“Lucky blow.”
“Luck had nothing to do with it. Your inattention, on the other hand…” Vegar let his voice trail off mockingly.
“I have much on my mind.”
They fell back to sparring.
“More to do with your mate than your upcoming challenge, I’ll wager.”
Caelis could not deny it, though he did his best to focus on their mock battle.
“My guilt is as great as my jealousy,” Caelis admitted to his fellow Cahir with unexpected candor.
A sharp prick on his arm told him his friend had scored a hit. Both men jumped back, cursing.
Caelis swiped at the thin trickle of blood coming from the shallow cut. “It is a good thing we are not on the training field with others right now.”
They were on the deserted secondary training ground separated from the keep and the other tract used by the Sinclair in preparing his soldiers for battle.
“We would not easily live this down,” Vegar said with chagrin.
Caelis realized something only his great agitation had prevented from being immediately apparent. The injury would not have occurred if Vegar was not distracted by his own mate worries as well.
“We are distracted.”
“You think?” Vegar mocked, making no effort to deny it.
“She’s not going to forgive you easily.”
Vegar shook his head with disgust. “Which one? Your mate, who is a mama bear with the Englishwoman, or mine, whom I have managed to offend beyond redemption?”
“Both, I’d say.” Caelis lunged forward, knocking Vegar’s sword from his hand so easily, it couldn’t even be considered a victory.
This time, the other man’s curse was more colorful and vicious.
Vegar rolled and grabbed his sword as he came up into a fighting stance again. “I am a trained protector among the Éan, now Cahir. I will prevail.”
They had trained together in the secret, elite group of warriors begun centuries ago in response to the Fearghall. The last remaining Cahir lived among the Balmoral and were now busy training warriors from the clans determined to fight the Fearghall’s despicable endeavors to rid the world of all Chrechte but the Faol.
“I do not think your warrior training will do you much good when wooing a woman,” Caelis observed.
“It has taught me patience, persistence and the ability to take a wound and continue to fight.”
Put that way…“Mayhap I will rely more on my warrior’s training as well.”
“You have already marked Shona with your scent. She will not deny you now.”
“She is not Chrechte.”
“Are the humans who lived among the Éan so different than those of the clans then?” Vegar asked.
The eagle had lived with his brethren deep in the forest until a year ago when their prince led them in joining the clans dedicated to restoring the brotherhood of the Chrechte and all its races. The humans who lived among them were considered part of their tribe in a way the packs had not embraced their own clans. All humans among the Éan knew of their Chrechte natures.
While only a trusted few in each clan were aware of the animal forms the Chrechte among them could take.
But he did not understand how that would make their human brethren different in this case. “What do you mean?”
“If a human woman allows a man to take what they call liberties, she is obliged to marry him. Are clanswomen not governed by the same obligation?”
“Not if the one in question is as stubborn as she is willful.”
“Like your mate.”
“Aye, exactly like my mate.”
“The boy at the table…he smelled like you.”
“He is my son.” It gave Caelis great joy to say it, but the sorrow he felt at their time lost together immediately tempered his gratification.
“What happened?”
Caelis told Vegar the story as they continued their sparring, neither man showing the best side of their control or focus.
“Your alpha lied to you about your true mate?” Vegar’s tone was laden with horror at such an atrocity.
“Aye.” Caelis performed a running leap that ended in a forward somersault, which he leapt out of with his sword pointed at Vegar’s femoral artery. “All Uven cares about is the pack increasing its numbers.”
Vegar kicked Caelis’s arm aside and spun out of reach of the sharpened sword. “You would not be able to get another woman with child once you’d consummated a true mating, no matter what your alpha dictated.”
The fact that a Chrechte could not physically engage in sexual acts with others once a sacred mating had been consummated was one of the reasons true bonds were so revered and respected.
“I did not tell him that Shona and I had made love. Uven was particularly adamant about it and I did not want to disappoint him,” Caelis admitted bitterly.
“He’d put himself in place of your father.”
“To my detriment.”
Vegar grunted an agreement as he narrowly avoided getting dumped on his ass by Caelis’s sweeping foot. “You sent her away without knowing she carried your child.”
“I did not send her away.” Why he had to keep reminding people of that fact, he did not know.
It was Vegar’s turn to come close to sending Caelis sprawling. “You thought your alpha would change his mind, given time.”
“Exactly.” See? The other Cahir understood what Shona refused to accept.
Mayhap one had to be a warrior to think with that kind of strategy.
“But he is Fearghall. He was never going to change his mind about you having a human mate.” Vegar’s words cut down Caelis’s arrogant thinking like a sword going through the heart of a boar.
Shona did not believe Uven would have changed his mind either and clearly expected Caelis to have been equally as wise.
But he had not.
“I realized that too late.” To his shame, Caelis had not opened to the awareness of Uven’s treachery in regard to his mate until several other matters had forced his unquestioning faith in the laird to be shaken.
“She will not forgive you?”
“I dinna ken.” He hoped, but he had no certainty.
“Does she know your plans?”
“I spoke of them, but not in detail. She knows I plan to return to the MacLeod.”
Their swords clanged in rhythmic beats as they fell into a fighting pattern neither could easily break free of or win. It made them both sweat with exertion, but continued to show both their skills in a dull light.
“And?” Vegar prompted after a particularly loud clash.
“She never wants to return to the clan of our births.”
“She plans to live among the Sinclairs?” Vegar’s shock translated to a clumsy move on his part and it was his turn to weep blood from a small gash.
“Shona has family among the Balmoral.”
This time, Caelis was able to compensate for Vegar’s surprise-driven clumsiness and he did not draw blood.
“Are you going to let her go?”
“What choice have I?”
“The same options you had six years ago.”
Caelis stopped moving completely, his sword falling to his side as his friend’s words sank into his warrior’s heart. “My clan or my mate?”
Vegar shook his head firmly, no pity in his expression, only a good dose of disgust. “Giving up or fighting for the woman Providence has decreed as yours.”
Chapter 13
Chrechte nature runs true.
—TALORC OF THE SINCLAIRS
Caelis was no weak-willed coward unwilling to fight, but when he opened his mouth to say so, he could not get the words out. Because he had refused to fight for Shona six years ago.