Moon Awakening (12 page)

She went hot all over remembering the feel of his hardness in her hand. He had liked her caresses and instead of embarrassing her, that made her feel proud. But he had not taken advantage of her wantonness to tumble her as Ulf had insinuated. Lachlan had used her distraction to get her into the water.

She could barely accept the memory of her being in the lake was real and not a dream. She had floated. Okay… with his support, but for a woman who refused to bathe in water that went above her knees, that was an amazing feat.

And he had not laughed at her nervousness even though it was obvious he was very comfortable with the water himself. He also had not exposed her to his brother's ridicule, but had sent the soldier back to the keep before calling her from behind the bush so he could escort her back. His consideration left her as breathless as when his lips were on hers.

Lachlan had walked her all the way to the tower room and left her here. But he had not barred the door. She'd been listening closely for the sound of the bar sliding into place, but it had not come. Did that mean she had the freedom to leave the room if she wished?

Despite her emotional outburst the day before, she had no desire to hide from his clan. She was not so weak-minded. If she could face Sybil every day of her life from the time she was eight until she'd left for the Highlands, she could face a few possibly hostile Scottish women.

She could have asked Lachlan what her position was if he had stayed even a few moments, but he had not. He had seen her into her room, told her they would repeat the swimming lesson the next day and left without a backward glance. It had taken all her self-control not to reach out and touch him as he left. She had wanted him to stay and now missed him as if she were used to seeing him every moment of every day of her life—an odd thing to feel for a man she had met only the day before.

She picked up the brush from the table, meaning to tend to her hair, but she went still at that last thought.

She had known him for two days and she had shared more of herself with him than she had anyone in her whole life. She remembered reading a poem about love at first sight, but had thought it rather silly at the time. She could not imagine such a thing. She could imagine it now.

She sat down with a thump on her bed and began to brush the wet tangles from her hair. How could she be so stupid? If she loved anyone, it should be Talorc. She would have to marry him. She had no choice. How could her heart have betrayed her this way? Or were her feelings nothing more than an instinctive trust in a strong man and a strong lust she had no experience controlling?

She could only hope it was the latter, because if she did love the laird, she was destined to have her heart broken.

Love or desire, she had not acted like a lady with Lachlan, but she could not regret it. No matter how shocking the events of the morning, Emily would not undo any of them. And she would be ready for her swimming lesson tomorrow morning with Lachlan, too. If he kissed her, she would kiss him back. If he touched her, she would learn pleasure at his hand and not regret it.

She had enjoyed every moment in his company… except when she overheard him tell Ulf that he would not keep her. That had hurt, but it should not have. It was not as if his stance had come as a big surprise. He'd told her the same thing, only using different words. He did not want a future with her, but that shouldn't matter because a future was out of the question anyway.

She would not love him. Only a fool loved where heartache was sure to follow and she was no fool. She would enjoy this time as a captive as a respite from the life she was committed to living, but when the moment came to return to that life, she would return.

Highland warriors were not the only ones who knew their duty.

Cait was snuggled into Drustan's body, her own a boneless mass of satiated pleasure. She had never known lovemaking could be like it was between them. It certainly had not been in her first marriage, but she did not tell Drustan that. The werewolf was arrogant enough as it was.

And he had made her beg.

She wasn't ashamed of that fact. She was impressed with his strength.

It had been a mating night filled with unbelievable pleasure and when they had woken that morning, he had renewed their intimacy. She'd remained hidden in bed when a servant brought them breakfast and had only protested weakly when he'd taken that as an invitation to explore the desire between them further. She wasn't sure now why she had protested at all.

His hand brushed up and down her side. "You are a passionate femwolf, Cait. It will be a pleasure to have you in my bed for the years to come."

She didn't know where he got the energy to talk. It was all she could do to kiss his chest where her face rested against him in acknowledgment of his words.

A rumble of pleasure rolled through him.

