Tynan smiled at her. “Rain’s good for the soul.”
“Then our souls must be very healthy after these last days. They can move about in the rain, Tynan.” She touched her fingers lightly to the cross painted on his breastplate. “I wonder if we should wait until this clears before you start this journey.”
With a shake of his head, he looked beyond her to the others. “My lady, the men are ready. Ready to the point that delay would cut into morale and scrape at the nerves. They need action, even if it’s only a long day’s march in the rain. We’ve trained to fight,” he continued before she could speak again. “If any come to meet us, we’ll be ready.”
“I trust you will.” Had to trust. If not with Tynan, whom she’d known all of her life, where would she begin? “Larkin and the others will be waiting for you. I’ll expect their return shortly after sunset, with word that you arrived safe and have taken up the post.”
“You can depend on it, and on me. My lady.” He took both her hands.
Because they were friends, because he was the first she would send out, she leaned up to kiss him. “I do depend.” She squeezed his fingers. “Keep my cousins out of trouble.”
“That, my lady, may be beyond my skills.” His gaze shifted from her face. “My lord. Lady.”
With her hands still caught in Tynan’s, Moira turned to Cian and Glenna.
“A wet day for traveling,” Cian commented. “They’ll likely have a few troops posted along the way to give you some exercise.”
“So the men hope.” Tynan glanced over to where nearly a hundred men were saying goodbye to their families and sweethearts, then turned back so his eyes met Cian’s. “Are we ready?”
“You’re adequate.”
Before Moira could snap at the insult, Tynan roared out a laugh. “High praise from you,” he said and clasped hands with Cian. “Thank you for the hours, and the bruises.”
“Make good use of them. Slán leat.”
“Slán agat.” He shot Glenna a cocky grin as he mounted. “I’ll send your man back to you, my lady.”
“See that you do. Blessed be, Tynan.”
“In your name, Majesty,” he said to Moira, then wheeled his mount. “Fall in!”
Moira watched as the scattered men formed lines. And watched in the rain as her cousin Oran and two other officers rode out, leading her foot soldiers to the first league toward war.
“It begins,” she murmured. “May the gods watch over them.”
“Better,” Cian said, “if they watch over themselves.”
Still he stood as she did until the first battalion of Geall’s army was out of sight.
Chapter 8
Glenna frowned over her tea as, with Moira’s prodding, Cian related his interlude with Lilith. The three of them took the morning meal together, in private.
“Similar to what happened with Blair then, and with me back in New York. I’d hoped Hoyt and I had blocked that sort of thing.”
“Possibly you have, on humans,” he added. “Vampire to vampire is likely a different matter. Particularly—”
“When the one intruding is the sire,” Glenna finished. “Yes, I see. Still, there should be a way to shut her out.”
“It’s hardly worth your time and energies. It’s not a problem for me.”
“You say that now, but it upset you.”
He glanced at Moira. “Upset is a strong word. In any case, she left in what we’ll call a huff.”
“Something good came out of it,” Glenna continued. “For her to come to you, try to deal, she can’t be as confident as she’d like to be.”
“On the contrary, she believes, absolutely, that she’ll win. Her wizard’s shown her.”