nor bristly with an unkempt beard. Sheared neatly to his skin, they accentuated the hard angles of his cheeks and strong jaw.

The wolf’s feet were bare, the muscles of his legs strong and corded. The only thing he wore besides the plaid was a huge sword and a knife at his waist.

He looked more imposing than the wolf counterpart he could shift into.

And this man was supposed to come in peace, an emissary for the Faol?

Though the others continued on, he stopped his mount near her father’s hut. Turning first to the right and then to the left, he seemed to be looking for something. He cocked his head, inhaling, as if sniffing the air.

Why? What had caught his attention?

Una let out a strangled screech when his head snapped up and his piercing grey gaze was directed right toward her.

A wolf, not an eagle, he should not be able to see her amidst the leaves and branches. Only she felt as if his keen grey eyes were looking right into those of her eagle.

One of the soldiers doubled back, stopping next to him. It was the other Balmoral soldier, by the colors of his plaid. He said something to the grey-eyed wolf, but she could not make out the exact words.

She’d perched herself too far up, and unlike the wolves, her sense of hearing was barely better than that of a human.

Petrified by the Faol warrior’s presence and yet feeling a wholly inexplicable longing to fly down and get a closer look, she remained still on the branch.

The other soldier said something again, this time his tone sharper. The grey-eyed man finally turned away and kneed his horse into motion. Just as her father came out of the hut.

Collision seemed imminent and Una let out a shriek of distress, her eagle louder than her human woman would ever be.

But her father did not end up in the dirt, his bad leg taken out from under him. The wolf, moving faster than she’d seen even among the Éan, had dismounted and nudged his horse out of her father’s path with his own body.

Unable to deny the need to get closer, Una hopped down from branch to branch until she could hear the Balmoral soldier apologizing to her father.

Her father ignored the man’s words, turning without acknowledging him and staring up into the tree. As if he, too, could sense her presence, which was far more likely. Considering he did have the vision of an eagle and was her father besides.

Even if he had not seen her eagle among the limbs of the tree, her father would know of Una’s need to see the wolves as they entered the village.

“You are not to come to the village for the time being,” he called up to her, proving her supposition correct.

She had no intention of coming into the village with the wolves there, but something stirred inside Una that had not stirred in five years.

Curiosity and aggravation at the restrictions placed on her. It only took remembering what those feelings had led her into before, and she was taking flight, making her way back up toward her home with a speed she would normally reserve for chasing prey.

Not that she did much hunting. Even in her eagle form, she could not stomach the hunt. Not after being made into prey herself.

An eagle, Una should have become a warrior like the princess, Sabrine, and some of the other strong women among their people.

But Una had no stomach for battle and even less for bloodshed. She should be protecting her people, but Una was inept at any but the most basic tactics of fighting.

Her parents had never said so, but they had to be so disappointed that their only child had turned out to be such a poor Éan.

THREE

Bryant watched the older Éan go back into his hut, unsurprised by the surly lack of welcome.

The Faol had a lot to answer for in their past treatment of the Éan. He and the other wolf soldiers were here in the forest of the Éan for a purpose . . . to show that the Faol as a whole no longer held the wrongheaded views of their ancestors.

There were still some out there, acting in secret against their brethren shifters, but they would be dealt with when they were revealed. With more mercy than most deserved. But the eagle shifter Lais was proof that not only could others besides the Faol fall prey to the wrong thinking that led to wanting to eradicate the Éan, but at least some of those so deceived could be convinced of the truth as well.

With the help of information from Lais, Barr was searching the Donegal clan diligently for the old seeds left behind by their former laird, an evil man who had not respected either human or Éan life.

As his horse took him forward, Bryant’s wolf howled in protest. The beast inside him wanted to climb that tree and investigate the intriguing scent that had stopped him at its base.

Considering the number of looks of distrust, and some of outright fear, he and the other wolves had received upon their arrival, that was one course of action that could lead to the very opposite result from the one they wanted. Bryant needed to show the Éan he wasn’t a threat.

Against the urges of his wolf, he nudged his horse forward to follow Circin and Prince Eirik farther into the village.

Four of the soldiers were placed in homes with human members of the Éan tribe. None with the bird shifters, and two of them, Bryant and Donnach, were given their own small hut to share. Which meant out of all the homes in the village, only four had been willing to have wolves staying with them.

Prince Eirik had explained that after his people had grown used to their presence, Bryant and Donnach would be given the option of living in the treetop dwelling that housed the prince and his grandmother. From there, they would be able to spend more time with the Éan themselves.

Bryant chose to see that as progress rather than further proof the Éan were not ready to integrate with the clans. As his laird had warned him was most likely the case.

According to stories Bryant’s grandfather told, the wolves had not liked joining the human clans, either. Especially after MacAlpin’s betrayal, but his forefathers had realized that if the Chrechte wanted to survive, the move was a necessary one.

And in some ways, it was easier done after MacAlpin’s betrayal, when no easily acknowledged prince among their own people could be identified because MacAlpin had killed them all.

Not like with the Éan. They had Prince Eirik, who all expected to be named king upon his twenty-fifth birthday.

The Éan had their own spiritual leader, too, and a sacred stone, the Clach Gealach Gra, used during their Chrechte rituals. The Faol had either never had a stone, or lost it many years ago and had long since given up their celi di in favor of the human’s priests.

The Éan were also used to living as they did in the forest, like thieves hiding from the magistrate.

Convincing them of the need to rejoin their brethren and become part of the clans, where many of their freedoms would be curtailed even as they enjoyed others, would be no easy task.

And still, Bryant’s wolf had more interest in the scent that caught his attention than in their task at hand.

The mists of the spirit world swirled around Una’s legs, even as her shift grew damp and clung to her form. Though she slept, this was no dream.

She had heard of this, the ability some Chrechte had to meet on a plane not purely physical. Oh, it felt real enough, but she experienced it on a level that would impact her body, could even leave marks on it if the stories were to be believed, but where her body had not actually come.

She had always believed such was only possible for the celi di, those of the royal blood and some very blessed sacred mates. She was none of those and yet she was here. Wherever here was.

The forest around her did not look like her forest, but had trees wider than ten Faol warriors standing shoulder to shoulder, and so tall she could not see their tops standing below them. The green moss growing on the north side of their trunks was a brilliant green, brighter than anything in the forests of her home.

Flowers grew in clumps of vibrant colors, irises standing waist high to peek through the ever-swirling mists. Birds chirped, though she could not see them, and the sound of a brook babbled in the distance.

Though she’d gone to sleep in the night, the moon high in the sky, it was early morning here, the sun still trailing a golden glow on the horizon.

The sound of a rider on a horse approaching had her turning from the sun, only to see the man from the day before galloping on his big brown warhorse. He spied her. There was no question that he’d done so, for he quickly changed direction, pulling his huge beast of a horse to an abrupt halt before her.

The horse tossed its head as the rider looked down at her in confusion. “Who are you?”

“I am Una.” None of the panic she usually experienced around strangers came to plague her, and she found the smallest of smiles tilting her lips upward.

There was joy in being able to address this man without fear.

“I do not know you,” the grey-eyed man said, his brows drawn together.

“I am aware.” Her smile grew. “I have told you my name. Now, tell me yours.”

She did not know this boldness in the physical world, but here, she felt safe. This was the Chrechte spirit realm, a place she as Éan could only be called to, and a place where no harm could come to her.

No Faol with intention to harm would be allowed to enter. Of this her eagle was so certain, even her human heart had to accept it.

“I am called Bryant.”

“You are Faol.”

“You are Éan?” he asked, rather than stated.

“I am.”

“Are you celi di?” Though the way his storm-cloud gaze roamed over her said spiritual guidance was the last thing on his mind.

“No.” Familiar shame that had no place here still assailed her. “I am nothing special.”

“I am sure that is not true.”

“You would not know.” All urge to smile had fled.

Concern darkened his eyes, as if her sadness truly bothered him. “I am drawn to you.”

She merely shook her head.

Bryant dismounted with an ease of movement she knew was not simply because they conversed in the spirit realm. His natural grace delighted her here, though were she to see it at home, she would consider it a threat she knew.

“Were you sleeping when you came to this place?” he asked as he came near, seemingly unconcerned with what his horse might get up to without its rider.

“I was.”

“So, this is a dream?” he asked.

“No.” Even in her dreams, her terror of the Faol would never let her stand so close to him.

“Where are we then?”

“You are so sure I have the answers?”

“I know only that I do not.”

“It is the Chrechte spirit realm.”

“I have heard stories.” He frowned. “But surely this is not real. This is naught but a dream.”

She put her hand out, rejoicing in her temerity to do so, and touched his muscular arm. His hand came up seemingly of its own volition to cover hers. Warmth spread between them, though the mists surrounding them were still cool in the early morning air of this place.

“This does not feel like a dream,” he said with quiet awe.

“Because it is not.”

“But who are you, if not celi di, to bring me here?”

