chapter 7
The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches but to reveal to him his own.
—BENJAMIN DISRAELI
Ciara retreated to a corner in her own room as it filled with people.
Laird Talorc and Abigail had both come to meet the woman Ciara had found in the woods—the laird to assess the worth of Mairi’s plea for sanctuary and Abigail to assess the condition of her health. Eirik was still there as well as Lais, who hovered protectively over Mairi.
Ciara could only be grateful that Niall as second-in-command and Guaire as seneschal had not been called in as well. Though she had no doubts as to their presence on the morrow when she revealed her long-held secrets to Laird Talorc.
“I do not think she would have survived the night if Ciara had not found her,” Lais was telling Abigail as the gentle woman, who could not hear but read lips, mixed some herbs in a cup before pouring hot water Ciara had brought up from the kitchens over them.
“We will have to give thanks for my daughter’s disobedience and reckless behavior then.” The look Abigail cast Ciara left no question the issue was far from settled, however.
Mairi, on the other hand, met Ciara’s eyes with an expression of such gratitude it hurt to see.
Ciara dropped her gaze, uncomfortable with the thanks in the other woman’s eyes and heartily wishing Abigail did not have to be disappointed in her again. Ciara had never been the daughter the older woman deserved and she only hoped the girl babe Abigail now carried would make up for Ciara’s deficit.
She had not meant to hurt her adopted parents, but the looks in their eyes when she told them how she’d come upon Mairi had reflected pained disappointment. How many times had she seen that look?
First from her father of birth when he spoke of a Chrechte’s need for sons, then in her mother’s eyes when it was Ciara who would come to comfort her rather than the husband she cried out for in the night. The look of disappointment in Galen’s face when they searched for, and did not find, the Faolchú Chridhe had grown with each failed attempt.
Then Ciara had come to live with Laird Talorc and Abigail and soon seen that her inability to love them as they deserved as parents caused them grief as well. At least her ability to help with the twins had made up somewhat for her other shortcomings. Until lately.
Once again, she was not what her family needed her to be and did not know how to change that fact without opening herself to far too much pain.
Once Mairi had drunk some of the tea Abigail had prepared, Laird Talorc approached the woman in the bed. “You wear the MacLeod colors.”
The words sounded like an accusation and Ciara was not surprised when Mairi flinched. “It is my father’s clan.”
Ciara felt she should have recognized the predominately yellow plaid. Only, being neither friend nor declared enemy, the MacLeod clan’s was not a tartan she had ever seen before.
“You deny your father’s family?” Laird Talorc asked, censure still heavy in his voice.
And Ciara did not understand it. Surely he did not blame the young woman from wanting to escape the abuse her body gave evidence to? He had said many times in her hearing that the ancient laws still had value and one of them stated that to prey on those weaker was not the Chrechte way.
“I meant he is laird,” Mairi clarified. “But as to him being my family, his clan being mine? I see no benefit to wearing colors that do not protect me.”
Ciara admired Mairi’s spirit after all she had been through and nodded her head to show her understanding, catching Mairi’s gaze as she did so.
Mairi sent her a weak smile of thanks and Talorc turned to glare at Ciara. “You have something to say, daughter?”
Ciara swallowed the lump trying to form in her throat and nodded.
She did not understand her laird’s attitude but feared his anger was not directed toward Mairi at all. He was furious with Ciara for being outside the fortress walls and allowing that resentment to spill forth in his dealings with the wounded woman.
Talorc crossed his arms, his stance combative. “Yes?”
“He beat her near to death.”
Laird Talorc’s expression shifted, twisting into a scowl, his fury rising at her words, rather than abating as she’d intended. But this time, Ciara was positive the object of her laird’s fury was not in the room at all.
’Twas the MacLeod he despised so fully.
Still, that did not mean he would give Mairi sanctuary. Though Ciara could not imagine Laird Talorc doing anything else. He would never send the defenseless woman back to the MacLeod to be beaten again.
“When I came here, I had little to offer the clan,” she reminded her laird.
He shrugged. “You were grieving.”
“I was unresponsive. Angry. Unwilling to be part of the family that had taken me in,” she admitted with shame, despairing of ever being able to make up for her lack. “Abigail cried more than once over me.”
“Oh, Ciara,” Abigail said, proving she had been following the conversation…one way or another.
“You never raised your hand to me, though you must have found me very frustrating…must still find me a great trial.” She whispered the last as she dropped her head, not wanting to see the truth of her words in her father’s eyes.
“I have never had the desire to hurt you,” Laird Talorc, the only father who had ever wanted her, said with quiet vehemence. “And an honorable man does not hurt a child.”
“Or someone too weak to protect herself,” Ciara said with a glance toward Mairi, who though no longer a child, was in no way strong enough to stand against a Chrechte male.
Talorc made a sound of disgust. “The MacLeod is no honorable Faol. He preys on the weak.”
