Warrior's Moon

Chapter 24

While Eirik and his mate explored the sacred caves, Caelis and Vegar planned their challenge. The other four MacLeod soldiers had come with them as well as Thomas.

All were prepared to fight by Caelis’s side for the right to rule the pack and the clan.

“Today is a Chrechte feast day,” Maon offered. “The entire pack will be gathered at the keep with Uven tonight. The humans who remain in the clan know to stay away from his special gatherings.”

Caelis knew this to be true. “Then that is when I must make my challenge.”

“It will not be easy.” Maon sighed. “Believing a lie is less work that fighting to follow the truth.”

“Mayhap for some, but not all.”

Thomas added, “And they will have the evidence of Shona and the children staring them in the face.”

Caelis did not like that part of the plan and let his scowl say so.

“There is no other way,” Vegar said firmly.

Maon nodded. “She must stand by your side—not only to prove Uven’s lies, but to show that humans are not beneath the Chrechte and that her strength is greater than Uven’s threats and machinations.”

The statement was a huge change in thinking for the powerful Faol, and Caelis was glad he hadn’t killed the man in their battle.

He could also grudgingly concede that Maon had a point, but he did not have to like it.

“Mum is strong,” Eadan added, his little boy trust in his mother absolute. “She got us out of the barony when Percival wanted to kill me and keep her for his company. And she is supposed to be there.”

The very thought of what kind of company Percival had in mind had Caelis growling. He pulled his son to him. “No one will harm either of you now.”

“I know, Da.”

Caelis knew there was no choice but to live up to the trust his son placed in him as well.

The sound and scents of multiple Chrechte came from within the keep, even from the distance Caelis and his followers stood in the forest.

He could not believe they had not been challenged as they approached the laird’s home though. The MacLeod keep was not a fortress like the Sinclair or Balmoral holdings with high walls, towers and a bailey, but Uven had always maintained a posting of perimeter guards.

Usually paranoid, the Faol laird had grown so arrogantly complacent. According to Maon, the man had made it a practice in the last year to pull his perimeter guards into the feast. After the death of his second a year ago and the loss of the soldiers he sent north to fetch his daughter, Caelis would have thought Uven would want to increase security, not loosen it.

But apparently the laird believed showing disdain for his enemies was some kind of protection in itself.

He would learn differently this night.

There was only a single guard at the door and two who walked the grounds immediately outside the rough keep.

Vegar took out the two sentries with little effort, swooping in as an eagle and shifting to his human form to incapacitate without killing. He left each one unconscious and tied up behind the keep before returning to the others in the forest.

Uven was so confident the Éan lived in fear of the Faol, he had not trained his guards in defensive warfare against a foe who could fly. They didn’t even watch the sky for the approach of a possible enemy.

“Good work.” Caelis bumped shoulders with Vegar before turning to face Shona. “Remember the plan.”

She nodded, a small smile forming on her too kissable lips. “Stay out of sight with Thomas and the MacLeod soldiers until you give the signal.”

He bent down and kissed her. “Stay safe.”

“I will.” The dazed look in her eyes from the kiss was more comforting than her promise.

And Caelis took the memory of it with him as he approached the door sentry openly and alone.

Excluded from the revelry inside, the young Faol soldier had no doubt been assigned his position because Uven was angry with him. It was the way the laird ran his pack.

“Caelis?” the man standing guard at the foot of the steps leading up to the keep’s entrance asked, recognition warring with surprise on his youthful features.

“Aye, it is me.”

“Uven said the Sinclair had killed you.”

“Nay.”

“But…” The young soldier didn’t seem to know what to say.

“I will speak to Uven.”

The younger man nodded and then seemed to realize he should mayhap challenge Caelis’s assertion. “Do you have permission to be here?”

“I am MacLeod. I am Chrechte. What more permission do I need? Will you challenge my right to be here?”

“I…” The youth swallowed convulsively. “Where were you? If the Sinclair did not kill you, why have you not returned to your pack until now?”

“I had much to learn. The Sinclair, a great Chrechte leader, did not kill me. He trained me to be a true Chrechte of honor.”

“What does that mean?” the youth asked, sounding confused and strangely hopeful.

