Moon Awakening cotm-1

by Lucy Monroe

  Moon Awakening

  ( Children of the Moon - 1 )

  Lucy Monroe

  When Emily Hamilton's family is ordered to send a woman to the Scottish highlands for marriage to the laird of the Sinclair, Emily volunteers in order to save her younger sister from such a fate. But at her new home, the only friend she finds is the laird's sister — especially after Emily's stubborn streak causes the laird to cancel the marriage. And though her plans have gone awry, she refuses to return home...

  Lachlan Balmoral is laird of his clan — and leader of his pack. One of the most feared werewolves prowling the Highlands, he is on the march against the hated Sinclair, who have abducted a almoral woman. He kidnaps the sister of the Sinclair laird, planning to marry her off in revenge — but the woman he takes along with her proves to be the greater prize...

  Moon Awakening

  (The first book in the Children of the Moon series)

  Lucy Monroe

  For Christine Feehan and Sherrilyn Kenyon.

  Thank you for making me fall in love with the paranormal genre and for awakening new characters in my heart. Your books have given me many hours of pleasure. I hope my Children of the Moon touch my readers even half as much.

  Sincerely,

  Lucy Monroe

  Prologue

  Millennia ago God created a race of people so fierce even their women were feared in battle. These people were warlike in every way, refusing to submit to the rule of any but their own… no matter how large the forces sent to subdue them. Their enemies said they fought like animals. Their vanquished foes said nothing, for they were dead.

  They were considered a primitive and barbaric people because they marred their skin with tattoos of blue ink. The designs were usually simple. A single beast was depicted in unadorned outline, though some clan members had more markings which rivaled the Celts for artistic intricacy. These were the leaders of the clan, and their enemies were never able to discover the meanings of any of the blue-tinted tattoos.

  Some surmised they were symbols of their warlike nature and in that they would be partially right. For the beasts represented a part of themselves that these fierce and independent people kept secret at the pain of death. It was a secret they had kept for the centuries of their existence while most migrated across the European landscape to settle in the inhospitable north of Scotland.

  Their Roman enemies called them Picts, a name accepted by the other peoples of their land and lands south… They called themselves the Chrechte.

  Their animal-like affinity for fighting and conquest came from a part of their nature their fully human counterparts did not enjoy. For these fierce people were shape-changers and the bluish tattoos on their skin were markings given as a rite of passage. When their first change took place, they were marked with the kind of animal they could change into. Some had control of that change. Some did not. And while the majority were wolves, there were large hunting cats and birds of prey as well.

  None of the shape-shifters reproduced as quickly or prolifically as their fully human brothers and sisters. Although they were a fearsome race and their cunning was enhanced by an understanding of nature most humans do not possess, they were not foolhardy and were not ruled by their animal natures.

  One warrior could kill a hundred of his foe, but should she or he die before having offspring, the death would lead to an inevitable shrinking of the clan. Some Pictish clans and those recognized by other names in other parts of the world had already died out rather than submit to the inferior, but multitudinous humans around them.

  Most of the shape-changers of the Scots Highlands were too smart to face the end of their race rather than blend. They saw the way of the future. In the ninth century ad, Keneth MacAlpin ascended to the Scottish throne. Of Chrechte descent through his mother, MacAlpin was the result of a "mixed" marriage, and his human nature had dominated. He was not capable of "the change," but that did not stop him from laying claim to the Pictish throne (as it was called then). In order to guarantee his kingship, he betrayed his Chrechte brethren at a dinner, killing all of the remaining royals of their people—and forever entrenched a distrust of humans by their Chrechte counterparts.

  Despite this distrust, the Chrechte realized that they could die out fighting an ever-increasing and encroaching race of humanity, or they could join the Celtic clans.

  They joined.

  As far as the rest of the world knew, though much existed to attest to their former existence, what had been considered the Pictish people were no more.

  Because it was not in their nature to be ruled by any but their own, within two generations, the Celtic clans that had assimilated the Chrechte were ruled by shape-changing clan chiefs. For the most part, the fully human among them did not know it; however, a few were trusted with the secrets of their kinsmen. Those who knew the secrets were aware that to betray the code of silence meant certain and immediate death.

  That code of silence was rarely broken.

  Chapter 1

  "And so the werewolf carried the lass off and neither was ever heard from again." Joan's sepulcher tones faded as the dark shadows in the kitchen reached out to wrap around the two young women listening so avidly to her every word.

  Emily Hamilton tried to imagine being carried off into the wild by a werewolf, or being carried off anywhere for that matter, but couldn't. She was nineteen, well past the age when most ladies were married, or even dowered into a convent. She would spend her life as her stepmother's drudge.

  She sighed. Not even a werewolf would risk Sybil's wrath to carry Emily off.

  "Are there truly werewolves in the Highlands?" her younger stepsister, Abigail, asked in careful Gaelic.

  Joan shook her head, nary a wisp of her gray hair peeking from the housekeeper's wimple she wore. "Nay, lass. Though if ever there were a place such monsters might thrive, it would be that harsh and hilly land."

