she selling her favors all over the clan now?”
The sound that came from behind them would make any wolf proud and it did not emanate from Sorcha. Though Earc could hear the shuffling movements of her rising to her feet and backing against the wall.
Verica’s voice cracked across the cottage like a whip. “You dare make such accusations, you miserable, murdering knave!”
“I’m your laird, missy, and you’d best not forget it.” Rowland’s eyes narrowed in affront, his scent going rank with bitterness.
“The hell you are!” Earc stepped forward, forcing the man to back up a step though they were not yet in touching distance. “But I will make sure Barr hears you’ve challenged him for the right to lead this clan.”
Rowland didn’t have the intelligence to look cowed by that promise. “I didn’t challenge that fool boy for anything. But this clan belongs to me and one day it will be mine again.”
The sheer blind arrogance of the bastard robbed Earc of the breath to speak for a moment.
“You’ll be dead long before I leave these people to be led by another, and it would never have been you.” Barr’s voice, laced with a power that Earc had never heard there before, filled the cottage.
Rowland spun to face the other man. His lips moved, but no word issued forth, his gaze darting around the small dwelling, as if looking for an escape. “I meant no offense,” he finally spluttered, “’Tis merely my shock at finding my fancy piece entertaining others in my absence.”
“Sorcha is no whore and you’ll shut your foul mouth if that’s all it has to say.” Circin’s tone once again carried the seeds of his future leadership.
“She’s got two warriors in her cottage before breakfast. What do you call it?” Rowland sneered, sounding much more confident in his foul assumptions than his attempts at apology to Barr.
The air around Barr fairly shimmered with his fury. “My protection.”
The confusion on Rowland’s face made Earc want to retch. The man did not understand why Sorcha needed protection, or more likely, he did not understand why Barr felt the need to give it.
Calling him pig was an insult to swine.
“My sister was here all night and the woman’s daughter. What kind of evil does a man have to be to see what you see in that?” Circin demanded in disgust.
“For all I know your sister was helping entertain you two,” Rowland spat out, proving once again he lacked the intelligence of a flea.
Circin moved forward, no doubt intending to challenge the older Chrechte, but Earc could not allow it.
Rowland was no longer young, but he was not weak and he would fight dirty. Without-honor-or-conscience dirty. Something Earc had yet to teach the Donegal soldiers to combat.
If the two men fought, Circin would die and Verica would grieve. Earc did not know why, but that thought was untenable. He also liked the brash young man who had once challenged the Sinclair laird for the right to the lands containing the sacred springs.
With the speed of his wolf, Earc stepped in front of Circin and sent a blow to Rowland’s jaw in the same moment. “You’ll apologize to Verica for your disgusting accusation or you will face me in challenge.”
Rowland had staggered but not fallen. Scowling, he rubbed his jaw, a bruise already starting to form there. “You don’t have the right to challenge me over the bitch. She’s no kin to you.”
“She’s my sister,” Circin said furiously.
There was nothing for it; he had to take drastic steps.’Twould not be so bad. “She’s my mate. Mate law supersedes all other.”
Verica’s shock reached him and wrapped itself around Earc, though she said not a word. Circin growled in satisfaction, his scent still holding anger, but happiness as well. And if Earc did not know it was impossible, he would have thought the youth had planned events to take just this turn.
Barr’s expression did not change, his support of his second complete. He faced off to Rowland. “In the extreme unlikelihood you survive Earc’s challenge, I will meet yours for leadership of the Donegal clan.”
“I made no challenge.”
“It doesn’t matter, old man,” Earc said, so disgusted he could barely stand to look at the man. “You’ll not survive mine.”
“You would allow a fight between a younger warrior and his elder?” Rowland demanded of Barr in whining tones. “It would not be fair.”
“You sound like a child deprived of his treat. If you wanted to avoid being challenged, you should have kept your foul mouth