“It means that Uven has done naught but use this clan and pack for his own purposes. He has manipulated and twisted our sacred laws to serve his perverted goals,” Maon said as he stepped forward.

The youth’s eyes widened with shock. “Maon! You are on a special assignment for Uven.”

“I was, until that task killed my brother and revealed to me the truth of Uven’s twisted teachings.”

“You are going to challenge our alpha?” the young soldier asked with clear disbelief.

“No,” Caelis said, pushing the sentry aside inexorably but without anger. “I am.”

He let out a short low whistle and moments later, his other supporters stepped forward. They surrounded Shona, putting themselves between her and danger.

The gate guard looked around himself, his tension increasing as no other guards stepped forward to back him up.

“You can stay here, or you can come and see Uven defeated as laird and pack alpha,” Caelis told him before mounting the steps.

The others followed behind. He was not surprised when the scent of the gatekeeper joined theirs.

Caelis had a plan for how he intended to handle the challenge, but it would disappear faster than a challenging Chrechte under Eirik’s dragon fire if the safety of his mate was threatened.

He threw the door to the keep open and stepped inside, his senses on alert in a way those within clearly were not.

Uven sat at the main table, eating with his hands, laughing in the loud baritone so familiar to Caelis.

Memories assailed him of this man who had been stand-in father, only for Caelis to learn that his true parent had died at the power-hungry alpha’s hands.

“He stole much from you, but you are stronger than him. Even if you were not Chrechte, you would be stronger,” Shona said to Caelis over their mating bond.

He allowed her words to fill his mind and his heart so he could do what needed doing. Uven, pack alpha and laird, had to die.

The corrupted laird and his inner circle all seemed to realize Caelis was there at the same time, their revelry dying with the speed of a candle blowing out.

Uven stood, dropping the leg of mutton he’d been chewing on. “So the prodigal son returns.”

“I am no son of yours.” Caelis did not raise his voice, knowing his fellow Faol could hear his every word even if he whispered.

He would not whisper, but he would not give the laird the satisfaction of thinking he’d driven Caelis to shouting either.

“You say that, when I raised you like my own?”

“After you murdered my parents, you took the place that did not belong to you. But that seems to be your specialty.”

“You dare accuse me of murder?”

“You are guilty of it over and over.”

The mutters around them grew in volume and Caelis was shocked to realize he heard criticisms of Uven from several directions. How blind had he been to both Uven’s perfidy and the number of Chrechte already unhappy with the alpha’s leadership?

Uven might be oblivious to the risks surrounding his clan, but he was aware of his pack’s displeasure, as the there-and-then-gone-again grimace on his face showed.

“It is not murder when you kill the disloyal,” he announced with an ugly superciliousness Caelis would never allow himself to be guilty of.

“Disagreement is not disloyalty. You are alpha, not a god.”

“What are we but gods among humanity?” Uven countered.

Caelis did not answer, the scent of his mate coming nearer to distracting him. She would make a terrible warrior. She did not take orders well at all, but she made the perfect mate.

“You’re an idiot,” Shona said from behind Caelis. “A conceited liar who has no right to lead.”

Caelis felt a smile take over the fury on his face. His mate was outspoken and fearless despite all she’d been through.

“You find this human’s disrespect amusing?” Uven demanded, his own fury rising.

“My sacred mate only speaks the truth.”

“She is human. She is not your true mate. I told you this.”

“Oh, yes, you told me. You also told me she died, but both were lies.”

“Anything I said, I said for your benefit,” Uven claimed, sounding like he believed his own words.

But then, he’d always been adept at lying. Too adept.

“It is against Chrechte sacred law to withhold true mates from one another.”

Uven slammed his fist down on the table, sending plates rattling to the rushes. “I make the laws for our pack.”

“You are Chrechte subject to our ancient dictates, just as any other.”

“She is not your true mate,” Uven repeated.

A heavy thump sounded on the roof of the keep.

“What was that?”

The other Chrechte were staring at the ceiling, questions rising around them in a steadily increasing cacophony.

“Proof Shona is my true mate.”

Uven’s glare would have impacted Caelis at one time, but no longer.

A minute later, Eirik walked through the door to the great hall, Ciara and Audrey behind him, Eadan and Marjory each holding one of the women’s hands.