  "I thought you said the Highlands were beautiful," Emily inserted, her own Gaelic more natural than Abigail's.

  But that was hardly a surprise. Her younger sister speaking at all was the result of Abigail's tenacity. When the fever had almost taken her life three years before, it had taken her hearing. It had also destroyed what existed of family harmony in Emily's home.

  Deafness was considered a sign of the damned by some and a curse by most.

  Sybil made it clear that she would have preferred her daughter had died rather than be so afflicted. Overnight, Abigail had gone from being an asset her stepmother counted on to advance her own place in the world, to a problem best avoided. It was left to Emily to coax her younger stepsister back to health and into living amidst the household again.

  Out of fear that Abigail would be rejected by the rest of the keep like she had been by her own mother, Emily had done her best to hide her sister's affliction. The younger girl had helped, working hard to learn to read lips and continue speaking as if she heard the voices around her.

  So far, the deception had succeeded. Few people within the keep knew of the fifteen-year-old's inability to hear.

  "It's a beautiful place, or so my mother always told me… but a harder land to live in. Och… the clans are so wild, even the women know how to fight."

  Emily thought it sounded like a magical place.

  An hour later, the rest of the family and the servants were in bed. Everyone that was, except her father and stepmother. They were in the great hall talking. Emily was usually the last of the family to go to bed and she burned with curiosity to know what was important enough to keep her parents from their slumber.

  She stopped at the top of the stairs leading to the great hall and moved into the shadows. Eavesdropping might not be ladylike, but it was a good way to satisfy
her curiosity and her need to stay informed of her father and stepmother's plans. Too many others depended on her to protect them from Sybil's machinations and her father's cold indifference to their welfare.

  "Surely, Reuben, you cannot expect to send Jolenta!" her stepmother cried.

  "The king's order is quite explicit, madam. We are to send a daughter of marriageable age to this laird in the Highlands."

  Emily ducked behind a small table, making herself as diminutive as possible. It was not difficult. Much to her personal chagrin, she was not precisely tall. It was a fact tossed at her by Sybil often. She had no "regal bearing," as befitted the daughter of a landholding baron. She supposed there was nothing regal about hiding behind a table, no matter how tall she might have been. And that was that.

  "Jolenta is far too young to be married," stormed Sybil.

  "She has fourteen years. Emily's mother was a year younger when I married her."

  Sybil, Emily knew, hated any mention of her husband's first wife, and she responded with acid. "And a baby can be betrothed in the cradle. Many girls are wed when they are a mere twelve years, but almost as many die in childbirth. You could not wish such a fate for our delicate flower surely?"

  Her father made a noncommittal sound.

  "You might as well suggest we send little Margery as send my dear Jolenta."

  In her hiding place, Emily had to smile. Margery was a mete six years. Even the Church refused to recognize marriages contracted between parties under the age of twelve.

  "If Jolenta is of an age to marry, then surely Abigail at fifteen is also. This will doubtless be her only opportunity," Sybil said callously.

  Bile rose in Emily's throat. She'd always known the other woman was cold, but such a suggestion was monstrous and her father had to know it.

  "The girl is deaf."

  Emily nodded in agreement and inched out of her hiding place so she could see her parents. They were sitting at the head table almost directly under where she stood and were too intent on one another to look up and see her.

  Sybil said, "No one knows except the family and a few servants who would not dare to reveal our secret."

  But Abigail could not hope to hide such an affliction from a husband, which was exactly what her father said.

  "By the time he realizes she is so flawed, he will have consummated the marriage. Then he will have no recourse," Sybil said dismissively. "He's a Scotsman after all. Everyone knows they are barbarians, especially the Highland clans."

  "And you are not concerned about what he will do to her when he realizes?" Sir Reuben asked.

  Emily had to bite her lip to stop from screaming at the selfish woman when Sybil simply shrugged delicately.

  "I have no desire to end up at war with one of the Highland clans over this."

  "Don't be foolish. The laird is hardly going to travel this distance to take his anger out on you."

  "So, I am foolish?" Sir Reuben asked in a dangerous tone.

  "Only if you let old-womanish fears guide you in this decision," Sybil replied, showing how little her lord intimidated her.

  "Aren't you the one who recommended I send the bare contingent of knights to assist my overlord in his last request for warriors?"

  "We could hardly leave our own estates inadequately guarded."

  "But his anger over my stinginess has led to this request."

  "I was right though, wasn't I? He did not sanction you."

  "You do not consider the loss of a daughter a sanction?"

  "They must marry sometime and it is not as if we do not have a gaggle of them."

  "But only one of whom you consider utterly dispensable."

  "The others could still make advantageous matches."

  "Even Emily?"

  Her stepmother's scoffing laughter was all the answer her father got to that small taunt.

  "I will send word to the king that he can expect my daughter to travel north to Laird Sinclair's holding within the month along with her dowry."

  "Not Jolenta?" Sybil asked, her voice quavering.

