Children of the Moon 04 - Dragon's Moon

should not. Even without the eavesdropping. Her dreams and visions had grown more frequent since she had seen the scarlet dragon breathing fire from the sky.
    And of late, the Faolchú Chridhe called to her even more insistently than her dead brother’s screams and mother’s spilled blood. Ciara rarely slept, and when she did sleep it was to dream, each dream growing more fraught with urgency than the last. She could not eat because that urgency followed her into wakefulness, making her stomach tight and filling her with dread she did not understand.
    Ciara did not know what to do.
    Perhaps it was time to tell another soul about the existence of the wolves’ stone. Would that knowledge be safer in Laird Talorc’s hands than it had been in Galen’s? Pain sliced through Ciara at the probability it would.
    Galen had wanted the power of the stone to destroy the Éan. Laird Talorc would want it to help them.
    In her silent, stealthy wanderings around the keep, Ciara had heard enough to know this to be true. She knew Talorc was aware of her presence. He was a wolf with a wolf’s senses, but he never scolded her. Maybe he knew she had no one to tell the secrets she overheard.
    The faint sounds of multiple horses had Ciara looking up and dismissing all thought of secrets and the Faolchú Chridhe for now. A group of perhaps twenty people riding on horseback came into view. She watched intently as they rode closer and closer to the fortress without being challenged.
    It had to be the Éan.
    They got close enough that with her wolf’s eyesight she could tell that some wore plaids, while others wore clothing made of tanned hides and fur.
    The huge warrior that led them wore what looked like a kilt made of leather, wide cuffs at his wrist of the same and a strap around his bicep that held a wicked-looking knife. He wore his long sword in another scabbard on his back, the hilt sticking up over his left shoulder. The leather strap holding it in place bisected his otherwise naked chest—a chest devoid of hair but rippling with muscle.
    A medallion of some kind glinted in the moonlight, hanging from a leather cord around his neck. He wore no boots, but sandals that wrapped around and laced at hisankles. They almost looked like what the Roman soldiers of ancient times had worn. She’d seen drawings carved into cave walls in her search with her brother for the Faolchú Chridhe .
    Was this warrior Éan? He was bigger than those he rode with, at least a head taller than any of the other men. Giant, she would guess he stood even taller than the laird’s second-in-command, Niall, and easily as broad.
    Ciara had not thought Éan warriors large like that. Certainly they were not in her dreams. The Éan were strong, but in her dreams they were smaller in build to the Faol.
    Her brother always claimed they were the smallest of the Chrechte peoples, too. Galen had said it sneeringly, but being so much smaller than him herself, Ciara had wondered why he found the difference so worthy of disgust.
    This man was not undersized in any way and he had the regal bearing of a king. How would he tolerate Talorc’s leadership?
    Would the huge warrior challenge her laird, the man who considered himself her father?
    Anxiety spiked through her as the new Chrechte moved closer. Mere feet from the drawbridge that was still down on Laird Talorc’s order, the lead warrior’s features became distinct.
    And all the air in Ciara’s lungs escaped in one long exhale.
    This man who meant to become a Sinclair was breathtaking, though his expression was as fierce as the glint in his amber eyes. Eyes that glowed with Chrechte power, even in the moonlight. A jawbone that looked hewn from rock was set in stern lines, his neck and shoulders held in arrogant rigidity that warned danger for any who crossed him.
    Atavistic fear pressed against her solar plexus, making it hard to draw breath.
    The warrior lifted his head, a gaze even keener than her own honing in on Ciara with unerring accuracy. He should not be able to see her tucked up against the wall as she was, but she knew he did. He did not look away, either. Nor could she.
    Never before had she felt such a connection with another. Her wolf whispered a word she refused to hear, her mind whirling with thoughts she was determined never to have.
    Unable to break gazes with the warrior and yet unwilling to remain as she was, Ciara surged to her feet. The nights without sleep, the days she had eaten less than