to stay out of Eirik’s way, but her emotions were in more turmoil than they’d ever been. Busy seeing his people settled in, he seemed just as intent on avoiding her.
That did not stop him from giving her looks that made her thighs clench, her toes curl and her heart pound uncomfortably in her chest whenever he did see her though. He alternated between those heated looks and scowls that let her know he was still angry with her for questioning his intentions toward Laird Talorc.
Knowing the dragon was so disgusted with her did no good at tamping down her own feelings, either. Ciara had never been as aware of her own femininity. Her wolf wanted out to howl, to hunt…to mate.
Thankfully, Eirik was not another wolf to recognize the signs, or take advantage of them. It was all she could do to keep her reactions hidden from her adopted family.
It did not help that Ciara was still wavering in her decision to tell Laird Talorc of her dreams.
She berated herself for her indecision. She knew she could trust her laird, but to give the dreams to him was to let go of the last bit of her life she had shared with her brother.
With her mind in such turmoil, Ciara had no choice but to let the beast take over some nights. Unbeknownst to anyone else, she had taken to running in the forest after the others living in the keep were safely asleep.
Ciara had learned that in her wolf form, she could jump from her window to the castle wall, though it did not look possible. Then she would jump the nine feet from the top of the wall to the grass below. While the towers were more than three times that high, the castle wall was tall enough to keep marauders out, but not a determined femwolf in.
She was sleeping no better and disturbing dreams were plaguing her more than ever before. Worse than the nightmares of her brother’s or mother’s deaths, were the heated dreams replaying the kiss between her and Eirik.
Some did not end with her pulling away, either.
Those scared her the most.
The only sleep she got was in her wolf form, snuggled up at the base of her favorite tree. It was old, so tall she could not see the top if she looked straight up from the base. So big around, a whole family could live inside its trunk if it were hollow.
A tree that had grown since the beginning of time, or at least since the beginning of the Chrechte in the Highlands—she felt a connection to God and the Chrechte that had lived before her here. It was a special place. Perhaps even a sacred one.
So, she should not have been surprised to find someone else had found sanctuary at its base. A human woman curled against the bark, her body shivering in the cool summer night.
Moved by pity and concern, Ciara padded over in her wolf form and nudged the human female.
The woman flinched and whimpered, but did not scream. She sat up, looking wildly around before letting her gaze settle fully on Ciara.
Pale hair hung down around a face pinched with worry and blue eyes filled with tears. “Please tell me you’re the one. The dreams led me here, but if you’re not the one, you’re probably going to eat me. I don’t want to be eaten. I don’t think that would be much of an improvement over my father’s fists.”
Ciara was so shocked by the implication that a Highland man beat his daughter, she barked.
The other woman started, but seemed to try to force herself to relax. She put a trembling hand out as if to shake Ciara’s hand, or maybe let the wolf scent her. “My name is Mairi. Please tell me you are a shifter and not a wild wolf.”
Ciara’s wolf took over, sniffing Mairi’s hand. She smelled of herbs, dried blood and fragile human skin, but nothing to give concern.
“My father is a wolf,” Mairi continued to prattle. “His first mate was a non-shifting Chrechte like me. My mother. Please be the wolf I dreamed about. Father took a Chrechte for his second wife. He and my brother don’t think much of me, and neither does his new wife for that matter. I don’t have a wolf. They call me weak. Defective. Useless.”
The human woman’s voice broke on the last words and Ciara had to suppress the urge to growl. The anger growing inside her