“Aye, but the fool can already see what his brethren did to me with his own two eyes, and yet he denies it.”
“I deny no truth, but your words are wrong.” Bryant rarely gainsaid his elders. His parents had taught him better, but this he would not bear.
“These men who hurt you and the woman my wolf longs for, they are not my brethren any more than they are yours. All Chrechte are brethren in spirit, but in the end each man must stand alone before his maker to have his actions judged.”
“You are a fool.”
Bryant bristled at the blatant insult. “I am a warrior who would see the division between the Éan and the Faol at an end.”
“And then see the true end of the Éan. That is your plan, is it not?” The accusation in Fionn’s tone sparked doubt in his daughter’s gaze.
“No.” Bryant was so damn frustrated. “Speaking to you is the same as conversing with a rock.”
Una’s breath escaped with a shocking sound of amusement, her fear completely in abeyance for the first time that day.
When all three men turned their regard on her in question, she blushed and then shrugged. “It is only that my mother has often said the same.”
“Hmmph.”
“Is that your answer when you have no words of denial?” Bryant asked with humor-laced annoyance of the older man.
Again that sweetly unexpected sound from Una. Though she merely shook her head when Bryant gave her a questioning look.
She utterly charmed him.
And he terrified her.
If he claimed her, introduced her to his wolf, then she would know all could be well between them. That he would never hurt her as the Donegal wolves had done.
Something of the heat the thought sparked in him must have made itself known to Una, because she blushed and let off a scent that was nothing like the acrid fear he’d come to expect in such a short time.
“Mòrag would have you and this one join us for latemeal. She wishes to know more of your family’s history,” Fionn said, with a worried look at his daughter, before indicating both Bryant and Donnach with a sweep of his walking stick, when the silence had stretched for a long moment.
Donnach looked on the irritable Éan with clear disbelief. “This was your attempt at inviting us to dinner?”
“Are ye coming, or not?” Fionn demanded.
Bryant met the lovely Una’s eyes when he answered her father. “We’d be pleased to.”
“Speak for yourself,” Donnach muttered low enough only a wolf would be able to hear.
Or a very cantankerous old man, if the renewed glare Fionn gave the other Balmoral wolf was anything to go by.
EIGHT
Una fluttered like a hummingbird around her parents’ hut, helping her mother with final preparations for the latemeal.
One benefit to the ground village was that a family could cook in their own home without grave concern for the spread of fire.
Una couldn’t believe her mother had invited the wolves to sup with them, but part of her was fiercely glad Mòrag had. Una had been terribly disappointed when she hadn’t been taken to the spirit lands to meet up with Bryant in her sleep the night before.
But perhaps that was because she barely slept for thought of him. She’d spent the day mooning over the impossible and finally flown out of the treetops for her promised visit to her parents only to find her eagle inexorably drawn to the wolf.
“Why have you invited the Balmoral soldiers? Papa isn’t happy about it.”
“Bah. Your father spends half his life complaining about one thing or another. I know how to handle him.” Mòrag stirred the stew pot, adding a sprig of rosemary. “As I told your father, I wish to hear more of the lad Bryant’s family.”
“But why?” Una could not understand her mother’s curiosity about a wolf.
Her own was based on some obscure desire within Una’s eagle, but her mother? She should have no reason to want to know more about any of the Faol.
“Because he looks at you as a man intent on claiming a mate.”
“What?” Una practically shrieked. “I’m not his mate. I’m an eagle. He’s a wolf. We aren’t mates.”
No matter how he’d listed off a host of improbable sacred matings to her father.
“As you say,” Mòrag agreed far too easily and with such calm acceptance Una knew it to be false.
“You are plotting.”
Her mother continued to stir stew that needed no further tending, pretending she had not heard.
“I know it is a disappointment for you and Father.” Like so many things about their only daughter. “But I will never mate, Mother. I cannot. Not after what happened five years ago.”
“Nonsense.” Mòrag pulled the bricks from the oven opening and carefully drew forth the long baking paddle with two loaves of heavy dark bread from within.
They smelled so good, Una’s stomach would have growled if it were not tied firmly in knots by her mother’s words. “It isn’t nonsense. Surely you’ve noticed the wide distance the men of our tribe keep from me. I am considered a poor choice for a mate.”
“What rot.” Her mother slammed the bread paddle down with more force than could possibly be needed. “You would make a fine mate, but our men keep away because you have made it clear that when any man but your father gets within ten paces of you, you panic like a rabbit in a den of wolves.”
Funny her mother should put it that way, for it was exactly how Una had felt five years ago.
Mòrag sighed, looking at Una with sadness. “They know you fear them, so they stay away.”
“I won’t take a mate, I can’t.” Una couldn’t think of a clearer way to say it to her beloved mother. “I don’t deserve a mate,” she admitted.
“Yes, you do. Oh, my dearest daughter . . .” Mòrag left the bread to pull Una into a hug.
“I am your only daughter.”
“And still dearest to my heart.”
“Mama . . .” she said, using the diminutive she’d stopped saying those years go, and for once making no effort to spurn the affection offered.
“You deserve a fine strong mate like your father was for me, and children.” Mòrag hugged her hard. “Oh, I hope you have many, many children. I shall be such a fine granddam.”
“Mother . . .” Una started, not sure how to get through to the other woman.
“Naught but a sacred bond could pull you from your fear, I know that, child.”
“So, you understand?” Una pressed as she gently disengaged herself, needing her mother to accept the truth.
“Oh, yes, daughter. I understand. Do you?”
Una had no chance to answer as her father came inside at that moment, the two Balmoral soldiers behind him.
Both greeted her mother with gratitude for the invitation, and proper Chrechte respect.
But Bryant’s attention was on Una from the moment he entered the hut, his wolf’s storm-grey eyes fixed on her wherever she moved.
Somehow, Una found herself seated beside Bryant on the floor near the single small table the hut boasted, while her parents took the bench and Donnach sat on the only three-legged stool across from them. It was a cozy gathering, not unlike those in Una’s past.
Emotion clogged her throat, making it hard to eat and impossible to converse.
The heat from the Balmoral wolf crossed the space between them, warming Una in strange places, to be sure.
“Una said you told her, when she visited you in her eagle form, that you have family among the Éan.”
Una didn’t know why her mother had to make her visiting Bryant as an eagle sound so . . . significant. She found him fascinating, but felt safer as a bird because she could fly away if she needed to. That was all there was to it.