Moon Burning - By Lucy Monroe Page 0,6

sky in flight. And not as a patrol, looking for any potential threat. She longed to do dips and swirls she had not enjoyed as anything but tactical maneuvering since leaving her childhood behind.

Perhaps her fall from the sky truly had addled her mind. It was the only explanation. For her desire to frolic. For the desire building in a slow burn throughout her body.

For the inexplicable and totally unacceptable urge to cuddle closer to his altogether too impressive naked warrior’s body.

He did not smell evil, but he was wolf. He could not be anything else. And yet her bird wanted to rub itself against him, taking in his scent on a primal level none of her own people had ever made her long for. He was so different from the men of the Éan.

Even for a wolf, Barr was huge. Taller than all of the men in his hunting party, he would also easily tower a half head above any of the Éan, even the golden eagles. Sabrine was of a height with most of her brethren, but this man called her little one and she could not gainsay him.

Not merely high in stature, his shoulders were so large he would not only have to duck, he would also have to turn sideways to enter her home. Not that she would ever lead him back to her people.

That way lay madness, death and destruction.

Still, she could not shake the feeling of safety being in his arms gave her. Every step he took made his bulging muscles ripple against her. And instead of strategizing ways to compensate for his superior strength in a battle between them, she had far too strong a desire to allow that strength to stand as shield between her and any that would do her harm.

Her mind was more than addled; she’d lost it completely.

Otherwise, she would never want to reach up and touch his wheat-colored hair so badly, she had to clasp her hands together lest one do it of its own accord.

She knew a golden eagle with hair the same color, but the eagle’s skin was not as darkened by the sun as Barr’s. Barr’s masculine allure was altogether too appealing in every way.

He knew he was magnificent among men, too; he carried her, uninhibited by his own nudity and with no regard for the curious glances cast their way by the young soldier Barr had sent back into the forest for his plaid.

As disgusted as it made her with herself, Sabrine could not help a reaction of purely feminine awe to him. None of the Éan had ever caused her to react thus. She had always been alone, a warrior among, and for, her people.

Now Sabrine fought the unfamiliar sense of connection that had been trying to form between her and the giant warrior since waking to his presence. No wolf should cause such feelings.

The Faol of the Chrechte were not to be trusted, not to be confided in and absolutely never to be mated with.

There were horrific stories of wolves using their Éan mates to lead them to the bird Chrechte only to kill the entire flock, including the grievously deceived mate. True, the stories were old ones, but that was only because the Éan had learned their lesson. They did not mate among their Faol.

For generations, the Faol had done their best to rid the earth of the Éan. She could not let herself forget that important fact. Their theft of the Clach Gealach Gra from the caves of the usal spring was only the latest in decades’ worth of treacheries the wolves had perpetrated against her raven people.

The sacred stone was necessary for the coming of age ceremony in order for her people to fully realize their Chrechte gifts. Those Éan who did not come into their special gifts could not father or give birth to children, something most Éan considered as sacred a gift as their own Chrechte nature. Worse than robbing her people of this basic need was the fact that the theft of the Clach Gealach Gra was no doubt an insidious attempt to guarantee that the remaining bird shifters did not live beyond the current generation.

Her people lived like shades in the forest already, hiding from the wolves and humans alike, hoping the cruel Faol would believe they had succeeded in killing off the last of the Éan. Their numbers were too small to do anything else. Besides, it was not in a raven’s nature to