“So, his daughter, who was beaten near to death, she has reason to seek sanctuary with another clan.” Ciara raised her head so she could once again meet his eyes.
He was looking at her with a hope she did not understand in this context. “Perhaps.”
The word shocked her as she fully expected him to offer Mairi the protection of the Sinclair. “Please.”
“Do you entreat me as your laird?” he asked with an expression she hoped she was finally reading aright.
“No, I entreat you as my father, a better father than the MacLeod could ever hope to be.” Talorc had earned the title and the praise.
And her love as a daughter, no matter how much it might terrify her to give it. It had always been there, she realized and pretending it wasn’t would not make it hurt any less if she lost her second family as she had her first.
Abigail made a sound that Ciara just knew meant she was crying. When Ciara looked at her, the older woman’s eyes were indeed spilling tears, but her smile was brighter than the full moon shining through the window.
Ciara felt unwelcome moisture in her own eyes and she turned her head to hide her weakness.
Her father reached out and gently turned it back with a hold on her chin. “It is all right.”
She blinked away the moisture. “Is it?”
She had finally admitted she had a family to lose again. It did not feel all right. It felt petrifying.
“Aye, daughter. It is.” He gave her a stern look. “Do not think this will get you out of a firm lecture from your mother for sneaking out to run alone at night.”
Ciara almost laughed, but the amusement bubbled up to end on an aborted hiccup of sound. “I will not.”
“I will give Mairi of the MacLeod sanctuary.”
“Wait,” the bruised woman said from the bed.
Talorc turned toward her. “You came onto my lands broken from another Chrechte’s fists. You sought sanctuary.”
“But I would not have you extend it without fully considering the consequences.”
“Your father will consider it an act of war.” Talorc’s tone said it did not matter.
“Yes.” Mairi looked away. “He does not value me, but he does value his pride. To have another clan take me in would prick it.”
“And for that, he would go to war,” Abigail said with clear disgust.
Talorc smiled indulgently at his wife. Eirik caught Ciara’s gaze and asked with his eyes if Abigail were truly that naïve. Ciara gave a slight nod of her head. She believed most people good and petty tyrants like the MacLeod the exception rather than the rule.
If she had not been so optimistic, she never would have taken a chance on Talorc of the Sinclairs though and so none of them would ever complain.
The dragon shook his head, the warrior braids at his left temple swinging gently.
“The MacLeod is no ally of the Sinclairs.” Talorc’s tone implied nor would the man ever be.
“But you are not at war with him,” Mairi said, wincing when she tried to move.
Lais jumped forward and laid a hand on her shoulder. “I could not heal you completely. You must be careful with yourself.”
She blushed and nodded, wonder glowing in her blue gaze.
Lais smiled at her, tucking the blankets more firmly around her. “Good girl.”
“I am not a girl,” Mairi claimed quietly.
Lais’s smile heated and Ciara felt she should look away, it was so intimate. “I know,” he said, his own tone low and approving.
Eirik smirked. Abigail smiled mistily and Ciara wondered if she’d just seen what she thought she had…the birth of a mating.
Her father shook his head, smacking the Éan healer on his shoulder. “I’ll preside over the mating so your prince can stand beside you.”
Mairi’s eyes widened, her mouth opening and closing, but no sound issuing forth.
Lais’s smile shifted to a glare he directed first at his friend and then his laird, but he didn’t deny the teasing words.
“I don’t understand,” Mairi finally managed to say in a voice laced with both confusion and trepidation.
“The issue of your sanctuary has been settled,” Talorc replied.
“Welcome to our clan,” Abigail said in her soft voice.
Mairi gave a soft sob, tears spilling down her cheeks. “Thank you.”
Talorc frowned. “’Tis not a thing to cry over.”
Mairi swiped at her cheeks. “No, of course not.”
“We will leave you to rest.” Talorc turned to go, his hand on Abigail’s waist to guide her with him.
The tension draining from her features, Mairi’s exhaustion became obvious. “Again, my sincerest thanks,” she said softly toward the laird’s retreating back.
Ciara’s father just raised his hand in acknowledgment, guiding Abigail out of the room.
Lais fussed over Mairi a bit more and then turned to Ciara. “You will watch over her?”
“Yes, of course.” Ciara’s voice came out choked, her throat tight for some reason.
“You will come and get me if she shows any distress.”
Ciara nodded, but Mairi frowned.
“I made it all the way from my father’s lands to here. I will make it through one night inside the warmth of a keep, sleeping on an actual bed,” Mairi said with clear exasperation.
Lais didn’t look the least repentant and Mairi just sighed. “I do appreciate you healing me and…and…well, caring for me.”
“It is my pleasure.” With that he leaned down and did the unthinkable, placing a tender kiss on the human woman’s temple.
