Warrior's Moon by Lucy Monroe

doesn’t change her mind easy.”
    “I remember that about her.” Though her stubborn tendencies hadn’t often shown with him, he saw them in the way she related to others all too frequently.
    “She didn’t want to be with Percy. We runned away instead. I don’t like Percy, either.”
    “Who is Percy?” Niall asked.
    “My not-brother.”
    “Percival.” Shona had mentioned him, Caelis remembered. “The new baron?”
    Eadan nodded. “He has a wife but no children. He wanted Mum to be his lemon and give him children. But she wouldn’t let him have us.”
    “
Lehman
, he wanted to make her his
lehman
.” Percival would have made Shona, his former stepmother, his mistress with all the responsibilities and none of the privileges of his wife.
    It was monstrous and disgusting, and no more than he expected of an English baron, though he’d never tell Abigail that.
    Fury filled Caelis, but he did his best not to let it bleed through his countenance and scare the children.
    “In my dreams, men turn into wolves sometimes but women never turn into lemons.”
    He didn’t correct his son’s pronunciation, but he did wonder at it.
    “What is a lemon?” Niall asked, however.
    Eadan’s brow furrowed like he was surprised by the question. “It’s a yellow fruit. Sour. Mum read to me about it from a book written by one of the priests in Italy. My lord was ever so fond of the writings of the Church.”
    “I see.” Caelis made no attempt to hide his smile. “Percy isn’t turning your mother into his
lemon
, or anything else.”
    Eadan nodded in complete agreement. “Mum won’t let him.”
    “Neither will I.”
    “Good. Mum isn’t as big as she thinks she is.”
    Niall laughed. “She seems plenty big to me.”
    “Mama is tiny but strong,” Eadan replied staunchly. “I’ll be taller ’n her soon enough. She always says so.”
    “Aye.” Emotion threatened to choke Caelis.
    This child standing before him with blue eyes the samegentian shade and oval shape as his own was
his
son. The fruit of sacred passion he had shared with his true mate.
    Because only a true mate could become pregnant by a Chrechte when she was human.
    All his former laird’s arguments against the mating shattered in the face of that truth. Not only had she given birth, but his son’s enhanced ability to smell indicated that he would go through the change into wolf form when he reached age.
    Caelis shuddered to think what would have happened to his son if he had shifted without a pack to protect him. But then, he had a pack.
    An
English
one.
    He looked to Thomas, who was already teaching a game with sticks to the Sinclair’s twin sons. Their baby daughter slept above stairs this time in the afternoon.
    Caelis carried Marjory to where Thomas and the children played on the floor of the great hall nearby. He set the girl down and she immediately grabbed for her brother’s hand. Eadan took it, as if he was used to doing so and led her to the others.
    Caelis lowered himself to the floor beside Thomas. “Teach me this game,” he demanded.
    The young wolf merely nodded and explained the rules. They’d played for a bit, even getting the wee Marjory to participate, when Caelis asked, “How came you to be such close friends to my mate?”
    “Her father sought us out. I do not know how he knew of our true nature, or that of our mother, but the steward was well aware and wanted us nearby in case Eadan made the transition.”
    “What of your own family?”
    “My father is a minor baron and wanted nothing of us, offspring from his
lehman
.”
    “Does he know she is Chrechte?”
    Grief twisted Thomas’s youthful features. “No. He never knew and now she is gone.”
    “I am sorry.” Caelis had lost his own parents, onlyto learn recently it had been at the hands of the very man who had insinuated himself into Caelis’s life as a second father.
    Uven had played mentor and parent to Caelis, all the while guilty of the most heinous