“What rot.” Her mother slammed the bread paddle down with more force than could possibly be needed. “You would make a fine mate, but our men keep away because you have made it clear that when any man but your father gets within ten paces of you, you panic like a rabbit in a den of wolves.”
Funny her mother should put it that way, for it was exactly how Una had felt five years ago.
Mòrag sighed, looking at Una with sadness. “They know you fear them, so they stay away.”
“I won’t take a mate, I can’t.” Una couldn’t think of a clearer way to say it to her beloved mother. “I don’t deserve a mate,” she admitted.
“Yes, you do. Oh, my dearest daughter . . .” Mòrag left the bread to pull Una into a hug.
“I am your only daughter.”
“And still dearest to my heart.”
“Mama . . .” she said, using the diminutive she’d stopped saying those years go, and for once making no effort to spurn the affection offered.
“You deserve a fine strong mate like your father was for me, and children.” Mòrag hugged her hard. “Oh, I hope you have many, many children. I shall be such a fine granddam.”
“Mother . . .” Una started, not sure how to get through to the other woman.
“Naught but a sacred bond could pull you from your fear, I know that, child.”
“So, you understand?” Una pressed as she gently disengaged herself, needing her mother to accept the truth.
“Oh, yes, daughter. I understand. Do you?”
Una had no chance to answer as her father came inside at that moment, the two Balmoral soldiers behind him.
Both greeted her mother with gratitude for the invitation, and proper Chrechte respect.
But Bryant’s attention was on Una from the moment he entered the hut, his wolf’s storm-grey eyes fixed on her wherever she moved.
Somehow, Una found herself seated beside Bryant on the floor near the single small table the hut boasted, while her parents took the bench and Donnach sat on the only three-legged stool across from them. It was a cozy gathering, not unlike those in Una’s past.
Emotion clogged her throat, making it hard to eat and impossible to converse.
The heat from the Balmoral wolf crossed the space between them, warming Una in strange places, to be sure.
“Una said you told her, when she visited you in her eagle form, that you have family among the Éan.”
Una didn’t know why her mother had to make her visiting Bryant as an eagle sound so . . . significant. She found him fascinating, but felt safer as a bird because she could fly away if she needed to. That was all there was to it.
“In the generations that came before, yes.”
Even though she’d been there for most of his explanation before, Una listened with rapt fascination as Bryant recounted to her mother what he had said to her father earlier.
“So, you are related to Prince Eirik and Anya Gra. Have you made them aware of this?”
“I did not realize the significance of my family’s history until Fionn pointed it out.”
“Your family could only keep so many of the stories from one generation to the next. You lost history, just as we all have.” Mòrag spoke with sad resignation. “It is ever true and why the Chrechte are charged with assigning parts of their history to each family and sharing those stories at all the major feasts.”
“The Faol do not practice this.”
Una’s father slurped noisily at his food. “Clearly, or all of the wolves would be aware of the Éan’s existence, not only those who wanted us dead.”
“Our alpha wants the races reunited for just this reason,” Bryant said.
The fervor of true belief infused his voice, and Una caught herself wondering how much of his interest was in her personally and how much was on reconnecting their people. Through a mating?