is planning to abandon her true mate.” Niall’s scowl grew darker with each passing second. “That is not the kind of special I want for you.”
“Watch it, you’re starting to sound like an old woman, not a warrior.”
“I am your brother before I am a soldier to my clan.”
They clasped hands and hugged, then stepped back.
“She has not left yet,” Barr reminded himself and his brother.
“Her arm is injured. She cannot fly.”
Barr nodded, acknowledging Niall’s intelligence. He too suspected that his mate would leave him as soon as her injury was healed enough for her to fly again.
“Does she realize she is pregnant?” Niall asked.
“I do not think so.”
“Tell her.”
“And if she still insists on leaving?”
Niall had no answer and neither did Barr.
If his mate knew she carried his child and still insisted on abandoning their mating, he was not sure even his warrior’s strength would stand against that.
Sabrine could feel Barr’s unhappiness and frustration across their link. She did not believe for one moment it was because the hunt for boar was not going well. Though she had no doubt the younger hunters were making more than their share of mistakes. Barr’s patience for training hunters who should have learned these lessons many summers past was beyond anything she had seen among her own people. There was little tolerance for Chrechte who could not contribute to the people’s welfare from an early age. Small children were cared for with great affection and attention, but childhood was left behind at an earlier age among the Éan than the clans.
With their very existence at risk, they had no choice.
So, as much as she might wish she could believe Barr’s dark emotions were due to his untrained hunters, she knew they were not.
The burden of anguished guilt crushing her heart like a giant boulder only grew heavier.
She knew she was the reason Barr was unhappy. What she did not know was how to fix it.
No more than she knew where next to look for the Clach Gealach Gra. She had searched homes, getting to know their occupants in the way her mother had taught Sabrine as a young girl. She had searched the caves the Chrechte used for their rituals, but there were no hidden chambers as in the labyrinth of tunnels at the sacred springs. She had searched the forest, but no Éan power called to her, no matter how far she ventured forth from the main Donegal holding. She had searched the keep, but the only Éan power within emanated from Circin and Verica’s chambers. As to be expected, because she was older and had a very powerful Chrechte gift, Verica’s (and now Earc’s) chamber had a stronger Éan presence. Yet no matter where she looked, she found no sign of the sacred stone.
She was close to enlisting Verica’s help as time grew shorter with each passing day. Sharing the secrets of the Éan, even with the other raven shifter, did not sit well with Sabrine. She’d spent too long protecting the mysteries of her people from outside eyes.
But she had to weigh the risk of revealing the secret against the risk of not finding the Clach Gealach Gra and what that would mean to the Éan. One was clearly of heftier import than the other.
Knowing so did not make the prospect of spilling secrets any more palatable though.
“What has you looking like the milk in your porridge has gone sour?” Verica’s soft voice broke through Sabrine’s reverie.
The other woman sat beside Sabrine on the long bench at the table in the great hall. Her faithful apprentice was nowhere in evidence, which was probably a sign. Now was the time.
“I am not eating porridge.” In point of fact, she wasn’t doing anything but staring at a table that had been washed most carefully by the new housekeeper. Well, that and wondering what to do next.
Verica smiled, an indulgent expression in her friendly blue gaze. “’Tis an expression.”
“Oh.” Naturally.
“Do they not say such among the Éan in the forest?”
Sabrine shrugged. “Perhaps. I spend little enough time in the village.” And it had been so many years since she lived with anyone but warriors, she did not remember the nuances of living among the regular Éan.
“There is a village?”
Sabrine opened her mouth, intending to deflect the query, but then changed her mind. Verica needed to understand it was not simply a handful of warriors out in the forest that would be affected by the loss of the sacred stone. “Of sorts. Some