“I did not bring you.”

“Then I brought you?” he asked, sounding unsure.

“No. Perhaps we are not even here for each other, merely at the same time.”

It was his turn to say, “No,” but with a great deal more vehemence than she had uttered the denial. “You are here for me.”

“You did not even know where you were; how can you be so sure of that?”

“My wolf wants you.”

There was no mistaking the heat in his grey eyes.

“Perhaps wolves are not taught they cannot have everything they want, but we of the Éan know differently.”

He tugged on her hand, moving her to stand between his feet, so close their bodies touched.

Her heart raced, but it was not in terror. Her breath caught, but not because her lungs refused to work. For the first time in five years, Una found herself wanting to be near another adult, craving a physical closeness she was sure would be denied her always.

“You crave me as well,” he claimed, his expression no longer confused, but knowing in a way that made heat pool low in her belly.

“Here, I may feel all that I am denied when I am fully myself.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, his head bent as if to listen more closely.

Or kiss her.

Was it possible that she actually hoped for the latter?

“I cannot abide any but my parents and the very young in close proximity.”

“Why?”

“It is not something I would speak of here.” The ugliness of her past and her ongoing pain did not belong in this beautiful place.

“One day you will tell me.”

She laughed then, as she so rarely did—and only then around the children. “You assume we will see one another again.”

“I am living among your people now. If I do not see you in this miraculous place again, I will see you in your village.”

She simply shook her head, knowing differently. “I do not go to the village.”

At least right now. Her father had forbidden her.

“As time goes on, we will be allowed into the trees.”

“I doubt that.” Some of the humans living among their tribe had never even received an invitation to do so.

His smile was knowing, but he did not argue with her. Instead, he lowered his head further and whispered against her lips. “I wonder.”

“What do you wonder?” she asked breathlessly.

“If you taste as delectable as you smell to my wolf.”

She would have answered. She might even have denied him, though she did not think so, not when this was the only taste of intimacy she was likely to ever have.

But he gave her no chance to do either. He simply pressed his lips to hers, kissing her.

It was the most amazing sensation Una had ever known. Her lips did not merely tingle against his, they felt so much more. Pleasure. Fire. And the need for more and more and more.

She gasped her shock at the delight of it and felt his tongue tickle her own through her parted lips.

Her entire body pressed to his, an ache growing inside her for something she had no name for. She moved restlessly against him, the damp shift no barrier between his warm skin and her own.

One large warrior’s hand moved down to cup her bottom in a gesture so intimate, Una cried out from it.

And then he was gone.

FOUR

Nothing else had changed around her, but Bryant and the big brown horse had disappeared, as if they’d never been.

Una’s hand came up to press against kiss-swollen lips. He had been here. He had kissed her.

And then he’d been taken away? To go to whomever he was actually supposed to meet? The thought saddened her so greatly, tears burned her eyes.

“Why am I here?” she called out brokenly to the empty forest.

“This is a place the Chrechte come for answers,” a voice said from her left.

Una did not want to turn to face the other woman, but manners dictated she had no choice.

She turned to find a woman with similar features to Anya Gra, only much younger and without the sadness shadowing her cerulean gaze that was so much a part of the Éan’s celi di. Had she seen Una’s shameless display with Bryant?

The other woman shook her head as if answering the unspoken question. “This is a place of healing for some, a place for answers for others, some come here simply to find peace.”

“I see no one else.”

“That is often the way.”

“But earlier . . .”

“There is always a purpose in the meetings you have with others here. Remember that, little Una, braveheart.”

“I am not brave,” Una denied. “Not anymore.”

“The spirit of the girl still lives in the heart of the woman.”

“I do not think so,” Una said apologetically, sorry she had to disappoint the beautiful and clearly kind lady.

“I know your heart as you do not.”

“But it’s my heart?” Somehow the words came out a question rather than the statement Una had intended.

“Is it?”

Before Una could answer, the woman was gone, too, and then Una felt herself falling, air whooshing by as if she’d jumped backward off the highest waterfall in the forest. Not something she was ever likely to do.

She did not land with a jar, or a thump. She didn’t actually feel the landing at all, but suddenly she was on her sleeping furs, inside her own humble home and fully awake, the first rays of morning chasing the night shadows from the room.

Una dressed carefully for the feast to welcome the Faol warriors being held in the royal abode among the trees.

She’d been able to miss the last one held in the village immediately after the men’s arrival, not least because her father had forbidden her to go. But none who had been invited to the home of Anya Gra and her grandson, Prince of the Éan, were allowed to say nay.

Not without seriously offending the royal family of the Éan. And that neither Una, nor even her irascible father, was willing to do.

Rope ladders had been dropped to the village below so leaders in the village along with the soldiers could come into the trees. Those who could not climb the ropes, like her father, would be lifted on a pallet hefted with pulley ropes by the strongest among them.

It was no small task and Una could not conceive of ignoring its significance or effort by not attending herself.

And, well . . . she actually wanted to go.

A month ago, Una would have said with absolute certainty that the anticipation she felt now at the thought of attending the feast was impossible to contemplate. But that was before four sennights of visits to the Chrechte land of the spirits.

She’d been back on three different occasions and each time he had been there as well. The Faol warrior, Bryant.

He had apologized for leaving her so abruptly the first time and then said he was sorry he’d kissed her without leave. She’d admitted she probably never would have had the courage to give it. So, he’d said perhaps he would have to kiss her again without asking.

She’d replied that might be best.

It hadn’t been stilted, or awkward, but funny and light. And he had kissed her. Marvelously.

Though he’d never let his hand roam to her bottom again. She wanted to ask why, but never got the gumption to do so. She had so much more temerity in the spirit realm, but still . . . she was herself.

They talked of many things though. His annoyingly protective older brother, and irritatingly spoiled younger sisters. He told her stories of growing up in a big family and she told him of life among the Éan, daughter to one of the tribe’s greatest warriors.

She didn’t speak of her horror five years past and he didn’t mention his purpose in the village.

Their time always ended too quickly and she feared each sojourn into the spirit world would be their last, or on the next occasion she would not see him. For as much as the spirit celi di had claimed all meetings were with purpose, Una was convinced she saw Bryant by happenstance when he was there by some other greater motive.

And tonight she would see him in the flesh.

Would he remember visiting with her in the spirit realm? Would he seek out her company?

Or had her sojourns there merely been the conjuring of an excessively lonely mind fixated on a brief glimpse of a man whose very nature sent Una into a panic.

They could not be friends in the physical realm. Could they?

The very idea was absurd. He was Faol and should he approach her in person, in this place, she was most likely to fall in a faint of panic at his feet.

Sighing at her own shortcomings she had no idea how to overcome, though for the first time perhaps she wanted to, Una straightened her long-sleeved shift. The bodice she pulled on over it was made of supple leather her mother had painstakingly tanned for her. Mòrag had also dyed it heather green, the exact shade of the Éan’s plaid, and fitted it to Una’s figure with careful stitches that would last many years to come.

Una’s skirt was made of their tribe’s tartan, in the muted colors of the forest, the thin line the heather green that matched her bodice. Many women of the Éan dressed in leather skirts instead of the tartan, or dresses of the same because the leather wore longer. Some wore kilts only slightly longer than the men’s. Those were the warrior women, but Una was far from being one.

She wore no shoes, as most among the Éan were wont to do, but she’d taken care to scrub her feet clean and trim both her finger– and toenails.

Una had spent more time than usual brushing her long hair until it shone in soft brown waves around her shoulders and down her back. Being an eagle, it was several shades lighter than that of a raven, whose hair usually shone black. It was even lighter than either of her parents’, but Una didn’t mind.

She’d pulled it back from her face and fastened the sides of her hair together at the back of her head with a leather thong.

She looked neat and as civilized as most Éan managed to do. They did not live as the humans among the clans, but clung to their Chrechte roots.

There had been a time when she’d wanted to emulate the humans, but that time was past. She desired now to be fully Éan, but she could not even manage that very well, could she?

Una could be in the sky with her sharp eagle vision, watching for intruders, but none had ever suggested she do so.

Because she had been deemed untrustworthy. Her shameful curiosity was no secret, not after the cost to her family and tribe to rescue her from her own folly.

“You look lovely, daughter.” Una’s mother’s voice thankfully broke into her daughter’s morose thoughts.

Una spun and rushed to embrace the other woman. “It’s been so long since you have been home.”

“My home is with your father in the village now,” her mother gently chided. “This place is the same as the day we left it for the village.”

Her mother said the same thing each of the few times she’d come into the trees to visit. The two-room dwelling was just as Una’s parents had left it. They had taken their prize bed with them and the little furniture they’d accumulated.

Being a home that had been passed down through the generations in their family, it was not sparse. Even with her parents’ things gone, the dwelling felt lived-in. Cupboards held dishes enough for two, though Una only used one. There was no cooking fire of course, all cooking had to be done at ground level, but dry foods could be and were stored on the few shelves and in the crannies.