“Who is this?” Uven demanded, but the way his nostrils flared said he knew.

“This is Eirik, Prince of the Éan and protector of his race.” Caelis watched to see if Uven understood the implications of that statement.

The pack leader paled and said, “Impossible.”

“Possible,” Caelis disagreed.

“Kill him.” Uven pointed to Eirik. “He is our enemy.”

“He is my friend!” Caelis shouted now, not with a loss of control but with an absolute demand to be heard above the din. “The first to try to touch him will face my wrath.”

Uven tried to look unimpressed, but he could not hide the lines of concern creasing his brow.

Good. It was time for the selfish leader to face the consequences of his egotism.

Once again, Caelis let his voice boom throughout the room. “I claim the right to challenge you for leadership of our pack and our clan.”

“You are not MacLeod anymore.” But even the youngest babe would be able to tell Uven was grasping at a threadbare rope to safety.

“I wear our colors. I am our clan, just as everyone here is.”

And everyone in that room was Chrechte. Everyone could smell both Caelis’s and Shona’s scents mixed in Eadan, not to mention his marking scent on Shona. They could also hear and scent the truth because Uven in his conceit had done so little to hide it.

The man was so blinded by self-interest, he thought he was right.

“You assume you can dismiss our laws, murder all who oppose you and lie to any who will believe you without compunction or accountability.” Caelis drew his sword and held the hilt in front of his heart. “I challenge you.”

“You believe you can beat me, boy? You are a fool.” Uven looked around him, but even his inner circle did not step up to deny the right of Caelis to challenge for the position of alpha.

The fact that he had strong warriors standing as a living wall at his back may well have impacted that.

“You would kill me over this little human slut?” Uven barked.

“I am no slut and I am not ashamed to be human,” Shona enunciated, righteous indignation lacing her every word.

Caelis knew what Uven was trying to do.

He thought he would get under Caelis’s emotions and cause him to act hastily, but Caelis didn’t question his mate’s strength or her ability to stand firm against Uven’s stupidity.

She cared nothing for her former laird’s opinion. His words could not hurt her even if they made Caelis burn with the need to feed them back down the laird’s throat.

“You threatened him,” Shona accused Uven, but Caelis did not know what she was talking about.

Thus far, the laird had done little but puff and posture. His assertion that Caelis was not strong enough to beat him hardly constituted a threat.

She turned to Caelis. “Uven threatened my father. He told him that if you and I mated, he would kill me to give you your freedom.”

Fury washed through Caelis, but he did not understand how she knew.

“I can hear his thoughts,” she said with awe. “I…I think it’s my Chrechte gift.”

“That’s impossible. You are human,” Uven disparaged.

Shona glared at him, loathing in her eyes. “You killed your own true mate because you believed Chrechte should never mate humans. You saw my father as an abomination because he was a human born of a Chrechte-human pairing. You raped my mother to teach both my parents some twisted lesson. That is when she changed.”

Shona turned to Caelis, her eyes wet with tears. “It wasn’t me. It was Uven and what he did to her. She didn’t hate me; she wanted me away from him at any cost.”

She loved me, but he broke her. The words came across their mate bond. His actions nearly broke me, but they didn’t.

Even the fierce pride in his mate’s voice could not control the the fierce rage gripping Caelis, but then his wife sent him an image that pulled him back from the brink of disregarding Chrechte law just as Uven had done.

It was a memory so beautiful it touched him to his very soul: the sight of his son drinking at his mother’s breast for the first time.

Caelis pushed back his conriocht and reined in his wolf. “Accept my challenge, or concede and leave this holding never to return,” he bit out to Uven.

Uven paled and flinched, but then rallied and boasted self-importantly, “You will die this night, upstart.”

Caelis laughed and did not even bother to reply.

Uven shifted and attacked without warning or waiting for the formal challenge to begin.

Caelis did not bother to shift. He had been trained by the best to fight a Faol in his Chrechte form without shifting himself.

Avoiding the snapping jaws aimed at his jugular, he spun away and then turned back, landing in a fighting stance just as Talorc had taught him to do.

Uven snarled, saliva dripping from his fangs, his eyes yellow with madness Caelis used to mistake for Chrechte power. The beast lunged again, but this time Caelis was ready for him. He feinted and then lunged, taking hold of the huge wolf by its scruff and one foreleg.

