by Lucy Monroe
"But they do not know what that means in its entirety. Not yet. They still think in terms of clans and differentiate between the Faol, the Ean and the Paindeal."
"The Ean live amongst us," Talorc said with affront.
"Please!" Cleland cried out. "Stop her."
Neilina hadn't let up on the pain inducing grip on the young man's scrotum. She flipped him with no sign of effort and backhanded him, the sound of flesh hitting flesh having a different quality than when the laird had tried to get the soldier to talk earlier.
There were too many scents in the air now that had all their beasts on edge.
Blood. Urine. Terror. Anger. Disgust.
"No one is going to stop me, you cur. You would kill babies, their mothers and the fathers who try to protect them. There is no limit to your evil."
"I don't want to kill children!"
"But you will. They are not Fearghall either."
"It cannot be helped. We would spare the children if we could." The soldier sniffled, his attitude much more the boy she called him than the man his age proclaimed, wiping at his face, but clearly cowed.
Still Neilina did not relax, her battle-ready tension obvious to any who would look. And if she was in the room? Of course Haakon was looking.
"Why can it not be helped?" She asked in a silky voice that sent shivers down Haakon's spine.
He could only imagine what it did to the weak betrayer under her power.
The boy shook his head.
Haakon considered a moment and then guessed. "Because your plan to kill cannot distinguish between the young and the old."
A spike in the scent of fear permeating the room marked how accurate Haakon's guess had been.
"Poison," Neilina said, her voice reflecting all the horror she felt. "But how? My vision had too many deaths to be from a single meal. Only some of the clan eats in the keep, but the deaths were all over the island."
"Do you have a well, or stream used by most, or all of your people?" Once, many years before, a dead and diseased animal had fallen into one of the wells of Haakon's former home.
Great distress and illness followed until they discovered the problem. Two of the aged and three human children had died before the contamination had been discovered.
The Balmoral's eyes filled with horror while Talorc cursed so creatively, Haakon couldn't help being impressed.
The young soldier was trying to deny it, screaming at them that they didn't know anything. But his very reaction revealed how right they were.
"Who? Who is going to poison my people?" Lachlan asked, this time it was his claws at the young soldier’s throat.
"I don't know. I don't know. I don't know."
As annoying as the repeated declarations were, they also rang with truth. This man deluded by his bigotry didn't know who the other traitors were.
It wasn't Neilina that castrated the boy, but Lachlan and Talorc who ripped out the wolf's throat. "We will send his body to the Fearghall clan we know of as a warning. The alphas will not suffer such murderers to live."
Neilina's head whipped around. "You know of a clan that gives succor to a known Fearghall pack?"
"Aye," Lachlan said, his mouth twisted with distaste.
"And they live, why?"
"Because we are not them." Anger hardened Talorc's voice. "We do not kill without mercy."
"There is also the small matter that it is a lowland clan with ties to the English king. War with England must wait until we have dealt with more pressing matters," Lachlan offered with a frown.
Haakon almost laughed at the laird's arrogant dismissal of the country with thousands of warriors to their hundreds, but he did not. He liked it and had no desire to offend.
Neilina walked out of the tower room without another word.
"She is ruthless," Lachlan said admiringly.
"She is, but now she grieves." How Haakon knew this, he could not have told them, but he had no doubt his mate grieved the death of the Chrechte.
"He was too lost to his cause."
"Ja. He was, but the loss of life in one only a few years into his manhood is always cause of grief."
The two lairds and their seconds nodded in agreement, their countenances stoic but for the sadness in all their gazes.
They too grieved.
Haakon inclined his head and left to find his mate. To do what, he was not sure.
Before today he would have been certain she would not take comfort from him, but now? He simply did not know.
It took him time to track her scent because he did not want to shift to improve his ability to do so. Was not sure she would ever be ready to meet his asmundr form. Unlike the conriocht, he had no lesser cat to shift into.
It was the prehistoric behemoth, or nothing.
But an asmundr still in human form and in blood lust was as fierce as the conriocht form. Not that he planned to ever share that fact with his skittish mate.
Neilina was in a cave with her bear, silent tears tracking down her cheeks.
She stared up at Haakon as he walked into the cavern, her scent and the bears mixed with decaying leaves from near the entryway and the smell of earth. "He was too young to die."
"And the children he would have helped kill are even younger. His leaders have no mercy. They knew the risk to him being discovered as Fearghall and sent him in to spy anyway."
"Perhaps he could have been saved."
"You smelled his scent. He never wavered in his hatred and certainty."
"But he could have." She looked up at him with tear drenched green eyes, filled with grief. "I have wavered in mine."
And he was grateful for it. "But you do not have a heart that wants to hate. He did. He enjoyed thinking himself superior and even though he said he didn't want to kill children, he felt no remorse at the thought of the many who would die from the poison."
"We don't know what the poison is, or who is supposed to poison the well."