Una had moved the furs she’d used to sleep on the floor of the main room since she was a child into the small bedroom, along with her clothing and personal things. The main room had the natural seats created by the branches of the tree integrated into their home and a small table her great-grandfather had made.

“Would you like water?” Una asked her mother with hospitality that was rarely exercised.

“Yes, dear, but I’ll get it myself.” Her mother moved to the swollen skin, filled from the water-catchers the Éan had placed high in the trees. “You must make this dwelling your own. One day you will share it with a mate.”

Una was only nineteen, but she’d long given up hope of finding a mate. Though she never said so to her mother. The thought of trusting another to sleep beside her filled her with a dread she’d never give voice to.

“Is Father already at the royal abode?”

Mòrag grimaced. “He is, giving Prince Eirik an earful about the wolves, if I have my guess.”

“What have they done now?”

“Naught, but to hear your father tell it, each one of them is responsible for every bad turn in our village, from the birth of a deformed kid by the neighbor’s goat to the deluge of rain we suffered through this past spring.”

“They have only been here a month.” And summer was well on its way to the solstice.

Mòrag shrugged and then smiled tolerantly. “You know your father.”

“Are the wolf soldiers . . . are they . . .”

“Kind?” her mother prompted.

Una could not imagine it, despite the way Bryant behaved when she’d met him in the spirit realm. After all, Una acted with far more boldness there than was her usual wont.

“Violent?” she asked instead.

“Not at all. Oh, they’re good hunters and strong warriors, but they are kind and rather more polite than our own soldiers.”

“They live among the civilized humans.” She never said civilized the way her father did, with a sneer in his voice.

But Una’s mother acknowledged Fionn’s attitude with a frown they both understood. “They do, though it has not made them any less fierce. The one they call Bryant smiles more than I’ve ever seen a warrior smile though. He seems to want to make friends particularly with your father. I cannot imagine why; Fionn has been rude to him at every turn.”

Una’s breath caught at the mention of the man she’d only met while sleeping.

“The wolves who took me smiled, too.” With sneers and cold evil in their compassionless eyes that she would never forget.

“Not all wolves are like the men who took you.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

“Of course, I do not put them all in the same school of fish just because they share a wolf nature.” As much as she might shy from Bryant were she to meet him in the flesh, she would not think him capable of the cruelty she’d suffered at the hands of his fellow wolves.

Mòrag looked very sad. “Sweeting, I very much fear that you do.”

“That would make me like them, Mother, hating an entire race.”

“You are nothing like those men, but neither are these clansmen.” Mòrag smoothed Una’s already shining hair. “You look so lovely this eve.”

Una ignored the compliment, choosing to focus instead on her mother’s other words. “Father doesn’t like them.”

“Your father hates all wolves for what those horrible Faol who took you did to you.”

“And him.” Una turned away, lest her mother see the pain filling hazel eyes just like her own. “They left him too crippled to fly.”

“Aye, but these men our prince has given leave to live among us? They were no part of that.”

“But they could have been.”

“Could they?”

Una was certain of it. All wolves had that viciousness in their nature. Not that all would give in to it. She sincerely hoped Bryant had never done so.

Mòrag sighed, the sound filled with the same old pain that plagued Una. “Daughter, you have suffered greatly, but not at the hands of these men. They will not hurt you.”

Trust her mother to see the terror Una worked so hard to hide. “I just don’t understand why Prince Eirik had to let them enter our homeland.”

“Because change must come.”

“But why?” Even as Una asked, part of her longed for change. If not among her people, then in her own heart. So she would not live in such fear any longer.

“It has been foretold.”

“And that makes it so?” she demanded.

Though, now more than ever, she had reason to trust the visions of the celi di.

“You know it does,” her mother said in a tone that showed her shock at Una’s words. “Our seers have led us since time immemorial. We cannot begin to doubt their guidance now, not if we want your children to have a hope at life as it is meant to be lived.”

“As slaves to the Faol?” Una asked, her worst worries coming to the fore.

“In secret,” Mòrag emphasized. “Hiding from the peoples who live in this land with us. It is time for the Éan to come out into the sun.”

“No,” Una said with anguish she could not hide.

“Oh, daughter.” Mòrag pulled her into a hug, but Una would not let herself relax. The tears would come then.

And she would not give any more of her tears to the wolves who had done her and her tribe such irreparable harm.

FIVE

Una’s mother had been right, Bryant smiled far more than the Éan warriors were wont to do. Especially her father.

He had a cheerful nature when they’d met in the spirit lands of Chrechte, but she’d thought again that it had been because they were in a place out of time. A place where no harm could come to them and the trials of physical life could not assail them.

But it seemed at first glance as if the man she had met while she slept was exactly like himself in the physical realm.

Right down to being more handsome than any soldier had a right to be. Even his scars, those at least he hadn’t had in the other realm, only made him look more appealing. He was no perfect man, who had not faced hardship or battle, but a real warrior who had the marks on his body to prove it.

A larger-than-life presence, he seemed every bit as big and a great deal more intimidating with it, in the flesh. The warrior braids in his mahogany hair depicted his life. He’d told her what each one was for on their last spirit-plane visit. The three on his left side commemorated important events in life as a soldier for the Balmoral pack.

The one on his right was in honor of the grandfather who had died ten years past, bequeathing Bryant both his name and his sword. Her brows drew together in confusion as she noted a second thin braid beside the first. It had not been there before. The ends of this braid were wrapped with bits of string.

If her eyes were not deceiving her, and considering her superior eagle sight, that was highly unlikely, those bits of string were the exact shades of green and brown as her hazel eyes.

She stared into eyes dancing with humor and something else she refused to name. The man near took her breath away.

And that had never happened before.

Not in this physical world where the nearness of strangers was more likely to send her into a fit of panic than passion.

“We have not met.” He put his hand out to take hers, his storm-cloud gaze telling a very different story. “I am Bryant of the Balmoral.”

Her father knocked the hand away with his walking stick before Una could even think to take it. “Do you know no better than to proceed without a proper introduction?”

“Thank you so much for offering, Fionn.” Bryant’s tone could only be described as smug.

The man liked besting others in cleverness. She’d noted that even in the spirit plane. She’d found it charming there; here in the flesh, it was more likely to cause her father to erupt in an apoplectic fit.

Sure enough, Fionn’s face turned red with fury as his eyes snapped a promise of retribution.

“Bryant, may I introduce my daughter, Una?” Moving slightly so she stood between Una and Bryant, Mòrag jumped in to fill the gap, as she had so many times over the years with Una’s father’s less-than-polite ways. “Una, this is one of the Faol soldiers our prince has welcomed to live among our people.”

Even if Una had not been meeting the man these past weeks while they both slept, she had seen him arrive in the village. She understood her mother’s move for what it was, an attempt to protect Una from being forced to take the man’s hand in greeting.

Oblivious to Mòrag’s machinations, Bryant simply shifted so that he was once again standing far too close to Una. He put his now red-marked hand out a second time in offering, not even glancing at her father to see if the other man would object this time, too.

Una saw her mother’s telltale wince turn to a look of astonishment as Una’s hand came forward of its own volition to be swallowed in the large, masculine paw.

Though she trembled at a wolf’s touch, she allowed it, not yanking her hand back with unseemly haste, not pulling away from his clasp at all.

His grey eyes narrowed, his expression turning concerned as he inhaled the scent of her fear. He would learn only too quickly that, unlike him, Una was far different in the physical realm than the spirit one.

He did not immediately release her, and contrary to her past experiences, her fear dissipated rather than grew. It did not leave her completely. That would have taken a miracle, and she’d learned she was fresh out of those that fateful day five years past.

But Una felt no urge to run and that was miracle enough, she supposed. Bryant’s hand was warm and strong, just like in the spirit plane. He did not crush her fingers, holding her hand as if she was as delicate as a summer bird.

“I’m an eagle,” she blurted out.

His eyes widened. “That is good to know.”

Though she’d told him her bird form in the spirit plane. He’d told her he wanted to see it, but she’d refused to shift. She emphatically did not want to see his wolf. Not even on the spirit plane.

When she made no reply, Bryant added, “I understood eagles are uncommon among the Éan.”

She’d told him that as well. She hadn’t told him that she was not a very good eagle.

“We are, the Faol have killed too many of us off.” Though his words were anything but, Una’s father’s tone was almost friendly. “And I’ll thank ye to release my daughter’s hand now.”

Una gasped. Whether from the cessation of contact with the only man who had ever kissed her, or her parent’s unexpected reaction to Bryant, she did not know.

“She’s quite charming,” Bryant said to her mother. “You must be very proud of her.”

Mòrag smiled and nodded. “She is. It’s a surprise to us both that our daughter is yet unmated at nineteen.”

Heat climbed into Una’s cheeks as her father made a sound of disgust, apparently as unimpressed with her mother’s impossible attempts at matchmaking as Una herself.

