Chapter 9 #2
The moment felt too big to breathe through his excitement at being a part of this magical reunion.
They stood on the ancient stone of a place that shouldn’t exist, surrounded by warriors out of legend, while their king—very much a flesh and blood man—moved through them like the sun returning after a centuries- long eclipse.
There was no pomp, and it wasn’t a show for a theater stage.
It was reverence born of history carried in the marrow of these people’s souls.
Fionn passed between the kneeling warriors without touching them, but they still bowed their heads as he went by.
Ward didn’t think the reverence he was witnessing was out of fear, or even duty.
It was love. That was the only word he could find for it.
Pure, absolute, bone-deep love for a leader who had bled with them, fought beside them, and returned from a prison none had known existed.
As Fionn walked, hands reached out to touch his cloak, to graze his arm, to feel for themselves that their king was truly here.
One woman burst into tears the second Fionn laid a hand on her shoulder.
A boy of no more than ten sprinted forward from the crowd, barefoot and wild-eyed, and launched himself into the man’s arms. Fionn caught him with ease, hoisting him high with a roar of laughter that cracked open the grief still clinging to the air.
“My king!” someone shouted.
“Welcome home!” another called.
A ripple of voices joined them, echoing against the curved walls, building until the chant shook the ground itself.
“Fionn. Fionn. Fionn.”
Bran stopped just behind Ward. The shine in the wolf’s eyes gave away his excitement to be back with his people.
Juice stood beside him, the fingers of one hand buried in the fur at the back of his neck, as if reminding Bran where he belonged now.
Bran’s tail waved softly, his ears pricked forward, and he tilted his head as if watching or waiting for something to happen.
Ward didn’t know where to stand or even how to hold his body in the presence of all this…
everything. His pack felt absurd on his back, but it was the only anchor he had, so he kept holding it.
The leather strap had started to dig into his shoulder, but he refused to put it down.
He wasn’t ready to let go of the only possessions he’d brought through the portal with him.
He sucked in a breath as panic of what would or could happen next started to overwhelm him.
A soft thump sounded beside him, and he looked up to see the corners of Viper’s eyes crinkle as the man smiled at him. “We’ll figure it out.”
Ward forced himself to exhale slowly. He refused to become overwhelmed. He snorted to himself as a thought occurred to him.
If this turns out to be a dream, maybe I’ll write an epic bestseller and can retire to Ireland and be happy as a clam turning over stones looking for hints of Tír na nóg in the Comeraghs.
The wave of celebration rolled on. Oisín emerged from the crowd to meet his father again, clasping his wrist and drawing him into another fierce embrace. “You look younger than me now, Da,” he muttered, half-teasing, half-emotional.
“That’s because I’ve had a long nap and no responsibilities.” Fionn grinned, and the warriors around them laughed, the sound rich, warm, and full of homecoming.
Someone began to play a bodhrán at the far side of the courtyard.
The rhythm of the handheld drum was simple but ancient, echoing in the hollows of the stone.
Another joined on flute, weaving the first notes of what could only be a song of return.
The sound of a legend rising from the dead turned into a song.
Ward blinked against the sting in his eyes.
How the hell had his life turned into this?
The music shifted, and the thrum of the bodhrán deepened, layered with a low chant from the warriors closest to the center of the keep.
He turned toward the sound as the crowd parted in a ripple of motion, every member of the Fianna falling into step with an invisible rhythm that pulsed through the stone beneath their feet.
Fionn raised a single hand, and silence snapped through the courtyard. “My sons of the blood,” he called out, voice carrying with the weight of storm and mountain. “Brothers who have stood with me, bled with me, and waited for me. We are not alone.”
The warriors’ heads lifted as one. Eyes filled with curiosity turned toward the SEALs and him. Fionn’s gaze cut through the stillness and landed on Viper.
“These men,” his voice was lower but no less powerful, “crossed the boundaries of the world. They fought and bled beside my hound, Cú Cullinan. They opened the gates that kept me imprisoned with their own blood. They stood in battle at my shoulder, and did not waver before death. These men are not cowards like the mortals we have known in the past. These men are warriors.”
