participated in the sacred act of sex. White wolves and their descendants were the exception.
“Aye.”
“I wonder if it is like that for the Paindeal.”
“If they continue to walk the earth at all.”
“I’m sure they do.”
He frowned, his attention all around them as he sought out potential threats. “You cannot be sure.”
“Yes, I can.”
“Because of the dreams,” he said with sudden understanding.
“Yes.”
“You have dreamed of the Paindeal as well? You did not say.”
“Only when I was very young and I have always thought they were just dreams.” Until today when so many things had become clearer and more confusing as the case may be. “Nothing prophetic. It wasn’t a secret I knew I was keeping.”
“You have spent too many years hiding the truth of yourself.”
But she hadn’t been hiding. “I didn’t know about myself.”
“You do not take my meaning. You have hidden your ability to connect to the Faolchú Chridhe.”
“There were many times I thought it all in my head.”
“Aye. You deserved to know the truth, but it was never given to you.”
“I am so angry with my family,” she admitted. “But they’re dead and I feel dishonorable being so mad at them. Only, I can’t make the feelings go away.” Too many feelings refused to be stifled inside her now.
“They hurt you deeply with their dishonesty and the pain is fresh because you have just discovered their treachery.”
“You are right,” she whispered. She did not want to harbor anger toward those she had loved and who were irrevocably gone, but the pain inside her would not go away.
“Their deceptions harmed your people as well.”
“Only Galen knew of the Faolchú Chridhe.”
“But if your mother and father had told you the truth of your lineage, you would have known how important finding the sacred stone was for all of the Faol.”
“Do you think it called to my father?”
“Nay.”
“I don’t, either.” And for some reason, that truth made her sad, but her father had not been wise in his loyalties.
A caw sounded from above. Ciara looked up in time to see one raven chasing another through the sky. It reminded her of when cubs played and she smiled. Though she doubted Eirik, or the eagle shifter, for that matter, were going to be so tolerant.
The two ravens flew back into formation with the eagle, though she saw no signs of the eagle physically reining them in.
“They’re young still,” she said to Eirik.
“They are feeling the freedom of belonging to the clan rather than living in hiding in the forest.”
“That’s a good thing, right?”
“When it does not put them, or those they are assigned to guard, at risk.”
“They will learn. After all, Fidaich is related to you.”
“Canaul is the son of one of our fiercest warriors.”
“The eagle flying with them,” she guessed.
“Aye. Canaul’s mother was a raven; he took after her in the shift.”
“Was?”
“She disappeared in the forest.”
One of the victims of the wolves who believed all Éan had to die. “I am sorry.”
Eirik shrugged. “You have nothing to apologize for.”
“I hate it.”
“What?”
“That your people were hunted by mine.”
“It is not over, but Barr and your father have fought hard to clear their clans of those who would continue.”
“Not the Balmoral?”
“There were none among his pack that belonged to this secret society of wolves.”
“I’m surprised there were any among the Sinclair.”
“So was your father.”
“He banished them?”
“The ones he did not kill; they were caught hunting Éan.”
“And you? Have you killed wolves besides Luag and Galen?”
“I am protector of my people.”
It was an answer…of sorts.
Another caw sounded from above. Ciara made a point of not looking up this time though. She hoped the young ravens’ antics would be less annoying to their prince if she pretended to ignore them.
The rumble very much like a wolf’s growl that sounded from Eirik’s chest said her hope was in vain.
“You know, if you were willing to travel by boat, rather than as a dragon, we could take our horses with us on the crossing.” The boats that made this possible required a minimum of two rowers, and not one of them a still healing and fragile human woman. “And we would not need a guard, Éan, or otherwise, for our horses.”
“Birds fly over water. We do not ride boats.”
Right. Arrogant dragon. “Lais is riding in a boat.”
“He would trust Mairi’s crossing to no other.”
“Is she really his mate?” Ciara asked in a whisper, though she doubted the others could have heard her regardless.
Lais and Mairi lagged behind because the healer insisted the other woman’s horse maintain a slower