"We don't know if it is a well, either." Haakon pointed out. "The Balmoral did not say."
"But…"
"Whatever the water source, you can be certain Lachlan will have it guarded from this time forward."
She nodded.
"We might not be able to tell what Chrechte belong on this island and which do not, but we can search for the poison. You with your long life and me with the knowledge of my forebearers given to me by the stone, we have a better chance of recognizing it than most."
"You were gifted with more knowledge than navigation?" she asked, wiping at the moisture on her cheeks.
"I was."
"Oh."
He said nothing. Not sure what she wanted to hear right now. She seemed like she needed something from him, but she did not ask for it and he did not know what it might be.
Neilina sighed, the sound so forlorn he wanted to snatch her up and hold her in his lap to comfort like a child. "I need to give you back your sun stone."
"So it traveled with you, from the other place?" he asked, awed.
But maybe he should not have been so surprised. After all, the stone had disappeared from his pouch when he woke.
"It did." She bit her lip in a wholly uncharacteristic gesture. "Something else traveled with me."
"What?" he asked, perplexed. He'd given her nothing else.
"Your seed."
He could not have stifled his shocked gasp under any circumstances. "My seed?"
She nodded. "I woke with it and my maiden's head blood mixed on my thighs."
"But then…are you pregnant?"
"I do not know. It is too early for a heartbeat to be discerned from my own and I cannot tell if my own scent has changed. It is too much a part of me. If Freya were Chrechte, she would know."
He realized he did not know either. Any difference in her scent to him could be attributed to the difference between the place of other and actually being in her real physical proximity.
"I do not understand how what happened in that place of other can be rea
l."
"I do not know, but one thing I am certain about my scent. It is now mixed with yours."
"I thought that was just us being sacred mates."
She shook her head. "No. We did not claim each other but we are bound as surely as if we had."
"We were bound before that night." He had tried to tell her, but she had never wanted to hear.
"Yes, we were. If we had not been, I could never have trusted you enough to let you into my body."
Because his father, asmundr like Haakon, had killed her entire pack.
He sat down beside her, and she did not move away. Not sure he was doing the right thing, but unable to stop himself, Haakon put his arm around her shoulders and pulled Neilina to him.
She collapsed into him like she'd been waiting for this very thing and he wrapped his other arm around her.
"If I'm pregnant, I don't want my child to die."
"We will not let that happen."
"But these Fearghall, they are worse than your father ever was. They want to destroy all Faol who do not follow their beliefs and all Éan just for existing."
Her belief that there were Chrechte worse than his father was nearly as shocking as the way his mate accepted the comfort of his touch.
"There have always been evil men."
"Aye, I remember McAlpin's betrayal."
"I have heard the story from my father." His dislike of the wolves had been intense, even though Haakon had not realized it, and the way McAlpin had betrayed his own race was a story Haakon's father had been only too happy to tell.
"Your race, and even the royal descendants, survived his attempt to kill any who might threaten his right to the human throne."
She sat back, her emerald gaze filled with worry. "You are saying we will survive again."
"Ja."
"But not without casualties. The Faol survived your father's marauding ways, but they went more than two centuries without a conriocht among them." She frowned, looking away. "But perhaps that is as much my fault as his."
"You were grieving."
"For two centuries?"
"Your fear of letting your people down again was too big to overcome." He tilted her head up and drew her gaze to his again. "Until the time came for you to step into the gap."
"How many perished because I abdicated my place among my people?"
"If Bjorn had faced you again in battle, he would have killed you." He'd killed the other conriocht.
And that knowledge was a burden Haakon would have to carry for the rest of his many years of life.
"You feel as badly about that as I do about hiding in my forest home for so long."
"Worse, as you did nothing to hurt your fellow Chrechte."
"Neither did you."
"He was my father." And as ashamed of those horrific actions Haakon was, he still loved his father.
Bjorn the Destroyer had become Bjorn the Protector and he had loved his son, training Haakon to be the best asmundr he could.
"And you have redeemed the honor of the asmundr."
That claim hit Haakon like a blacksmith's anvil.
"You believe this?" he asked in shock.
She nodded.
"Neilina." That was all he could say. Her name.
After ten years of her vilifying him, her sudden approval had both him and his beast in shock. And filled with lust like never before.
"I do not want to spend the next two hundred years alone." The longing in her tone was too much for Haakon to ignore.
He pulled his beautiful mate, weapons and all, into his lap and kissed her with all the tenderness he had ever wanted to give her.
Her lips parted against his, a soft sound coming from her.
The kiss went on and on, their souls merging as they had only done once before. As he had never expected to experience again.
She moaned against his lips, her body pressing into his, like she was trying to crawl inside him. And he understood.
Her wolf needed the full connection of their joining as much as his own tiger gone from history.
She began undressing him, no hesitation, no maidenly timidity.
Not his warrior princess.
