fear of losing it, then why hesitate to bring the sword?”
There was nothing for it but to tell him the truth. “I don’t want to touch it again.”
If she could avoid another waking vision, so much the better.
“You may have no choice.”
“If we have it with us, that is certainly true.”
“You are no coward.”
“I’m not.” Though sometimes she wanted to be.
“We bring the sword.”
She sighed but relented. “Oh, very well.”
He picked it up and donned the scabbard so the sword’s handle rested opposite his own on the other side of his back. “You can finish gathering your things later. We need to find the Sinclair.”
He talked as if she would need some measure of time to do so, but she did not. Making quick work of folding her old Donegal plaid, she put it in the trunk. Then, she grabbed the blanket from her bed before she folded it with a single fur into a bundle she tied with a leather strap. “This is all I need.”
“You are certain?” he asked with a surprised frown.
“Yes.”
“I expected you to bring more…fripperies.”
“Why?”
“You are a woman.”
“Éan women find fripperies necessary, do they?” She could not see it.
The women of his people she’d seen so far among her clan were quite minimalistic in their dress and appearance. Over time, that might change, but for now they still lived much as she was sure they had in the forest.
“No.” He packed a world of the absurdity at such a thought in that single word.
The Sinclair women were not much more focused on their appearance than the Éan that had come to live among them though. “Then why believe I would take a trunk full to travel?”
Not that she thought he would ever stand for that kind of an unwieldy burden on their quest.
Eirik gave a significant look to Ciara’s dress and understanding dawned.
“It is like the cross between a clanswoman and an English woman’s dress. I know. And with too many layers for an easy shift into my wolf form, but Abigail does not despise her homeland like we do. She has no notion of dressing to make a shift easy and quick.”
Eirik frowned. “The laird has not told her that it would be better for you to dress as the other clanswomen?”
“He does not wish to hurt her feelings and no more do I.”
“Hurt feelings cannot always be avoided.”
“I know.” She lived in a keep filled with Chrechte warriors, after all. They were not well acquainted with subtlety or tact, though they tried with their lady. “Abigail has been too kind to me for me to dismiss her feelings though. She is a gentle soul.”
“She must be strong to make the laird such a good mate though.”
“She is. Gentle does not equal weak.”
“But you protect her feelings at the expense of your own comfort.”
“It’s what family does.” And even when Ciara had not wanted to acknowledge she had a family, she’d understood that.
Eirik shook his head, but he didn’t argue any further about the unsuitability of Ciara’s style of dress for a Chrechte.
They found her father in the twins’ room, watching the little boys napping. There was an expression of such love on his features, Ciara’s own heart ached with it. Talorc of the Sinclairs, powerful Chrechte alpha and clan chieftain, insisted on putting his sons down for their nap with a story and soothing touch himself more days than not.
His soldiers didn’t seem to find their training or duties any less rigorous for their laird’s short afternoon respites.
He turned as soon as Ciara stepped into the room. She indicated the corridor with her head and he nodded, but she did not follow him out of the room immediately.
First, she took a moment to place barely there kisses of farewell on her adopted brothers’ foreheads. She did not know how long this quest would keep her from the holding and she would miss them. She’d spent near as much time with them since their birth as Abigail and Talorc. How Ciara had deceived herself into believing she had no family to lose, she was not entirely sure.
The needs of the heart made many things possible.
She smiled mistily down at the boys and prayed for their safety while she was gone. Such sweet lads, but both prone to trouble if not watched more closely than a wounded boar. Brian slept sprawled, his cherubic face showing no sign of his mischievous nature when awake. Drost snuggled into the covers, his favorite wooden knife tucked against him