The branches were a place for the Éan to perch when they did not wish to shift back into their human form.
His eagle looked interested in the skin and Bryant smiled up at her. “’Twould make a lovely pair of boots, would it not?”
Una cocked her head to one side, then dipped it as if looking pointedly at his bare feet.
He just shrugged. Like many Chrechte among the Balmoral, and some humans, too, he preferred to go without footwear. Though he had a pair of carefully crafted, snug-fitting boots for winter lined with rabbit fur.
A gift from his father that Bryant would not dream of refusing to honor by wearing, though he did so only on the coldest days of the year.
The leather he tanned now was not for himself, but he did not think he should mention he meant to use it as a courting gift for the reticent Éan woman.
“You have a beautiful bird,” he complimented. “I have never seen an eagle so fine.”
Her wings opened, spanning and then laying back against her side, but even her bird’s eyes reflected the confusion of the woman within. She was not used to receiving compliments and that was a shame.
“You do not think a wolf could find the eagle form lovely?” Donnach guessed, surprising Bryant.
He had not considered that possibility, but he would be the first to admit (if only to himself) that his brain was not the first thing engaged when Una was near.
Even in her eagle form, her scent called to his wolf and to the man who wanted to irrevocably claim her.
She jerked her head up and down, affirming Donnach’s assertion.
“You’d be wrong then. The Faol who believe in the ancient laws and ways of the Chrechte can see nothing but beauty in a shifter such as yourself,” Bryant assured her. “My family particularly is happy that the Éan have been found again.”
Una made a questioning sound from her throat.
“My mother’s family has passed down the stories of their Éan brethren for generations. Her grandmother’s granddam was a raven shifter, daughter to one who could shift into dragon form.”
“I didn’t know that,” Donnach said.
“We do not share our heritage outside our family, because most Faol believed the Éan to be nothing more than myth. To claim connection to brethren who had mysteriously disappeared would cause others to call us eccentric.”
“Well, your father is not the average wolf,” Donnach said leadingly.
Bryant smacked the other soldier so hard he fell back a step. Both men smiled, no anger between them, but Una had taken flight.
“Purgatory’s fires,” Bryant muttered. “She startles so easily.”
“She is rather timid, for an eagle. They are the predatory birds, but she acts more like a dove.”
Bryant could not disagree with his friend.
Donnach gave him a friendly push before going back to the leather tanning. “Your family is still eccentric if it claims to be related to a dragon.”
“You think so?” Bryant asked noncommittally, knowing full well the old stories were true.
And being true, then it stood to reason that another dragon either lived or would be born again to the Éan. They were the protectors of their race.
But perhaps they were gone as the conriocht were from among the Faol. None of their race’s own protectors had been born for so many generations that again, most believed the true werewolf with a third form to be nothing but myth.
“You claim to be descendant from the royal line of the Éan?” Fionn demanded in the most querulous tone Bryant had heard from him to date as he limped toward the Balmoral soldiers, a fiercer than normal scowl on his features.
Had Bryant’s mate flown away not because she feared him, but because she saw her father’s approach?
He could hope, could he not?
“I did no such thing,” Bryant argued.
“You told my daughter, who is supposed to be visiting her mother and me, not Faol soldiers,” he said toward the sky, where the bird continued her circling flight, “that your grandmother many generations back was daughter to a dragon shifter.”
“Aye.”
“Are you so ignorant you do not realize that is to claim to be descendant of the royal lineage?” Fionn asked scathingly.
“Perhaps I am. Our family did their best to preserve our history from generation to generation, but at some point it must have become enough simply to teach our children that the Éan were real and our own family.”
Enough of the history of the Chrechte had been lost because of the divisions caused by their own warlike natures and the secret feud some Faol waged against the Éan.
“You are not a bird,” Fionn accused.
SEVEN
Una arrived, dressed much as she had been the night before, and only then did Bryant realize she had disappeared from the sky. It shamed him that he had been so busy arguing with her father, he had not noted her departure.
She stood at a slight distance, but her attention was so clearly focused on what was being said, he had no doubts her curiosity had been aroused. His wolf preened at the thought of their mate showing interest in their history.
Bryant spoke to the old man, but gave a warm smile to his eagle. “I never said I was.”
“Yet you claim a royal raven in your antecedents.” The glare Fionn cast was leveled at Bryant and Una alike.
“I did not realize that being descendant of a dragon meant that,” Bryant reiterated.
Though, it would stand to reason then that if any of the Éan were dragons, it would be Prince Eirik. However, if that were the case, surely the Éan would not continue to hide like fugitives in the forest.
A dragon could raze entire villages and would be practically impossible to kill in his shifted form.
Bryant focused on what he did know and Fionn could accept it for the truth it was, or not. Regardless, it was family history he wanted to share with Una. Perhaps she would not fear him so if she realized the past’s weight on his actions of the present.
“The last bird shifter born in my family was my grandmother’s sister. She was raven and so beautiful many Faol and human alike in our clan vied for her hand in mating.”
“What happened to her?” Fionn asked in a tone that said he knew it hadn’t been good.
The old man was right, but not because of anything a wolf had done. Unless you counted a man impregnating his beloved wife as a sin against her.
“She died in childbirth.”
Fionn’s expression softened slightly. “And her child?”
“Took after his father as wolf.”
“If she was raven, then your clan wolves would know of our existence before this. And Prince Eirik claims that most of the Faol are wholly unaware of our existence any longer.”
“The Balmoral have always believed the old stories and remember the ancient ways of the Chrechte with more dedication than other clans.”
“So?”
“Each bird shifter in our family kept their nature secret, though the reason why was another knowledge lost over time.”
“So, your clan knew nothing of her heritage.”
“Some knew, but most did not.”
“And her husband.”
“Knew and loved her raven. Why wouldn’t he? They were sacred mates.”
“Bah . . . again with the sacred mates. You talk as if that miracle happens to every Chrechte, when nothing could be further from the truth.” Fionn fixed Bryant with a beady stare. “And it is not the panacea you seem to think it is. Not all is made well and right simply because two people’s animals have a hankering for each other.”
It was far more than that, but Bryant knew from experience with the chronically crabby man that there would be little purpose in calling Fionn out on his gross minimization.