“You are mine!” Caelis shouted, his tone intense, his body straining hard and his eyes glowing as they did when he was conriocht.
He swelled inside her. Already large, he grew so that she could barely move on his sex, her swollen folds stretched taut around his conriocht cock.
“You are shifting.”
Sweat beaded his brow, his face contorted with his effort to control his form. “Nay.”
“Parts of you, surely.” No matter how misted the memory, she would not have forgotten if he had been this large six years past.
He did not answer, simply moving her on his huge arousal, causing her pleasure that bordered on pain. But no pain came and the pleasure only grew until it exploded through her and she screamed her completion even as he came inside her, his seed hot and strong as it pulsed against her cervix.
“My mate, my wife,” he said in the guttural tones of the conriocht as his body increased in size and she felt another climax build on the astonishing pleasure of the last one. There was no breath for her climax when it came this time.
Her body shuddered, convulsion after convulsion tightening her flesh as clawed hands held her with intense care. His face did not shift, he did not grow hair…it was Caelis, but with the body of a near giant and the sex to match it.
“You will carry my child again,” he promised her. “And I will be there every day of your confinement.”
She had no breath for words with which to reply, but she could say the only three that mattered across their mating bond. “I love you.”
“And I you. One day you will believe it.”
She might believe it now, but he gave her no opportunity to tell him as he began making love to her again, proving that a six-year wait was entirely too long for man or wolf to finally claim his mate.
They continued to make love into the early hours of the morning, falling asleep under their mating fur as the sky began to lighten.
Shona and Caelis did not join the Balmoral clan until the nooning meal the next day, and still Shona found herself stifling a yawn as they approached the head table.
Audrey smiled knowingly. “Good morning, sleepyheads.”
Shona knew her young friend’s transition from innocent to married woman would take some getting used to, but she smiled anyway. “Thank you for rising with the children this morn.”
Audrey waved off her thanks. “Eadan and Marjory enjoyed getting to know their new family. Gail and Feth made them feel very welcome.”
Shona had barely met the laird and lady’s ten-year-old daughter and eight-year-old son the day before, though both had attended her wedding.
She smiled at them now. “Thank you.”
“They are very nice children,” Gail said with the maturity of budding womanhood.
She had years yet of her own childhood, Providence willing, but the reflection of the woman she would become was there.
Feth shrugged. “I like Eadan all right. He listens better than Brian and Drost.”
“Don’t speak ill of your cousins,” Emily admonished.
“I’m not.” Feth frowned. “The truth is not speaking bad of someone is it, Da?”
Shona bit back a smile as she took her seat, glad she wasn’t the parent having to answer difficult questions right that moment. She was too sleep-deprived to be as politic as that sort of parenting required.
“When are we going home?” Eadan asked. “We need to go soon. The bad man has to be stopped, Da.”
“Home?” Shona asked, trying to make sense of the words her son had spoken.
“Our keep.” Eadan turned to Lachlan. “Yours is very nice, laird, but we need to go home.”
“The barony?” Shona asked, at a complete loss.
No doubt more to do with lack of sleep than her son not making sense. He was a very practical little boy.
“The barony is not our home, Mum. We are MacLeods.”
“You, your sister and your dam will come to MacLeod land once I have confronted the laird and defeated him,” Caelis answered, proving he was more cognizant than Shona about Eadan’s meaning.
“Nay, Da. We have to come with you now. We should leave today.” Eadan spoke with great earnestness.
And although she agreed their children needed to be kept safe, Shona also felt a nagging need to leave for MacLeod lands immediately.
“You canna come with me, son. ’Tis not safe,” Caelis said firmly.
Eadan’s features took on a stubborn cast Shona knew only too well.
“The dragon will protect us.”
“Dragon?” Shona asked faintly, quite certain there was yet more of the Chrechte world she did not know.
“He is mate to the celi di, Mum.”
“Eadan—” Caelis said warningly.
“The celi di must come, too. The conriocht in my dream said so.”
Caelis frowned at their son. “Eadan, have a care what you say.”
“No one who is not to hear will understand our words,” Eadan said with such certainty that Shona felt a chill of affirmation climb up her spine.
She looked around them and noted that none but the laird, his wife and their small group paid any heed to their conversation at all. Not even the laird’s second and his wife sitting at the same table.
How could this be?
“I’m doing it, I think,” Audrey said, looking frightened and awed at the same time. “I felt something strange and wonderful when I touched the Faolchú Chridhe, but I did not know what it meant.”
“How?” Shona asked.
“I’m not sure. There are stories about Chrechte gifts. Mother said they were myths, but now I’ve touched the sacred stone and I can feel it working in me.”
“But how did you do it?” She still didn’t understand.
“I was just sitting here wishing no one would hear Eadan’s slips of the tongue.”
“Why?” Shona asked.
Audrey shrugged, looking apologetic. “Mother ingrained in me the need for secrecy.”
“So, no one but those privy to the discussion can hear it?” she asked, just to confirm.
Audrey looked hesitant to answer, but Eadan said with all the authority a five-year-old boy who was certain of his facts could muster, “Right.”
“That is impossible.”
“So is reading minds,” Caelis said to her with a significant look.
“You said that was the mate bond.”
“What we experience goes beyond the mating bond.”
Unwilling to consider the implications of his words right then, Shona turned to her son.
“You saw a conriocht in your dreams?”
“Yes, Mum. He is from long ago, but said he would help me when I needed him.”
“There is an ancient celi di who guides me,” Ciara offered, the look she gave Eadan full of wonder. “I did not see her for the first time until last year.”
“There is much to be done before I am of age,” Eadan said as if quoting another and sounding much older than his five years.
“I…” Shona did not know if she wanted her son to be destined for such things, but then what choice had she?
She was mother, not Creator.
“You can all come to MacLeod lands once I have defeated Uven.” There was no give in Caelis’s tone.
“No,” Eadan said with authority no child should have in his tone. “We must go with you.”
“Why?”
“The conriocht said so.” Now, at least, Eadan sounded like a child.
“You will be safer here, among the Balmoral.”