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.