The human women among the clans did not allow such liberties, but then nothing about this night was usual, was it? And far from looking offended, Mairi appeared quite happy about Lais’s gesture of affection.
Lais left with another glance over his shoulder when he reached the door, but Eirik shoved the other man through. He turned his head toward Ciara. “We will talk with the Sinclair in the morning.”
“Yes.”
“You will sleep tonight.”
Did he really think he could just will it so? She didn’t bother to argue though. Ciara merely shrugged, not agreeing, not denying.
He came to her then, his stride purposeful, and then laid his hands on either side of her face. “No dreams tonight.”
“Maybe the Faolchú Chridhe will listen to you and leave me to rest.”
“It will,” he said with such confidence, she almost believed him.
“I do not know if I can trust you, Ciara of the Sinclairs, but I will have you rested. You will collapse and be of no use to anyone if you do not.”
His words should offend, but they didn’t. Why should he trust her? She was nothing to him. “I will do my best.”
“See that you do.” He withdrew his hands from her and she felt their loss but managed to stifle her wolf’s whimper. “Good night.”
“Good night.” Hers was whispered as he strode rapidly from the room.
Ciara made a pallet on the floor beside her narrow bed.
Mairi’s eyes fluttered. “What are you doing? You cannot sleep on the floor.”
“I have furs. I will be fine.”
“But…”
“The bed is too narrow to share without me worrying I will jostle you in the night.” Especially with her nightmares.
“Your sleep is not restful.”
“Nay.”
“Mine has not been these past six months, either. At first I thought it was because my father planned to give me to one of his soldiers in marriage. The man is unkind and not at all hygienic, but I came to realize that it was the dreams filling me with a sense of dread that will not leave even upon waking.”
“The Faolchú Chridhe is at risk. It needs to be found.” For good or for ill.
“Before it falls into the wrong hands.”
Ciara could not think of worse ones than those that had beaten Mairi so mercilessly. “We will discuss it with my father on the morrow.”
“Perhaps later in the morning,” Mairi said sleepily.
Ciara smiled, snuffed the wall sconce and drew the skin over her window, throwing the room into darkness. “Sleep as late as you can; Abigail says it is good for healing.”
Though sleep had never healed Ciara’s heart. Perhaps because it was such an elusive thing in her life.
She felt her way to her makeshift bed and crawled into it.
A few moments passed in silence and Ciara thought Mairi had drifted off again, but she was wrong.
“Ciara?”
“Yes?”
“Will you help me find my wolf?”
“I don’t know if it is possible.”
“It is.” Mairi’s voice was quiet, but it rang with conviction.
“I am not a princess.”
“My dreams said otherwise.”
Dreams. She would have grown to hate them, but sometimes her dreams were happy and ’twas the only time she felt true joy.
“Your dreams could be wrong.”
“They aren’t.”
“You’re very sure.”
“My mother taught me the difference between a seer’s dreams and an ordinary one. I am sure.”
“If I can, I will do it.” Ciara could promise no more and considering all that Mairi had risked to come to them, she could do no less.
Eirik waited with the Sinclair and his second-in-command in the great hall for Lais to accompany Ciara and Mairi down the stairs.
Niall had not been happy to find out that Mairi had made it so deep into Sinclair lands without detection and was still complaining to Talorc about it. “How did a wee woman get past our guards and our clansmen?”
“Perhaps she had divine help,” Abigail said from behind Eirik.
The twins were with her, running for their father and the big warrior sitting next to him. Niall’s scowl turned to an instant smile and he took one boy up on his knee to examine some treasure the child had brought in with him.
The other twin was asking his father if he could see the man’s dirk and Abigail was giving Talorc a look that promised serious retribution if the man said yes.
The sound of people on the stairs had Eirik tearing his gaze from the domestic scene to watch their descent. Mairi moved gingerly, leaning heavily on Lais’s arm, but looking better than the night before.
Ciara, on the other hand, wore a haunted expression, dark bruises marring the skin below her eyes. Eirik’s dragon growled at the sight. She had not slept.
Tonight she would, if he had to wrap her in his arms and guard her dreams with his own. As prince of his people, Eirik could speak to any Éan in his mind, but as dragon gifted by the Clach Gealach Gra, he could soothe the minds of others.
He had started to do just that the night before with Ciara but had thought better of revealing his ability. Now, he knew the next opportunity he had, he would use it.
Lais reached the bottom of the stairs with Mairi, looking like a man who had found his mate and did not know what to do about it.
The twins ran to Ciara and threw arms around her in exuberant hugs. “We missed you,” Drost confided. “Mama said you were tired.”
“She said you was sleeping,” Brian added.
Eirik frowned. “You do not look like you slept.”
“You should have come play with us,” Drost said.
Ciara shook her head but smiled. “I should have.”
Mairi sent a worried glance, riddled with guilt toward Ciara. “I should not have taken your bed.”