She was contemplating whether she should actually attempt to get out of the bed when a knock sounded on the door. It was too early for the noon meal, but late enough that she would be embarrassed to be caught lazing in bed. She was usually up with the sun and it had risen hours ago.

"Do you have duties today?" she asked, trying to work up a little guilt for keeping him from them and not succeeding.

It had been his idea to make love yet again, after all. Not hers.

"Nay. It is probably my mother come by to find out what we discovered of Susannah's plight. She showed great restraint not asking a dozen questions last night."

That woke Cait up as a bucket of frigid water would not have and she sat straight up in bed. "
Your mother
?"

"Yes."

She jumped off the bed and started scrabbling for clothes. "Susannah is not in a plight, she's in a marriage and she's happy. I can't believe your mother is here to visit and we're naked in bed." She sniffed herself. "I smell like you… I smell like sex. She's going to know what we've been doing."

"Even those members of my clan who do not come visiting this morning are going to know what we did. We are married and last night was the claiming, although the humans would call it the wedding night."

She glared at him. "That general knowledge is not the same as being caught
in bed
by your mother."

Drustan got out of the bed and tugged her plaid from her hands. "You are to wear Balmoral colors from this point forward," he said with gentle censure, indicating a plaid folded neatly on top of the small chest beside the bed. He leaned down and kissed her. "Take time to wash and compose yourself. I will let Mum in and talk to her while you do."

Cait threw him a grateful glance before he walked out of the bedroom carrying his plaid, which she sincerely hoped he planned to don before letting his mother inside. He shut the door behind him, but it wasn't as thick as the door to their quarters and she could hear him letting his mother inside a few moments later.

Cait did wash, not because she thought she could rid herself of his scent—she didn't want to—but because she was sticky with dried sweat and wetness between her legs.

It felt good to be clean, but she would have preferred a swim. Her muscles and the tender flesh between her legs ached. She felt marked by Drustan inside and out.

It was a new sensation, but not unpleasurable.

She hurried through her ablution, listening with only half an ear to Moira and Drustan's conversation. His mother asked about Susannah and if Drustan had seen her. He told her he hadn't, but that he'd heard her and she sounded happy. It gave Cait chills to think the Balmoral soldiers had gotten that close without being detected by the Sinclair werewolves.

She supposed there were wolves in her pack that adept at hiding their scent, but she'd never had occasion to know about it. She certainly wasn't. Her brother might be. Did that mean he would be able to breach the security of the Balmoral fortress? If he did, would he take her away?

Unfamiliar fear washed over her.

As a femwolf prevented from the change by her pregnancy, she had few options to protect herself. The babe had to be kept safe at any cost. She'd almost forgotten that yesterday when she had fought like a madwoman for her freedom, but she would not forget again. The responsibility to reproduce was a sacred one the Chrechte continued to honor.

No matter how difficult the task.

She could only hope Drustan was as good at protecting her as he had been at taking her… and that he did not kill her brother in the process. As surly as Talorc might get, she loved him. He would not come for her, but for her baby. He lived by the old ways and that meant he would respect her bond to Drustan; however, he would not tolerate the loss of a future Chrechte warrior to his clan, nor would he tolerate the insult of her kidnapping without redress.

He and Lachlan were very much alike in that way.

In all likelihood, he would demand the babe's return to the Sinclair holding. If she chose to come with it and live as a widow, he would allow that, but she had little hope he would allow the Balmoral clan to keep her child. Especially if she gave birth to a son. There was also the very real possibility he would declare war over the insult of her kidnapping well before the babe's birth.

Her heart heavy and her mind spinning with possible outcomes to her situation, she finished dressing. She brushed her hair with several quick strokes before going into the outer room.

"Susannah is happy with Magnus," she said by way of a greeting, wishing that truth could make a difference but afraid it would not. "She has found many friends among the Sinclairs."

Both Drustan and her new mother by marriage looked toward her. Moira sat on one bench and he sat on the other. He beckoned her to come and sit beside him. She did, but it felt odd. Sean had never been this possessive.

