Warrior's Moon Read Free Page A

formidable than that of her deceased husband. The high wall surrounding the laird’s home and guard towers was stone, though the buildings within were crafted mostly from wood.
    The keep itself was on top of a motte, the manmade hill only accessible by a narrow path she just knew Niall was going to tell her they could not take their horses on. Even from this distance, the keep looked big enough to easily accommodate fifty or more in the great hall. The imposing nature of the holding made her wish her family was of the Sinclair clan. She could do naught but hope the Balmorals lived equally as secure.
    The bailey was busy with warriors and clanspeople alike, many of whom seemed interested in the new arrivals. And slightly suspicious, if the frowns she and her companion were receiving were anything to go by, but the overt hostility she might have expected toward those garbed as the English was surprisingly absent.
    Niall stopped his horse, and the warriors with him followed suit. Shona guided her tired mare to a halt, so fatigued herself she was not absolutely sure she would make it off the horse without sending both herself and Marjory tumbling.
    “Should we dismount then?” Audrey asked, her tone showing no more enthusiasm for the prospect than Shona felt.
    Shona opened her mouth to answer, only to lose any hope she had of speaking as her gaze fell upon a warrior standing near the open area in front of the blacksmith’s. The man, who was easily as tall and as broad as Niall, wore her former clan’s colors with no shirt beneath the MacLeod plaid to give him any hint of civility.
    His back to them, his lack of interest in the English strangers was more than obvious.
    But she could not claim the same apathy.
    Not when every inch of his arrogant stance was as familiar to her as the mane on her mare’s head after a sennight spent in the saddle.
    His black hair was a little longer than it had been six years ago, the blue tattoos covering his left shoulder and arm were a new addition, and his muscles bulged more, but she had absolutely no doubt about the identity of the MacLeod soldier standing so confidently among the Sinclairs.
    Caelis. Her beloved.
Her betrayer.
    Even the sound of his name in her own thinking made her heart beat faster and her hands tighten into fists.
    Deceiver
, screamed that voice in her mind that had never gone fully silent though she’d been forced to marry another man.
Mine
, cried the heart that had learned that neither love nor a lover could be trusted at this man’s feet.
    She’d given him her love and her innocence.
    He had repaid those gifts with false promises and, ultimately, repudiation.
    She’d thought never to see him again, been certain that even her return to Scotland would not cause their paths to cross.
    After all, she hadn’t gone home to her former clan and she’d been careful to avoid their lands in the journey northward. She’d no desire to come in contact with her former laird and even less her former swain.
    How cruel of fate to dictate differently. To ensure that despite the habit her former clansmen had of keeping strictly to themselves, this man would be in this place the one day she would ever spend in the Sinclair keep.
    The head of Shona’s mare jerked against her tightened hold on the reins and she felt gratitude that they were no longer moving. Holding the reins like that was one guaranteed way to get tossed from even a loyal horse’s back.
    Marjory slept on, oblivious to the near-miss, their new surroundings and to the cataclysm happening inside her mother.
    As if Caelis could feel the weight of Shona’s regard, he turned. Slowly and with no evidence of curiosity, his gentian gaze slid over her, his expression dismissive as he took in her English clothing.
    She could tell the moment he recognized her, though, the very second he realized she was not just an Englishwoman, but a woman from his past.
    He went rigid, his eyes widening with a shock so complete it would