“I felt safe when you held me in my parents’ hut.”
“That is good to know.”
“Is it? Why?”
“You know.”
She shook her head, even as her eagle whispered a word she’d been sure the bird would never utter. Mate.
“Tell me, Una, who shares dreams among our people?”
“Our people?” she asked.
“Yes, our people. We are all Chrechte. You are an eagle. I am a brown wolf. Others among my clan are white, grey and black . . . some with differing gifts merely because of the color of their fur. In your own tribe you have ravens and eagles.”
“And hawks.” Though their numbers were even less than the eagles, as both protectors of their people had been hunted near to extinction.
“I did not know.”
“They are so few, we protect their numbers by never exposing them, even to the humans in our tribe.”
“It is a hard way to live.”
She nodded. No use denying the truth.
“But sometimes even a very difficult life comes with blessings.”
“Most times, yes.”
“Like finding your true mate.” The expression in the wolf’s eyes filled with meaning.
Una shook her head, not so much in denial as incomprehension.
“Una, sweeting . . .” He moved forward until the heat from his body called out to hers. “What does it mean when two Chrechte share their dreams?”
She opened her mouth to tell him that they hadn’t been dreaming.
But he laid his finger against her lips. “Or are called together in the land of the spirits?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “Only those of royal blood, or who are called on a quest can visit the spirit plane.”
He was of royal descent, but that didn’t explain her being there with him. And in each sojourn, she had only ever seen someone else that first time.
“Or sacred mates.”
“It cannot be.”
“It is.”
“But . . .” She was going to argue that she was afraid of him, that they could not be mates because she could not share intimacy with him.
Only it would have been a lie. Una no longer felt even a trickling of anxiety in Bryant’s presence.
“They didn’t violate me,” she said so quietly, she was not sure he would hear.
“They tortured you.”
“I have scars.” Faded in five years, but still there.
“I see nothing but marks of strength and courage on a beautiful body.”
“I . . .”
“You belong to me. With me. Now and always.”
“I can’t.”
“You do.”
Her gaze rose to meet his. “Can a wolf love an eagle?”
“Aye.”
Her breath stuttered and she waited for him to say more.
“How could I not love you, Una?”
“But you do not know me.”
“I know you in a way none other ever could,” he argued.
She shook her head.
“I have killed for you,” he claimed.
Her body went rigid with shock. “What?”
“Your father told me you wondered where I had gone. He told you I was hunting.”
The import of his words was not lost on her, but it was only secondary in that moment. “You spoke to my father first?”
“It is proper. And he needed to know it was done.”
“What? What was done?”
“The men who hurt you. They are dead.”
TEN
How?” She did not doubt his wolf’s prowess at the hunt, but how had Bryant found the men whom she had not seen in five years?
“Lais helped me. Based on your descriptions and what he knew of his former clansmen, he was able to guess at the identity of the one who did this.” Bryant ran his thumb over the scar on one of her wrists.
“He was Donegal then?”
“Aye. Lais did not participate in the kill, but he helped us to track your tormentors.”
“But why?”
“Justice.”
“What of mercy?”
“You were not their only victim.”
“How do you know?”
“They confessed . . . boasted more like.”
“And for that, they had to die?”
“Aye.”
She tried to feel shock, or dismay, but all she experienced was a profound relief. “I am glad.”
“Aye, because they did not break your spirit.”
“My father thinks they did.”
“He knows better now.”
“Because you told him?”
“Yes.”
“Is killing love then?” she asked, not mocking, but trying to understand.
“Let me show you what it means to be mated to the one destiny created just for you and then you will tell me what love is.”
She would have chided him for his arrogance, but could find no breath for words. Not with him standing so close, his sex already hard and kissing her stomach with moisture.
She was a shifter and though she had more modesty than most, she was accustomed to nudity for the shift. But this nakedness with him was different.
It made her feel things her body had not yet experienced, though her eagle told her they were right and true. She wanted to touch, to be touched.
She wanted to join with him as she’d been certain she would never join with another. The thought of her father’s reaction to her mating a wolf came forth to bedevil her, but for the first time in five years the thought of disappointing him was less important than the happiness flickering to life inside her.
And yet, she said, “My father—”
“Has given us his blessing, grudging though it is. If I hurt you, he will dismember me. It was a vow.”
She nodded, unexpected joy surging through her. “My mother believes us to be true mates.”
“She is a wise woman.”
“Aye.”
“The time for talking is past.” His words came out strained and tight and the hardness standing sentinel between them shifted against her skin, leaving a trail of moisture in its wake.
She reached down and ran her fingertip through the viscous fluid. Though her senses were not as sharp as a wolf’s in this regard, the scent of him still drove her near to her knees.
Her eagle cried out to be claimed.
She brought her finger to her mouth, tasting his essence with a delicate lick of her tongue.
Bryant’s eyes flared with passion and a growl sounded from his throat before he yanked her to him, stealing the salty flavor from her tongue and replacing it with the sweetness that was his mouth. The kiss was incendiary, beyond anything they had shared in the spirit realm.
The sensations in the flesh were more acute, sharp with pleasure so great she moaned against his lips entirely wantonly.
His hands roamed over her body; everywhere the wolf had scented, Bryant now touched, making her his before he ever joined their bodies as one.
Spots that had been ticklish before now buzzed with delight at each caress, enhancing her arousal until even she could smell the scent of her body’s preparation for him.
One big hand slid between her legs, masculine fingers delving into flesh that had never been touched. Even by her.
The ecstasy was so immense, her strength gave out. He held her up with no evidence of effort, his muscular arm locked tight around her while his hand touched her most intimate flesh in secret and surely forbidden ways.
It felt too good to be proper behavior.
But then she was an Éan . . . propriety meant little to her people.
This delight, however? It was something too amazing to ever do without again.
Oh, that the Creator would not let her have to do without it again.
The arm holding her up shifted, and suddenly his fingertip was between her nether cheeks, teasing at flesh she never would have suspected had so much feeling.