“The Chrechte among our clan often mate at a later age than humans marry. It’s a matter of finding the bond intended by fate to be ours, isn’t it?” Bryant asked with all appearance of sincerity.

Were sacred bonds so common among the Faol then? She’d only ever known of a handful of sacred matings in her life. Éan were encouraged to mate young without consideration to the hope of finding their one true mate. Without offspring, their people would die off.

And there were few enough babies born among their people as it was.

“You believe you will find your sacred mate?” Una asked, still somewhat surprised by her temerity in voluntarily talking to the wolf, no matter their nocturnal visits.

This was not a topic they had spoken about between pleasure-inducing kisses. And this was not the safety of that place out of time.

“I do. Wherever she may be.” The look Bryant gave Una was disturbing in its intensity. “Our laird found his in an Englishwoman. Your own princess is mated to the Faol laird of the Donegals.”

“She betrayed her people,” Fionn stated with categorical certainty.

Both Una and her mother gasped. Prince Eirik would be livid if he overheard such talk. He might even sanction Fionn, but were Anya Gra to hear such a sentiment expressed, the celi di might well curse him and his family, refusing them access to the sacred stone.

“You must not say such things,” Mòrag said in a tone that said Una’s father was headed for the deepest, coldest part of the loch.

“Hmmph.” Fionn had the grace to at least look marginally chagrined.

“Do you believe Sabrine claiming her true mate was a betrayal of your people?” Bryant asked Una, as if it was her opinion that mattered, not her father’s.

“The ancient teachings of the Chrechte make it clear that a sacred mating bond should be placed above all else.” Una swallowed at the sulfuric glare from her father, but she would not recall her words.

She’d worked so hard not to disappoint him further since the debacle five years ago, but in this, her father was very, very wrong.

“You must forgive Fionn.” Una’s mother had drawn herself away from her husband in a way that said she wasn’t sure she had done so though. “But sacred mates are so rare among our people we forget their importance in the face of simple survival.”

Bryant nodded his understanding. “You mate to procreate rather than enjoy the sacred bond. Many among the Faol believe they must do the same.”

“Which is not to say that our matings are of no importance,” Mòrag stated firmly.

“You and Fionn . . .” Bryant prompted.

“We are not sacred mates, but we were still blessed with a child. For that, I will always be grateful.” Her mother gave Una a look filled with warmth and love.

“Every child is a gift,” Bryant said with that way he had, like he was certain of the truths in his world, and anyone who might disagree could be made to see the error of his or her ways. “My own parents are sacred mates.”

“Did they have many children then?” Mòrag asked wistfully.

“Four that lived out of childhood.”

“That is a blessing indeed.”

“So my father says. Mum isn’t so sure when we are tracking dirt on her recently cleaned floors with our big muddy feet.”

“You are all male then?”

“Oh, nay. I have an older brother and two younger sisters, both hellions truth be told, and more trouble by far than either of us boys, to hear my mother tell it. Though one has married and is her husband’s headache now. Though she’s given us my precious niece, who has the entire family trained to her bidding.”

Una found a smile coming to her face. “How old is the wee one?”

“Two summers and full of energy beyond us all.” Bryant’s eyes glowed when he spoke of his family.

“You must miss them terribly.”

“Aye.”

“And yet you have made your home here.” It was beyond her understanding.

“The repatriation of the Éan will not come without sacrifice. It seems only fair those begin with the Faol, considering the cost your people have already paid over the years.”

“Repatriation—” Fionn began in a tone that said they were all in for a rant of extraordinary proportions.

Mòrag determinedly interrupted without a single blush. “Una cares for the children of our tribe, you know.”

“That is a commendable contribution to make to your clan.”

“I should be a warrior,” Una admitted with the shame she always felt. “I am an eagle.”

“You are perfect as you are,” her mother staunchly refuted.

But her father remained silent, his expression showing neither approval nor disdain for his only offspring. He was still clearly angry over the concept of the Éan and Faol reuniting.

“Our women are not trained in warfare,” Bryant mused. “If they were, I’m not sure our laird would not be a woman.”

Mòrag and Una laughed softly at what was clearly meant to be a joke, but her father frowned. “A woman should always be trained to protect herself.”

“On that we agree. Balmoral women are taught to hunt small game and most fathers teach their daughters simple defense, but life among the clans is different than it is for you here in the forest.”

“Different,” her father derided. “That’s one word for it.”

Bryant didn’t look in the least offended, just smiled slightly. “I know you think little of being civilized and I must admit that the Balmoral are far less so than other clans.”

“Hmmph.” Her father gave his favorite answer when he had nothing to add.

“Do you never come down to the village?” Bryant asked Una. “I have not seen you there.”

The slight emphasis he gave to the word there appeared unnoticed by her parents, but Una felt it deep inside. They shared a secret, an intimacy easily equal to that of their kisses.

“I usually come down daily.” But she’d been afraid to come down with the wolves there.

Besides, her father had forbidden her.

Fionn frowned. “She doesn’t need to be down in the village with strange soldiers running amok.”

“We are hardly running amok and surely after a month, not nearly so strange to you any longer?”

“You’re a wolf. You’ll always be strange,” her father pronounced, but without his usual heat.

“I’ve missed my daily visits with my daughter,” her mother said with a plaintive look at first Fionn and then Una.

Guilt suffused Una. She’d kept away from her mother because of her own fear, both of the wolves and of upsetting her father when she knew she’d given up all right to do so.

And deep inside, where she never let others see, she had been beyond terrified she would meet Bryant only to discover her sojourns on the spirit plane had all been in her imagination.

“I will come to see you tomorrow,” Una promised her mother.

Mòrag smiled, patting her arm. “I would like that.”

“Hmmph.” Her father contributed, but it was not a denial.

Una let a tremulous smile curve her lips.

“Perhaps I will see you as well,” Bryant said.

“Why would you want to?” Una blurted out before thinking how the words might sound.

But Bryant didn’t laugh, or even smile. His masculine countenance had turned entirely serious. “I believe you know.”

“I . . .” But she did not know what to say.

She did not want to tell her parents about the trips to the Chrechte sacred place. They would worry. Besides, had he not realized yet, she was not the same person here as she was there?

“What are you talking about?” her father demanded.

“In this case, I believe the particulars are between your daughter and me.” Bryant’s expression showed no chance of being moved.

“Nonsense. She is mine to protect and care for.”

“Until she is mated.”

“She’s not mated yet,” her father said in a tone Una had never heard from him before.

She stared at him, but he was busy glaring at Bryant.

“Una?” her father prompted without looking away from the other man.

“I don’t know.” The lie tasted sour on her tongue, but the truth would burn worse.

Bryant’s frown of disappointment made Una’s stomach twist.

She didn’t lie. Not anymore. Not so she could sneak out of the safety of their forest, nor for any other reason. And now this man, who knew her better than even her own parents, believed she was a cowardly deceiver.

But he could not possibly understand. She owed her parents not to cause them any further worry or distress. They could not know her Chrechte nature had drawn her into the spirit world, for she knew not what.

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” she reiterated stubbornly, ignoring the stain the words left behind on her soul.

“You’ll figure it out,” Bryant promised before taking his leave of her parents, with more polish than the “less civilized” Balmoral should be able to accomplish.

SIX

Bryant watched Fionn’s hut surreptitiously while he and Donnach dressed their kill from their early morning hunt.

Una had said she would come to visit her mother today, but he didn’t know when that might be. They had not met on the dream plane the night before.

She called it the spiritual plane, was convinced they were not sharing a dream. He hadn’t been sure it wasn’t merely his own nighttime imaginings right up until he’d met her at the feast the night before.

He’d had to focus hard to hide his shock, first at her appearance beside the irascible Fionn, and then at the difference in her manner from when he’d met her while sleeping.

Donnach nudged Bryant’s shoulder. “Stop staring over there. I told you that old man is not going to warm up to us.”

“You’re wrong. He was almost civil to me last night.” Though Fionn had made his disapproval of Bryant’s appreciation for his daughter more than obvious.

“Well, he’s not going to be civil if he catches you spying on his hut. Why are you watching it so closely anyway?”

“I met his daughter last night.”

“He has a daughter?” Donnach asked, like the idea was too farfetched for belief.

“Aye. She’s lovely, with her mother’s oval face and pretty hazel eyes. Her hair is a soft brown, different from most among the Éan, lighter than most wolves as well, but not blond.” Just like the woman in his dreams, which apparently were not simple dreams at all. “It looks like water falling down her back.”

Heat climbed up his neck as Bryant realized how he must sound to the other warrior.

Donnach looked at him askance. “You find her appealing?”

“Aye.” Bryant frowned.

What was so unusual about that? Many men would find Una attractive, but Bryant didn’t say so. He was too busy trying to control his wolf, which was not at all happy at the idea that other males might look with favor upon his eagle.

Donnach was frowning, too. “No.”

