Even in her eagle form, her scent called to his wolf and to the man who wanted to irrevocably claim her.
She jerked her head up and down, affirming Donnach’s assertion.
“You’d be wrong then. The Faol who believe in the ancient laws and ways of the Chrechte can see nothing but beauty in a shifter such as yourself,” Bryant assured her. “My family particularly is happy that the Éan have been found again.”
Una made a questioning sound from her throat.
“My mother’s family has passed down the stories of their Éan brethren for generations. Her grandmother’s granddam was a raven shifter, daughter to one who could shift into dragon form.”
“I didn’t know that,” Donnach said.
“We do not share our heritage outside our family, because most Faol believed the Éan to be nothing more than myth. To claim connection to brethren who had mysteriously disappeared would cause others to call us eccentric.”
“Well, your father is not the average wolf,” Donnach said leadingly.
Bryant smacked the other soldier so hard he fell back a step. Both men smiled, no anger between them, but Una had taken flight.
“Purgatory’s fires,” Bryant muttered. “She startles so easily.”
“She is rather timid, for an eagle. They are the predatory birds, but she acts more like a dove.”
Bryant could not disagree with his friend.
Donnach gave him a friendly push before going back to the leather tanning. “Your family is still eccentric if it claims to be related to a dragon.”
“You think so?” Bryant asked noncommittally, knowing full well the old stories were true.
And being true, then it stood to reason that another dragon either lived or would be born again to the Éan. They were the protectors of their race.
But perhaps they were gone as the conriocht were from among the Faol. None of their race’s own protectors had been born for so many generations that again, most believed the true werewolf with a third form to be nothing but myth.
“You claim to be descendant from the royal line of the Éan?” Fionn demanded in the most querulous tone Bryant had heard from him to date as he limped toward the Balmoral soldiers, a fiercer than normal scowl on his features.
Had Bryant’s mate flown away not because she feared him, but because she saw her father’s approach?
He could hope, could he not?
“I did no such thing,” Bryant argued.
“You told my daughter, who is supposed to be visiting her mother and me, not Faol soldiers,” he said toward the sky, where the bird continued her circling flight, “that your grandmother many generations back was daughter to a dragon shifter.”
“Aye.”
“Are you so ignorant you do not realize that is to claim to be descendant of the royal lineage?” Fionn asked scathingly.
“Perhaps I am. Our family did their best to preserve our history from generation to generation, but at some point it must have become enough simply to teach our children that the Éan were real and our own family.”
Enough of the history of the Chrechte had been lost because of the divisions caused by their own warlike natures and the secret feud some Faol waged against the Éan.
“You are not a bird,” Fionn accused.
SEVEN
Una arrived, dressed much as she had been the night before, and only then did Bryant realize she had disappeared from the sky. It shamed him that he had been so busy arguing with her father, he had not noted her departure.
She stood at a slight distance, but her attention was so clearly focused on what was being said, he had no doubts her curiosity had been aroused. His wolf preened at the thought of their mate showing interest in their history.
Bryant spoke to the old man, but gave a warm smile to his eagle. “I never said I was.”