Children of the Moon 04 - Dragon's Moon

beside her again, laying the amber stone near her head, his fingers touching her golden hair.
    ’Twas all he could do not to bury his fingers in the silken strands. But everything about her intoxicated him with more potency than well-aged whiskey. Her scent, so feminine and so right, teased at his nostrils and he could not help taking a deep breath to feed his eagle’s need.
    It was a mistake and he realized that immediately, but not soon enough to prevent the shudder of his body as his craving for the MacLeod woman grew.
    Were she not yet so painfully wounded, he would not be able to subdue his need for her. Of that he was certain.
    Perhaps the Sinclair had been right to question Lais’s control, if not his honor.
    “I’m glad,” she said softly. “I do not wish to give you a disgust of me.”
    “’Tis not possible. You have shown great determination and courage, I can do naught but admire you.” And want her with a hunger he doubted even Eirik’s dragon could match.
    She said nothing as Lais bathed her feet with herb-infused water that would keep away infection from the few scratches that remained. They had been torn and battered the night before and he’d started his healing there, unaware far more serious wounds awaited his Chrechte touch.
    “So, why am I so drawn to you and not the others?”
    “I told you, I am your healer. You feel my power working inside you. It draws you to me.” ’Twas a good excuse if wholly spurious.
    “So, you are not drawn to me?”
    “You are daring in your speech for an innocent maid.”
    “Only with you. I hid from the man my father chose to wed me as much as possible and only spoke to him when I could not avoid it.”
    For a woman who liked to talk as much as his Mairi, that said much about her feelings for the man her father had chosen for her. Lais’s eagle had his own opinion of said warrior and a bloodthirsty way of dealing with him in mind.
    “You are spoken for?” he asked her in a tone made hard by his dislike of the possibility.
    “Am I truly the Sinclair’s ward?”
    The Sinclair had given her sanctuary, but today, he had given her more…he had given her a place in his family. “He said it. It is so.”
    “Then…no.”
    “Explain.”
    “My father promised my hand without my consent.”
    “’Tis not uncommon, particularly for a laird’s daughter.” Though a man whose habits led to his daughter spending time with their clan’s healer was not one who would choose carefully for her prospective mate.
    “But if I am no longer under his authority, then his promise on my behalf is no longer binding. Since I never agreed to it, I am not bound by my own words, either.” She shivered. “And it is a good thing, too. The man has too many of my father’s traits.”
    “He would have beaten you?” Lais asked, fury toward this unknown clansman growing inside him. “Is he Chrechte?”
    The Macleod clan had an illness that needed Niall’s skills rather than Lais’s to heal.
    “Yes, though he is not a very strong wolf.”
    “Even a weak wolf is much stronger than most humans.”
    “Yes.” She turned her head away. “He did beat me. Not all of these bruises are from my father’s fists.”
    Eirik had told Lais through the royal Éan mind link last night that Mairi had been beaten by her father and was in need of healing, but to hear it from her own lips was worse than a kick to Lais’s gut.
    “Why?” Not that the why mattered because naught could ever justify such cruel cowardice, but Lais felt the need to understand as much about this human woman as possible.
    Even if he would never claim her for mate, she would always be important to him. He had been given a new life among his brethren, but he knew he did not deserve it. He would never ask a wife to take on a warrior with such a compromised past.
    No matter how much his eagle craved the touch of this woman. She was a patient and she could never be anything else.
    Nevertheless, Lais would do his best to protect her from this point forward. Understanding how she came to be here was a necessary step toward doing that.
    “I ran away the night before I was supposed to wed Ualraig.” Mairi’s eyes pleaded for understanding. “I could not bear the thought of marriage to a man so like my father. Ualraig was only willing to take me as his wife because he was sure I was not his true mate and he could still share his seed with a femwolf, given the opportunity.”
    “How do you know this?”
    “He