“He has more honor in him than you,” Shona spat. “He does not threaten innocents and children.”
“He has cast you in the shadow of his guilt. Blame the betrayer for your fate.”
“You sound like Uven, taking no responsibility for the evil you commit.”
Maon’s eyes darkened with something that might have been doubt, but he shifted back to his wolf before Shona could be sure.
Suddenly, with no signal she could see, all six wolves leapt to attack.
Chapter 14
No good will come from Chrechte fighting Chrechte, but human nature must be appeased.
—ANCIENT SAYING ATTRIBUTED TO FIRST CELI DI
The battle was bloody, but Vegar and Caelis were amazing warriors, tossing the giant wolves away with one hand each and slashing at them with swords in the other. They drew blood but made no deep wounds. It was clear Caelis and Vegar were actually trying not to kill the wolves, but the MacLeods had no such compunction.
One managed a deep claw strike to Caelis’s chest as another three attacked Vegar at once, bowling him down under them.
Audrey screamed, the horror she felt testament to the mate bond already forming between her and the eagle shifter.
One of the wolves scratched at Vegar’s thigh, drawing blood.
Audrey broke away from their defensive triangle and ran toward the pile of wolves and warrior. She stabbed with her dagger at one of the wolves. He turned on her with a snarl and took a swipe at her, sending her stumbling back with blood soaking her dress from gashes in her shoulder and arm.
An inch over and the wolf would have cut her artery. Shona’s dearest friend would have bled out, Chrechte or not.
Fury-tinged horror washed through her, but unlike Audrey, Shona would not move from her position of protector to her children. She could not.
One swipe of any of the wolves’ lethal claws and her children would be dead.
That would happen over her own dead and bloodied body, and not one second before.
Audrey shifted into her wolf, a beautiful white creature about half the size of the ones trying to kill them.
Her dress fell away from her and despite the difference in their sizes, she attacked the wolf again, this time with teeth and claws.
Vegar erupted from the pile of wolves, a battle cry resounding in the air around them. One went flying. The other rolled in the opposite direction. His sword came down and straight into the heart of the wolf still fighting with Audrey. So much bigger, and obviously with greater experience, the now dead MacLeod wolf could have killed her in a moment, but hadn’t.
Shona could not make sense of it.
Despite the chaos of the battle around them, Vegar pushed Audrey gently away. “Return to your heart-sister. I thank you for your help.”
The uncouth man rose just slightly in Shona’s estimation in that moment.
Audrey the wolf obediently trotted back, the blood on her fur attesting to the fact that shifting had not immediately healed her wounds. That was a question Shona would have to save for another day. It was clear, however, that her injuries were not bleeding near as profusely.
Still in wolf form, Audrey again took up her position as protector to Shona’s children.
Vegar had returned to battle already, the glint of death in his eyes for those who might go near his mate again. The two wolves he had tossed away now fought for their lives, rather than trying to take his.
Caelis had been fighting with the other three, but his obvious desire not to kill them was doing him no favors. There were small nicks all over his body from fang and claw, but nothing grievous. Shona’s heart rejoiced and she did her best to convince herself ’twas because he stood between her children and the wolves that would harm them.
While two kept him occupied, the other came running toward Shona, its sharp, drooling fangs bared.
The young Sinclair soldier moved in front of her just as the wolf reached them, taking the first bite to his forearm. He grappled with the wolf valiantly, but Shona knew he would not hold the beast off for long.
She readied her dagger. She could not send her children running, though the temptation was great.
There was no way little legs could outrun those intent on doing them harm. Eadan and Marjory had grown quiet. Their eyes round with shock, they clung to each other and huddled near Audrey.
They should have been terrified, but they seemed more dazed and clearly held no fear of the woman who had become a wolf.
Though Shona’s son had been seeing such things in his dreams, for goodness knew how long.
Audrey moved closer to the children, standing over them protectively. Her own teeth bared, growls sounded from her throat that were suspiciously similar to those Audrey used to make when she was angry with the baron.
It put a new light on claims she had made that she was angry enough to scratch the man’s eyes out.
Shona shifted her stance, prepared to enter the fray between the wolf and the soldier trying so valiantly to protect her.
An unholy roar sounded, and a second later the wolf fighting the young soldier went flying, landing in a broken heap nearly fifty feet away. The great beast had snapped its neck and tossed the giant wolf as if he weighed no more than a ball of yarn sniffed toward Shona, his eyes the same gentian blue as Caelis.
And she realized this, this…man-wolf was her former beloved.
She could hardly believe what her eyes told her to be true. This creature was nothing like the wolf Caelis had shown her and yet there could be no doubt in her heart they were one in the same.
Shock coursed through her, leaving her lungs empty of breath and her heart racing.
Standing over seven feet tall and twice as wide as even the biggest warrior…like Caelis as a man, hair covered his face and body, his features that of a cross between wolf and man. His hands had five fingers, like a man’s, but each digit ended in a daggerlike claw. His feet were the same: five toes tipped with sharp-pointed nails that would gouge a hole in man or beast with brutal efficiency.
He stood upright, like a man, his torso, arms and legs shaped much as they were when in his human form but bigger. A lot bigger.
The long canines that showed when he growled toward one of the wolves inching forward on its belly were like his canine counterpart, but his snout was only slightly protruding, the man behind the beast there to see if one was looking.
And Shona was looking.
She wanted to reach out and touch him. Badly.
This wondrous beast was the father of her child. Children, if she believed his intention to claim Marjory.
The young soldier beside her crossed himself with his good arm before cradling the other close to his chest and starting to mutter fervent Hail Marys.
The wolves had stopped their attack, three of the four surviving Chrechte approaching Caelis on their bellies. The last one—she thought mayhap it was Maon—stood off at a distance, his hackles raised, his low growl at once fear-filled and menacing.
Caelis ignored them all as he moved within a breath of Shona. He did not touch her, but she could sense his desire to do so.
She reached out and took one of his great hands into hers and brought it to her face, laying the claw-tipped fingers against her cheek.
The huge body stilled completely, air barely moving his chest in and out. “Mate?”
The guttural voice was not quite human, but the word was understandable. What he was asking was not.
She did not know what he needed, so she gave him what she wanted. She stood on her toes and reached up to touch the light hair covering his face. It was soft to her touch, his jaw beneath strong and firm.