"Why did he take my daughter?"
Cait knew her answers were going to anger Drustan, but she could not lie. "Magnus did not take her. Not exactly. He mated with her in the fur and then, according to the custom of our pack, insisted she return to our clan as his wife. It happened on Sinclair land."
That was the part she knew Drustan would not like. She herself didn't understand why Susannah had been on their land, but she knew her brother's blacksmith had not lied. "Susannah told him that she had her laird's permission to hunt off the island during the full moon. She said she was not yet ready to take a permanent mate."
Moira's gaze clouded. "She wasn't. She'd gone into heat and she knew that if she ran with the pack during the full moon she would end up mating in the fur."
Cait could imagine the girl's thoughts. Every werewolf and femwolf knew that if an unmated female ran with the males of the pack when she was in heat, their wolf natures would take over. The unmated males would fight for the privilege of mating her, even if they didn't like each other as humans. The winner would then woo the femwolf and they would end up mating. It was inevitable. What the femwolf's mind told her in her human form would not hold sway in her animal form, and most were smart enough to realize it and take action accordingly.
Susannah had thought she was protecting her independence by hunting alone. Though in ancient days, she would not have been allowed to do so, no matter what her personal desires. Not all femwolves went into heat, but most did. And when they did, they were expected to mate and have children to increase the numbers in the packs.
Most packs still adhered to that tradition, much as human fathers insisted their daughters marry when they came of age. She'd already been mated the first time she went into heat, but she knew her brother would have insisted she take a mate at the time if she hadn't been.
"I thought the wolves among the Balmoral do not consider physical mating a life commitment." That attitude had caused Susannah and Magnus some conflict in the beginning and Cait had wondered why the girl had chosen to hunt alone if it were the case.
Wouldn't she have been safer running with her own pack?
Moira sighed. "Mating in the fur when a femwolf is in heat usually results in pregnancy. Susannah knew this. In our pack, making a cub together means a lifelong bond that cannot be broken under any circumstances."
That made sense. The Balmoral wasn't the only clan who had a pack that practiced physical mating outside of life bonding. Since the act of physical intercourse was the trigger for so many werewolves gaining control of their change after their coming of age, some packs believed it should be practiced without lifelong consequences. To Cait's way of thinking, that was giving in too fully to their wolf natures.
But she wasn't about to get into a morality argument with her new husband and mother-in-law right now. But woe betide any werewolf who mated a daughter of hers without promising a lifetime commitment. She would rip his throat out and Drustan would have to learn to live with it.
She wasn't going to allow any barbaric custom like that to hurt a child of hers.
"Why was Susannah encouraged to hunt on Sinclair land?" Cait asked, still confused on that point.
It made no sense in light of what Susannah had been trying to do… remain unmarried. Whether the wolf was Sinclair or Balmoral, the femwolf was going to end up mated once her scent in heat was caught. Which was exactly what had happened.
"She wasn't," Drustan said harshly.
She turned to her new husband, unsure how to take this change in his demeanor, but not about to back down. "Your sister told Magnus she was instructed where to hunt during the full moon. She did not know it was Sinclair hunting ground, but you cannot tell me the males of your pack were as ignorant. It is a thing the lairds take care to learn about each other."
It was supposed to be a secret, but the packs spied on each other and knew much more than they admitted about one another. There had been a time when all Chrechte were one pack under a common king, but that was not the way they lived now. Not since MacAlpin's betrayal. Even so, they did not war as much with each other as they did with the wholly human clans or with those to the south. There were unspoken laws they all lived by, and those governing mating with a femwolf from another pack were some of the most sacred. But they had not been breached for the reasons Drustan thought.
Cait's brother respected ancient tradition, very much. He would never have allowed Magnus to keep Susannah without a formal request of the Balmoral laird. If the request was denied, he would not have ordered his blacksmith to return her to her former clan. That was governed by the even more ancient law of true-bond matings, but none of that mattered.
Talorc had not made the formal request because he considered Susannah's presence on Sinclair hunting lands the result of shameful neglect for the femwolf's safety by her laird and family. Soldiers as adept at hiding their scent as the Balmoral werewolves would know more than most. They would have known the land they sent Susannah to was hunting ground for the pack within the Sinclair clan. It was inconceivable that they would not.
"Of course we know where the Sinclair pack hunts," Drustan growled, confirming her thoughts. "Neither Lachlan nor I would have instructed her to hunt there alone, or otherwise."
"But she said you did."
"Susannah did not say I gave her these instructions," Drustan said in a voice that dared her to disagree… at her peril.
"I don't know who she claimed instructed her in this matter. I never asked. I just assumed it was your laird."
"Your assumption would have been right… if she had spoken to anyone. She would have sought permission for such a thing from me or from Lachlan." Anger sizzled in the air around Drustan, and Cait would never have known they had spent so many hours locked together in passion from the way he looked at her now if she did not have her own memories to go by. "She came to neither of us and if she had, we damn well would not have instructed her to hunt where she was likely to end up mated against her will."
Cait laid her hand on his forearm in entreaty. "She did not mate against her will. It doesn't work that way and you know it."
He shook off her touch, wounding her. "But she did not want to mate yet," he gritted out.
"But she is happy to be married to Magnus now. Truly. She is. You say you heard her… you know she is content to be his wife. They are good together. He's very tender with her," she said wistfully, thinking how gentle-spoken Magnus was with Susannah, while Drustan was practically yelling at her. "They love each other now."
"Is she pregnant?" Moira asked.
"Yes. And they are both very happy about the coming baby." She rubbed her own protruding tummy as her babe kicked. "It is a blessed event."
Moira's eyes filled with tears. "I will never see my grandchild."
"Talorc will give you permission to visit. I'm certain he will. But if you are worried, I could ask him for you."
"You will not be seeing your brother."
She tried to dismiss the biting tone of her husband's voice, but it was hard. He was obviously not as content as Magnus in their marriage born of the disaster of Susannah hunting alone during the last full moon.
"You must see that there is a misunderstanding that needs to be addressed. My brother did not dismiss ancient law on a whim. He and Magnus believed your clan had failed in its duty to protect Susannah. That is why the formal request for het hand was never made to you or Lachlan. I'm sure if I talk to him and explain, the situation can be resolved."
"You are going nowhere near Sinclair land."
Cait had known he would take that stand, but it still hurt. He didn't even act like he believed she'd told the truth about Susannah, and she didn't know how to convince him. Presumably, Susannah was not known as a liar and thus, he thought Cait was lying about what his sister had said.