Warrior's Moon Read Free Page B

have been amusing if she were not so devastated at his appearance in her already turbulent life.
    He went as if to take a step and stumbled.
    How odd. He was a sure-footed man. Perhaps one of the other warriors had tripped him? Men played games with each other like that.
    Even as the nonsensical thoughts floated through her mind, fear screamed through her body. Caelis could not see Eadan. Her son could never know the man who had denied his very existence and rejected the woman he had professed to love.
    They needed to leave.
Now.
The laird of the Sinclairs would simply have to do without the pleasure of making their acquaintance.
    That thought alone gave her the strength to break her gaze from Caelis as she jerked her head around, searching frantically for Eadan.
    He was already on the ground, his hand held in Niall’sgiant paw, a smaller man standing quite near to the huge warrior, talking to them both with an engaging smile.
    Shona wanted to scream at them to
please
put her son back on his horse and then get out of her way. But no words left her lips. She could neither move, nor speak, her panic freezing her as stiff as death.
    Even as the need to escape continued to tear through her, she knew it to be hopeless.
    Even if she could make herself move, to cry out for Niall’s assistance in getting her son back on his horse, she and her companions would not be allowed to leave the Sinclair holding without seeing the laird. It had already been decided.
    And as had happened too often in her past, Shona knew she was subject to the whims of men who held authority over her. This time, it was only by her trespass on his land, but that would not matter to the Sinclair laird.
    He was a man with power.
    He would demand to be obeyed.
    ’Twas the way of things.
    Hopelessness washed over Shona near to drowning her.
    The boy was out of Caelis’s line of sight, but that gave Shona little comfort.
    The warrior was bound to see her child soon and when he did? He would know the truth, no matter how much he might like to deny it.
    But what he would do with that truth, she could not guess at. Nothing good for her. She’d discovered in the past six years that men rarely made choices to benefit women.
    But most particularly her.
    Caelis had only been the first man in a long list in her life to exhibit this truth.
    “Shona…”
    She looked down and saw that both Audrey and Thomas were there, standing beside Shona’s mare. Audrey’s hands were upraised to take Marjory so Shona could dismount.
    When had they gotten off their horses?
    “Are you all right?” Thomas asked, his tone clearly worried. Both he and Audrey wore matching expressions of concern. “We’ve said your name
three
times.”
    “I…no…” she answered with honesty before she thought to control her tongue.
    “What is it?” Suddenly Niall was there, having moved very quickly. “Lady Heronshire, do you need help dismounting?”
    He reached up as well. “Give me the babe.”
    Dropping the horse’s reins, Shona wrapped her arms around her daughter in a reflexive move of protection.
    “Do not touch her.” The snarl came from behind Niall and then Caelis was there, shoving the other warrior away from Shona’s horse.
    Niall spun on the other man, knocking him back and shouting. “The hell!”
    “She’s mine,” Caelis growled, his voice so animal-like the words were barely discernible.
    “Calm yourself,” Niall snapped, sounding less angry for some reason, though he didn’t back away. “The Englishwoman—”
    “She is
not
English.”
    “Do ye see how she is dressed? She is a lady, Caelis. Stop and think.”
    But Caelis appeared beyond reason, his aggression not lessening one iota. And Shona did not understand it. In no scenario of this moment she might ever have imagined would she have considered him laying claim to her…or was it her daughter?
    None of this made any sense.
    Marjory chose that moment to awaken, squirming to sit up. “Mama! Want