"You have seen her?" Moira asked, hope alight in green eyes so like her son's.

"Yes." Cait reached out and squeezed the older woman's hand. "Magnus lives in a cottage in the bailey. He is the blacksmith for our clan and very good at it, too. My brother relies on him. You would like him, I'm sure of it."

"Why did he take my daughter?"

Cait knew her answers were going to anger Drustan, but she could not lie. "Magnus did not take her. Not exactly. He mated with her in the fur and then, according to the custom of our pack, insisted she return to our clan as his wife. It happened on Sinclair land."

That was the part she knew Drustan would not like. She herself didn't understand why Susannah had been on their land, but she knew her brother's blacksmith had not lied. "Susannah told him that she had her laird's permission to hunt off the island during the full moon. She said she was not yet ready to take a permanent mate."

Moira's gaze clouded. "She wasn't. She'd gone into heat and she knew that if she ran with the pack during the full moon she would end up mating in the fur."

Cait could imagine the girl's thoughts. Every werewolf and femwolf knew that if an unmated female ran with the males of the pack when she was in heat, their wolf natures would take over. The unmated males would fight for the privilege of mating her, even if they didn't like each other as humans. The winner would then woo the femwolf and they would end up mating. It was inevitable. What the femwolf's mind told her in her human form would not hold sway in her animal form, and most were smart enough to realize it and take action accordingly.

Susannah had thought she was protecting her independence by hunting alone. Though in ancient days, she would not have been allowed to do so, no matter what her personal desires. Not all femwolves went into heat, but most did. And when they did, they were expected to mate and have children to increase the numbers in the packs.

Most packs still adhered to that tradition, much as human fathers insisted their daughters marry when they came of age. She'd already been mated the first time she went into heat, but she knew her brother would have insisted she take a mate at the time if she hadn't been.

"I thought the wolves among the Balmoral do not consider physical mating a life commitment." That attitude had caused Susannah and Magnus some conflict in the beginning and Cait had wondered why the girl had chosen to hunt alone if it were the case.

Wouldn't she have been safer running with her own pack?

Moira sighed. "Mating in the fur when a femwolf is in heat usually results in pregnancy. Susannah knew this. In our pack, making a cub together means a lifelong bond that cannot be broken under any circumstances."

That made sense. The Balmoral wasn't the only clan who had a pack that practiced physical mating outside of life bonding. Since the act of physical intercourse was the trigger for so many werewolves gaining control of their change after their coming of age, some packs believed it should be practiced without lifelong consequences. To Cait's way of thinking, that was giving in too fully to their wolf natures.

But she wasn't about to get into a morality argument with her new husband and mother-in-law right now. But woe betide any werewolf who mated a daughter of hers without promising a lifetime commitment. She would rip his throat out and Drustan would have to learn to live with it.

She wasn't going to allow any barbaric custom like that to hurt a child of hers.

"Why was Susannah encouraged to hunt on Sinclair land?" Cait asked, still confused on that point.

It made no sense in light of what Susannah had been trying to do… remain unmarried. Whether the wolf was Sinclair or Balmoral, the femwolf was going to end up mated once her scent in heat was caught. Which was exactly what had happened.

"She wasn't," Drustan said harshly.

She turned to her new husband, unsure how to take this change in his demeanor, but not about to back down. "Your sister told Magnus she was instructed where to hunt during the full moon. She did not know it was Sinclair hunting ground, but you cannot tell me the males of your pack were as ignorant. It is a thing the lairds take care to learn about each other."

It was supposed to be a secret, but the packs spied on each other and knew much more than they admitted about one another. There had been a time when all Chrechte were one pack under a common king, but that was not the way they lived now. Not since MacAlpin's betrayal. Even so, they did not war as much with each other as they did with the wholly human clans or with those to the south. There were unspoken laws they all lived by, and those governing mating with a femwolf from another pack were some of the most sacred. But they had not been breached for the reasons Drustan thought.