She trailed her fingers down his neck to his enormous, muscular chest, covered in the same soft short brown hair. “’Tis a wondrous monster you are.”
“Monster?” he asked in that growly voice.
“Wondrous.”
“You do not fear.”
“I have naught to fear.”
The sound of vicious snarling made Caelis tense.
“He challenges you,” Vegar said.
Caelis nodded, though his attention remained on Shona.
She stepped back. “You have things to attend.”
His gaze finally moved from hers, but not to where Maon was making his continued anger clear. No, Caelis looked down at Marjory and Eadan.
Their son was looking up at him with awe and a deep happiness Shona was not sure she understood. Marjory didn’t look any more worried than Shona felt.
’Twas as if her small daughter sensed that the great beast was their ally and seemed comforted by it.
Caelis dropped to one knee and Shona had to stifle the urge to laugh. Did he think that made him less intimidating? He still towered over her, much less the children.
Marjory didn’t seem to care. She let go of her brother and approached Caelis with no sign of trepidation.
The Sinclair soldier made as if to grab her back, but a growl from Caelis had him scurrying away. His courage showed, however, in the fact that he did not keep going but remained nearby.
“He doesn’t know you are nice,” Marjory declared with a frown for the soldier.
“I am not always nice, little princess.” The words came out a little garbled in Caelis’s guttural tones, but Marjory didn’t seem to have any difficulty understanding.
“You are nice to me.”
“Always,” he vowed.
She nodded, popping her thumb in her mouth and reaching for one of his pinkies. He let her wrap her hand around it, giving Shona a bemused look.
It was a strange expression on such a fearsome countenance to be sure.
Eadan approached. “I will be like you one day, Da.”
Shona whipped her head around to stare at Caelis. “Is that true?”
“I dinna ken.”
“I do,” Eadan said as he sidled right up to his father and climbed onto the bent knee. “My dreams said so.”
“Then it will come to pass.”
“I have to save the Paindeal celi di,” Eadan said matter-of-factly.
“What?” Shona asked, her voice going faint.
Eadan smiled reassuringly at her from his perch that made him almost of a height with his grown mother. “Not for a long time yet, Mum. Do not worry.”
She nodded, inexplicably glad her son was only five years old. Whatever destiny called to him, she had years yet to love and live with him as her own dear boy.
The snarls had not stopped the entire time Caelis interacted with the children and now they grew louder, the challenge in them obvious even to Shona.
Caelis lifted both children into his great arms and turned to face the one remaining defiant wolf.
“Submit,” he barked in unmistakable command.
Maon shook his wolf’s head, hackles raised, his fangs bared in threat.
The stupid Chrechte stared Caelis in the eye until Shona’s man-wolf let out a bone-chilling growl. The other wolves, including Audrey, whimpered, but the big one just turned and ran away.
Caelis lowered the children to the ground and ordered Vegar, “Watch over them.”
“Aye.” The Éan did not appear offended at the other man’s imperious tone.
Caelis turned to the three cowering wolves and pointed to the ground. “Stay.”
None so much as raised a head in inquiry, but all dropped to their bellies completely and…stayed.
Caelis gave chase after the retreating Chrechte, running faster than she’d ever seen man or beast. Even after the head start Caelis putting the children down had given Maon, he easily caught up with the big wolf. Caelis grabbed the ginger wolf by the scruff of its neck and shook the animal.
Maon went limp and Caelis carried him back to the group, where the other three wolves had not moved the breadth of a single canine hair from their position of submission.
Caelis threw Maon to the ground and then barked, “Shift!”
All four wolves transformed to their human forms. The transition was no less magical for her having seen it before.
Shona recognized two of the warriors, one of an age to her and the other younger. Maon, the self-proclaimed leader, was three or four years younger. She had not immediately recognized the youth she had known six years ago in the angry man he had become.
A fearsome warrior to be sure, he stood leader over men both older and younger than him. Only one man appeared a complete stranger to her.
He looked younger, too, but Shona knew from Caelis that could be deceiving.
All stared at Caelis with varying degrees of respect—even Maon, though his was tempered by that unbanked fury he’d displayed from the moment of his arrival in the clearing in his wolf form.
“You are conriocht. It is not possible,” Maon snarled, his defiance barely tempered.
Vegar’s brow rose mockingly. “And yet here he stands.”
“There is no sacred stone for the Faol anymore. The Éan stole our Faolchú Chridhe.” Maon looked at Vegar with loathing, his disgust with the situation clear. “And you are this one’s friend.”
Caelis backhanded the man, knocking him back several paces. “He is my friend and you’d do well to remember that.”
“Wait until Uven hears about this. He’ll find a way to stop you. I could have, if these fools had not submitted.” Maon glared at his fellow Chrechte.
“He’s conriocht, guardian of the Faol chosen by the Faolchú Chridhe, our own sacred stone, to be our protector and leader,” said the older man Shona had recognized. She thought his name was Sean.
“If he was chosen, it was with a purpose to do the Fearghall’s bidding, but he’s living here among the Sinclairs and the Éan. He’s a disgrace.”
This time, Caelis kicked the stupidly stubborn man, his roar of fury even giving Shona pause. Not that she feared him, but he was an impressive beast. And he was definitely angry.
“What is a conriocht?” Audrey asked, her voice uneven.
Shona had not even noticed her friend had shifted back to her human form.
“It is an ancient term for werewolf…man and wolf combined,” Vegar said, his big body blocking Audrey’s naked one from anyone else’s view.
Interesting. Considering both Caelis’s reaction earlier that day and Audrey’s response to being seen naked in the loch by Vegar in his eagle form, Shona assumed the Chrechte were less concerned with nudity than their human counterparts.
Audrey pulled her shift back on and spoke with the sheer white fabric over her head. She looked equally skittish and fascinated by Caelis’s savage form. “I have never heard of such a thing.”
“Before yesterday, I had never heard of…” What had Caelis called himself? Oh yes. “Shape-changers.”
Audrey replied, “But none have three forms.”
“That is not true,” Vegar said. “Chrechte with parents of two races can sometimes shift into two animals, both wolf and bird. It is rare, but it does happen.”
“Truly?” Shona’s blond friend had managed to get the shift settled into place.
But honestly, it did little for her modesty as see-through as it was.
Vegar didn’t seem impressed with its covering properties, either, glaring at one of the MacLeod Chrechte whose gaze had strayed from Caelis to Audrey.
Vegar nodded in response to Audrey’s question, doing his best to bind her wounds even as he helped Audrey cover herself with her dress.
Caelis stood to his full seven feet and spare inches tall, towering over them all. “I am conriocht and I claim my right as alpha to the MacLeod. Follow me.”