CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE THE QUEEN BENEATH THE MOON #2
“Morna will outlive us all through spite,” Marion said.
Euan dismounted stiffly.
Marion saw him try to hide the wince and narrowed her eyes.
“I saw that.”
“I did nothing.”
“You winced.”
“I breathed.”
“With drama.”
Georgie looked between them. “Courtship is very quarrelsome.”
“This is not courtship,” Marion said at the same time Euan said, “It can be.”
Marion turned on him.
He looked back with far too much innocence.
Before she could answer, a thunderous bark burst from the stable yard.
Georgie spun.
A wolfhound pup the size of a small disaster came barreling toward them, all paws, ears, and enthusiasm. It skidded on the icy stones, recovered badly, and crashed into Georgie’s legs.
She went down laughing.
Marion’s heart lurched, then steadied when the pup began licking the child’s chin as if he had found his purpose in life and it was damp affection.
Georgie squealed. “Mama!”
Euan suddenly looked less like a chief and more like a man who had perhaps done something foolish.
Marion stared at him. “What is that?”
“A dog.”
“I can see that.”
“A wolfhound.”
“Euan.”
He cleared his throat. “For Georgie.”
Georgie sat up, arms around the pup’s neck, face alight in a way Marion had not seen since before fear became a daily visitor.
“For me?”
Euan knelt with some difficulty. Marion chose not to scold him, just this once.
“If your mother permits,” he said.
Georgie looked at Marion with betrayal already prepared in case of refusal.
Marion looked at the pup, who had one enormous paw on Georgie’s skirt and a piece of straw stuck to his ear.
“He will eat everything.”
Georgie nodded seriously. “Probably.”
“He will sleep on your bed.”
“I hope so.”
“He smells.”
“So does Tavish sometimes.”
From the stable door, Tavish shouted, “I am injured and should not be slandered.”
Morna’s voice followed. “Then stop bleeding on clean straw.”
Georgie hugged the pup tighter.
Marion sighed. “What is his name?”
Georgie looked down at the pup.
The pup sneezed.
“Basin,” she said.
Euan closed his eyes.
Marion stared at her daughter. “Basin?”
“Because Euan threw one and then this happened.”
“That is not how naming works.”
“It is now.”
The pup barked, apparently approving.
So Basin joined the clan.
That evening, Georgie saw her room.
It overlooked the loch.
Marion had not known Euan had arranged it.
No, not arranged. Ordered, likely. The chamber was not too grand, which was wise of him.
Georgie would not have trusted too much silk.
It had a small bed with thick blankets, a little writing table, a shelf for her carved bird and cup, and a window facing the water where the moon would rise.
Basin immediately jumped onto the bed and got mud on the quilt.
Georgie gasped in delight.
Marion put one hand over her eyes. “This is already a mistake.”
Euan stood beside her in the doorway, looking quietly terrified in a way battle had not managed.
“Do you like it?” he asked Georgie.
The child turned from the window.
For a moment she said nothing.
Then she crossed the room and hugged him around the waist.
Euan froze.
Marion felt his shock through the bond. Then the careful, trembling way he placed one hand on Georgie’s hair.
“It is good,” Georgie said into his coat. “You may court Mama.”
Euan looked over the child’s head at Marion.
Marion lifted both brows. “May he?”
Georgie pulled back and became very formal. “With conditions.”
Euan nodded gravely. “Name them.”
“No dying without asking.”
“I accept.”
“No tragic staring out windows unless Mama says you may.”
His mouth twitched. “Difficult, but I shall try.”
“Soup when Mama says so.”
“Always.”
“And Basin sleeps here.”
Marion said, “That seems unrelated.”
“It is important.”
Euan bowed his head. “Accepted.”
Georgie looked satisfied. “Then yes.”
Marion folded her arms. “And what if I have conditions?”
Euan looked at her, and the look in his eyes changed so gently that it stole some of her breath.
“Then I will spend my life learning them.”
That was unfair.
Georgie gagged. “That was very courtship.”
Marion laughed.
Euan did too.
And for once, no one stopped the sound.
Days passed.
Not many. Enough for bandages to be changed.
Enough for the dead to be named. Enough for Niall to be locked in the lower cells until the council decided what justice looked like when law had been used as a mask.
Enough for Morna to hide the twisted silver piece marked with the crowned wolf skull in a locked box and pretend Marion had not seen.
Marion did see.
She did not ask yet.
Some doors could wait.
The living needed tending first.
On the first full moon after the Grove, Euan came to her at the ridge above the loch.
He brought flowers.
Marion stared at them.
They were poor battered things, winter flowers mostly, hardy and small and slightly crushed in his large hand. Snowdrops. Heather. A sprig of rowan berries. One lavender stem from the cottage, though she knew perfectly well she had packed it in her healing box.
“You stole my lavender.”
“Borrowed.”
“From my box.”
“Aye.”
“That is theft.”
“I brought it back with company.”
She looked at the flowers again.
Then at him.
He looked almost nervous.
The chief of Clan McFarland. The savage wolf men feared in stories. Her mate, her anchor, the man who had faced poison and axes and still somehow looked undone by a fistful of bruised flowers.
Marion took them carefully.
“They are terrible,” she said.
His face fell.
She smiled. “I love them.”
His breath left him.
The moon rose over the loch, silver and clean.
Marion set the flowers on a flat stone where the wind would not take them.
Below, Castle McFarland glowed with firelight.
Somewhere inside, Georgie was supposed to be asleep and almost certainly was not.
Basin had howled at the moon twice already from her window before Morna threatened to feed him porridge without butter.
Marion stepped toward the ridge.
The wolf rose inside her.
Not as pain.
Not as fear.
As breath.
Euan came to her side.
“Ready?” he asked.
“No.”
His mouth curved. “Good.”
She looked at him. “You are learning.”
“I have a patient teacher.”
“I am not patient.”
“No,” he said. “But you are mine.”
She lifted one brow.
He corrected himself at once, eyes warm. “And your own.”
“Better.”
The change came like moonlight pouring through an open door.
Marion shifted first.
Silver white fur. Gold eyes. Paws in frost. The night opened around her, full of loch water, pine, stone, wolf, home.
Euan shifted beside her.
Silver gray. Larger. Scarred still in places no poison could reach, but whole in the ways that mattered.
He nudged her shoulder.
She nipped his ear.
He huffed, offended.
She ran.
The ridge fell away beneath her paws. Wind caught her fur. Snow sprayed behind them as they raced under the moon, side by side, neither leading for long, neither following for long. Below them, the castle wolves began to howl, one by one.
Not mourning.
Never mourning.
Marion ran harder, laughing in the only way a wolf could, with breath and speed and the wild joy of a body no longer fighting itself.
Euan matched her stride.
Their bond warmed between them, bright as hearthfire, clean as moonlight, stubborn as love that had been poisoned, buried, dragged to the axe and still refused to die.
At the ridge’s highest point, Marion stopped.
The Highlands stretched around her.
The cottage behind.
The castle below.
The loch silver.
The world dangerous still, yes. Old poisons remained. Old marks waited in locked boxes. Old stories would need digging from women’s songs and ash.
But tonight, Georgie slept under a safe roof.
Euan stood alive at her side.
And Marion Bell, widow no more, lifted her muzzle to the moon.
Her howl rolled over the Highlands.
Euan’s joined it.
Then the clan’s.
For the first time in centuries, the Highlands did not fear the coming of the wolves.
They waited for their queen to howl.