Viking's Moon (Children of the Moon Book 6)

by Lucy Monroe

  He'd spent time with the children every day since their parents' deaths, unwilling to let them languish in their overcrowded home surrounded by family who cared out of duty but not enough affection.

  "You are enamored," Artair breathed, like stating such a weakness was giving the greatest compliment.

  "They are good children."

  "I would like to meet them."

  "You will." And then they would bring the children back to his father's longhouse to raise as their own.

  "He will make an honorable guardian for the pride when the asmundr leaves." The Seer also spoke with approval, surprising Einar.

  His people were not known for their sentimentality.

  His father was looking at Einar with dawning understanding. "You spent so much time at that longhouse, I thought you were courting the youngest daughter."

  Einar could not help the look of repudiation he gave. She was barely old enough to be courted and of no interest to him whatsoever. "Nei."

  "She was not your mate," Artair said, his expression certain.

  "I met my mate today."

  Gart made a sound of distress. Or was it simply disagreement? It did not matter.

  Artair was no longer his. Friend? Ja. Einar could tolerate such, barely and because the man would be leaving for the Land of the Sun soon, most likely never to be heard from again.

  But any claims other than friend from anyone, on the new member to their pride, Einar's Rus tiger would not tolerate.

  "You accept our mating. Just like that?" Artair asked, disbelief running through his words. "Announce it before your father, the alpha?"

  "Ja. How else?" Even as the question left his mouth, he knew the answer. "How long did you live with the knowledge one who wanted a different life was your mate?"

  Artair winced, pain clear in the depths of his dark eyes. "I have known since our first change."

  "That is a long time to live with that burden."

  "Aye."

  "He is no longer your mate." There could be no question about that.

  "My dreams told me last night, but…"

  "But?"

  "I did not expect to meet the mate who would be mine today."

  "And yet you have." Einar waited to hear Artair agree.

  His mate would acknowledge their bond before witnesses.

  "Aye. I have."

  Unmindful of the others around them, Einar grabbed Artair by the shoulder, pulled him into his side, taking one of Artair's hands in his as they faced their jarl. "Father, I present my mate. Artair, once of the Balmoral, now pridemate."

  Thorsten inclined his head in acknowledgment, his expression not revealing if the mating pleased him, or not. But he stood and placed his staff against where Einar held Artair's hand. "I acknowledge and accept this mating. The ceremony will be in one week's time."

  "A week?" Einar demanded.

  His father frowned at Einar. "You will give your mate time to know you and our people before joining your lives forever."

  Einar opened his mouth to protest, but Artair squeezed his hand. "I appreciate that. I would also like formal acknowledgement before your pride that the Law of Procreation has been stricken from existence before the formal ceremony takes place."

  Oh, his mate was every bit as possessive as Einar, whatever reservations he might have about their mating. Einar's tiger purred at the knowledge.

  "It will be done at our council meeting and pride run the day after tomorrow," he promised his mate, daring his father with his eyes to gainsay him.

  Thorsten drew himself up and glared at Einar. "You do not speak for me, unless you wish to challenge me for my position as jarl as well as pride alpha."

  "That is not my desire." But his father knew what would force him to do so.

  Thorsten nodded and then turned to face the rest of those assembled. "It will be as my son has stated."

  Einar let not a single flicker of satisfaction he felt at his father's words show on his face. It would not be respectful. But he felt Artair's relief in the way he sagged into his side. Did his mate not yet realize Einar would always protect him? From anything that might harm him.

  Perhaps this week to get to know each was a good thing.

  "Tomorrow, Haakon will set sail with a merchant ship of humans, who plan to trade in England. They will first take Haakon to the island of the Balmoral."

  "We aren't going with him?" Maon asked.

  "You must begin your journey to the Land of the Sun soon. Time is of the essence."

  "Why?" Maon asked, but Einar could have told him the wily old Seer was unlikely to answer.

  "You question my visions?" Osmend demanded imperiously.

  "Nay, I merely seek to know what they are."

  "If they had been meant for you, you would have had them," the Seer informed the alpha testily.

  Maon did not back down. "But they concern me and those who travel with me."

  "Ja." But Osmend did not elaborate as the Scotsman clearly expected him to do.

  Perhaps their Seers were more accommodating.

  ***

  Haakon felt the pull to that place of other as he slept that night. Burdened with his new knowledge of his father's past, he heeded the call, coming out of the dense fog to find the woman who would have been his mate pacing.

  Her head jerked up at his arrival, her green gaze showing relief before she masked the emotion. "What are you doing here?"

  "You called me." He would not play games.

  "And you are so weak-willed you cannot ignore my supposed call?" The words were caustic, but her tone was filled with worry, her gaze haunted.

  "I learned the truth of my father's past. I have questions for you and perhaps answers."

  She stared at him, but then gave an affirmative jerk of her head. "Speak your answers."

  Typical of the arrogant warrior-woman to expect him to speak first.

  However, Haakon saw no reason not to do so. He told her all he had learned.

  "Because the Faol sided with the human woman to set aside his mating, he murdered all my people?" she asked with clear disgust.

