"Sabrine's been taught all werewolf shifters are her enemy. Can Barr's love change that?"
Reviewed by Rosie B
Posted February 26, 2012
Romance Historical | Romance Paranormal
As a raven shifter, Sabrine has spent her entire life
hearing about her people's enemy, the Chrechte, who are
werewolf shifters. On a mission to retrieve a sacred stone
that was stolen from her people by the Donegal clan,
Sabrine doesn't count on being shot from the air with an
arrow, or being found wounded in the woods by the clan's
new laird. She quickly uses the situation to her advantage,
claiming to have no memory. Once she begins to spend time
with the clan, especially the laird, Sabrine realizes
everything she's been taught since childhood may be wrong,
but by then, it's too late to stop herself from falling in
love.
Barr wants to find his mate and after being appointed the
new laird of the Donegal clan, he hopes he'll find his mate
amongst his new people. Finding a wounded and naked woman
in the woods wasn't how he planned on going about it
though. Barr can't figure out whey Sabrine, a fragile
human, fascinates him like no other woman ever has. The
more he gets to know her though, the more Barr's falling
for her, but when Sabrine's secrets start coming out, and
her true motive is revealed, will it keep the two apart?
Lucy Monroe's Children of the Moon series is the kind of
books that captivate the imagination and doesn't let go.
MOON BURNING came out a year ago, and through mishaps and
disappearing files, I'm only now finally posting a review
for it. But because of the strong story and amazing
writing, I still remember this book a year later like I
read it yesterday. These characters will stick with you
long after you're done with their story. Ms. Monroe makes
her world come to life and takes you on an amazing journey
full of shifters, love, secrets and mysteries. The action
is hot, the romance is hotter and all of it will leave you
wanting more.
SUMMARY
Bestselling author Lucy Monroe returns to her hugely
popular paranormal world where a woman falls under the spell
of the beast who is her one true enemy...
Barr never asked to be made laird over the struggling
Donegal clan, or leader of its werewolf pack. But he'll do
his duty and although he hasn’t yet found his mate, he hopes
she will be among his people. He expects his new role to be
difficult; he doesn't expect to discover a naked woman in
the forest whose memory is as fragile as her human body—her
delectable, all too appealing body. Could this woman be his
true mate?
On a mission to save her people from extinction, Sabrine
pretends she has no memory in order to gain access to her
enemy: the Donegal clan. A raven shifter, she is determined
to retrieve the sacred stone that rightfully belongs to her
people. But soon she’ll be engulfed in her burning desire
and growing love for Barr—and the dangerous and inescapable
secrets destined to keep them apart...
ExcerptDonegal Lands, Scottish Highlands
12th Century AD
The raven flew high above the earth, her keen vision
spying five Donegal hunters in the forest below.
The red and black of their plaids peeked through the
trees, leaving no doubt to the true number, but she could
only hear three of them. Two were silent as they stalked
their prey. Even her raven hearing honed sharper than her
talons could not detect the sound of their movements.
They had masked their scents as well, showing they had
better control of their Chrechte nature than the others.
These two Faol of the Chrechte were dangerous.
No wolf could be trusted, but one who mastered his beast
was one who must be watched most carefully. He would not be
easily taken in by the tricks of the Éan. It was good her
raven family had set her to this task. Another, less
seasoned fighter, could fail too easily with wolves such as
these.
Sabrine had been protecting her people since her
fifteenth summer, a long seven years past.
She circled lower, preparing for her landing. This had
to look natural, but she did not relish taking human form
merely to fall through a few tree branches. She was still a
good distance from the men, though closer to the earth when
an agonizing pain pierced her left wing.
Her first instinct was to pull her wing to her body, but
she forced herself to keep it expanded so she could coast
lower rather than spinning out of control. She would not
die before saving her people from the wolves' treachery.
As she neared the earth, she let her raven fall away,
taking on her fully human form, just as she had planned to
before the foul arrow had pierced her wing. Tree branches
scratched at her body as she tumbled toward the ground.
