“How are you holding up?”

“Glenna’s fussed and tended and dosed me.” She held up the cup, drank the contents down. “I feel well enough.”

“It was a good fight. You had some nice moves out there.”

“I toyed with him too long.” Moira lifted her shoulders, then winced as the wound in her side objected to the movement. “That was foolish and prideful. More foolish, more prideful to tell you to release the second. You were right not to.”

“Yeah, I was.” Blair came over to sit on the hassock at Moira’s feet. “I’m not going to tell you I know anything about being a queen. But I do know that being a leader doesn’t mean doing it all yourself. Being a warrior doesn’t mean fighting when the fight isn’t necessary.”

“I let my needs cloud my judgment. I know that. I won’t do so again.”

“Well, all’s well that ends.” She patted Moira’s knee.

“You’re the best friends I’ve known, save Larkin. And the closest women to me but my mother. I saw by your faces when you stood in the door that Glenna told you what she saw between me and Cian.”

Unsure how to answer, Blair rubbed her hands on her thighs. “Okay.”

“I think we might have some wine.” When Moira started to rise, Glenna laid a hand on her shoulder to stop her.

“I’ll get it. I didn’t tell Blair to talk behind your back, or gossip.”

“I know that as well. It was concern, as a friend, as another woman. There’s no need for concern. I was angry. No, enraged,” Moira corrected as Glenna came back with the wine. “That he would take it upon himself to end what I wanted to do.”

“He only beat me to it by a couple seconds,” Blair told her.

“Well. Well. I went after him when it was my duty to stay, to speak to my people. But I went after him, and I deviled him. He’d done what he did to stop me from making a foolish and perhaps fatal mistake. And he told me as much, but I wasn’t ready to listen, to accept. He showed me as much, and it’s all of a piece, what happened at the end of it. He only showed me that I wasn’t strong enough to stop any sort of attack. It meant nothing more than that.”

“Okay…” Blair searched for words. “If you’re satisfied with that.”

“It’s difficult for a woman to be satisfied when she’s kissed in such a way, then coldly rejected.” Still Moira lifted a shoulder. “But it was done in anger on both sides. I won’t apologize to him, nor do I expect he will to me. We’ll simply go on, remembering there are more important things than pride and temper.”

“Moira.” Glenna stroked a hand over Moira’s hair. “Do you have feelings for him?”

As if to search inside herself, Moira closed her eyes. “There are times it seems I’m nothing but feelings. But I know where my duty lies. I’ve agreed to go to the stone, take hold of the sword. Not tomorrow. There’s much to do tomorrow. But by week’s end. I’ve shown my people they have a warrior in me. Soon, if the gods’ will it, I’ll show them a queen.”

When they stepped out, Moira remained in the chair, watching the fire.

“What I gave her will help her sleep, and soon, I hope.” Blowing out a breath, Glenna dug her hands into her pockets.

“This could get complicated.”

“What isn’t? I should have seen something like this coming.”

“Time to turn in your crystal ball on a newer model?”

“Oh well.” They walked together toward their own rooms. “Should we talk to Cian about this?”

“Sure. You go first.”

With a half laugh, Glenna shook her head. “Okay, we leave it alone. Stay out of it—at least for now. You know, I’m a firm believer in full disclosure in relationships. But I’m not going to say anything to Hoyt about this.”

“If you think I’m going to blab to Larkin, think again. We’ve all got enough on our minds.”

T he morning was soggy and cold, but there were a flock of women on the gaming field. Most of them wore pants—what the locals called braes—and tunics.

“More than twice the turnout I had yesterday,” Glenna told Blair. “That’s Moira’s doing.”

“She sure as hell drove the point home last night. Look, I’ll give you an hour, get them started. Then I’m going to want to get my pet dragon up in the air.”

Whether it was the gloom of the morning or the dregs of the tension from the night before, Blair was antsy. “I want to check out the battlefield firsthand, make sure those settlements near it are cleared out. And I want to swing by, make sure the traps are up and running.”

“Just another day in paradise. Well, I guess we ought to move this indoors.” Hands on hips, Glenna turned a circle. “See if there’s a space we can work with.”

“Why?”

“In case you haven’t noticed, it’s raining.”

“Yeah, I got that with all the water dripping off my hair. Point is, we don’t know what conditions will be like on Samhain. For that matter, we don’t know what they’ll be like if any of these women have to tangle with a vamp before that. Might as well get used to fighting dirty, so to speak.”

“Crap.”

“Buck up, soldier.” Blair gave her a friendly punch in the arm.

At the end of an hour, Blair was filthy, mildly bruised and in the best of moods. A little down-and-dirty training had gone a long way toward smoothing down the restlessness.

She started across the courtyard with the goal of finding Larkin, then stopped short when she recognized his mother and sister coming her way.

Perfect, she thought. Aces. She was covered with mud and sweat, and about to cross paths with the mom of the guy she was sleeping with. Just her lucky day.

Since there was nowhere to duck out of sight, she toughed it out. “Good morning.”

“And to you. I am Deirdre, and this is my daughter, Sinann.”

Blair nearly extended a hand before she remembered herself. Since she didn’t think she could pull off a curtsey under current conditions, she simply nodded. “It’s nice to meet you. I’ve, ah, been training some of the women.”

“We watched.” In the way of pregnant women, Sinann folded her hands over the mound of her belly. “You have skill—and energy.”