  Sir Reuben sighed with disgust. "Not Jolenta."

  He meant to send Abigail. Horrified, Emily shouted, "No!"

  Both Sir Reuben and Sybil started and turned their heads toward her like two buzzards caught picking over a carcass.

  She flew down the stairs. "You mustn't send Abigail to such a cursed fate!"

  Sybil's mouth pursed with distaste. "Were you eavesdropping again?"

  "Yes. And I'm glad I was." She turned to her father, her heart in her throat. "You can't think to send Abigail so far away to a husband who might believe her affliction is a sign from God that she is unclean."

  "Perhaps it is such a sign," Sybil inserted, but Emily ignored her.

  "Please, Father. Do not do this."

  "Your stepmother has pointed out that it may well be Abigail's only chance at marriage. Would you deny it to her?"

  "Yes, if it means sending her to a barbaric Scotsman who will be furious when he realizes how you have tricked him." As her father's face hardened, Emily forced herself to reign in her temper. She did not wish to lose the battle before she'd begun because her demeanor offended her father.

  She lowered her eyes, though it was hard to do. "Please, Father. Do not be offended, but I believe Sybil is wrong. I do not think a proud leader of a Scottish clan would take such deception in stride and be content to spend his fury on his hapless wife."

  The fact that either of her parents thought that an acceptable alternative was more than she could bear.

  "You believe the clan leader would declare war?"

  "Yes."

  "What does she know?" Sybil scoffed. "She knows nothing of the world."

  "I have heard the tales of these fierce people, Father."

  "Tales told to frighten foolish children," Sybil said.

  "So my daughter is foolish as well?" Sir Reuben asked, proving he had not forgotten his wife's earlier insult.

  Sybil's hands fisted at her sides as if she realized she'd made an error in speaking so plainly now that they both knew the conversation had been overheard. Her father's pride might accept such intransigence from his wife in private, but he would not tolerate others—even a lowly daughter—seeing him in a light that could make him appear weak.

  Emily was determined to use that to her advantage. "Father, you are one of the wisest of the king's barons. Everyone knows that."

  "Too wise to risk war with a barbaric people simply to placate an overmanaging wife?"

  Emily knew better than to answer, so she remained silent while Sybil gasped in outrage.

  "Who would you have me send in her place?"

  "Jolenta?" she asked.

  "No!" Sybil cried and then she grasped her husband's sleeve. "Consider, my dearest lord, the betrothed of Baron de Coucy's heir died of a fever not a month past. The baron will be looking for a new bride to contract very soon. His mother has already made it clear she finds Jolenta pleasing."

  The younger girl had spent the last two years at Court, an honor Emily had never been extended.

  "I thought you said she was too young to wed."

  "A barbaric Scotsman, but not the son of a powerful baron."

  "Then who would you have me send in accord with the king's order?"

  "Abigail…"

  "No, please, Father…"

  "I do not fancy a war over the disposal of one of my daughters."

  Emily winced at her father's comment. Silence had fallen between her parents and she feared its outcome if she said nothing. Yet terror at her own thoughts and what they would mean for the sister she would leave behind as well as for herself filled her.

  She took a deep breath and then forced herself to say, "Send me."

  "You? You think, my lord, that the Scotsman will not go to war over you sending such an undisciplined girl? She's sure to offend him her first week as his wife."

  "You said it yourself, they are barbarians. He would hardly appreciate a true English lady.
"

  Old pain seared Emily's heart. Her father had no higher opinion of her than her stepmother. She had known that particular truth since her own mother's death, when he had berated a small girl crying over her mother's grave with the knowledge that she was not the son he had craved. If she had been, her mother would not have died trying to give birth to another.

  Emily knew the cruel words for the lie they were… now. But until she had seen Sybil grow large with child twice more after giving her father the heir he sought, she had believed them. And felt unworthy because of them.

  But she no longer believed that to be born female made her unworthy. Six years of correspondence with a powerful abbess had healed her of that affliction. She reminded herself of that fact as she raised her gaze to meet her father's.

  It was as if he had been waiting for her to do so. "Think you that you will fare better than Abigail in the wilds of Scotland?"

  "Yes."

  "I think perhaps you are right." He turned to his wife. "It is decided. I will send Emily in answer to my overlord's demand."

  "And Abigail?" Emily asked.

  "She will remain here, under my protection."

  The large black wolf sniffed the air, his powerful body coiled to spring into instant motion if needed.

  Away from his own territory, even in the presence of his companions, the situation was fraught with danger. He had not brought an attack force and the clan he had come to spy on had a full contingent of wolf warriors. Some of them were even as mighty as his own.

  That meant treading carefully.

  He made his way silently through the forest, knowing his two companions followed, though he could not hear them. The presence of all three went undetected by man or beast and that was as it should be.

  His father had started teaching him to mask his scent from the night of his first change, and he had perfected the art. Other werewolves and even wild animals could come close enough to touch him in the dark and never know he was there. He bad chosen two warriors just as skilled to accompany him.