She ignored the minor pain for the larger purpose. She
would use the wolves' thirst for blood against them. Their
own actions would make way for her to find welcome in their
clan.
As a helpless human female.
Dark amusement rolled through her with the pain of her
landing. She grabbed the arrow, broke off the tip, gripped
the other side, and yanked it from her arm.
As her world turned black around the edges, she threw
the offending weapon as far from her as possible.
#
Barr's big body spun silently at the sound of an arrow
leaving its bow. Rage rode him harder than an Englishman's
seat on his horse. No visible sign of the wild boar, there
was no damn excuse for using the weapon.
Muin's attention focused on the sky, not the forest
where it was supposed to be, the youngest in their party
stood with his bow still lifted as if prepared to shoot
again.
It would be easier to train the English, Barr thought
with a snarl he made no attempt to suppress. He'd known
Chrechte cubs with better hunting instincts.
"What the hell was that, boy?" Barr demanded in quiet
tones meant to get his anger across but not to carry.
"I saw a raven," Muin whispered fervently. "My gran-da
says they're bad luck and to kill them on sight."
"Oh? And did your gran-da also teach you how to hunt?"
Barr demanded with barely retrained wrath. "Did he teach
you to warn our prey of our approach?"
"The boar would not have heard the arrow." Muin's
attempt at defense carried no distance with Barr.
He moved so he towered over the beardless boy. "What
happens when you kill a bird in the sky?"
Muin swallowed, his face twitching despite the fact he
so obviously tried to hide his nerves. "It falls to the
earth."
"That is right. Do you suppose the bird will show us the
courtesy of landing without sound?"
"Nay, laird."
"Nay."
Not for the first time since coming to the Donegal clan
as acting laird and Chrechte pack leader, Barr wondered if
he had the patience for the task. Muin wasn't usually one
of the idiotic ones. That was the only thing saving him a
hard knock to the ground.
The young clansman's face took on a hue as ruddy as his
plaid. "I uh..."
"Acted without thought. I would agree."
"I'm sorry, laird." Muin ducked his head, the shame he
felt a palpable taste in the air around them.
"Do it again and I'll toss you like a caber."
"Yes, laird."
"And Muin?"
The youth raised his face to meet Barr's gaze. Barr had
to respect the courage it took to do that. He didn't
usually frighten grown men like his brother Niall, mostly
because he knew how to smile — not that he'd had
reason to do so lately. However, his size intimidated many
among the Donegal clan, Chrechte and human alike.
"Yes, laird?" Muin asked.
"We are Chrechte. We respect all life. We hunt for food,
not for sport."
"But the birds, they're bad luck."
"They're birds. Only old men who remember their
yesterdays better than today and cubs believe a bird brings
or takes luck. You are a warrior. Act like it."
Muin straightened, pulling his shoulders back. "Aye,
laird."
Barr shook his head and turned to continue their pursuit
of the wild boar, for all the good it would do them. If
their hunting party returned with a kill, he'd revise his
opinion of these young Donegal Chrechte.
Earc would still have the boar's scent at least. The
other Sinclair warrior who had come with Barr to train the
Donegal soldiers and the Chrechte among them never gave up
on a hunt.
And he had not on this one, but he looked puzzled by the
path the boar took through the forest. "It's running from
us," Earc said in a voice no human would have been able to
hear.
"You think it smells our younger Chrechte?" They had not
yet mastered the ability to mask their scents for long
periods of time.
"I dinna ken. Something has it spooked. ‘Tis running
without thought for direction I'm thinking."
"Circin and I will get ahead of it and chase it back to
the rest of you."
Earc nodded.
Shifting into his wolf form, Barr followed the boar's
scent, determined to bring down their prey. Circin, the
other Chrechte who had control of his change, followed
suit. The others that did not, followed at a faster run
than most humans could manage.