“Yes.”

“You cannot.”

“I can. I do.” What was Donnach’s problem?

Even if Bryant had a choice, and he did not (his wolf growled mate into his mind), he saw no reason to deny the attraction he felt for a woman so timid in person and so bold in their shared dreams.

Donnach shook his head. “This is not good.”

“What do you mean? Mating between the Faol and the Éan will bring about our joining together as brethren easier.”

“Is that what this is about? You’ve decided to mate with the Éan to help our cause?” His fellow Balmoral soldier sounded less than impressed by the idea.

Bryant, on the other hand, thought it had great merit, even if his wolf were not so drawn to the woman.

He shrugged his broad shoulders. “The heart goes where it will.”

“Now I know you’ve lost your mind. What warrior says something like that?”

Bryant laughed, not offended in the least. “My father.”

“Your father found his true mate when he was barely into his manhood. I suppose he cannot help himself,” Donnach grudgingly admitted.

“Aye.”

“Well, he’s not normal. He calls your mother honey-sweet and the whole clan knows that woman has a tongue that could strip the bark from the trees.”

“My mother is sweet.” In her own way.

“She’s a loving termagant.” Donnach should know; he’d spent enough time in their home growing up, Bryant’s mother called him her third son.

“That she is,” Bryant agreed with pride.

“No wonder you don’t find Fionn off-putting. You’ve had a lifetime’s experience on the sharp edge of your mother’s tongue.”

Bryant smacked his friend’s shoulder, but there was no heat in it. He didn’t bother arguing his mother’s kind nature. Donnach knew she masked a soft heart behind sharp words and he didn’t mean any offense.

And it was true. Bryant didn’t find the old man, Fionn, particularly surly. He was a crabby old man who clearly loved his wife, true mate or not, and his one and only offspring.

“They’re eagles,” he told Donnach.

“Huh. I wonder if they know Lais.”

“I asked the healer about that yestereve. He said Una avoids him like a swarm of wasps and neither of her parents have made much effort to make his acquaintance.”

“That is odd, is it not?”

“I thought so.”

“And so you asked Lais why, right?”

“I did. He said something happened to Una and it was at the hands of Donegal Faol. Her father ended up injured to the point of not being able to take flight any longer, but no one speaks of it and Lais didn’t know any further details.”

Bryant thought that whatever had happened had turned Una from the confident, engaging woman of his dreams to the timid creature he’d met the night before.

“That is not promising for your budding romance.”

“Why? I’m not a Donegal.”

“You are a wolf.”

“They will have to learn to accept that.” The bond of a sacred mating could not be denied.

“You think it will be so simple?”

Bryant shrugged. “I do. If she is my mate, she will accept my wolf.”

“I hope you’re right. Or wrong about her being your mate.” Donnach’s tone was filled with foreboding.

“My wolf howls for the chance to claim her, to scent her so that all would know she is ours.”

Donnach looked thoughtful. “Mayhap she is your sacred mate, but ’tis equally possible this is your way of building bridges between the Éan and the Faol.”

“No matter how much I want the races reunited, I cannot fake a sacred mating.”

But the expression on Donnach’s face said he wasn’t so sure.

It was nearly time for latemeal when Una came out of the trees, flying toward her parents’ hut in her eagle form.

Bryant’s breath caught at the beauty of the bird. He’d tried to get her to shift for him in his not-dreams, but she had refused.

His wolf let out a yip of recognition he was unable to keep inside. The eagle’s direction of flight changed and she swooped toward them with a cawing reply, but then she flew up high in the sky.

“There is your ladylove now,” Donnach teased.

“How do you know it’s her?” Bryant was sure of the bird’s identity, but his wolf was drawn to the Éan shifter with a primeval connection he made no attempt to deny.

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 because 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.”

“Hmmph.”

“Is that your answer when you have no words of denial?” Bryant asked with humor-laced annoyance of the older man.

Again that sweetly unexpected sound from Una. Though she merely shook her head when Bryant gave her a questioning look.

She utterly charmed him.

And he terrified her.

If he claimed her, introduced her to his wolf, then she would know all could be well between them. That he would never hurt her as the Donegal wolves had done.

Something of the heat the thought sparked in him must have made itself known to Una, because she blushed and let off a scent that was nothing like the acrid fear he’d come to expect in such a short time.

“Mòrag would have you and this one join us for latemeal. She wishes to know more of your family’s history,” Fionn said, with a worried look at his daughter, before indicating both Bryant and Donnach with a sweep of his walking stick, when the silence had stretched for a long moment.

Donnach looked on the irritable Éan with clear disbelief. “This was your attempt at inviting us to dinner?”

“Are ye coming, or not?” Fionn demanded.

Bryant met the lovely Una’s eyes when he answered her father. “We’d be pleased to.”

“Speak for yourself,” Donnach muttered low enough only a wolf would be able to hear.

Or a very cantankerous old man, if the renewed glare Fionn gave the other Balmoral wolf was anything to go by.

EIGHT

Una fluttered like a hummingbird around her parents’ hut, helping her mother with final preparations for the latemeal.

One benefit to the ground village was that a family could cook in their own home without grave concern for the spread of fire.

Una couldn’t believe her mother had invited the wolves to sup with them, but part of her was fiercely glad Mòrag had. Una had been terribly disappointed when she hadn’t been taken to the spirit lands to meet up with Bryant in her sleep the night before.

But perhaps that was because she barely slept for thought of him. She’d spent the day mooning over the impossible and finally flown out of the treetops for her promised visit to her parents only to find her eagle inexorably drawn to the wolf.

“Why have you invited the Balmoral soldiers? Papa isn’t happy about it.”

“Bah. Your father spends half his life complaining about one thing or another. I know how to handle him.” Mòrag stirred the stew pot, adding a sprig of rosemary. “As I told your father, I wish to hear more of the lad Bryant’s family.”

“But why?” Una could not understand her mother’s curiosity about a wolf.

Her own was based on some obscure desire within Una’s eagle, but her mother? She should have no reason to want to know more about any of the Faol.

“Because he looks at you as a man intent on claiming a mate.”

“What?” Una practically shrieked. “I’m not his mate. I’m an eagle. He’s a wolf. We aren’t mates.”

No matter how he’d listed off a host of improbable sacred matings to her father.

“As you say,” Mòrag agreed far too easily and with such calm acceptance Una knew it to be false.

“You are plotting.”

Her mother continued to stir stew that needed no further tending, pretending she had not heard.

“I know it is a disappointment for you and Father.” Like so many things about their only daughter. “But I will never mate, Mother. I cannot. Not after what happened five years ago.”

“Nonsense.” Mòrag pulled the bricks from the oven opening and carefully drew forth the long baking paddle with two loaves of heavy dark bread from within.

They smelled so good, Una’s stomach would have growled if it were not tied firmly in knots by her mother’s words. “It isn’t nonsense. Surely you’ve noticed the wide distance the men of our tribe keep from me. I am considered a poor choice for a mate.”

“What rot.” Her mother slammed the bread paddle down with more force than could possibly be needed. “You would make a fine mate, but our men keep away because you have made it clear that when any man but your father gets within ten paces of you, you panic like a rabbit in a den of wolves.”

Funny her mother should put it that way, for it was exactly how Una had felt five years ago.

Mòrag sighed, looking at Una with sadness. “They know you fear them, so they stay away.”

“I won’t take a mate, I can’t.” Una couldn’t think of a clearer way to say it to her beloved mother. “I don’t deserve a mate,” she admitted.

“Yes, you do. Oh, my dearest daughter . . .” Mòrag left the bread to pull Una into a hug.

“I am your only daughter.”

“And still dearest to my heart.”

“Mama . . .” she said, using the diminutive she’d stopped saying those years go, and for once making no effort to spurn the affection offered.

“You deserve a fine strong mate like your father was for me, and children.” Mòrag hugged her hard. “Oh, I hope you have many, many children. I shall be such a fine granddam.”

“Mother . . .” Una started, not sure how to get through to the other woman.

“Naught but a sacred bond could pull you from your fear, I know that, child.”

“So, you understand?” Una pressed as she gently disengaged herself, needing her mother to accept the truth.

“Oh, yes, daughter. I understand. Do you?”

Una had no chance to answer as her father came inside at that moment, the two Balmoral soldiers behind him.

Both greeted her mother with gratitude for the invitation, and proper Chrechte respect.

But Bryant’s attention was on Una from the moment he entered the hut, his wolf’s storm-grey eyes fixed on her wherever she moved.

Somehow, Una found herself seated beside Bryant on the floor near the single small table the hut boasted, while her parents took the bench and Donnach sat on the only three-legged stool across from them. It was a cozy gathering, not unlike those in Una’s past.

Emotion clogged her throat, making it hard to eat and impossible to converse.

The heat from the Balmoral wolf crossed the space between them, warming Una in strange places, to be sure.

