Warrior's Moon cotm-5 Read online

  She’d given him her love and her innocence.

  He had repaid those gifts with false promises and, ultimately, repudiation.

  She’d thought never to see him again, been certain that even her return to Scotland would not cause their paths to cross.

  After all, she hadn’t gone home to her former clan and she’d been careful to avoid their lands in the journey northward. She’d no desire to come in contact with her former laird and even less her former swain.

  How cruel of fate to dictate differently. To ensure that despite the habit her former clansmen had of keeping strictly to themselves, this man would be in this place the one day she would ever spend in the Sinclair keep.

  The head of Shona’s mare jerked against her tightened hold on the reins and she felt gratitude that they were no longer moving. Holding the reins like that was one guaranteed way to get tossed from even a loyal horse’s back.

  Marjory slept on, oblivious to the near-miss, their new surroundings and to the cataclysm happening inside her mother.

  As if Caelis could feel the weight of Shona’s regard, he turned. Slowly and with no evidence of curiosity, his gentian gaze slid over her, his expression dismissive as he took in her English clothing.

  She could tell the moment he recognized her, though, the very second he realized she was not just an Englishwoman, but a woman from his past.

  He went rigid, his eyes widening with a shock so complete it would have been amusing if she were not so devastated at his appearance in her already turbulent life.

  He went as if to take a step and stumbled.

  How odd. He was a sure-footed man. Perhaps one of the other warriors had tripped him? Men played games with each other like that.

  Even as the nonsensical thoughts floated through her mind, fear screamed through her body. Caelis could not see Eadan. Her son could never know the man who had denied his very existence and rejected the woman he had professed to love.

  They needed to leave. Now. The laird of the Sinclairs would simply have to do without the pleasure of making their acquaintance.

  That thought alone gave her the strength to break her gaze from Caelis as she jerked her head around, searching frantically for Eadan.

  He was already on the ground, his hand held in Niall’s giant paw, a smaller man standing quite near to the huge warrior, talking to them both with an engaging smile.

  Shona wanted to scream at them to please put her son back on his horse and then get out of her way. But no words left her lips. She could neither move, nor speak, her panic freezing her as stiff as death.

  Even as the need to escape continued to tear through her, she knew it to be hopeless.

  Even if she could make herself move, to cry out for Niall’s assistance in getting her son back on his horse, she and her companions would not be allowed to leave the Sinclair holding without seeing the laird. It had already been decided.

  And as had happened too often in her past, Shona knew she was subject to the whims of men who held authority over her. This time, it was only by her trespass on his land, but that would not matter to the Sinclair laird.

  He was a man with power.

  He would demand to be obeyed.

  ’Twas the way of things.

  Hopelessness washed over Shona near to drowning her.

  The boy was out of Caelis’s line of sight, but that gave Shona little comfort.

  The warrior was bound to see her child soon and when he did? He would know the truth, no matter how much he might like to deny it.

  But what he would do with that truth, she could not guess at. Nothing good for her. She’d discovered in the past six years that men rarely made choices to benefit women.

  But most particularly her.

  Caelis had only been the first man in a long list in her life to exhibit this truth.

  “Shona…”

  She looked down and saw that both Audrey and Thomas were there, standing beside Shona’s mare. Audrey’s hands were upraised to take Marjory so Shona could dismount.

  When had they gotten off their horses?

  “Are you all right?” Thomas asked, his tone clearly worried. Both he and Audrey wore matching expressions of concern. “We’ve said your name three times.”

  “I…no…” she answered with honesty before she thought to control her tongue.

  “What is it?” Suddenly Niall was there, having moved very quickly. “Lady Heronshire, do you need help dismounting?”

  He reached up as well. “Give me the babe.”

  Dropping the horse’s reins, Shona wrapped her arms around her daughter in a reflexive move of protection.

  “Do not touch her.” The snarl came from behind Niall and then Caelis was there, shoving the other warrior away from Shona’s horse.

  Niall spun on the other man, knocking him back and shouting. “The hell!”

  “She’s mine,” Caelis growled, his voice so animal-like the words were barely discernible.

  “Calm yourself,” Niall snapped, sounding less angry for some reason, though he didn’t back away. “The Englishwoman—”

  “She is not English.”

  “Do ye see how she is dressed? She is a lady, Caelis. Stop and think.”

  But Caelis appeared beyond reason, his aggression not lessening one iota. And Shona did not understand it. In no scenario of this moment she might ever have imagined would she have considered him laying claim to her…or was it her daughter?

  None of this made any sense.

  Marjory chose that moment to awaken, squirming to sit up. “Mama! Want down.”

  Caelis jerked as if pierced by an arrow, his gaze landing on the little girl in Shona’s arms. Some great emotion twisted his features, and then his blue eyes, so like their son’s, locked with hers, the accusation in them unmistakable.

  She stared back, defiant, furious like she had not been since the night he told her it was over.

  All the fear she’d felt over the past months, the anger she’d experienced at the perfidy of men since his betrayal six years ago, followed by treachery of others—her own dear father included—bolstered that fury so that if it were possible, she would have burned him to ash with her gaze.