The scent of something besides boar teased at Barr's
wolf's senses, demanding his attention with subtle power.
Something tantalizing and different. Something his wolf
could not ignore. Even more imperative than prey, it
insistently drew his wolf's attention from the hunt.
The boar all but forgotten, the wolf strained to follow
the new scent, causing his canine body to twist with
preternatural grace. Never breaking the pace of his
running, and not waiting for approval from his conscious
mind for the change in course, the wolf followed where the
inner beast demandingly led.
Barr's human mind tried to decipher what his senses were
telling him, but he had never encountered a scent quite
like this one. Nor had he ever reacted to smell alone with
this impossible-to-deny need.
A need so basic, it found acceptance in his beast, while
his human mind remained mystified.
Was the smell that of a human? He raised his snout to
sniff the air more fully. Pine. Loamy earth. Sunshine. A
rabbit. A squirrel. Dead leaves and dried pine needles. And
the scent. Undeniably human, undeniably more.
And female. Not in heat, but with the subtle fragrance
of her sex. Though no wolf's musk mixed with the other
smells.
If not a wolf, she must be human. His sense of other had
to come from her unique scent.
For, if not wolf, what else was there?
Mothers told their cubs tales of other shifter tribes,
but those were just fairy stories told to entertain little
ones. Wolves were the only Chrechte he or anyone in the
Sinclair clan had ever known. If other shifter races
existed, the wolves would be aware of them. They were too
territorial not to be.
He broke through the trees and came skidding to a halt,
his claws scrabbling at the ground for purchase. He had
been running too fast. Not since he was a cub, had he
approached an unknown situation with such lack of
restraint. More than troubling, if his brother or his
former laird could see him now, they would fall on their
asses laughing.
Even that assurance of humiliation barely found purchase
in his mind, his attention too focused on the source of the
scent.
She lay on the ground, her raven black hair covering one
breast, but the other one completely exposed to his gaze.
Though not overly generous, it was perfectly formed and
tipped with a rose pink nipple that begged for his lips and
tongue to wake it. From the shape of her delicate feet, to
the feminine slope of her hip, to the gentle curve of her
shoulder, and all bits in between, she was just as
perfectly formed to engender carnal hunger in Barr and his
beast.
The black curls gracing the juncture of her thighs
glinted with a blue sheen under the sunlight just like the
long tresses covering her head. ‘Twas truly like the ravens
of the air. Carrion birds they might be, but they had an
elegance of color and form not to be ignored.
Barr spared a quick but sincere hope Muin had missed
with his ill-timed arrow. The thought of loveliness such as
this, even in the mere form of a bird, destroyed for mere
superstition sickened him.
Barr's naked woman, continue to lay unconscious on the
forest floor. Her fragile beauty called to his protective
instincts, touching a part of his wolf that had never
before come to the surface. Though tall for a female, she
would still be puny beside his human body. He wanted to put
himself between her and any potential threat.
‘Twas not a feeling he usually experienced for any but
those he called clan, and never had he felt it to this
depth.
Her current state only made the need to protect grow,
until his wolf snarled with it. Her lovely, pale skin was
marred by numerous small scratches, as if she'd been
running through the bushes. Perhaps another wild boar had
found her bathing and she had been forced to flee?
He loped forward, sniffing at her with his enhanced
senses. Perplexed in both mind and instinctual memory, the
elusive sense of otherness continued to tease at him. But
something else was there too. Blood. In greater amounts
than the scratches would account for. He had not perceived
it before because that other scent had so confused him. But
blood it was.
Her blood.
A killing rage hazed the usually sharp grey and white
images his wolf's eyes saw. The wee one was wounded, her
perfect, milk pale skin obscenely marred by a hole in her
upper arm, still oozing sluggish rivulets of red.
He quickly examined the area around them, but saw no
sign of what had made the injury. However, it did not
appear to be from a stray tree branch. The wound did not
have the jagged edges of an injury inflicted while running,
by something as innocent as a tree branch in the wrong
place. He nudged her arm with his snout so he could see the
other side.