“Una said you told her, when she visited you in her eagle form, that you have family among the Éan.”

Una didn’t know why her mother had to make her visiting Bryant as an eagle sound so . . . significant. She found him fascinating, but felt safer as a bird because she could fly away if she needed to. That was all there was to it.

“In the generations that came before, yes.”

Even though she’d been there for most of his explanation before, Una listened with rapt fascination as Bryant recounted to her mother what he had said to her father earlier.

“So, you are related to Prince Eirik and Anya Gra. Have you made them aware of this?”

“I did not realize the significance of my family’s history until Fionn pointed it out.”

“Your family could only keep so many of the stories from one generation to the next. You lost history, just as we all have.” Mòrag spoke with sad resignation. “It is ever true and why the Chrechte are charged with assigning parts of their history to each family and sharing those stories at all the major feasts.”

“The Faol do not practice this.”

Una’s father slurped noisily at his food. “Clearly, or all of the wolves would be aware of the Éan’s existence, not only those who wanted us dead.”

“Our alpha wants the races reunited for just this reason,” Bryant said.

The fervor of true belief infused his voice, and Una caught herself wondering how much of his interest was in her personally and how much was on reconnecting their people. Through a mating?

If that was his plan, he’d do well to look for an easier target. Her eagle screeched in denial at the thought, but Una ignored her bird.

“He plans to come live in the forest, does he?” Una’s father asked aggressively.

But Bryant did not rise to the bait. He merely took a bite of his stew and complimented Una’s mother’s cooking.

“I’ve taught Una all I know of preparing food,” her mother said in reply, and apropos of nothing, Una thought. “Not that she has much use for the knowledge living alone as she does in our former home.”

“Why does she live alone?” Donnach asked. “A Balmoral daughter would never be allowed to live on her own as Una does.”

“She is safer high in the trees than she would be here in the village with us,” her father said, voicing a sentiment she knew well.

And agreed with.

“Surely other families keep their children with them.” Bryant sounded confused.

“If Una had stayed in the trees, the horror of five years past would never have happened.”

Una felt the horrible weight in her stomach that truth always brought.

Bryant looked far from impressed, or convinced. “If coming out of the trees caused such hardship, your entire village would have horror stories.”

“They know better than to venture beyond the depths of the forest.”

“You went exploring?” Bryant asked her directly.

She liked the way he refused to talk around and about her. Like the heat of his wolf at her side, it warmed her. “I found the humans of the clans and their ways infinitely fascinating. I liked to watch them in my eagle form.”

Una hated admitting her failings out loud, but she would not deny them, either. No matter how much she might like to.

“But you were not caught as eagle,” Bryant guessed with far too much astuteness.

“No.” She’d been in her human form, swimming in the loch and playing in the falls that fed it as she’d seen the clan’s children do.

“What happened? Why didn’t you shift and fly away?”

Una rubbed at her wrists where the iron spikes had been driven to hold her to the tree.

Bryant noticed the small telltale gesture and put his hand out. “May I see?”

She should tell him no, absolutely not, as she would if anyone else had requested thus. But Una found herself offering her wrists.

He tugged up the sleeves of her blouse, a growl echoing in the otherwise silent hut as his eyes fell on the scars that could not be misinterpreted.

“They did this to you?”

“They found sport in hurting and terrifying me,” she admitted, not really understanding why she did so. Only that her eagle insisted on it.

Bryant lifted his head, his grey gaze boring into her father. “And did you kill them?”

“Those we caught, we killed, but not easily and not without cost.”

“There were nearly a dozen of them. They performed some strange ritual, not of the Chrechte, I don’t think.”

“Any women?” Donnach asked, his voice filled with revulsion.

“No. Only men. One of them was being initiated into the group. He drove the spikes in, to prove his commitment to their cause.”

“He is not dead,” her father said with frustrated venom. “But I have been in no condition to hunt him.”

“Would you still recognize his scent?” Bryant asked in a tone that made her shiver.

“We are not wolves, our sense of smell and hearing is only slightly better than a human’s.”

“You would recognize him.”

“I would,” Una said with certainty. “Though it is my deepest wish never to lay eyes on him again.”

“Describe him.”

“Why?” Una asked, unable to understand why he would request such a thing of her.

“That I may find and kill him.”

“What? No!”

“He was Donegal,” Donnach guessed.

“They wore no plaids. I do not know if all the men were of the same clan, though some were. I’d seen them among the Donegals before that,” she admitted in a quiet voice.

Una could not understand it when she found herself pulled into Bryant’s lap and was even more shocked when neither of her parents made a complaint.

“Describe this miscreant to me,” Bryant urged, his chest rumbling with a wolf’s growl.

It should have frightened her, but for the first time in five years, Una felt truly safe. ’Twas a conundrum she had no hope of deciphering, but gave thanks for all the same.

To have even a few moments without fear would be a blessing indeed. If the cost was describing the men who had hurt her, the ones her clansmen had not killed . . . then it was a price she would pay.

Later, Bryant insisted her mother accompany Una back into the treetops to see her safely in her home. She wanted his company, not that of her parent, but no words left her lips to tell him so.

NINE

Una did not see Bryant for five days after the dinner with her parents. Not at night, while she slept. Not each afternoon when she went down to visit her mother in the village. She didn’t see the other Balmoral, Donnach, either.

On the second day, she inquired in passing if her mother had seen Bryant, but Mòrag hadn’t heard the question. And Una had been too embarrassed to be asking it to repeat her words.

She noted her father was less vocal in his displeasure about the Faol soldiers staying in the village, but he didn’t mention Bryant by name.

On the third day, Una’s eagle grew restless enough for her to repeat the question to her mother, but received a simple, “I don’t know,” in reply.

Not at all helpful.

Given Una’s reticence in social situations, her mother’s astonishment could be forgiven when Una suggested they visit one of the families housing another Faol warrior, this one from the Sinclair clan.

“I did not realize you were on close terms with the daughter of the house.”

“We are of an age,” Una said noncommittally.

In truth, Una had done little to maintain any of her childhood friendships in the last five years. And for the first time, she realized regret in that.

The visit proved wholly unfruitful in discovering the whereabouts of the Balmoral soldiers, but Una enjoyed reconnecting with her once bosom friend very much.

She was also quite proud of her reaction to the Sinclair soldier. As long as he stayed on the other side of the room, her fear remained controllable and no attack of panicked terror ensued.

By the fourth day, she was desperate enough to ask her father if he had seen the soldiers.

“They’ve gone hunting,” he replied.

She should have considered that possibility. Still . . . “Aren’t wolves very good at the hunt? I would not have thought he would be gone this long.”

“It depends on the prey they are hunting.” When her father did not follow up that statement with a diatribe about how the Faol hunted the Éan, Una was both confused and surprised.

The fifth day showed no more sign of the men’s return than the first. She returned to her home in the trees quite late, hoping if she stayed in the village with her parents, she might be there when the men returned from their hunt.

But her mother sent her home after the sun had set, saying she and her father were old people and needed their rest.

Una barely noted her father’s umbrage at once again being called old, and flew up to her home in the treetops, determined to seek out her prince the next day and ask him the whereabouts of the two soldiers.

Surely it was his responsibility to know, as he was beholden for their behavior while among the Éan.

She readied herself for bed, brushing out her hair with desultory movements, holding little hope that tonight would see her on another sojourn to the spirit realm.

A sound like claws scratching on the floor came from the other room and Una froze in her movements. While the noise could not possibly be what her senses were telling her it was, it was definitively not the sound of branches rustling in the wind, either.

She knew each nuance of that music with great mastery, as she’d spent her entire life hearing it.

The candle beside her bed cast the room in which she slept in dim golden light, but there was no mistaking the shape of the shadow in the doorway.

Wolf.

She dropped the brush in shock . . . but not fear. She’d been so certain if she ever saw his other form, she’d be terrified out of her mind.

But in that moment, Una realized it was not the wolf that she feared. It was the evil in men’s hearts that would allow them to do to her what the ones who had caught her had done.

He whined at her, like asking for permission to enter.

She took a deep breath and letting it out, patted the spot on the furs beside her. “They were not wolves when they hurt me.”

She knew she sounded like she’d just made that realization, but then again . . . she had. All this time, she’d been so afraid. Of the Faol that hunted her people. Of the warriors in her own tribe. Of men.

But she had no reason to fear the wolf.

She knew it in her deepest being.

He crept forward slowly, as if not to scare her. She waited with held breath for him to come closer.

He settled on the furs beside her and she let the breath out in a long sigh. “My eagle is certain you are my protector.”

He nodded his canine head and then nuzzled into her lap.

She reached down with tentative fingers and brushed them through the soft wolf’s pelt. “You are a beautiful creature.”

They had no need for words, for she could see the satisfaction her words gave Bryant and his wolf.

“I was afraid to see you like this, but nothing about your wolf frightens me.”

He made a chuffing noise and nuzzled her again, more forcefully, nearly knocking her backward.