  His head snapped back, surprise again showing on his handsome features, this time mixed with confusion.

  If possible, his surprise made her even more livid. Did he think she had forgotten the way he had used and discarded her? Did he think she would no longer hold it against him?

  More the fool him, if so.

  She would never forget. She spent each day with a living reminder.

  And what Caelis had to be confused about she did not know. Did he think that just because he didn’t want her that no other man would ever want to wed her?

  Arrogant blackguard.

  “Mummy?” Eadan’s worried voice rose from where he stood beside Niall.

  She needed to tell her son all was well, but could not look away from Caelis’s face as he got his first look of the son they had made.

  The child he had told her would never happen.

  She’d been naïve and believed him. She would never make that mistake again.

  Chapter 2

  A Faol’s strength means little in the face of his mate’s wrath.

  —LACHLAN OF THE BALMORAL

  The warrior fainted.

  With a great resounding thud as his big, over-muscled body hit the dirt.

  Caelis had taken one look at their son, his blue eyes widening in recognition that had quickly turned to horror and then he’d sunk to the ground like a stone.

  Several people, Sinclairs and Shona’s friends alike, made sounds with varying degrees of shock and volume.

  Her own heart in her throat, though why she should be concerned for the blackguard she did not know, Shona paid none of them any heed until her son spoke. “Is he dead then, like my lord?”

  The fact that her former husband had insisted on the formal address from the boy all but he and Shona considered his son n
ever seemed so absurd and yet appropriate as it did in that moment when Eadan stood staring at the unconscious body of the father who shared his blood.

  Niall shook his head and turned away from the other big soldier, as if a warrior collapsing was of little notice. “Nay, laddie. He’s alive, just taking a wee nap.”

  “On the ground?” Eadan asked, blinking up at Niall uncertainly.

  “Aye.”

  “He fainted,” said the smaller man who had been talking to her son and Niall earlier, a certain amount of glee in his tone.

  “Like a damsel in the stories Audrey tells us?”

  Niall snorted a laugh. “Aye, just like that.”

  “Audrey?” the redheaded smaller man asked. “Not your mother?”

  “Mum doesn’t ever tell stories where the damsel faints or needs rescuing. In all her stories, the knights and princesses fight side by side. My lord said they were nonsense, but Marjory and I like them,” Eadan said with staunch loyalty.

  “As you should,” Niall said with a pat to her son’s head. “Let Guaire take you and the others to the keep.”

  “What about Mum?” Eadan gave her a worried frown, hanging back.

  She couldn’t even dredge a smile of comfort for him, but she did manage to say, “Go with Master Guaire, sweeting,” through a very tight throat.

  “Here,” Niall raised his arms. “Give me the girl.”

  “My name is Marjory,” her daughter decided to inform the giant man.

  “Aye, lass, so I heard and a fine name it is. Will you come to me?”

  Marjory turned her face into Shona’s chest, her shy nature asserting itself.

  Thomas stepped forward. “Come, little dumpling, Uncle Thomas will carry you.”

  Marjory shook her head, not looking away from the cocoon of safety she’d created for herself.

  Shona would have laughed if she had it in her to do so. Her daughter’s stubborn shyness was all too familiar.

  “How will your mama get down from the horse if you don’t let go of her?” Audrey wheedled.

  But to no avail.

  “We’ll stay here. It’s comfortable,” Marjory claimed in a voice muffled by Shona’s body.

  “Marjory, don’t you want to meet the laird?” Thomas asked.

  It was exactly the wrong thing to say because Marjory grabbed Shona all the tighter and exclaimed her very clear denial.

  Caelis groaned and shifted on the ground. Shockingly, it was that action that caused Marjory to release her tight grip on her mother’s waist and turn to see the big man sit up in the dirt.

  “You felled down.” Marjory’s observation was met with a confused nod. “I takes naps, but Eadan doesn’t. Big boys don’t take naps.”

  Marjory spoke in a mixture of English and Gaelic, which Shona was used to interpreting. The perplexed look on Caelis’s face said he wasn’t. She knew he’d learned rudimentary English like she had among their clan, so she wasn’t surprised when his confusion eventually cleared.

  “I don’t normally nap, princess.”

  “I’m not a princess.”

  Shona was so shocked by his kindness to her daughter that she gasped.

  He flicked a glance at her, but it didn’t linger.

  “Are you sure? You look like one.” Caelis stood, dusting himself off and ignoring the curious stares of the Sinclairs around them. He appeared wholly unaffected by having fainted in front of a bailey full of people.

  Six years ago, he would not have been so sanguine about revealing any weakness to others.

  “My papa was a baron.”

  “He isn’t one any longer?” Caelis asked.

  “He’s dead. Brother is baron now, but I don’t think he likes Eadan and me.”

  Out of the mouths of babes.

  This time when Caelis looked at Shona, his regard stayed with her. “You are a widow?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.”

  “That is hardly a civilized response to learning a woman’s husband has died,” she remonstrated.

  Though she could not claim to feel grief over Henry’s demise, the fact that she’d been left alone in the world—again—without even the baron’s marginal protection, was hardly cause for rejoicing.

  “I am not a civilized man.”