  "He saw them as his enemy, not the Chrechte he'd been fated to protect. He was still grieving the loss of his mate and son, and mad with it." So insane, Haakon did not think the haze of madness had cleared from Bjorn's mind until some time after he met Haakon's mother.

  "That should excuse him destroying an entire pack of Faol?"

  Haakon sighed, knowing it didn't, knowing even this truth probably meant little to his mate. He shook his head decisively. "I am not offering excuses, merely an explanation. My father regretted his action."

  "How can you know. You're still a boy, wet behind the ears." But the look she gave him said he was anything but.

  "Hardly that."

  The desire in her eyes was nothing new, but the other emotions…something like regret, longing, even almost approval, was. A frisson of unfamiliar worry traveled down his spine, his instincts telling him something was wrong.

  She shrugged, looking away, but not before he saw a stronger desire for more between them than he had ever seen reflected in her gem-like green gaze.

  "He let you live," Haakon pointed out, his mind only half on this all-important conversation.

  The other half worried the problem of her strange behavior, not least of which was simply talking to him and listening to his answers.

  His point was a solid one though. There had to have been some kernel of sanity in his father left when he spared her life.

  She looked back at him, her eyes flashing derision like lightning in the night sky. "He put me in a boat with my weapons. No doubt the asmundr expected me to die at sea from my injuries."

  "Nei." She had it all wrong. "That was a sign of respect for your strength. He gave you what amounted to a Viking burial and a chance to live at the same time. He was showing he respected your strength and heart as a warrior."

  "Nay!" she denied with vehemence. "He wanted me dead."

  "
If he wanted you dead, he would have killed you and left your body on the field of battle." Brutal his words might be, but there was undeniable truth in them.

  "He destroyed my people."

  That too was a truth that could not be denied.

  "And there is no excuse for that," Haakon assured her, his own honor demanding that acknowledgment. "But neither is there an excuse for that long-ago council to take his mate from him and give her to another, to steal his child. He had to live with both their deaths and the unbounding grief that came after."

  "As I have lived with the grief of loss of my entire pack for all these centuries."

  He stifled another sigh, not wanting her to think he was dismissing her words, but knowing she would never be moved in her attitude toward his father and then toward Haakon by default. "Ja."

  "He was terrifying in his fury." Her gaze turned haunted with old memories. "I had never known fear before. I was conriocht. Invincible. And then I was not." Emotion laced every word. "I have not experienced anything like the terror and grief of that day since."

  Haakon was shocked she shared with him so freely, that she allowed him to see her feelings.

  "Not before today," she admitted quietly, though in no way sounding like she was acknowledging weakness, only truth.

  The ice of the glaciers infused his soul. "What happened today?"

  She stared at him like she wasn't going to answer, but then all pretense of stoicism left, worry and grief washing over her beautiful features. "We lost sight of land."

  "You are in a boat?" he demanded, terror unlike anything he'd ever known turning his blood to water.

  She gave a barely perceptive nod.

  "How many sail with you? Does your captain not have the experience to redirect your ship's course?" Surely even his independent mate would not take to the sea alone.

  "It is not a ship. It is a boat. The very Viking boat your father set me to sea in."

  "But that was more than two centuries ago."

  "I have kept it repaired."

  How? That was a question for a different time. And there would be a different time, he vowed to himself. "You are alone?"

  "Nay. Two others sail with me." Her demeanor said she held herself accountable for those lives as well.

  "Two?" Haakon asked faintly. "In a boat so far out to sea you have lost sight of land?" It was beyond imagining even his stubborn mate had taken on such a foolhardy journey.

  "We were heading for Scotland, from my island." She was revealing more than she ever had, but it did not please Haakon.

  If something did not change, the woman and her companions would die an unpleasant death out on the open expanse of water.

  "What land did you last sight?"

  "I think it was Iceland, I used it to correct my course, but…" She let her words trail off.

  Haakon didn't need her to say she was lost now to know. The terror she spoke of lurked in the depths of her emerald eyes. And it was not something she was comfortable with.

  "Tell me your name."

  "I am called Neilina."

  Her words sent shards of more fear lancing through him. She had offered that much too easily after nine years of denial. She had not changed her mind about their mating. Her attitude toward his father spoke as much. She would never forgive Haakon for being son of the asmundr responsible for the loss of her pack.

  But she believed she was going to die, so telling him her name did not matter.

  "I will not let you die," he vowed.

  "You cannot prevent it, arrogant Paindeal."

  But he knew he could. He did not know how. It did not matter. She would not die. Perhaps their souls had been called to one another for this very moment in time.

  He gave her a level look, letting not one tiny bit of his own fear show in his steady gaze. "Tell me everything."

  And she did. She told him of visions in which she was called to protect the packs of Scotland, to leave her cave sanctuary. She spoke of smooth sailing following by a terrible storm that blew them off course, of sighting what she'd thought was Iceland, but unable to make it to shore because of another storm. Of losing sight of land and not being sure of where she was despite her ability to read the sky. She could not read the stars when clouds blocked them.

