She would wait until the end of time for him, but she’d never force that on Tzader. His happiness meant all to her.
“You care for him,” Macha continued. “But he grows closer to another woman, the Alterant Evalle.”
The ugly sting of jealousy creeping up Brina’s spine was as full of blarney as the goddess. Tzader and Quinn both treated Evalle as no more than a younger sister. “Tzader would never choose Evalle over me.”
She hoped.
“Then why does he always defend Evalle, when the Alterants are an unknown element in our world? His allegiance with the Alterant presents a danger to you. The castle was warded against immortals, which Alterants don’t appear to be, which means they can breach Treoir’s defenses. They may be half Belador, but what about the unknown half?”
Brina puckered her forehead in thought, arguing, “Our warriors have overpowered the Alterants in their beast state, and Evalle has proven herself a loyal follower.”
At least Brina hoped she hadn’t misplaced her faith in Evalle, since the Tribunal would hold her responsible if Evalle failed to find the three escaped Alterants.
No time to worry about that right now.
Macha’s voice hardened with censure. “Alterants are shifting into beastseverywherein Tzader’s territory.”
“The ones in the past two days don’t have green eyes,” Brina pointed out, though it meant little in the face of so many deaths. But she had a feeling the eye color was significant.
Macha admitted, “Our warriors are destroying these new beasts, but we have lost Beladors to the green-eyed Alterants in the past, and they still pose a threat. Have you considered that the green-eyed ones may be connected to the traitor that eludes our warriors?”
“Why do you say that?” Brina asked, surprised at the direction of Macha’s thinking.
“When Tzader and Quinn were captured by the Medb in Utah two years ago with the Alterant Evalle, the traitor was involved. Just a few weeks ago when an Alterant shifted and killed nine Beladors in . . . what do the humans call that place?”
“North Carolina.”
“Ah, yes. When our warriors died there, word of the traitor surfaced again. Consider the first Alterant that shifted and attacked Beladors six years ago. Tzader believes the traitor Larsen O’Meary was the Belador who had called members of our tribe to confront the beast.”
Aware of the past, Brina had no argument. Thankfully, Tzader and his team had survived that first meeting with an Alterant.
“Even though Larsen O’Meary is presumed dead, a traitor still walks free,” Macha pointed out. “Have you forgotten how one treasonous Belador helped the Medb destroy your family and put you in this situation?”
“Of course not.”
“Then why have you not ordered the only O’Meary descendant to go through a mind probe?”
Brina tried to form words to answer the ridiculous question. “Because we have no reason to doubt young Conlan O’Meary’s loyalty just because his da was rotten to the core.”
“Then there should be no issue with having Vladimir Quinn probe all areas of Conlan’s mind, right?”
How could this woman suspect the O’Meary boy? But Brina knew which battles to fight, and this was not one. Macha clearly wanted Conlan investigated. “I shall see it done.”
“That sounds more like a Treoir leader.”
Brina heard the warning and realized she had to prove to Macha she would always put the future of the Beladors first, even ahead of her own happiness. To prove she thought as a leader, Brina said, “I believe the humans suddenly turning into beasts and killing are not the same as our green-eyed Alterants.”
“Why?”
“Because neither Tristan nor Evalle shifted and killed humans.” Brina risked bringing up a sore topic. She’d argued against imprisoning Tristan the first time, but the goddess had implied she’d been doing it for his safety. Then Macha had forbidden Brina from speaking about his capture to anyone.
Waving a hand as if to quash the discussion, Macha said, “Only time will tell with the green-eyed ones, but we must find out why these new beasts are surfacing all of a sudden. Instead of searching harder for the traitor who presents a weakness in your defense, Tzader worries too much over Evalle Kincaid. Which gets us back to the problem at hand.”
“I don’t understand what you’re saying.” Because following Macha’s train of thought was akin to tracing the journey of a raindrop in a bowl of water.
“Tzader’s a man with needs,” Macha told her as if Brina needed to hear that. “You think he’s been celibate all this time?”
Brina forced her hands to remain still and not cover her ears against words that gouged her heart. Had Tzader taken another woman in the past four years? The night she’d given her virginity to him he’d sworn his love for all time.
