“Would you still recognize his scent?” Bryant asked in a tone that made her shiver.
“We are not wolves, our sense of smell and hearing is only slightly better than a human’s.”
“You would recognize him.”
“I would,” Una said with certainty. “Though it is my deepest wish never to lay eyes on him again.”
“Describe him.”
“Why?” Una asked, unable to understand why he would request such a thing of her.
“That I may find and kill him.”
“What? No!”
“He was Donegal,” Donnach guessed.
“They wore no plaids. I do not know if all the men were of the same clan, though some were. I’d seen them among the Donegals before that,” she admitted in a quiet voice.
Una could not understand it when she found herself pulled into Bryant’s lap and was even more shocked when neither of her parents made a complaint.
“Describe this miscreant to me,” Bryant urged, his chest rumbling with a wolf’s growl.
It should have frightened her, but for the first time in five years, Una felt truly safe. ’Twas a conundrum she had no hope of deciphering, but gave thanks for all the same.
To have even a few moments without fear would be a blessing indeed. If the cost was describing the men who had hurt her, the ones her clansmen had not killed . . . then it was a price she would pay.
Later, Bryant insisted her mother accompany Una back into the treetops to see her safely in her home. She wanted his company, not that of her parent, but no words left her lips to tell him so.
NINE
Una did not see Bryant for five days after the dinner with her parents. Not at night, while she slept. Not each afternoon when she went down to visit her mother in the village. She didn’t see the other Balmoral, Donnach, either.
On the second day, she inquired in passing if her mother had seen Bryant, but Mòrag hadn’t heard the question. And Una had been too embarrassed to be asking it to repeat her words.
She noted her father was less vocal in his displeasure about the Faol soldiers staying in the village, but he didn’t mention Bryant by name.
On the third day, Una’s eagle grew restless enough for her to repeat the question to her mother, but received a simple, “I don’t know,” in reply.
Not at all helpful.
Given Una’s reticence in social situations, her mother’s astonishment could be forgiven when Una suggested they visit one of the families housing another Faol warrior, this one from the Sinclair clan.
“I did not realize you were on close terms with the daughter of the house.”
“We are of an age,” Una said noncommittally.
In truth, Una had done little to maintain any of her childhood friendships in the last five years. And for the first time, she realized regret in that.
The visit proved wholly unfruitful in discovering the whereabouts of the Balmoral soldiers, but Una enjoyed reconnecting with her once bosom friend very much.
She was also quite proud of her reaction to the Sinclair soldier. As long as he stayed on the other side of the room, her fear remained controllable and no attack of panicked terror ensued.
By the fourth day, she was desperate enough to ask her father if he had seen the soldiers.
“They’ve gone hunting,” he replied.
She should have considered that possibility. Still . . . “Aren’t wolves very good at the hunt? I would not have thought he would be gone this long.”