  The sun had never broken through the clouds either and she had only the barest of an idea what direction they sailed because of it. She spoke of her companions, both of whom she would be devastated if she lost to death. Though she did not name them.

  When she was done, she collapsed to the ground, sitting with her arms around her knees, her staff laying beside her. "I never thought I would face a foe again I could not defeat."

  "And you have not." Haakon walked forward and took his sword in hand, ripping it from the ground, he wiped it against his thigh before sheathing it once again in his scabbard, then dropped down to sit beside her, surprised again when she gave him no glare for doing so. "Your will brought me here and that action may bring you out of this peril."

  She stared up at him, though tall for a woman, still her head only reached the top of his shoulder. "Are you calling me stubborn?"

  After nearly a decade of refusing to tell him the simplest things, even her name? "Ja. Stubborn. Strong." Beautiful. The one woman he craved, no matter how many others showed him their interest.

  But not mate.

  As his Seer had said, a forced mating, or even any mating between two when one was reluctant would only lead to broken vows and pain.

  "Can you allow me to see through your eyes?"

  "Of what benefit would that be?" she demanded. "Do you think you would do any better in this situation than me?"

  "I can offer you my knowledge and perhaps, added to yours, it will be enough." His Viking forefathers had been unequalled in their ability to read the sea and navigate it.

  "You think you have knowledge I do not?" she scoffed.

  He knew he did. He only wished he could share more than his knowledge with her, but also the sun stone his father had used for navigation so long ago. "Have you taken to the sea before?"

  "Aye." She grimaced. "Off the shore of my island, never beyond the sight of land," she admitted.

  "That is natural, but though I have never travelled beyond my home, I have been at sea in a boat many times beyond the sight of land."

  "You have?" she asked, disbelieving.

  "It is part of the rites of passage for my people to become what I have become." His father had insisted Haakon learn all the skills the centuries old asmundr could teach him.

  Besides Haakon had been given a Chrechte gift he'd never understood the benefit of before this moment. Now, it may well save the lives of his mate and her companions.

  "You would have me allow your spirit to join mine?" Her tone made it obvious how little she wanted to do something so intimate. "Will that not force our mating, even though we have not claimed each other?"

  Shaking his head in negation, Haakon ignored the twinge in his chest at this confirmation she wanted nothing of their mating, even now, in the face of death. "We are both guardians. We can share our spirits as asmundr and conriocht, not as mates."

  Though there was no question that sharing their bodies would make it easier, and the mating bite would guarantee it, neither was required. So long as they both opened their minds and access to their beasts to the other. He was surprised she did not know this, but then she'd lost her mentors at a younger age than Haakon had lost his father and he still had the wisdom of the Seer and his uncle to draw upon.

  "How?" she asked, her voice tinged with equal parts suspicion and hope.

  "Do you have your stone?"

  She looked confused.

  Haakon drew his sword again. Neilina's eyes widened, but she said nothing. He took the hilt and pointed it, not the tip toward her. "Touch your stone to mine."

  Understanding came first and then a look of determination. She flipped the great fur cape she wore back over her shoulder and drew her own sword,
the hilt carved as for the guardians of the Faol, its size perfect for a warrior-woman. With a cautious look at him, she laid the stone in its hilt against the stone in his.

  "Now you must allow your wolf to come out to meet my tiger."

  She nodded, closing her eyes and he did the same, releasing the ancient and fierce tiger within him toward the power of his stone. Heat like from a raging bonfire washed over Haakon, and he felt his tiger straining toward a wolf in the distance, but frigid mists swirled between them, acting as effectively as a barrier as if they were an eight-foot-high stone wall.

  Knowing they needed a deeper contact and limited in how to provide it, Haakon reached out and laid his hand over hers, seeking the connection their beasts needed. The mist became less thick, but his tiger was still unable to dive into it. Haakon did not understand why. The wolf howled in the distance, looking like she longed to cross the cold white fog as well.

  Haakon allowed his eyes to open and he found Neilina staring at him. Green light glowed around her, reaching out to her sword, like the red aura around him.

  Sorrow filled her gaze. "I cannot do it. I cannot let down the barrier between us."

  "You are certain?"

  "I'm trying. The mists only grow colder."

  So, she was experiencing the same thing as him. "Is it because I am my father's son? Or merely that I am asmundr?"

  "I don't know."

  "You do not trust me." Of that much he was sure.

  "I must trust you, though." She sounded like the thought was a hopeless one. "Or our lives will be lost."

  Even now, she did not name her companions. Haakon ignored the frustration that fact caused him and tightened his hand over hers. "You will trust me."

  "I don't know how." She bit her lip in a gesture of uncertainty he'd never seen her make. "Help me."

  Less plea than demand, it was nevertheless impossible for Haakon to ignore his mate's request. Whether she would thank him for his help was as uncertain as her future.

  Haakon could only think of one way to draw her soul to his. Laying his sword down, he watched in silence as she did the same. He made sure their sacred stones still touched, the ethereal red and green glow luminous around and between them, but not mixing together.