“In the generations that came before, yes.”
Even though she’d been there for most of his explanation before, Una listened with rapt fascination as Bryant recounted to her mother what he had said to her father earlier.
“So, you are related to Prince Eirik and Anya Gra. Have you made them aware of this?”
“I did not realize the significance of my family’s history until Fionn pointed it out.”
“Your family could only keep so many of the stories from one generation to the next. You lost history, just as we all have.” Mòrag spoke with sad resignation. “It is ever true and why the Chrechte are charged with assigning parts of their history to each family and sharing those stories at all the major feasts.”
“The Faol do not practice this.”
Una’s father slurped noisily at his food. “Clearly, or all of the wolves would be aware of the Éan’s existence, not only those who wanted us dead.”
“Our alpha wants the races reunited for just this reason,” Bryant said.
The fervor of true belief infused his voice, and Una caught herself wondering how much of his interest was in her personally and how much was on reconnecting their people. Through a mating?
If that was his plan, he’d do well to look for an easier target. Her eagle screeched in denial at the thought, but Una ignored her bird.
“He plans to come live in the forest, does he?” Una’s father asked aggressively.
But Bryant did not rise to the bait. He merely took a bite of his stew and complimented Una’s mother’s cooking.
“I’ve taught Una all I know of preparing food,” her mother said in reply, and apropos of nothing, Una thought. “Not that she has much use for the knowledge living alone as she does in our former home.”
“Why does she live alone?” Donnach asked. “A Balmoral daughter would never be allowed to live on her own as Una does.”
“She is safer high in the trees than she would be here in the village with us,” her father said, voicing a sentiment she knew well.
And agreed with.
“Surely other families keep their children with them.” Bryant sounded confused.
“If Una had stayed in the trees, the horror of five years past would never have happened.”
Una felt the horrible weight in her stomach that truth always brought.
Bryant looked far from impressed, or convinced. “If coming out of the trees caused such hardship, your entire village would have horror stories.”
“They know better than to venture beyond the depths of the forest.”
“You went exploring?” Bryant asked her directly.
She liked the way he refused to talk around and about her. Like the heat of his wolf at her side, it warmed her. “I found the humans of the clans and their ways infinitely fascinating. I liked to watch them in my eagle form.”
Una hated admitting her failings out loud, but she would not deny them, either. No matter how much she might like to.
“But you were not caught as eagle,” Bryant guessed with far too much astuteness.
“No.” She’d been in her human form, swimming in the loch and playing in the falls that fed it as she’d seen the clan’s children do.
“What happened? Why didn’t you shift and fly away?”
Una rubbed at her wrists where the iron spikes had been driven to hold her to the tree.
Bryant noticed the small telltale gesture and put his hand out. “May I see?”
She should tell him no, absolutely not, as she would if anyone else had requested thus. But Una found herself offering her wrists.
He tugged up the sleeves of her blouse, a growl echoing in the otherwise silent hut as his eyes fell on the scars that could not be misinterpreted.
“They did this to you?”
“They found sport in hurting and terrifying me,” she admitted, not really understanding why she did so. Only that her eagle insisted on it.
Bryant lifted his head, his grey gaze boring into her father. “And did you kill them?”
“Those we caught, we killed, but not easily and not without cost.”
“There were nearly a dozen of them. They performed some strange ritual, not of the Chrechte, I don’t think.”
“Any women?” Donnach asked, his voice filled with revulsion.
“No. Only men. One of them was being initiated into the group. He drove the spikes in, to prove his commitment to their cause.”
“He is not dead,” her father said with frustrated venom. “But I have been in no condition to hunt him.”
“Would you still recognize his scent?” Bryant asked in a tone that made her shiver.
“We are not wolves, our sense of smell and hearing is only slightly better than a human’s.”
“You would recognize him.”
“I would,” Una said with certainty. “Though it is my deepest wish never to lay eyes on him again.”
“Describe him.”
“Why?” Una asked, unable to understand why he would request such a thing of her.
“That I may find and kill him.”
“What? No!”
“He was Donegal,” Donnach guessed.
“They wore no plaids. I do not know if all the men were of the same clan, though some were. I’d seen them among the Donegals before that,” she admitted in a quiet voice.
Una could not understand it when she found herself pulled into Bryant’s lap and was even more shocked when neither of her parents made a complaint.
“Describe this miscreant to me,” Bryant urged, his chest rumbling with a wolf’s growl.
It should have frightened her, but for the first time in five years, Una felt truly safe. ’Twas a conundrum she had no hope of deciphering, but gave thanks for all the same.
To have even a few moments without fear would be a blessing indeed. If the cost was describing the men who had hurt her, the ones her clansmen had not killed . . . then it was a price she would pay.
Later, Bryant insisted her mother accompany Una back into the treetops to see her safely in her home. She wanted his company, not that of her parent, but no words left her lips to tell him so.
NINE
Una did not see Bryant for five days after the dinner with her parents. Not at night, while she slept. Not each afternoon when she went down to visit her mother in the village. She didn’t see the other Balmoral, Donnach, either.
On the second day, she inquired in passing if her mother had seen Bryant, but Mòrag hadn’t heard the question. And Una had been too embarrassed to be asking it to repeat her words.
She noted her father was less vocal in his displeasure about the Faol soldiers staying in the village, but he didn’t mention Bryant by name.
On the third day, Una’s eagle grew restless enough for her to repeat the question to her mother, but received a simple, “I don’t know,” in reply.
Not at all helpful.
Given Una’s reticence in social situations, her mother’s astonishment could be forgiven when Una suggested they visit one of the families housing another Faol warrior, this one from the Sinclair clan.
“I did not realize you were on close terms with the daughter of the house.”
“We are of an age,” Una said noncommittally.
In truth, Una had done little to maintain any of her childhood friendships in the last five years. And for the first time, she realized regret in that.
The visit proved wholly unfruitful in discovering the whereabouts of the Balmoral soldiers, but Una enjoyed reconnecting with her once bosom friend very much.
She was also quite proud of her reaction to the Sinclair soldier. As long as he stayed on the other side of the room, her fear remained controllable and no attack of panicked terror ensued.