Irish Bear's Enemy (Boston Bear Brothers 4)

“She is right,” another Alpha replied.

Maeve looked down the length of the table to see Andrew gesturing toward her as he spoke. The men turned toward him, mostly looking surprised.

“Siding with a woman?” one of them remarked. “Makes sense since you aren’t much more than one yourself.”

“That’ll be enough of that,” Ronan chastised. “We’re not here to insult one another. We are here to work as a council toward the common good. I agree with Andrew. As much as we may all have suffered at the hands of Sorley Maguire and Trill, their widows and orphans are entitled to their lands.”

“We fought for those lands. They are ours,” the Byrne Alpha snapped.

“No. We fought to get our own lands back. We have them. They should have theirs,” Ronan replied.

There was silence for a moment. Maeve could tell that they respected Ronan, but they also seemed to fear him. The McNally brothers were well known to be fierce, and few were keen to cross them, not at this early stage in regrowing their own clans.

The truth was that no one had the numbers to go up against other clans right now, and though Ronan McNally was here alone, they were well aware of his ability to rally the troops on his behalf. Bear Alphas didn’t scare easily, but they were not stupid either. They always would choose a peaceful resolution over bloodshed.

“Fine. Give the lasses their land. It’s not as if we need or want their tainted lands. Most of it has been torched anyway. They’ll be living in tents and the burned-out crater of a ruined castle dungeon.”

“We’ll manage,” Maeve said defiantly.

Ronan put it to a vote, which was narrowly won in her clan’s favor. She walked out of the meeting proud to have accomplished this but a little shocked that more than half the Alphas had agreed to give in to the request.

CHAPTER SIX

Ronan

“Tell me what you know about Maeve Walsh,” Ronan said to Martin, Alpha of Clan O’Brien.

The room had cleared of all but the elder Alpha and himself. If anyone would know about Maeve and her background, it was him.

“What is it you’re looking to know, mate?”

“Am I making the wrong decision supporting her omega clan’s participation in this council?”

“Oh, definitely. Including women in decisions is always a bad call,” he said with a low laugh.

“Aye. That’s fair enough, but you know what I’m asking you.”

“That I do. I don’t know. She was betrothed to one of the high ranking Maguires, not a blood kin member to Sorley, but a cousin of Trill. He was there when we took down the castle.”

“How can you be sure? There wasn’t much left of it once the dragons were done.”

“I can’t, but it’s not likely anyone escaped that. All the exits were under close watch. We’d have seen anyone coming out before it was destroyed and there is no evidence from any of the usual rats that any of the clan escaped prior to that. If he had, he’d likely have taken her with him.”

“Is she trustworthy?”

“As far as I know. She’s a Walsh, one of the few left from her original clan. Like the rest of us, they were decimated by the Maguires. All that was left were the women and children. Their mothers were turned into servants, nursemaids, or whores. The girls were raised to be wives once they came of age. I’m surprised that stubborn streak of hers wasn’t beaten out of her a long time ago.”

“She is a cheeky lass,” Ronan laughed.

“Aye. So, if you want to know if we can trust her on our council, I’d say she is just as likely to be a good egg as the rest of us, mate.”

“Dead on then. I just wanted a second opinion.”

“I’m more concerned about some of these other miscreants than I am about a harmless Omega.”

“Yeah? Who?”

“No names, not yet. I don’t want to cast doubt unnecessarily.”

“I trust I’ll be the first to know if you find any reason to change your mind about that, either way?”

“Aye.”

“I’ll let you get home to things then. We’ll talk again soon.”

Ronan left the new council building and went to the remains of the Maguire compound. All the buildings had been burned by the dragons even after the main battle had been won by the other clans. They’d swept through them on their way out after scorching the dungeon fort beneath the old castle ruins where the last of the Maguire bears had hunkered down in an attempt to fight a guerilla-style war with Andrew as a hostage.

Their miscalculation of Ronan and his brother, Niall’s ability to rally other clans, not only of bears, but also of wolves and dragons, was their final mistake. They’d paid for it with their lives. Only Patrick, the nephew of Sorley Maguire, along with the women and children who had already been sent away, had survived, and he had met his fate in London after double-crossing Niall.