Caelis twisted into a spin, waiting until he had built up enough momentum to release. Uven’s beast sailed through the air to hit the wall so hard, the crack of a beam could be heard.

Clansmen shouted, but none came to the corrupt laird’s aid.

The wolf slipped the first time it tried to stand. Caelis let Uven find his feet, though.

He would kill the old bastard with honor and take pride in his strength to do it.

Rallying, the beast growled, gnashing its teeth as it stalked toward Caelis, only veering at the last second to lunge at Shona.

Caelis roared and leapt, his warrior’s hands closing around the neck of the beast before once again tossing it into the wall.

This time, Caelis gave the bastard no chance to regroup, but simply crossed the hall in a few long leaps to land against the wolf’s chest with his knee.

He grabbed the wolf’s head and looked into Uven’s eyes. “For your sins against our people, you have been judged guilty and will die at the hands of the Cahir.”

The spark of recognition in Uven’s eyes lasted only as long as it took for Caelis to snap the wolf’s neck.

He stood, one foot pressed against the neck of the dead Chrechte. “I am your laird. I am your alpha. Accept it, or leave.”

“What if we want to challenge you?” one of Uven’s inner circle asked.

Caelis laughed just as he had at Uven’s overweening confidence. “Then challenge me.”

Two did and two more Chrechte lost their lives. Caelis had given each the option to submit or die. Both had chosen death.

Three dead Faol lay on the floor of the great hall and Caelis turned to those remaining. “Are there any others who would challenge my right to lead?”

“You haven’t even shifted into your wolf,” the young sentry who had been guarding the door said.

“Humans are not weak like Uven always claimed.”

“But you are not human.”

“And yet as a man, I defeated three Chrechte wolves.”

One man dropped to his knee, put his hand over his heart and swore fealty to Caelis. Over the next few minutes, every male in the room followed the first Faol’s example. But the women remained standing.

Shona came to stand beside Caelis and looked around them. “I am human. I am your lady. Do you swear fealty to me?”

It took a moment, but one by one, the men bowed their heads to Shona. All but one.

Uven’s nephew glared at Shona. “I swear loyalty to no woman.”

Caelis moved so fast that when he reached the man and smacked him to his face on the floor, the other Faol wore a shocked expression. “You will leave this holding if you do not both apologize to my wife, but also promise personal fealty to her.”

He was unsurprised when the man refused. Caelis looked to Vegar. “See him off our land.”

Vegar nodded, grabbing the man by the scruff of his neck.

“You’re Éan,” Uven’s nephew spat.

Vegar grinned. “Good of you to notice, but I cannot claim to be impressed by how long it took you to realize that fact.”

They left the great hall with the stupid Faol still sputtering about inferior Éan, even as Vegar yanked him along like a naughty pup.

Caelis looked around the room at the women and then to Shona. She smiled and nodded, understanding.

She addressed the female Chrechte. “Do you refuse to pledge allegiance to your new laird?”

“Women do not do that. Our pledges are given no value,” an older Chrechte female claimed.

“But a woman’s loyalty is every bit as powerful as a man’s,” Shona argued. “Why would you seek to have a weak clan?”

“We do not,” Uven’s own wife said.

“You don’t,” Shona affirmed, looking surprised and then sickened for a moment. “I know what it is to be wed to a man not your mate. Uven is dead. The man who freed you asks for your fealty. Will you give it?”

The woman nodded and dropped to her knees, bowing her head and swearing a sincere oath of support for Caelis as pack alpha and laird and Shona as his lady. Soon the other women followed and the room echoed with the feminine voices.

“This clan will change. To survive and thrive, we must return to the true ways of the Chrechte. Uven has lied to all of us about what they are, but we will find our way back to honor, to a strong clan that respects and appreciates all of its members.”

A cheer went up that turned into deafening roars as Caelis allowed his conriocht to take form.

He stood before his people and promised them that life would be different if they would let go of the deceptions of the past.

Filled with joy, Shona surveyed the room until her eyes rested on a man sneaking furtively toward the great hall’s door to the great hall. He had an arrogance about him that she was much too familiar with. “Percy!”