Whatever had pierced her had gone all the way through,
leaving a matching tear in the skin opposite.
Had she fled from attack, not by a wild animal, but
something much more dangerous? A human.
There were no clans to the north of them from this side
of the Donegal holding. It was all wilderness and Barr
could not decide where she, much less her attacker, had
come from.
A soft moan slipped from between her small, bow-shaped
lips, the hand of her uninjured arm moving restlessly as if
reaching for him. He had transformed back to human by the
time a set of alluring brown eyes flickered open.
Dark pools of confusion stared up at him as she blinked
slowly once and then twice. A small furrow forming between
her brows, she went to move, but then fell back with a
gasp, pain marring her beautiful features.
"What happened?" The words came out in a whisper as if
speaking was difficult.
The sense of otherness disappeared as if it had never
been. He was so startled by it and by her asking him the
question he burned to have her answer, he took a moment to
speak. "I do not know."
"Who are you?" Her voice was a little stronger, but not
by much.
He could not dismiss the feeling she was used to having
her queries answered quickly and completely though. Unless
she was a queen, which he very much doubted, ‘twas odd for
human woman in their world. Whether man or beast's
instincts, he did not know, but he was certain he was
right, however.
"I am Barr, laird of the Donegal clan, on whose land you
now find yourself."
"Barr?" Shock dilated the pupils of her dark brown eyes,
making them look almost all black, like those of an adult
raven. "Laird?"
He had birds on the brain. "That is right." Though why
the news should shock her, he could not imagine. ‘Twas not
as if he did not look like a laird.
No man in the Donegal clan even came close to being as
intimidating, but then she could not know that.
"I..." Her mouth stayed parted, as if words trembled to
come out, but none did.
The sound of running footsteps nearby drew Barr's
attention, making him realize how intent on the woman he
had been. He should have heard the approaching Donegal
clansman much sooner.
Muin ran right up to them, stopping only when he was
barely a foot from the human female. The youth's eyes went
wide and his face turned red for the second time that
afternoon, but he did not look away from Barr's
mysteriously naked woman.
"Earc and the others are still hunting the boar. He sent
me to join you in case you needed assistance. Do you need
assistance, laird?"
Barr's wolf growled at the other man's obvious interest
in the wounded woman's nudity. He covered the blatantly
possessive action with a barked out, "Look at your laird
when you address him, Muin."
The Donegal soldier jumped back at the sound too low for
human ears, his gaze immediately moving away the raven-
tressed female.
The woman paled and flinched, filling Barr with
immediate concern. She must be in pain.
"Laird, who is this?" Muin asked, with a furtive glance
at the woman.
"Look away." Barr's voice rolled across the air with
fury, causing a physical flinch and further stepping back
of the young hunter. "Retrieve my plaid and dinna get your
scent all over it."
"Where—"
"Follow my scent if you can," Barr instructed from
between clenched teeth.
"Yes, laird." The man ran.
In a belated show at modesty, the woman pulled her hair
forward over her shoulder, so both breasts were covered,
one leg coming up to block his view of her tantalizing
triangle of black curls. "You must be laird; he obeyed you
without argument."
"Did you think I'd lie to you?" Humans could be odd, and
though he'd known this one for mere minutes, he suspected
he would find her even more incomprehensible than most.
"Maybe."
"Why?"
Disgust flickered over her face, but it went so quickly,
it could have been a trick of the afternoon light. "The
Faol of the Chrechte sometimes do."
Shock gripped him and would not let go. She knew he was
a wolf? And why had she used the ancient name so few
remembered even in their spoken histories?
"You are surprised." Her head canted, birdlike, to one
side. "Why?"
A ridiculous question, and yet he answered it. "Only the
Chrechte and some of the humans related to them know of our
wolf natures."
"But you shifted from your wolf form in front of me."