  He would get no argument from her in that regard. There had been a time that the wild side to his nature appealed to her very much. No longer. “Still, I cannot fathom why you should think my present circumstances good ones.”

  She’d thrown off one yoke only to find herself at the risk of falling prey to another, far more onerous one.

  Caelis shrugged. “It is good I do not have to kill him.”

  Shona gasped, unable to fathom him expressing such a sentiment. “You cannot say such things in front of my children.”

  Regret flared in Caelis’s eyes, but his jaw set in stubborn lines she remembered too well for her own comfort. “Please pardon me for speaking so in front of you, princess.”

  Marjory giggled.

  “What about me?” Eadan demanded.

  “You are a big boy, five summers are you not?” Caelis asked.

  Eadan nodded without his usual questions of how the man could know this.

  “Warrior talk will not upset you,” Caelis said with certainty.

  Eadan puffed up at the implied praise and nodded solemnly. “Sometimes a man must do what needs doing.”

  Caelis flicked a glance at her. “That is a clan warrior’s saying.”

  “My grandfather told me.”

  “Where is your grandfather now?”

  Eadan’s eyes filled with grief. “The horse kicked him and he died.”

  “What horse?”

  “Mine.”

  “It was not your horse, sweeting. It was only the horse an idiot man put you on.” Shona hated the guilt her son struggled with over his adored grandfather’s demise. She told Caelis, “Eadan’s older brother put him on an untried horse. Percival claimed he did not realize the horse was so temperamental. My father died saving my son.”

  “Not a brother.” Caelis’s tone brooked no argument.

  Shona was saved from a reply by her son’s. “No, Lord Percival is a bad man. I do not want him for a brother. Mummy said I did not have to claim him if I do not want to now that we are in Scotland.”

  “Good.”

  Eadan nodded. “Aye.”

  Oh, good Lord above, give her strength. She was not going to survive this meeting with her heart or her sanity intact.

  The boy and man were so alike.

  “Shona…” Audrey’s prompt reminded Shona that she still had yet to get off her horse.

  She looked down at Marjory. The child seemed less reticent about her surroundings. “Will you let Audrey take you, now?” she asked.

  Marjory’s thumb popped into her mouth and she shook her head.

  Caelis looked them over and then looked down at her son. “Your sister does not want to come down.”

  “She’s shy of strangers.”

  “I see.”

  “If I were bigger, she’d come to me.”

  Caelis nodded with serious mien. “Perhaps if I lift you to her?”

  Eadan considered this before nodding. “She’ll come to me,” he said with certainty.

  Caelis picked the boy up, deep emotion covering his features as his son put his arm around the big warrior’s neck for stability. Shona wanted to shout at him, to tell him that he, too, was a very stupid man.

  If he felt the connection so deeply, than why deny even the possibility of a child? Why tell her that they could not marry?

  Caelis leaned down and inhaled a long breath against Eadan’s neck, his big body going rigid for several seconds in response to her son’s scent. He used to do that to Shona, and the memories evoked by seeing him do it to her son were no longer welcome ones.

  “Caelis,” she said sharply.

  He lifted his gaze, the gentian eyes filled with such deep grief even she could not deny this mom
ent was truly profound for him. “Aye?” His voice came out strained, as if even that single word came at only great effort.

  She shook her head, her own throat too tight to speak.

  “We’re getting Marjory,” Eadan reminded the big man, clearly at ease in his father’s arms.

  Caelis nodded, the movement jerky. “Aye, that we are.” He approached the mare, his hold on Eadan secure.

  Shona’s son put his arms out to his little sister. He didn’t say anything, just looked at Marjory expectantly.

  And her tiny arms stretched out to him. She did not seem to notice the huge warrior supporting them both as she was taken off the horse. Caelis set the children down together beside Niall and Guaire, rather than Audrey or Thomas.

  Shona found that telling. He trusted the Scottish warrior, even of a different clan, over the English he did not know. Which meant that he had some measure of trust for Niall, a Sinclair. Which was odd, but not as strange as the fact that Caelis was here on Sinclair lands at all.

  His travels were the least of Shona’s concerns at the moment. What did matter was that Caelis cared if her children were protected.

  That was more concern than he had shown for her six years ago.

  Guaire dropped to his haunches so he was eye level with Eadan and started talking gently to the children.

  Shona sighed, letting her rigid muscles relax. Pain shot through her lower back, up her spine and into her shoulders. She could not stifle her groan of agony, though she tried.

  Getting off the mare was going to be more than tricky; it was going to be impossible. She might as well just tip sideways and fall into the dust like Caelis.

  Before she had a chance to work up any worry over it, big hands closed around her waist and she was lifted to the ground.

  Caelis did not release her, however, once her feet were on the dirt. He held her, his face a study of emotions she no longer knew how to name with this man.

  “You must release me.”

  “Nay.”

  “It is unseemly.” Not to mention entirely dangerous to her hard fought composure.

  The emotional calm she wore like a façade to protect those depending on her was already beginning to crack at the edges under the strain the past months had put on it.

  Caelis made a sound of disgust. “You are not an Englishwoman to worry about such, no matter what garb you wear.”