Moon Burning - By Lucy Monroe Page 0,15

flinched, some even making barely aborted movements to bare their throats.

“What happened to her?”

“She doesn’t remember.”

“That’s troubling,” Osgard said. “I knew a soldier once. Took a blow to the head. Forgot his wife’s name and where to find their cottage. ’Twas dead within the week.”

“From the blow?” Circin asked.

“Nay, from his wife. She found him sleeping in a widow’s bed.”

The table erupted into guffaws and backslapping, but Barr did not laugh. “She will not die.”

Osgard gave him a long, shrewd look. “It’s like that, is it?”

Chapter 4

“He’s got her in his bed and insists on being the one to watch over her through the night as Verica has said she must be,” Circin said.

“He has now, has he?” Osgard asked.

“Surely you jest,” one of the other old Chrechte men said from his seat at the other table. “She’s a stranger we know nothing about. You cannot take her to mate.”

“You dare attempt to tell me what I can and cannot do?” And who said anything about mating? To be sure, his wolf felt uncommonly possessive, but Barr was not yet certain his naked lady of the forest was the one he was intended to claim.

He did not deny the possibility to himself, if no one else though.

“You are our laird now. You owe this clan your loyalty.”

“The clan has it, but when the time comes to choose my mate, I’ll not suffer your interference, or any other.”

“Who you choose to mate will affect this clan.”

So would banishing the old men who whined like little children and gossiped like old biddies, but Barr forbore mentioning that fact. Not all the old men were a pain in his ass, just two or three and as much as they might irritate him, this was their home.

“You’ll trust your laird’s choice just as you’ll accept her,” Osgard said at his most irascible.

Earc nodded as did several others around the tables, surprising Barr. He expected loyalty, that was a given, but he had not expected support of his decisions so quickly.

That said more bad than good about how the clan saw the former leaders among them.

Verica’s patient sniffed the food warily, her small nose crinkling in her poor, scratched-up face. What had caused this delicate woman to be out in the woods alone in the first place, much less get attacked?

Sabrine’s lack of memory worried Verica more than she wanted to allow her laird to know. Yet she was equally as concerned about what had brought the woman to her current state. It could not be good and might well spell trouble for their clan.

Not that Verica begrudged Barr’s offer of help to the young woman, but the clanswoman could not help wondering what trouble it might bring, both from within and without the Donegal holding.

“The laird’s cooks are better than most,” Verica assured the other woman, certain Sabrine would smell nothing but well-prepared mutton and vegetables in her wooden bowl.

“My mum is one of them,” Brigit said, pride in her voice, but then her heart-shaped face took on a wounded cast. “My da is dead.”

Verica tensed, her heartbeat increasing though she kept a carefully neutral expression on her face. Discussion of the dead clansman could lead to trouble for both Verica and her apprentice healer.

Sabrine gave Verica an oddly concerned look, almost as if she could read Verica’s thoughts despite her better than average attempt at controlling her expression. Growing up a double shifter in the Donegal clan had been a die-or-try training ground for learning to hide both her bird nature and her true thoughts and feelings.

“How did he die?” Sabrine gently asked the girl.

“A wild animal got him while he was hunting.” Brigit recited the words as if she’d been taught to say them, but they held no conviction.

She had to learn to dissemble better. Those who had hurt her father would think nothing of harming the child. Only Verica could not blame Brigit for her lack. Her father had been gone less than a year, not long enough for her to bury her grief as deeply as it had to go.

Verica found herself saying, both for the child’s sake and as a very subtle warning to Sabrine, “Just like my da.”

“Your father was laird before Barr?”

“Nay, before that even, before the laird Barr replaced.” Rowland, a cruel and stupid man, if cunning like the beast inside him.

Verica had always believed he was responsible for her father’s death but could not prove it. Even if she had been able to, it would