“What is it you wish to see?” Vegar asked, looking bemused for the first time in memory.
He made no move to block the blond woman’s hands as she pulled his arms this way and that until she discovered the small cut on his thigh.
She blushed crimson when she realized where her mate had been wounded, but did not back away. “This must be tended to.”
Vegar replied, “I planned to wash in the loch.”
“You’ll be washing yourself there as well,” Shona informed Caelis.
He shrugged. “If that will please you. It is not much to worry about.” But he did like the fact that she was worried.
“We will still see it cleaned and treated with witch hazel.”
“We?” he asked.
She rolled her eyes. “I’ll not leave you to your own mercies. You did not show enough self-protection to avoid getting hurt in the first place. I’ll not trust you to care for the results. It would upset the children.”
Eadan was squatting on his haunches looking under a large rock he’d turned over and poking at the insects he’d found there with a twig. Little Marjory chased a butterfly. Caelis did not think the children were particularly worried about his small wound.
Nevertheless, he didn’t argue. “We will go to the loch.”
“I’ll fetch the witch hazel,” Audrey said decisively and then smiled down at the little girl who’d just fallen on her rump reaching for the fluttery insect. “Would you like to come with me, sweeting?”
Marjory shook her head and looked shyly at Caelis and lifted her arms. “Want up.”
He reached for her, lifting her even as Shona argued he was too dirty.
“She’s a child, not a silk gown. She’ll wash.”
Marjory giggled as he tickled her tummy. “Isn’t that right, wee one?”
She nodded vehemently.
Eadan smiled, doing his best to hide the wistful expression on his face, but Caelis read it with easy accuracy. He reached down a hand for his son.
Eadan took it immediately and Caelis tossed his son up and around so he could sit on the warrior’s broad shoulders. The boy’s shout of glee pricked at the heart Caelis had told the Sinclair he didn’t need engaged.
This wound would leave him bleeding longer than Vegar’s sword tip, Caelis was sure.
How much had he allowed his own false thinking to cost him?
Shona finished treating Caelis’s cut with the agrimony Abigail had sent back with Audrey along with the witch hazel she’d insisted on. “There, that should stop it swelling.”
“’Tis barely an injury.” Her nearness called to his wolf and his libido.
He wanted to take her into the forest and claim her fully. Then she would admit they were meant to be a family.
Only he could touch her for pleasure.
Her breath caught as if she knew his thoughts. Perhaps she did. His hardened sex pushed the kilt away from his body.
She inhaled as if she was the wolf and his scent drew her. “Even the tiniest lesion can sicken.”
“I am Chrechte.” He brushed his hand down the side of her face. “We rarely take ill.”
She shivered but held herself back from leaning into his touch. “Need I remind you again? You are no god, Caelis. If Chrechte never sickened, all would still live since the first walked the earth.”
“Our natures are violent.” And sexual.
He wanted her until his teeth ached with it.
“Aye, no doubt. Your people surely have lost great numbers to war, but the fact remains…”
“None live forever, though we do tend to live longer. And our mates with us.”
“Even human mates?”
“I do not know, but surely you have noted that Abigail does not show the aging of a woman with her years.”
“She’s hardly old.”
“She is older than her appearance would suggest.”
Shona looked thoughtful. “Why is that, I wonder?”
He shrugged. He was only glad that it was. Had the last six years not been difficult enough? He would not consider what old age might be like without his mate at his side.
Though he could not be sure now that she was not still intent on making him live without her. Last night notwithstanding.
She’d blamed that on his wolf and her response to the beast nature in Caelis.
Regardless, life was tenuous enough in the Highlands, even for the Chrechte. In that, Shona was well thought.
“There are some who live longer than others, by entire decades. Are they all Chrechte?”
“Aye, for the most part.” He could not think of a single human who lived into his dotage among the MacLeod, but that could have more to do with Uven’s attitude toward humans than anything else.
Shona sat back on the grass, her attention split between him and the children still searching for bugs near the shallow water with Vegar’s and Audrey’s oversight. The way Shona leaned on her arms put her lovely breasts on display and it was all Caelis could do not to take the unconscious invitation.
She straightened her skirts, the green velvet no doubt impressive by English standards but not what he wanted to see her wearing. He’d prefer her naked, but barring that, wearing a proper Scottish plaid.
She gave him a sidelong glance, her hands twisted in the heavy fabric of her skirt. “You said we did not have much time to discuss important matters.”
Here it was, the moment of reckoning. “We do not.”
“Why?”
“Caelis!” One of the Sinclair’s younger soldiers came running. “Vegar! You must return to the keep.”
Caelis jumped to his feet and then reached down to yank Shona up as well.
“What is happening?” she demanded as she fell against him, having not expected his move.
The feel of her body against his pushed against the urgency to follow Talorc’s command and insisted on another urgency altogether. “You heard. The laird has ordered us back to the keep.”
Shona was not similarly afflicted. “But why?”
“MacLeod soldiers have been spotted on Sinclair land,” the young soldier answered helpfully with a smile for Shona that made Caelis want to smash his teeth in.
“What? Why?” Shona’s body went rigid. “They are not welcome?”
“They are definitely not welcome.” He tugged her along, sweeping Eadan up into his arms on the way. “I told you, the MacLeod’s daughter sought refuge here last year.”
Vegar carried Marjory already, his free hand fastened around Audrey’s wrist as he pulled her toward the keep.
“But she is living with the Balmoral.”
“And these MacLeod soldiers may well be on their way to Balmoral Island.” Not that they would reach it regardless.
They had trespassed on Sinclair land without permission after their laird had declared enmity with the clan. The warriors would definitely be detained, but allowing Shona and her family to remain outside the keep’s walls was not an option.
“Why are we rushing so?” Audrey asked breathlessly. “Would they not have been spotted a long ways off, as we were?”
“We do not know how far away the enemy is and we cannot be certain the Sinclair’s watch accounted for all who crossed our borders.” Vegar tucked Marjory more securely against his side and increased his pace.
Audrey tripped and nearly fell. Vegar did not slow down, but reached around her waist with his forearm, lifting her and carrying her as he did the child. Only he kept the woman’s front away from him, her backside pressed against his hip.
Audrey’s outraged cry cut off with an oomph as Vegar shifted her into a more secure position as well.
Caelis looked down at Shona and she glared back. “Do not even consider it.”
He bit back his grin, but made no move to lift her from her feet.
Audrey was busy complaining, but from what Caelis could see, his eagle friend completely ignored the Faol’s furious demands to be let down.