Chapter 6 #2
“You are their leader.” Fionn stepped closer to the edge of the crack, one hand braced against the stone that still held him prisoner.
As he leaned into the light, the shadows peeled back enough for them to see his face, etched with time, carved from hardship, and regal despite the centuries of captivity.
His gaze moved over each of them. Not searching.
Seeing. Weighing. And then the corner of his mouth curled.
“Of course,” he whispered. “It has to be you.”
“What does that mean?” Reaper asked, his voice hoarse. “Viper, how?”
Fionn didn’t answer immediately. He was staring directly at Viper, but Ward stepped forward before he realized he was moving, the words tumbling out of his mouth in a rush of instinct and awe.
“The Triskele.” The connection made sense in his head, but he had no idea if he could explain it or not.
But he had to try. “Three spirals. Three paths. Three promises. It’s in everything.
In old language, in pre-Celtic ritual. Creation.
Preservation. Destruction. Life, death, rebirth.
The triad is the balance of all things.”
Fionn nodded once, solemn. “The Triad is not magic. It is true. The druids knew it. The Fianna know it, and the gods swore by it. When they feared what I had become, they used it to bind me. Only one who stands in balance with the Triad could pass into this sacred space and not be destroyed.”
Ward’s breath hitched. “Not a mage… but a warrior of balance. A soul forged in all three elements. Then how am I here? I am not a warrior.”
“But you are of the blood of the arsehole druids who bound me to this place,” Fionn growled. “To free me, we need to have your blood and the blood of my hound and the warrior.”
Fionn’s gaze shifted back to the SEALs. “A druid warrior is not born from a spell or a scroll. He is tempered by trial, purpose, and bloodshed in the name of something greater. You are not a Fenian by birth or by title. You are Fenian in your soul.”
Behind them, Kaze let out a soft, disbelieving whistle and scraped a hand back through sweat-soaked hair. “Guess that makes us all accidental holy men.”
“No,” Fionn said, a slow pride blooming behind his voice. “It makes you worthy.”
“Then let’s do this shit.” Viper pulled a wicked-looking blade from its sheath on his belt. “Tell us what we need to do.”
“Blood on the stone,” Juice said, “and say the chant.”
“Hold that notebook out for me, Sutherland,” Viper ordered. “Unless you want me to bleed all over it.” He pulled the blade across his palm in a clean, practiced slice. Blood welled immediately in his hand.
He didn’t even flinch or blink.
I’d be in tears if someone cut me like that.
Viper’s boots echoed as he crossed to the glyph carved beside the crack in the wall and pressed his palm flat to the stone.
The blood smeared instantly, the glyph drinking it like its thirst was quenched at last. Heat surged through the floor, and the basalt vibrated underfoot.
With his other hand, Viper waved him forward, and Ward flipped his journal to the current page.
Viper spoke the words he had translated, the ancient chant now etched into his memory.
“Behold, son of Cumhaill, true king.
Under starlight blood, beneath the heart of the sun.
We bind your power to the bones of the earth.
With the wind’s voice and the tears of stone.
Let your breath be silenced by root and flame.
Let your name be forgotten beneath shadowed time.
Let no song find your ears nor light your path.
There is no path home.
Unless you turn back upon your own heels.
Let no breath stir within the bones of kings.
Let no door open ‘til oaths are sung in blood.
From the hand of hound and brother born of war and the druid with the blood of Tuatha Dé Danann.”
The glyph flared beneath Viper’s hand, then pulsed, casting golden light across the wall. A slow, spiraling swirl lit up around it, reaching for the glyphs Bran had triggered. One. Then two. Then the full sequence began to glow, power circling through them in lines carved deeper than memory.
“Ward,” Viper said without turning. “You’re up.” He didn’t need to say it louder. The weight of it cut through every man in the chamber.
Ward hesitated. His heart stuttered against his ribs like it didn’t want to go.
I don’t belong here. I’m not one of them. I’m not a warrior. I’m a goddamn linguist. A nerd with a notebook and a freaky bloodline I never asked for.
But he stepped forward anyway, because some part of him—a quiet, raw thing he hadn’t dared name—whispered that he had always belonged here.
That maybe every lecture, every dig, and every ancient line of script was a breadcrumb to this very moment.
He paused in front of the glyph. They needed his blood.
He pulled a small folding blade from his belt—one he used for fieldwork—and stared at his palm.
Shit, I can’t do this.
I can’t.
“Hey,” Viper spoke softly, breaking through his panic. “Do you want me to do it?”
“No. I don’t want to cut myself or have you cut me with that sword you call a knife.”
The corners of Viper’s mouth curved upward in a devastating grin. “You don’t have to do this. We’ll find another way.” The second he finished speaking, the wolf snarled viciously. The warrior glared at the shifter. “Shut it, Bran. It has to be his choice.”
Juice cleared his throat. “Bran says the only choice he has is between us all living and dying. He provides us with his blood, or Bran will take it.”
Ward shuddered, his vivid imagination providing him with all the painful ways Bran would take his blood from him.