She found herself giggling, a sound she hadn’t heard from herself in so long, it momentarily stunned her into immobility.

He shifted so his head rubbed into her neck and she giggled again. Stars above.

But she was ticklish.

“I forgot,” she whispered into his ruff.

He made a whining sound of question.

“That I am ticklish.”

That chuffing sound came again and then he was rubbing the other side of her neck and finally she knew what he was doing.

“You are scenting me.”

It was not as if he could answer in his current form, but his ministrations increased, his wolf rubbing against every bit of exposed skin she had.

Her neck, her face, her hands, her feet and then he was trying to nose under her shift.

She jumped back. “Stop. What are you doing?”

He made a whining sound again, this time more plaintive.

“I will not take off my shift,” she assured the wolf.

He took hold of the hem in his teeth and tugged, his intent clear.

“Stop that. You are going to rip it.”

The wolf did not appear to care, pulling harder on the fabric.

“You are too forward,” she accused and then realized how ridiculous she sounded.

Telling a wolf, of all things, it was too forward.

Oh, she knew that like other Chrechte, Bryant was fully cognizant as a wolf. But she also knew that like herself, when in his animal form, for the most part his animal instincts ruled.

“You can’t mean to scent me all over,” she said, though she was very much afraid he did.

His only answer was to tug harder on the hem of her shift. The sound of fabric renting filled the air.

She cried out. “Fine. Will you please stop? I’ll take it off.”

He stopped tugging, but did not let go of the shift.

“I promise,” she said, unable to believe her own words, but even more the genuine intent behind them.

She was going to allow the wolf to scent her. His need to do so was so strong, she could not deny him.

She did not understand, but she knew that she’d missed him these past five days and feared never seeing him again.

The ache to be near him had caused her eagle to constantly fight for supremacy . . . she had wanted to take to the skies and find him.

She’d had no thoughts to fly beyond the deepest parts of the forest in five years.

Bryant released her shift and she tugged it over her head, but put her hand up to stop him coming closer. “After you have scented me, you will shift. We will talk.”

He gave a short bark of agreement and she dropped her hand.

He marked her body with his scent, making her giggle more than once as she discovered more ticklish places than she knew she had.

Finally, the wolf seemed satisfied and lay beside her on the furs, a strange rumbling sound much like a purr, but not, coming from deep in his chest.

Mayhap it could be described as a happy growl?

Regardless, ’twas more than apparent the beast was appeased.

She let him bask in his contentment for long minutes before reminding him that he needed to shift.

He gave another bark of acquiescence and she turned her back to give him privacy for it.

“You no longer fear me,” he said by way of telling her it was done.

She turned to face him, curiously unashamed of her nudity. “There is naught to fear in you.”

He was the only man who would ever see her thus. Of that she was certain.

“Some have reason to refute that statement.”

“No doubt, but they are not me.”

“Nay, they are not you.”

She swallowed, finding it difficult to form the words she wanted to say, but she forced them out. “I missed you.”

“And this surprises you?” He did not sound happy by the prospect.

“It does.”

“Why?”

“I do not know you.”

“You know me too well.”

“But . . .”

“In the dreams we shared—”

“They were not dreams; I explained when we were together in the land of Chrechte spirits.”

“Call them dreams, or a different place our spirits go, but we shared our time there, aye?”

“Yes.”

“You allowed me to kiss you.”

“I have courage there I do not usually enjoy.”

“You have a sense of safety there you do not feel when you are awake.”

“I felt safe when you held me in my parents’ hut.”

“That is good to know.”

“Is it? Why?”

“You know.”

She shook her head, even as her eagle whispered a word she’d been sure the bird would never utter. Mate.

“Tell me, Una, who shares dreams among our people?”

“Our people?” she asked.

“Yes, our people. We are all Chrechte. You are an eagle. I am a brown wolf. Others among my clan are white, grey and black . . . some with differing gifts merely because of the color of their fur. In your own tribe you have ravens and eagles.”

“And hawks.” Though their numbers were even less than the eagles, as both protectors of their people had been hunted near to extinction.

“I did not know.”

“They are so few, we protect their numbers by never exposing them, even to the humans in our tribe.”

“It is a hard way to live.”

She nodded. No use denying the truth.

“But sometimes even a very difficult life comes with blessings.”

“Most times, yes.”

“Like finding your true mate.” The expression in the wolf’s eyes filled with meaning.

Una shook her head, not so much in denial as incomprehension.

“Una, sweeting . . .” He moved forward until the heat from his body called out to hers. “What does it mean when two Chrechte share their dreams?”

She opened her mouth to tell him that they hadn’t been dreaming.

But he laid his finger against her lips. “Or are called together in the land of the spirits?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered. “Only those of royal blood, or who are called on a quest can visit the spirit plane.”

He was of royal descent, but that didn’t explain her being there with him. And in each sojourn, she had only ever seen someone else that first time.

“Or sacred mates.”

“It cannot be.”

“It is.”

“But . . .” She was going to argue that she was afraid of him, that they could not be mates because she could not share intimacy with him.

Only it would have been a lie. Una no longer felt even a trickling of anxiety in Bryant’s presence.

“They didn’t violate me,” she said so quietly, she was not sure he would hear.

“They tortured you.”

“I have scars.” Faded in five years, but still there.

“I see nothing but marks of strength and courage on a beautiful body.”

“I . . .”

“You belong to me. With me. Now and always.”

“I can’t.”

“You do.”

Her gaze rose to meet his. “Can a wolf love an eagle?”

“Aye.”

Her breath stuttered and she waited for him to say more.

“How could I not love you, Una?”

“But you do not know me.”

“I know you in a way none other ever could,” he argued.

She shook her head.

“I have killed for you,” he claimed.

Her body went rigid with shock. “What?”

“Your father told me you wondered where I had gone. He told you I was hunting.”

The import of his words was not lost on her, but it was only secondary in that moment. “You spoke to my father first?”

“It is proper. And he needed to know it was done.”

“What? What was done?”

“The men who hurt you. They are dead.”

TEN

How?” She did not doubt his wolf’s prowess at the hunt, but how had Bryant found the men whom she had not seen in five years?

“Lais helped me. Based on your descriptions and what he knew of his former clansmen, he was able to guess at the identity of the one who did this.” Bryant ran his thumb over the scar on one of her wrists.

“He was Donegal then?”

“Aye. Lais did not participate in the kill, but he helped us to track your tormentors.”

“But why?”

“Justice.”

“What of mercy?”

“You were not their only victim.”

“How do you know?”

“They confessed . . . boasted more like.”

“And for that, they had to die?”

“Aye.”

She tried to feel shock, or dismay, but all she experienced was a profound relief. “I am glad.”

“Aye, because they did not break your spirit.”

“My father thinks they did.”

“He knows better now.”

“Because you told him?”

“Yes.”

“Is killing love then?” she asked, not mocking, but trying to understand.

“Let me show you what it means to be mated to the one destiny created just for you and then you will tell me what love is.”

She would have chided him for his arrogance, but could find no breath for words. Not with him standing so close, his sex already hard and kissing her stomach with moisture.

She was a shifter and though she had more modesty than most, she was accustomed to nudity for the shift. But this nakedness with him was different.

It made her feel things her body had not yet experienced, though her eagle told her they were right and true. She wanted to touch, to be touched.

She wanted to join with him as she’d been certain she would never join with another. The thought of her father’s reaction to her mating a wolf came forth to bedevil her, but for the first time in five years the thought of disappointing him was less important than the happiness flickering to life inside her.

And yet, she said, “My father—”

“Has given us his blessing, grudging though it is. If I hurt you, he will dismember me. It was a vow.”

She nodded, unexpected joy surging through her. “My mother believes us to be true mates.”

“She is a wise woman.”

“Aye.”

“The time for talking is past.” His words came out strained and tight and the hardness standing sentinel between them shifted against her skin, leaving a trail of moisture in its wake.

She reached down and ran her fingertip through the viscous fluid. Though her senses were not as sharp as a wolf’s in this regard, the scent of him still drove her near to her knees.

Her eagle cried out to be claimed.

She brought her finger to her mouth, tasting his essence with a delicate lick of her tongue.

Bryant’s eyes flared with passion and a growl sounded from his throat before he yanked her to him, stealing the salty flavor from her tongue and replacing it with the sweetness that was his mouth. The kiss was incendiary, beyond anything they had shared in the spirit realm.

The sensations in the flesh were more acute, sharp with pleasure so great she moaned against his lips entirely wantonly.

His hands roamed over her body; everywhere the wolf had scented, Bryant now touched, making her his before he ever joined their bodies as one.

Spots that had been ticklish before now buzzed with delight at each caress, enhancing her arousal until even she could smell the scent of her body’s preparation for him.

One big hand slid between her legs, masculine fingers delving into flesh that had never been touched. Even by her.

