Read Online Children of the Moon 04 - Dragon's Moon by authors_sort - Free Book Online

learned to control it,” she guessed.
    “I cast fire only when I want to,” he said, affronted.
    Warriors . They could be so sensitive. “No doubt, but you had to learn how to cast less and more depending on what was needed in defense of your people.”
    He turned back to face her again, a strange expression in his dragon’s eyes. “You think the fire is so easily manipulated, that a mere man might only cast a little if he wants to?”
    “No, but a man who is a dragon also? Yes.” Chrechte had to learn to control other gifts, why not fire?
    “You know nothing.”
    “Or you do not know as much as you think you do.” He might be prince of his people, but he was only eight years older than her nineteen years. She’d heard Niall saying so to Guaire.
    “I am the dragon. I know.”
    “You controlled your fire enough not to set the forest ablaze,” she pointed out.
    He didn’t reply and she wondered if he’d even been aware of exerting such precise control at the time.
    “I may be merely a wolf, but I had to learn to mask my scent, to control my urge to shift, to hunt and to stifle my desire to kill when the wolf rules my form. It took a lot of practice to catch prey and not kill it.” And she was beginningto suspect that no matter how well trained a warrior and raven, Eirik’s dragon was still wild.
    “Why would you practice such a thing?”
    “Because a wolf must know the power of her jaw and fangs if she is to be safe around cubs.” Perhaps the ravens did not understand this, not being birds of prey, but surely the eagles among them had to train for such control.
    “The children of the Éan are safe with me.”
    “You don’t cast fire around them, but what if you did? Could you stop them from being hurt?”
    “I didn’t hurt Fidaich or Canaul that day, did I?”
    “No. The only one that hurt a child that day was Luag.” How she hated to say the foul man’s name, even if he was dead.
    “If your brother had given you to him in marriage, this Luag would have hurt you, too.”
    By the sacred stone. And they accused women of gossiping. Warriors were worse than grandmothers for sharing everyone’s business. “You’ve been speaking to Lais.”
    “He remembers you and your brother. He said Galen changed after your father died, though he thought your father might have shared Rowland and Wirp’s beliefs.”
    “He did.”
    Memories of her father were not comforting ones in light of her brother’s death and how it came to pass.
    And Galen had meant to give her to Luag. She’d known it as a frightened girl and she could not erase that knowledge now, no matter how much she might wish to. She reminded herself that her adopted family seemed content for her to remain unwed, never pressing her to take a mate. Still a film of sweat broke out between her breasts and down her back as old fears assailed her.
    Refusing to give in to them, Ciara moved toward the rosebushes, Abigail’s favorite part of the garden. Ciara inhaled deeply of their fragrance to calm herself, to remind herself the past was just that. Done and over.
    “I am sorry.”
    There was no deceit in Eirik’s scent. The only thingwas, she didn’t know what the dragon regretted…her brother’s change or his death.
    “Me, too,” Ciara said, meaning both.
    Eirik moved closer, his big body coming between her and the rosebushes. “You left the party early.”
    “So did you.” Ciara found herself not only unable to back away but fighting a near-uncontrollable urge to step closer.
    “I followed you.”
    “Why?” But she knew.
    His spicy Chrechte scent and arousal eclipsed even the strong aroma of the roses.
    His eyes burned with a desire unlike anything that had ever been directed at her. “You know why.”
    “No.”
    “Yes.” His big hands cupped her face. “There is something about you, Ciara of the Sinclairs. Something I cannot deny.”
    “I am nothing special.” Just a shell of a femwolf, her heart as good as dead inside her.
    “I