Dragon's Moon (29 page)

“You called me giant.”

“I've also called you dragon. You did not take offense at that.”

“I am a dragon.”

“And you are a very big man.”

“I think you like big.” His tone and the heat in his stare said more than the words, and they said
enough
.

“Stop. Please.” Ciara turned her attention to Artair and asked somewhat desperately, “Are your clan accepting of them, the Éan I mean?”

She expected they were, but discovering the Éan were known as bird shifters among the Balmoral might put a different light on it. She hoped not, though.

“Oh, aye,” Artair said with a decisive nod. “No one treats new clan members as anything but family since our lady came near ten years ago.”

“She'd not settle for it,” Gart agreed.

Ciara grinned at this mention of Abigail's acknowledged strong-willed sister. “Aunt Emily did not find such a warm welcome among the Sinclairs, I fear.”

Artair returned her grin. “So I hear. Though she gave as good as she got, I reckon.”

“I think you are right.” Ciara laughed softly. “I'm not sure my father has ever gotten over being likened to a goat.”

“It's not something a laird would be used to, is it?” Artair asked with another grin.

Eirik growled, similar but different to a wolf, and she stared at him askance only to turn her head quickly at an almost identical sound from Gart.

Artair twisted his lips in a grimace. “Ignore him. We've
been best mates since before we could walk. So, it stands to reason
to him
I should marry his sister. But I'm not joining my spirit with another until I feel the call of a true mate, am I?”

“The old stories claim that in the days of the ancients,” Ciara remembered aloud, “none mated unless they felt the connection of a true bond.”

“How are you going to know you feel it, until you are mated?” Gart asked with irritation.

Artair gave him a measured look. “I'll know.”

“You're so damn stubborn.”

“You've been saying so since your first words and it hasn't changed yet. What makes you think it's going to?”

Gart made a sound of exasperation and slammed his now-empty stew bowl down before storming from the hut.

Ciara got up to gather all the bowls before carrying them to the shelf. She would take them out later to wash with sand and water from the sea.

She patted the other Balmoral guard on his arm as she walked by him. “He'll figure it out eventually.”

“You think so?” Artair shook his head. “I'm about despaired of it ever happening.”

“He's a Chrechte. He can't ignore the call forever.”

“He could. Some do.”

She couldn't argue that, particularly when she was doing her best to ignore her feelings for Eirik. But she did not think Gart was like her. He wasn't afraid, merely blinded by dreams he'd clearly cherished since childhood.

“He has to let go of his treasured hopes for his sister first.” She took the seat beside Artair on the small bench. He did not fill the space like Eirik did. “Perhaps you should encourage him to find his own mate.”

The Balmoral soldier gave her a look of pure horror. “Why would I do that?”

“Why did you sit beside him?” Eirik demanded.

She ignored Eirik and told Artair, “So that he will start thinking in the right direction.”

“I'll think on it.”

Eirik stood up, his expression feral in the dusky light of
the hut. “Your body is touching his,” the Éan prince gritted.

She scooted so the small spot where their hips had connected did not touch at all. “There. Are you satisfied? You're being ridiculous. It wasn't anything like when I was sitting beside you.”

“Come sit over here.” Eirik pointed to the other bench.

“I'm fine right here.”

A low rumble sounded and Ciara watched in fascination as Eirik's hands became covered in crimson scales and tipped with lethal-looking claws. Though they remained in proportion to his body.

It was unlike anything she had ever heard of before.

“How did you do that?” she asked with wonder.

“I think, perhaps, I will join Gart outside,” Artair said from the doorway.

She hadn't even realized the other man had gotten up. She stood as well and turned to the guard. “That is not necessary.”

“I think it is.” He gave a significant look toward Eirik.

And she looked back at her dragon. His hands were still amazingly transformed, but he had not moved from his spot. His expression was no longer so ferocious, either.

She turned back to Artair and smiled. “See? He is only feeling protective as he has taken on the role of my guard for this journey. You saw him with our meal, tasting it for me.”

Artair was looking at her as if she was spouting gibberish and she sighed. The soldier simply did not appreciate the wonder of Eirik's gifts like she did.

“Lais and Mairi have arrived,” Eirik said into the tense quiet.

Ciara spun back to him, all of her suspicions about his abilities confirmed. “Lais told you that, didn't he?”

Eirik didn't reply but left the hut, his shoulders taut, his jaw set. At least his hands had gone back to normal. She did not think it was a gift he needed to go sharing with everyone under the sun.

Artair reached out as if to pat her shoulder but withdrew
his hand before touching her. “The Éan prince will figure it out, too.”

She didn't ask what. She was no fool and apparently neither was Artair. “Let's hope not,” Ciara said fervently.

“You don't want a mate?” Artair frowned. “Or is that you do not want an Éan for a mate?”

“I want
no
mate, whether he be human, Chrechte or a wild beast for that matter.”

“Our
celi di
says that God gifts us what we need, not what we want.”

“And sometimes he also takes away what we love most.”

“So you would reject the possibility of love to prevent ever losing it again?”

“I want no mate,” she repeated doggedly. “There will be no children for me to lose to illness or war.”

No mate whose loss would send her into a decline like her mother. Ciara had suffered enough pain when she lost her family, but she had survived. She had learned to live again. Her mother had not.

Because she had lost that which she could not bear, her true bonded mate and her child.

Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion and knowledge.

—P
LATO

H
is beast demanding a chance to come out and cast fire at the Balmoral soldier, Eirik waited impatiently for Ciara and Artair to join them on the beach. He could control his dragon, but he did not know if he could control his warrior's instincts to claim the woman so that all would know she belonged to him.

He had not thought to take a mate for several more years, but both his dragon and his raven insisted he make Ciara his. Which was shock enough. He'd thought the fact both his alternate natures were attracted to the little wolf interesting, but the intensity with which his dragon and raven craved Ciara only grew by the day.

He had never had such happen before. While he had not been celibate since coming of age, Eirik had always found putting his duty to his people first easy. No woman had ever invaded his senses like Ciara did, and none caused such an inner disturbance in Eirik.

He'd shown his partial shift to Artair and Ciara without thought. Not only had that never happened before, but it
was dangerous for others to know the full extent of Eirik's gifts.

One truth was obvious, he could not serve his people as he needed to if he was in constant conflict with the animals that shared his soul.

There was no choice. He would have to take her for mate.

It would be no hardship, though she was more willful than most. As seer and princess of her people, Ciara would bring more to their mating than simply her person. In truth, there was probably not another woman in the Highlands so well suited to become his wife and bear his children.

Her Chrechte power, though mostly latent until now, was great. And as his mate, that power would serve both the Éan and the Faol once she bonded with him. 'Twas the way it worked between mates.

Eirik had already sworn his allegiance to the Sinclair wolf pack and by doing so dedicating his own Chrechte gifts to their welfare. The mating bond would not change much for him. But it would give his people claim to the gifts of another powerful Chrechte to rely on for
their
well-being.

Yes, even without the insistent cravings of his beasts, Eirik would have had to consider taking Ciara as his mate.

The fact his alternate natures were so enthralled by her only made the probability that their mating would be a true one more tantalizing and real.

Ciara came down to the beach finally, a frown settled on her sweet features, clearly agitated by something. She greeted Mairi and Lais, but was distracted.

He glared at Artair, taking it as his due when the Balmoral soldier flinched and lost his color. “What did you say to Ciara?”

“Me?” Artair asked with a squeak.

Suddenly Gart was there, standing between him and Artair. While Eirik appreciated the loyalty, the other warrior would not stop Eirik from finding out what had upset his mate.

“Stand aside. Artair will answer me.”

The slightly smaller soldier pushed his friend to the side
and met Eirik's gaze, his own speculative. “She is not well pleased with God's plans for her future, I think.”

“She told you she is a seer?” Eirik demanded, suddenly understanding Ciara's fury when they had first arrived and she'd discovered the Balmoral soldiers knew of his dragon.

“What? No.” Artair's expression turned thoughtful. “Mayhap that explains some of her concern about taking a mate though.”

Outrage swelled inside Eirik and he felt the partial change taking over his hands again.
“You talked to my
faolán
about mating her?”
The dragon was too close to the surface for Eirik's voice to come out with anything but a growl.

“You want to mate the Sinclair femwolf?” Gart demanded, apparently oblivious to the threat of Eirik's dragon, his attention fixed entirely on Artair, and his own tone laced with fury.

“You have both gone mad to even ask me that,” Artair said with a growl of his own. He scowled, flinching only slightly at the sight of Eirik's hands, but his gaze quickly locked hostilely with Eirik's. “If you want to know why she's frowning, ask her.”

Then Artair turned to his fellow soldier, no diminishment in his anger whatsoever. “As for you, get this through your thick head. I am not going to mate your sister. Ever.”

Gart stumbled back a step. “But we were to be brothers.”

“I don't want to be your brother.” The pain and fury in Artair's voice was difficult to hear.

However, Gart's hurt at the other warrior's words was so great and so obvious, Eirik could not help pitying him as well. And finally, Eirik thought he understood what Artair and Ciara had been talking about in the hut.

The two men were sacred mates, but clearly Gart had blinded himself to this truth, and he could not understand why his best friend would refuse to be his brother.

Eirik had had enough of this ridiculousness and he'd only been witness to it for a short time. No doubt their laird and Artair himself were heartily sick of the Chrechte soldier's willful refusal to see the truth.

Eirik gave Gart a good clout on the back of the head,
knocking the Balmoral guard to his knees. “A Chrechte cannot mate his brother, you idiot.”

“Mate?” Gart shook his head, though Eirik doubted his blow had knocked the man's brain loose.

'Twas more likely that single word he was trying to dislodge. Gart looked up at Artair, who was staring at him with an expression Eirik was determined to see on his little femwolf's features in the very near future.

“You want to be my mate?” Gart asked.

“I don't know.” Artair did not appear to be teasing; he seemed to have some serious doubts on the topic. “Stupidity is not an attractive feature in a mate, but you seem to have more than your fair share.”

Gart surged to his feet and grabbed Artair by his upper arms, shaking him. “Do not get on your high horse right now. Just answer my question.”

“Yes.” Though Artair wasn't looking all that pleased by the prospect.

“But you're my brother.”

This time when Artair flinched, Eirik did not enjoy seeing it quite so much. “I am not.”

“You are my best friend.”

“Yes.”

“And have been for the whole of our lives.”

Artair nodded. “What better person to take as a mate?”

“I dreamed of children.”

This time there was no flinch, just the scent of sadness. “I cannot give them to you.”