"You were not conscious."
She muttered something that sounded like typical
wolf. "Clearly, I was."
"So, are mated to a wolf?" The thought made his hackles
rise, though he could not say why.
The look of utter revulsion once again stayed on her
face for less than a second, but this time he had no doubts
it had been there.
"You hate the Chrechte," he said in a flat voice,
shocked once again — both by that truth and how
deeply it bothered him.
Turbulent fury turned her eyes into a brown lightning
storm. "I do not hate the Chrechte."
Her vehemence was undeniable, so was the sense there was
more she wanted to say, but her lips remained firmly
closed, going bloodless she pressed them so tightly
together.
He guessed, "You have Chrechte family, but you were born
without the ability to shift into a wolf." It was not a
rare story and for some, the situation caused bitterness.
"I cannot shift into a wolf," she said, her tone
implying that was no great loss to her.
Barr would never forget how the brother of the Balmoral
laird had been impacted by his inability to change. Ulf's
own father had rejected him because of it and that had
twisted Ulf so he lost his sense of honor and compassion.
Clearly, Barr's charge felt some sort of ambivalence
toward her Chrechte family as well. Though he doubted very
much it would lead her down the path Ulf had taken. If for
no other reason than because she was a human woman and
fragile.
"What are you doing here?" He asked, wanting the answer
before Muin returned.
She looked around them. "In the forest?"
"On Donegal land." He barely restrained rolling his
eyes. He had no doubt she knew exactly what he meant and
had chosen to play at misunderstanding.
"I do not know."
"What?"
She did not look like she was jesting , but she had to
be. "I am hurt," she said as if that should explain
everything.
It did not. "Yes, you are."
"How did I get that way?"
"Shouldn't you tell me?"
"But I don't know."
Funny, there was no scent of a lie and yet, he hesitated
to believe her. That had never happened to him before. "How
can you not know?"
She merely looked at him.
"The wound in your arm looks like it came from a human
weapon." It was too isolated to be a bite or claw
mark. "Were you attacked?"
"I must have been. By a violent knave with no
conscience." Her voice was filled with loathing, too much
so not to know her attacker.
"Who was it?"
"I do not know him." This rang with absolute sincerity,
but did not match the near hatred in her earlier tone.
‘Twas a puzzle to be sure. "Little one—"
"My name is Sabrine."
That was something at least. "What clan are you from?"
"I don't know."
"How can you not know?"
She pressed her hand to her forehead, like she was
trying to push thoughts inside. "I should know, but I
don't."
"Did you fall and addle your brains, I wonder."
"It must have." She tried again to sit up. This time she
succeeded, though the pain in her expression said it cost
her dearly to do so. "I do not like the idea of my brain in
a muddle."
Again there was no scent to indicate a lie, but the
words did not ring with full truth all the same. It must be
her confused state perplexing his wolf's senses. "I am sure
you do not."
"What will I do?"
That was one answer he did have. "Until you remember
where you are from, you will return to the Donegal holding
with me."
The urgency his wolf had felt to be near this woman had
lessened since she woke, but it was not gone completely. It
was as if it was still there. Only hidden from him, which
made less sense than Sabrine's inability to remember her
own clan, while able to remember about the Chrechte.
He had hidden nothing from his wolf since his first
change, and vice-versa; they couldn't. Man or beast, they
were one in the same.
Had she been Chrechte, he would have guessed she was
masking her scent and distracting his wolf's senses, but
even doing so could not completely mask the wolf nature.
And she had none. Muin returned with Barr's plaid before he
could finish pondering this oddity and determine what it
meant.
Keeping his body between the young Donegal clansman and
Sabrine, Barr used his plaid to cover her nakedness,
careful not to jostle her arm, or her clearly tender body.
He then gently lifted her into his arms.
And something fundamentally both wolf and human settled
inside him at the rightness of it.
No portion of this excerpt may be copied or published
anywhere other than author's website without
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