“Yes, you should have. My dreams disturbed me, not my pallet on the floor.”
“You got to sleep on the floor?” Drost asked with an askance look at his mother. “We never get to.”
“I want to sleep on the floor,” Brian announced before climbing back into Niall’s lap and crossing his arms just like Talorc when he wanted to make a point.
“Your mother prefers you sleep in a bed.” Talorc’s tone said that no matter how he might want to indulge his sons, they would have to get their mother’s approval first.
“Well, if you really want to sleep on the floor, then I’ll make you a pallet on the floor of our bedchamber tonight,” Abigail offered with a sweet smile directed at her husband.
The Sinclair’s frown was immediate. “Why our floor?”
“Because it will be an adventure.”
And he wouldn’t be so quick to lay blame for the boys sleeping in a bed on their mother if them sleeping on the floor meant Talorc would have to spend it sleeping as well. Abigail was a clever and a sneaky woman.
Eirik liked her.
Ciara smiled on the scene, a wistful expression in her eyes Eirik did not understand.
Unsure what drove him to do it, Eirik rose and went to her. He took her arm and led her to the chair he’d been sitting in by the large fireplace. “Sit, faolán.”
“Why’d he call Ciara little wolf, Niall?” Drost asked the big warrior. “She’s not little; she’s bigger’n me.”
Niall looked up at Eirik, his expression a challenge. “I don’t know. Eirik, why don’t you tell us why you called our laird’s daughter by the endearment?”
Ciara was so exhausted, Eirik could tell she wasn’t really listening to what was being said around her. Hell, she hadn’t even balked at taking his chair. In his experience, she was not the biddable wolf Talorc claimed.
“What’s an endearment?” Brian asked.
“Like when your father calls you cub, or his little man,” Abigail answered when no one else did.
Talorc and Niall were too busy glaring at Eirik.
“Oh.” Drost swung his legs, kicking Niall, but the man didn’t so much as blink. “But she’s not a cub.”
“No, she is not.”
“Well?” Talorc prompted, his hostile gaze fixed firmly on Eirik. “Is there a reason you discovered my daughter in the forest last night?”
“I’ve been following her, watching her from the air when she runs at night.”
“Last night was not an isolated incident?” the Sinclair demanded, his attention on Ciara now.
She didn’t answer.
“Ciara?”
She looked up, her eyes bloodshot, her face pale. “Yes?”
“You need to go back to bed.” Talorc’s tone was firm, but caring, whatever he had meant to say gone in the face of his adopted daughter’s clear exhaustion.
“I do?” She looked around her, no doubt noticing the looks of concern being directed her way. “But I just got up.”
“Abigail, can you make her a tea to help her sleep?” the Sinclair asked his wife.
“I’ve tried…they don’t seem to work.”
“I can help her sleep.”
That had Niall and Talorc’s hostile regard back on him, only ratcheted up a notch.
“No.” Talorc’s tone left no room for argument.
“I can calm her mind and my dragon can protect her dreams.”
“Do you have to be in the room to do this?” Talorc demanded, clearly understanding the distinction Eirik had been making.
“Once I calm her mind, she will sleep, but I cannot protect her dreams without touching her.”
“So, she would only waken again, like she does with my teas,” Abigail said worriedly.
Eirik nodded.
The Sinclair opened his mouth to speak, but what he would have said was lost as Ciara pitched forward. She would have landed against the hard floor, but both Eirik and Abigail grabbed her.
Ciara sat up, shaking her head. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“Not enough sleep,” Talorc said. “For too many nights.”
Abigail sighed. “Not enough food.”
“Too many dreams,” Mairi added.
And everyone stared at her.
“I have them, too, but I can’t tell you about it until Ciara is rested enough to join in the conversation. I won’t betray her secrets by revealing my own.”
“You may hold her in our bed,” Talorc said, his words grudging. “The door will remain open and we will be checking on you.”
Eirik should have been offended, but it took all he could do to stifle his urge to laugh.
No matter how appealing he found the pretty little wolf, he preferred his bed partners to be conscious. Besides, she needed rest, not sexual exertions.
“We will sleep in the forest, because I need to be in my dragon form to protect her dreams. I do not believe Abigail would appreciate me breaking the bed she finally convinced you to build for her. You can send a chaperone, but it must be one of the Éan or the few trusted Faol that already know of my other form.”
The laird agreed, sending Niall and Guaire to accompany Eirik and Ciara into the forest.
She was so out of her head with lack of sleep that Ciara did not even ask where they were going or why she’d been put on a horse with the giant blond warrior.
Eirik’s dragon roared at this but settled some as he reminded himself the other Chrechte was happily mated…to Guaire. His dragon was still unhappy and Eirik only hoped the ride went quickly, or the beast would have its way and he would end up snatching Ciara right off of Niall’s horse.