She broke the kiss, pulling back and tugging on his leather jerkin. "Get this off," she demanded in a growl that would have done her wolf proud.
He nodded, yanking at his clothes and weapons with little care for seams or scuffing scabbards. Though, he was asmundr, so he placed the weapons within easy reaching distance.
Fully naked, he pulled her to him for another scorching kiss, that melted through the ice that had formed in his soul over the past ten years.
Then he was helping her take off her weapons and clothes, her hands as eager as his in removing every barrier between them.
Cupping her luscious breasts, he deepened the kiss, the scent of her arousal mixing with his own, a heady fragrance that only added to the needy lust driving him.
"I want you," he growled. "Need to be inside you."
"Yes." She grabbed his hand and tugged him deeper into the cave. They entered the chamber she had been using to sleep since arriving on Balmoral island. Two pallets of furs were on either side of the small cave.
The mixed scents would have told him that Freya slept here if he didn't already know. He had spent his nights on the ground outside the cave, protecting that which he considered his own.
Dropping down to the furs, her beautiful body on full display. Her nipples jutted from the feminine mounds of her breasts, enticing him to touch and taste. Dark curls covered her most intimate place, taunting him. Her long legs moved restlessly, making him crave those very same legs wrapped around his hips as he joined their bodies.
She reached up and pulled him, a silent invitation.
Neilina led him to her pallet to join her, but he resisted.
"What is it?" she asked. "Don't you want me?" Her gaze filled with wounded uncertainty.
The vulnerability in the usually invulnerable woman was not something he could let stand.
"Of course I want you, mate, but I will retrieve our weapons first."
Her eyes widened in shock. "I didn't even think of them." She looked around herself, her gaze focusing in a way it had not before, her expression not a good one. "I can't… This is…"
But he would not let her retreat. This was meant to be, and she knew it. "What we have both needed for more than ten years, princess."
"But I never forget my weapons."
"It is all right to trust me with your safety, Neilina. Your wolf knows this, so you did not think of it." How could she still be so ignorant of that basic truth?
"My wolf trusts you." Neilina shook her head as if trying to understand it. "She does. Even with Dionach on watch, I don't forget my weapons."
"Dionach has been a good companion to you, but she is not your mate." He made no effort to soften his tone. It was time Neilina accepted that she was his to protect. Always. "I am the only one you will ever trust this deeply."
"Do you trust me?" She laid there proudly naked, her beautiful green eyes challenging him.
"Ja. But mate, I am asmundr and that means my deepest, most primal instinct is to protect. And because you are my mate, that instinct is even stronger when I am with you."
"But I am conriocht. I never forget my weapon."
"But even a conricocht can know with certainty that will give your beast peace that this asumundr will always protect you. And that I can protect you."
"Your father really let down his own nature, didn't he?" she asked in a sort of wonder.
The pain of that truth pierced, even in this moment of knowing that finally his mate would bond with him completely. "He did."
"But you never have."
"Never."
She nodded. "Get our weapons."
He made quick work of retrieving not only their weapons, but all their clothes as well.
He left Dionach guarding the entrance to the cave. Though the bear looked to be napping in the sunshine, h
er position in front of the opening that would prevent any from entry told its own story.
When Haakon returned to the sleeping chamber, he stopped to take in the sight of his perfect, proud and too alluring mate in all her naked glory.
No blush indicated embarrassment at his appraisal and he smiled. "You were made for me."
"As you were for me." She was doing her own looking and if the heated expression in her emerald gaze was anything to go by, she very much liked what she saw.
His tiger roared inside him, insisting they join with their mate.
Scars that announced her as warrior, marked her body. Her muscles were honed so that he could not doubt that she trained as hard as he did to protect their people.
"You are so beautiful," he told her. "Ideal for me."
"I am marred by scars." From battle with his father, she did not add.
But still, it was a silent knowledge between them.
"Your scars mark you as protector of your people. Nothing could be more beautiful to me."
"You really mean that." She said with some wonder. "You are not bothered I dress like a warrior."
He knew that some of the clan Chrechte found Neilina an uncomfortable presence among them. She was too confident. Too powerful for those not yet certain of their own place in the world.
But to him? She was everything a woman should be.
"I find everything about you perfect. You are conriocht. How else would you dress?"
"Right now, I am not dressed at all," she said in a low voice, filled with seduction.
He had no words as his body reacted with such intensity, he could barely stand.
"Come to me," she invited, her hand out.
He needed no second invitation and joined her on the furs, his hard as granite shaft sliding against her hip as he lay down beside her.
A groan tore out of him, the pleasure of touching her so intimately too good to deny.
She reached down and grasped his hard flesh, her fingers exploring with a lack of hesitation he found even more arousing.
"I cannot believe I have already had this inside me."
"It was not without pain," he said. He had not forgotten a single moment of their time together and even now wished he could have spared her the pain of first penetration.
"It was also not without pleasure." Her smile was all feminine allure.
