kill. They could defend alongside the hawks and eagles, but they could not go on the attack with them. Since the hawks and eagles numbered less than half of the Éan combined, defensive strengths were their only true alternative. Clearly, their defensive attempt to hide had not worked.
No matter that the last hunting party had not come seeking her kind since she was a wee child and had lost both her parents to such an attack. The wolves still must suspect the Éan continued to exist, if not thrive, and they had hatched this wicked plot to rid the world of the birds once and for all.
She would not let them succeed. She could not. She would find the Heart of the Moon and return it to her people for safekeeping, before her own younger brother had to face his coming of age without the sacred talisman.
The feeling of safety Barr’s bulging arms holding her body so securely to himself gave her was nothing but a vapor, with no substance and far more dangerous. She would never truly be safe in a wolf’s arms. If he discovered her real nature, he would finish the job his hunter’s arrow had started.
No matter how pleasing she found the man, he was and always would be Faol of the Chrechte.
Her sworn enemy.
“What has you going tense, lass? Have you remembered something?” he asked, his deep voice rumbling through her like water rushing over rocks and leaving her insides just as disturbed.
She almost blurted out, yes, she’d remembered he was her enemy. She almost yanked herself from his arms, but she didn’t. Her years hiding her fear and every other emotion while she protected her people gave her the strength to remain outwardly unaffected. She must keep her purpose at the forefront of her mind. That purpose required him to see her as a human female, as fragile.
“No. I was thinking about your clan,” she said, twisting the truth but not breaking it.
She had to practice a deception to save her people, but she would not lie for simple expedience. She was no wolf.
“They will not harm you.”
“You’re sure?”
“They would not dare. You are under my protection.”
Inexplicably, her heart caught and pleasure pushed out the pain of their people’s shared past for a single, incredible moment. No one had ever promised her protection before. If the strongest of the Éan’s warriors did, she would tell him she could protect herself and believe it.
But this man, this wolf, was more powerful than any Chrechte she had ever encountered. He could protect her. Were he truly her champion he could protect her people.
But no Faol ever stood guardian for the Éan and none ever would.
“You’re claiming her, then?” the other Donegal wolf asked, his tone filled with the same respect bordering on awe he had used each time he addressed Barr.
The giant warrior carrying her said nothing, so Sabrine decided to answer for him. “No one is claiming me.”
The one called Muin gave her a look that clearly said her words carried less weight than his laird’s actions.
She frowned up at Barr. “You are not claiming me.”
“Right now, I am taking you to my home to care for your wounds.”
“Right. Good.” Her head was bobbing and she made herself stop. “No claiming.”
“For now.”
She gasped, then glared, but Muin just smirked. Barr ignored them both.
“Forever,” she insisted.
Barr stopped and looked down at her, his stormy gray eyes questioning. “You do not want children?”
Her heart clenched again, but this time in pain. Though every Éan was taught from birth that the bearing of children was the only way to protect their future as a race, she had decided long ago not to have bairns.
“I would not have children only to leave them orphans when I die.”
“’Tis a morbid thought.”
Perhaps he considered it so, but then he was a wolf, not a raven. No one hunted his people intent on total annihilation. “It is the way of the world.” Her world anyway.
“Not all children grow up orphans. Not even most.”
“Among my people, enough do.”
“You remember that, but not who your clan is?” he asked cynically.
She turned her head away, the taste of any lie she would have to tell bile in her mouth.
“It isn’t that you don’t remember your clan, it’s that you don’t want to,” he guessed, sounding quite proud he had worked that out. Never mind that he was wrong.
But in a way, he was right, too. She didn’t want to remember the decimation her people had