“Enough.” Viper nudged him and stepped between him and the others. He turned his back on them all and faced Ward. “He’s not wrong. I have no clue what’s going on. I don’t even know if I believe any of it, and I believe in CIA assholes who can turn into wolves on a whim.”
Knowing Viper was as confused as he was helped a little. If this man, this special forces operator, was freaking out a little too, then it made him feel a little less—he wasn’t sure what the word was—maybe stupid. “I can’t use the knife on myself.”
“Yeah, I know.” Viper reached for his hand and removed the pocket knife. He folded it and shoved it back at him.
Ward shoved the knife in his jeans pocket. “I can’t?—”
Viper caught his hand again. “Do you trust me to do it?”
“No. Yes. I don’t know.”
“Will you try?” Viper’s thumb stroked over his skin. “Do we live or die? What’s a dinky cut when it comes to being vaporized by volcano vomit?
All their lives were a hell of a thing to put on his shoulders.
He squeezed his eyes shut, “Do it. Do it before I—” pain lanced across his hand, “—oww, fuck.” It hurt like hell.
But he forced his eyelids up and turned to the glyph where Viper’s blood still shimmered.
His hand trembled, but he pressed it down on the symbol. The glyphs roared to life.
There was no other way to describe it. They didn’t just glow, they surged as ancient gold flared to burning white. A wind rushed through the chamber from nowhere and everywhere, whipping through their hair, bouncing flames that came out of nowhere to dance along the stones.
Fionn’s prison—his tomb—shook with the impact. From the crack in the wall, his voice boomed louder than it ever had. “The three have spoken,” Fionn said, voice a weapon and a benediction all at once. “The path is open.”
Bran whined low, soft, and mournful, and pressed his body against the shimmering edge of the split stone.
The runes flared again, pale gold curling upward like breath escaping ancient lungs.
He didn’t claw at the rocks this time. He pushed—slow, deliberate, his shoulders hunched, and his massive paws firm against the ground.
Inch by inch, the wolf leaned forward, and the stone gave way.
It yielded under his power. A ripple ran through the tunnel like a breathless sigh.
The shimmering wall folded inward and parted, like water drawing back from the beach with the tide.
The seal broke, and Bran stepped into the prison.
Viper pointed to the opening. “Go.” Juice stepped after his mate. Reaper, Zero, and Kaze followed him. “Come on, Sutherland, move your ass.”
Urged by Viper, he had no choice but to step into the magical prison that had held Fionn MacCumhaill for millions of years.
The moment Bran crossed the threshold, the heat of the chamber faded behind him. He slowed, padded to the center of the space within, and stilled. Then, with a long exhale that sounded almost human, his body bowed.
“Shift, hound.”
Unable to deny the command from his king, fur rippled backward over muscle.
Bone shifted and reknit, limbs bent, and then straightened.
The man took the wolf’s place, crouched on the dark stone floor, his breath heaving from the weight of the shift.
Naked, with blood smeared down one arm, soot staining the other, Trace didn’t move for a second.
I can’t believe it.
Fionn is here.
He’s really here.
He surged to his feet and strode to the massive figure waiting in the chamber.
“Fionn.” They collided like two parts of a storm—no words, no hesitation.
The embrace was brutal as Trace buried his face in Fionn’s shoulder, fists curled into the remnants of some ancient garment that hung off the man’s massive frame.
He swallowed hard against the lump in his throat.
He had been waiting lifetimes for this reunion.
Now it was here, and he wasn’t sure he really believed it was happening.
Juice stepped up silently beside them, and he laid one hand on Trace’s back. His Grá Croí’s touch grounded him like nothing else could. Juice pushed a pair of tac pants and a black tee from the go-bag over his shoulder into his hands. “Here. Let’s not scar the academic more than we already have.”
“Too late,” Ward muttered under his breath.
Trace didn’t bother to respond. His hands shook as he pulled the fabric on, head ducked low, because he was afraid to look up and find this had all been some kind of dream.
Outside the prison, the chamber shook with the force of a pulse from the volcano. He turned to Fionn with desperation crackling in his voice. “I need your help.”
Fionn’s brow arched, and that slow, signature tilt of his head betrayed his curiosity beneath a calm Trace was sure none of them really felt. “You already have it, hound of mine.”
Trace shook his head. “No. I mean—” He over his shoulder at the SEALs. “Them. My Grá Croí. My brothers. The volcano—this fucking island—it’s going to bury them alive. I don’t have enough strength left to protect them all. Not from this. But you…you’re still the High King.”
Fionn’s expression didn’t change at first. Then something behind his gaze shifted.
Like the weight of centuries tilted forward onto his spine.
His eyes scanned the men still held at the threshold.
Viper. Juice. Reaper. Kaze. Zero. Hardened warriors with weapons drawn and nerves like tripwires.
Not one of them flinched under that gaze.
Fionn turned back to him and placed one large hand on his shoulder. “You would ask me to spend the last of what I have, not to escape, but to save those who followed you into fire?”
Trace didn’t blink. “They didn’t follow me. They stood beside me. I’d stay with them, and I’ll die beside them without a second thought. But I won’t leave them.”
A beat passed. Then two. Then Fionn’s hand tightened on his shoulder. “Then bring them. Between us, we can hold the portal long enough.”