The ecstasy was so immense, her strength gave out. He held her up with no evidence of effort, his muscular arm locked tight around her while his hand touched her most intimate flesh in secret and surely forbidden ways.

It felt too good to be proper behavior.

But then she was an Éan . . . propriety meant little to her people.

This delight, however? It was something too amazing to ever do without again.

Oh, that the Creator would not let her have to do without it again.

The arm holding her up shifted, and suddenly his fingertip was between her nether cheeks, teasing at flesh she never would have suspected had so much feeling.

She tore her mouth from his. “Bryant!”

“Aye, lass?”

“You . . . that . . .”

“Nothing is forbidden between mates.”

Her head came forward, her mouth settling against the join of his neck and shoulder. “Mates,” she whispered before biting him in a way meant to leave a mark.

His entirely masculine groan of appreciation shivered through her, making her thighs clench. “I thought only wolves bit to mark their mates.”

She nuzzled into his neck, kissing and licking where she’d bitten him. “I will scent you, too, though maybe not as thoroughly as you have done me.”

Her eagle only needed this kind of cuddling, head to head, to be satisfied. The feminine Chrechte inside her, on the other hand, wanted Bryant to wear marks of her possession just as she was sure to wear his.

He laid her down on the furs. “This is forever, you understand that?”

She looked up at him in confusion. “Isn’t it always?”

He shook his head. “But that doesn’t matter, because this is.”

“Yes.”

He growled and then devoured her, his mouth following the trail his fingers had blazed earlier.

When he took one of her nipples into his mouth, she arched up off the furs, feeling that right in her core. He continued to caress her body to a higher and higher pitch of pleasure.

She wanted to return the favor, though she had no experience of a man’s body.

He didn’t seem to care, moaning and growling with every exploration of her fingers. She traced the lines of his muscles down his chest, along the tree trunks he called legs and then to that hot, throbbing erection between them.

It pulsed in her hand, her fingers unable to completely encompass its girth.

She did not ask if he would fit in that place inside her. There was no option. He had to fit, because she must have him inside her.

She spread her legs in invitation and his head came up just like a wolf scenting the wind. “You want me.”

Did he need the words? “Yes. Claim me.”

Stillness came over them, the moment profound, where only a second before it had been all heated passion.

He shifted until his engorged flesh pressed against her untried opening. “Do you accept me into your body?” he asked in ancient Chrechte.

“Yes,” she responded in kind.

“Do you accept me into your life?”

“Yes.”

“Does your eagle accept me as her mate?”

“Ye . . .” Una had to swallow back inexplicable and wholly unexpected tears. “Yes.”

“Will you accept my protection, my care and my Chrechte honor as yours?”

“I will.”

He fell silent.

She stared up at him through the candlelight, taking several calming breaths before she asked. “Do you accept my body as your only succor?”

“I do. I will never lie with another.”

Though true mates were not physically capable of doing so, his tone said his promise was deeper than mere physical ability.

“Do you accept me into your life?”

“Now and always,” he promised in their ancient tongue.

“Does your wolf accept me as your mate?”

“Oh, yes.”

She smiled at his vehemence and then asked the final vow. “Will you accept my care and support, the love my heart will have only for you?”

It was not a necessary promise in the current Chrechte ceremonies, but the ways of the ancients were strong in Una’s treetop home this night.

“Always.”

Anya Gra would bless their mating later, speaking the ancient words over them in benediction, and they would receive their mating marks, tattoos of blue ink that would show any who cared to look that she and Bryant were mated for life. The prince would proclaim them man and wife before the entire tribe, but these vows spoken tonight were irrevocable.

None could undo them or deny their validity, though none but the Creator witnessed them.

Neither spoke or moved for long seconds and then he breached her, the pain instant and great. She cried out in shock, but he stopped moving even before she made a sound, remaining still while her body adjusted to the foreign intrusion.

Miraculously, the pain brought back no bad memories and soon was transforming to a pleasure so intense, the world outside the joining of their two bodies ceased to exist.

She shifted her hips, sending pleasure zinging through her. He reacted with a curse in their ancient tongue and she found reason to smile even as she moved again.

The wolf could not stand for her to be in control for long and within a moment he was directing their movements, his body thrusting so his big erection pushed and pulled in and out of her body.

Each tiny increment forward and back brought with it a million sparkles of delight throughout her body. She was soon mindless with the ecstasy of his claiming, her body moving of its own volition in ways meant to enhance the already overwhelming pleasure.

“You are mine,” he ground out as he bottomed out in her, pressing against something inside that was beyond pleasure and not quite pain.

“You are mine.”

“Aye.”

“I am yours,” she agreed then.

His smile was feral.

And then he swiveled his hips on the next downward thrust and she felt the maelstrom inside of her spiral out of control. She screamed as her body exploded with pleasure too great to bear in silence.

“I give you my child,” he promised as his body went rigid and then he cried her name out and spilled his seed inside her.

“You believe we made a child?” she asked in awe, but grave doubt.

Even sacred mates didn’t get with child that quickly, did they?

“I know I did.”

ELEVEN

And suddenly, they were no longer in her bedroom in the trees, but lay together, joined as one beside the bubbling brook in the land of the Chrechte spirits.

“We are not asleep,” Bryant said in awe.

“We were never dreaming.”

“You like to be right.”

“Mayhap.”

He smiled down at her, his hardness inside her not deflating as she’d once been told by her mother to expect.

“Bryant?”

“I will claim you again, here in the place that gave you to me.”

She could do naught but nod.

And they made love again. It was love, too . . . as he had promised. He’d shown her the emotion that defied reason, time and circumstance.

This time she spoke her words of love as she found the ultimate pleasure. “My heart beats for you now.”

His expression held such a wealth of emotion it brought healing tears to her eyes. “I love you this day and forever, my eagle. My sacred mate.”

“You believed.”

“And now you do.”

She nodded, her throat too choked for more words.

“You will be a bridge between the races.” The words spoken by the celi di Una had met the first time she’d come to the spirit plane washed over them with a power that sent Una’s pleasure spiking again.

“Your children will bless this generation and the ones to come,” the celi di continued to intone.

And then she was gone.

“That was . . .” For once, Una’s Faol warrior appeared lost for words.

“Surprisingly right.” Having a celi di speak a blessing and prophesy like that over them as they consummated their sacred mating was . . . the ancient way of things.

And really beautiful.

The spirit realm melted around them and they were back in her bedroom, her mate still inside her.

He began moving again and she made a sound, not a protest, but perhaps simply shock.

“We have an entire night of joining to look forward to,” he said as if reading her expression.

“But . . .”

“We are sacred mates.”

“And that makes everything perfect?” she asked, even as her body greedily accepted his.

“We make it perfect, or as near as we can. It is up to us, your eagle, my wolf, our humanity to make this mating all that the celi di said it would be.”

“I don’t want to leave the forest.”

“Then I will live here with you.”

“I will go to meet your family,” she offered, and even as the words left her mouth, she knew that a day would come when she would willingly leave her home in the forest behind.

Not today . . . but the day was coming.

Bryant’s smile was blinding, brighter than a thousand candles lit in a single room. “My mother is going to love you.”

“So long as her son does, I will be content.”

“With all my heart.”

“It is a miracle.”

“Don’t you know, Una? Life is a miracle.”

And for the first time in five years, she believed it.

Her agreement was lost in his kiss.

GLOSSARY OF TERMS

bairn—Scottish Gaelic term for baby

beguines—self-running nunnery without vows to the church, not supported by the official church as related to Rome (historically accurate term in the British Isles)

ben—hill

Ben Bristecrann—broken tree hill (a sacred spot to Ciara’s family)

brae—hill or slope

Cahir—warriors who fight the Fearghall

celi di—Scottish Highland priest practicing Catholicism with no official ties to the church in Rome (historically accurate term in relation to Scotland and Ireland)

Chrechte—shifters who share their souls with wolves, birds or cats of prey

Clach Gealach Gra—(moon’s heart stone) the bird shifter’s sacred stone

conriocht—werewolf (protector of the Faol, shifts into giant half wolf/half man–type creature—protector for the Éan is the dragon and Paindeal is the griffin)

Éan—bird shifters (ravens, eagles and hawks)

Faol—wolf shifters

faolán—little wolf (Gaelic term of endearment)

Faolchú Chridhe—(wolf’s heart) the wolf shifter’s sacred stone

Fearghall—secret society of wolves intent on wiping out/ subjugating other races of the Chrechte

femwolf—female wolf shifter

kelle—warrior priestess (mentioned in Celtic mythology)

Kyle Kirksonas—River of the Healing Church (where the healing caves are on MacLeod land)

loch—lake

mate-link—the special mental bond between true/sacred mates

mindspeak—communicating via a mental link

mo gra—Gaelic for “my love”

Paindeal—cat shifters (large cats of prey)

Paindeal Neart—(panther’s strength) the panther shifter’s sacred stone

usquebagh—“water of life” (Scotch whiskey)