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I swallowed and closed my eyes.

I wouldn’t, not yet.

Because if there was one lesson I had learned well, ‘twas that kindness could look very much like safety right up until someone named the price.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Maardok

It took me a moment to recognize Cataline’s fear in the cold darkness before dawn.

She’d been restless most nights since I’d found her, and since Edan’s birth she slept in short stretches even when the bairn allowed more, but I had grown accustomed to those sounds.

This was different. Her breathing came too quickly, she twisted beneath the blankets, and then she made a frightened little sound I had never heard from her before. A moment later, I smelled her fear.

Gods below.

My Kteer surged beneath my ribs. I’d been awake, pacing the cottage with Edan tucked against my bare chest while I tried to give his mother another hour of sleep, so I crossed to the bed and leaned over her.

“Cataline. Dkaar, wake.”

She flinched when I touched her, then her eyes flew open and she scrambled backward.

“Ewan!” she gasped.

“He’s safe.” I glanced toward the loft. “He’s sleeping. Edan is with me.”

For a moment she stared without understanding, then her gaze found the loft, the babe against my chest, and finally me. I sank down beside her on the mattress, but did not reach again, although my Kteer wanted her beneath my hands where I could assure myself she was unharmed.

“A dream?” I prompted.

Cataline shivered and wrapped her arms around herself, making me ache to wrap her in my embrace.

“He found us.”

“John?”

She nodded. “We were back at the croft. Ewan was outside when John came, and I saw him too late. He caught Ewan before I could reach him and dragged him toward his horse.”

Her eyes closed, but not before I saw her tears.

“He said I had made my choice. That I could keep Edan, but Ewan belonged to him now.” She swallowed. “Ewan was screaming for me and I could not reach him.”

A growl rose from my chest hard enough to startle Edan, who mewed and wriggled in my hold. I forced it down and gave into temptation to wrap my arm around Cataline when she leaned toward me.

“He will never take Ewan.”

She knew ‘twas only a dream, but that didn’t dismiss her fear. I searched about, trying to give her assurances that would help.

“John would first have to learn where ye went, then find the stones, cross into a world he doesnae even ken exists, and somehow reach Islay. I dinnae believe he could manage the first of those things, much less all of them.”

I felt Cataline begin to relax against me.

So I squeezed her. “And if he did, Vrogul told ye true. Ye and yer sons are under the protection of the Battleborn now. Anyone who comes for ye must first come through us.”

I looked toward the loft. “And after that, he’d have to get through Ewan. Yer son is verra fierce.”

That earned the smallest breath of laughter.