Lucy Monroe - Moon Awakening

Drustan punched him straight in the face, and Ulf went flying backward to land with a thud a good dozen feet away. "Do not ever speak of my mate in that tone again or I will kill you."

Ulf sat up, shaking his head, his eyes dazed.

And in that moment, several things became clear to Emily. All of them painful. Most disturbing was a suspicion she had no doubt that if she voiced would go unheeded. After all, in Lachlan's eyes, she was the betrayer.

But looking at his brother, so filled with vindictiveness, spite and a thirst for blood, she could not help wondering if he would kill one of his own soldiers to try to push Lachlan into the one thing his brother had refused to do.

Declare war.

Knowing that to voice her suspicions would be useless, Emily did not wait around to see Lachlan's reaction to his first-in-command threatening his brother.

She ran after Cait, getting away from the men in the hall as fast as she could. She could not believe Lachlan had said the things he had to her. She might one day forgive him, though that was not a certainty. But she would never forget he'd humiliated her like that in front of his soldiers.

And he had said he wanted to claim her. Hah!

When she reached the door to Drustan's quarters, it was closed, but she was sure Cait was inside. She pushed, but the door would not open. She knocked, or rather pounded on the thick door.

"Cait, it's me," she called, trying to penetrate the wood with her calls.

The door swung open and Cait drew Emily inside, shutting it again with a slam behind her and pushing the bar back into place. Her eyes were red, but she was not crying.

She looked too mad to cry. "How dare he say that to me? He accused me of murdering that boy, did you hear him?"

"Yes, but I don't think he meant it."

"But he said it." The pained guilt in Cait's gaze tore at Emily's heart. "Maybe he was right."

"No, he wasn't! Even if Talorc did kill the soldier, and I suspect strongly he didn't, you would not be responsible just because you did not alert Drustan to the danger. Any fool would have assumed your brother would come himself or send spies to see the lay of the land. And if they were capable of going undetected on Sinclair land, they should have realized the Sinclairs had the same ability here."

Cait hugged herself around her pregnant belly. "Drustan is no fool and neither is the Balmoral."

"So I thought," Emily said with venom, remembering the idiotic things Lachlan had accused her of.

"I don't know if they guessed Talorc was on the island, but Lachlan knew as of last night. A femwolf spotted my brother and reported it. The laird told Drustan this morning."

"So, why are they so angry we didn't tell them yesterday? It would have made no difference to what happened to that boy if we had… since they already knew when he was killed."

"That is a logical conclusion, Emily, but I'm not convinced men are always so clearheaded in their thinking."

"No, I think you're right." Lachlan's painful accusations definitely fell in the irrational-thinking camp. "Drustan hit Ulf, by the way, for sneering at you. He threatened to kill him if Ulf insulted you again and I'm sure he meant it, even though his own words to you were much worse."

Cait looked briefly gratified by that news, but was soon frowning again. "Yes, what you heard in the hall was even worse than what he said to me earlier in private."

"After Lachlan told him about Talorc being spotted?"

"Yes. He waited until I'd woken from my nap to ask me about it. You would think he was being courteous, wouldn't you?" she asked, making it clear with her tone what she thought of her husband's level of courtesy.

"What did he say?"

"He wanted to know if I'd seen my brother. I couldn't lie flat out, so I told him. Emily, I wanted to tell him so much, especially after we discovered we are true mates, but I was so scared and he didn't understand that at all."

"He thought you should not have cared if your brother was killed by the Balmoral?"

"I don't know. He just kept saying I should have trusted him, but how could I? He doesn't love Talorc. He doesn't even like him."

That made Emily smile.

Without any warning at all, Cait burst into tears. "Maybe I should have trusted Drustan. He seemed hurt by my lack of belief in him. He hates me now, you heard him."

Emily put her arm around Cait's shoulder. "But men see things so differently than we do. I remember one time my father had a boy flogged for stealing an apple from our orchard. He did not understand when the boy's mother, who worked in our kitchens, glared at him every time she saw him after that. To his mind stealing was wrong. It shocked him that she would risk his ire over such a trifle."

"But he'd hurt her son," Cait said, making an obvious attempt to stem the flow of her tears.

"Yes, emotions cannot be dictated by the petty rules and wars of men."

Cait laughed, the sound harsh. "Emotions can't be dictated by anything, even sound reasoning. I love Drustan, but I shouldn't. And now he hates me," she repeated.

"I don't believe that. He wouldn't have hit Ulf and threatened him if he hated you."

"His pride would be pricked by an insult to me."

"I think you were right a moment ago when you said that Drustan was hurt by your lack of belief in him. As your husband, he expects to come first with you, but if you are sacred mates, I think that it's more than an issue of pride for him."

"True-mating is not a result of love."

"No, but I'm sure it leads to it."

"I hope so because I don't want to be miserable alone."

Emily laughed at that. "I'm sure he's every bit as miserable. He looked good and upset when you ran from the hall, now that I think about it."

"Did he? Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"He was just worried for the babe."

"It's not even his child; if he worries for it, he does so because he cares for you."

"Do you think so?"

"I am certain of it."

"But earlier he said I might as well wear the Sinclair plaid and be done with it. And in the hall, he said our marriage vows didn't mean anything."

"He said he believed they did not mean anything to you . Those are the words of a hurting man, not merely an angry one." She hoped she was right, but even if men were terribly different from women, they couldn't be so nonsensical that no amount of logic could be applied to them.

"I wish I had trusted him, but even now I can't convince myself that to have told him would have been the right course to take."

"It's a matter I think you two should discuss further."

"Are you going to discuss Lachlan's accusations with him?" Cait asked.

"That's different. He is not my husband." But even though she did not think he would give her words any credence, she would have to tell him her suspicions about Ulf.

Cait sniffed the air near Emily delicately. "He marked you with his scent."

"I washed," Emily mumbled.

"But a werewolf's scent does not wash away that easily. He claimed you."

"No, he didn't… he only touched me. We didn't even…" She let her voice trail off, but she knew Cait would understand what she was alluding to.

"You came close."

"He wanted to, at the end. I think that was why he was so angry in the great hall. He thought I'd almost tricked him into mating with me, but I wasn't going to allow it. I know he doesn't want a human woman for a wife."

"He wants you, Emily."

"Lust… it's not the same," Emily said, her throat constricting with tears she would not shed.

Cait sighed. "No, it isn't." She broke away from Emily's hug and started pacing. "But we cannot afford to be preoccupied with that right now. Both Drustan and Lachlan are so busy being angry with us for deceiving them that they are not looking at things logically."