“Where?” Caelis growled.

Shona’s hand did not shake as she pointed to Percival, fear no longer plaguing her in the presence of the vile would-be child murderer.

“Stop and face your accuser, cur!” Caelis ordered.

Percival turned slowly, his expression filled with more disdain than terror. “I have no accuser.”

“You tried to murder my son,” Caelis ground out.

The baron opened his mouth to refute the statement, but Thomas was there, boxing his ears and knocking him to the ground before he could.

“He came here looking for her,” Uven’s wife said, pointing to Shona. “You used to be part of the clan. He believed you would seek refuge among us again. The English baron paid Uven handsomely to find you and bring you back to him.”

“Why didn’t you say anything at first?” Caelis demanded, fury lacing the conriocht’s tone.

“I did not know it was this woman he sought until she recognized him,” Uven’s wife said, pleading in her voice and demeanor.

Shona waited for her husband to prove he valued the women of his clan and pack enough to believe. She knew the truth from the thoughts in the woman’s head, but he needed to believe Uven’s wife without Shona’s interference.

Caelis sniffed the air and then nodded. “Thank you for speaking up now.”

The woman sagged, her relief at being believed visible. The clan had a long way to go to heal, but they would get there with her husband as alpha and laird.

Percival was standing again, showing he had a lot more pride than sense as he glared at them all. “I will leave you to live among these horrors,” he spat at Shona. “I’ll not have a woman who has lain with a dog in my bed.”

Caelis stalked forward until he towered over the man, who only now showed enough intelligence to exhibit fear. “You tried to murder my son. You will die.”

“No, you can’t kill an English baron.”

Suddenly a white wolf was there and Shona knew it was Thomas.

Caelis indicated the man with a single pointing claw. “Kill it.”

Thomas attacked, tearing the man’s throat out and ending his threat to her children once and for all.

Caelis called two of his soldiers forward. “Return the body to the barony. Death by animal misadventure.”

The soldiers nodded and wrapped the body in a cloth before taking him outside. Ciara stepped forward, her expression gentle. “We have a mating ceremony to perform.”

Shona opened her mouth, but no sound came out. A mating ceremony? Now?

“When better?” her mate asked, proving she’d been shouting her thoughts again.

“Four are dead.”

“And because of that, many more will live.”

Hope unfurled inside her. It was true. The reign of terror exercised by Uven was over. Percival’s evil had ended this night as well.

But a mating ceremony?

Looking around at the hopeful faces of the clan, she realized they all needed this symbol of hope, but still Shona hesitated.

Caelis dropped to one knee before Shona, his big body still towering over her as a conriocht. “I love you, mate, with all that I am and can ever hope to be. Will you speak the ancient vows with me before the people who have promised us their fealty?”

“I believe you.” She did. She believed he loved her. Believed he would never again leave her. Incandescent joy sparkled through her, lightening a heart that had seen too much grief. “You do love me. You have always loved me.”

Finally, she understood. His mistakes had not been made out of a lack of love, but a lack of understanding of what the cost of his would be. He would never again ignore the potential cost to his mate for any decision he might make.

“I do. As wolf, as conriocht, as man, my heart and my life belong to you.”

She nodded, her tears spilling over, her happiness the scent of spring flowers around them. “I will.”

The mating ceremony was all Caelis had ever dreamed it would be, on the many nights he lay in a lonely pile of furs wishing for the mate he thought lost to him. She promised him everything in the language of his people, her emerald gaze fully cognizant of each word’s meaning as he once again used their bond to remind her.

And they shared their joy with the MacLeod pack, accepting their brethren’s oaths to support and protect their mating as was right and just.

They followed the ceremony, which took the pack from death to life in a few short hours, by rounding up all the human members of the clan and announcing Caelis’s new position as their laird.

Each clan member was given the option of swearing loyalty or leaving with the option of being welcomed into either the Donegal, Sinclair or Balmoral clans. All chose to stay.

The heaviness of that trust weighed profoundly in the most joyous of ways on Caelis.

But nothing was more important than the new life Caelis began with Shona that night, as she accepted his love and reaffirmed her own, proving to the whole clan how important matters of the heart were to even the most powerful Chrechte warrior.