Viper shifted beside Ward. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the other man’s jaw tighten and recognized the tension thrumming through every line of his body like a bowstring pulled taut.
Fionn stepped forward, beckoning to the SEALs. “You may not wear our colors, but you carry our mark. By oath of fire and blood, you are Fianna now.”
Viper didn’t move.
Behind him, Reaper muttered, “You gonna insult the mythic king to his face, Boss?”
Viper exhaled, then strode forward with the controlled grace of a man walking into his own execution. He stopped before Fionn, chin high and eyes wary. “I don’t bow.”
“I would break your spine if you did,” Fionn said, then grinned, slow and sharp. “We leaders kneel to no man. But we recognize our own.”
He reached for a ceremonial dagger with a triskele etched into the hilt. He flipped it in his hand and offered it hilt-first. “When your blood falls upon the rose, you become my brother in blood as well as in war.”
Viper didn’t hesitate. He accepted it, turned it over once, and then pricked his palm in a quick, practiced motion.
Blood welled instantly. He stepped forward and pressed his hand to the rose engraved in the stone at Fionn’s feet.
The rock glowed gold beneath his touch, and a cheer full of fierce approval rose from the warriors.
One by one, the rest of the SEALs followed.
Reaper, grim but respectful. Kaze, grinning like he’d found his place.
Zero, slow to move, but eyes sharp, studying everything.
And finally, Juice, with Bran proudly watching on.
All accepted the offer of kinship from the High King of the Fianna.
When it was Ward’s turn, he hesitated. He wasn’t a soldier. He wasn’t built for war. He was a man of knowledge and buried truths.
As if sensing his hesitation and the reasons behind it, Fionn looked at him and said, “You unlocked what others feared. You saw the truth in stone. You belong.”
Viper stepped up beside him, wordless, and offered him the dagger. Ward’s hands shook, but he drew the blade and pressed it to his palm. When his blood touched the stone, the runes flared brighter than all the rest.
Fionn’s smile turned knowing. “Even the land remembers your line, druid-born.”
Ward swallowed hard, unsure if that was a comfort or a curse. The runes beneath his blood pulsed once, then twice, then sent a faint shimmer outward like a heartbeat across the stones. Around him, the warriors of the Fianna fell eerily silent in reverence.
Beside him, Viper’s hand hovered low, as if to either shield or anchor him. As if he sensed that if the moment got any heavier, Ward might just float out of his own damn body.
“What the hell does that mean?” Ward asked under his breath, trying not to hyperventilate as the gold light crawled along the cracks in the stone, flickered beneath his boots, and trailed along his body to his arms. In their wake, blue swirling lines appeared, similar to the ones he’d seen on the wolf when he stood as a man.
He blinked at them in confusion. Were those tattoos?
What the hell is happening?
“It means,” Fionn said, stepping forward until his massive shadow fell across them both, “that the blood of the druids who betrayed me still runs in your veins… but so too does their redemption.” His eyes—fierce, ancient, and bright with firelight—met Ward’s unflinchingly.
“You opened the prison they forged, not with chains of power, but with belief. With knowledge. With sacrifice. You walk the edge of fate, druid. The land knows your name now.”
“No pressure,” Juice muttered nearby, barely keeping a straight face.
One of the warriors—a lanky, flame-haired man who looked like he’d walked straight out of a Celtic epic movie—stepped forward and raised a horn carved with twisting knotwork.
“Then let it be known,” he cried. “The Hound’s Grá Croí and his kin have joined the blood-bond of the Fianna.
As our brothers. As warriors of this sacred earth. As clan.”
The cheer that followed was a pounding rhythm.
First fists against chests, then booted heels against stone, until the entire fortress echoed with a pulse Ward could feel in his sternum.
It wasn’t a welcome, at least he didn’t think so—it rather felt as if it was an oath of some kind.
He absentmindedly scratched at the inside of his wrist as he watched Viper—the team’s unflinching center of gravity—stand with shoulders squared and jaw set, surrounded by warriors who would kill and die for their king. For them. For him .
Then one of the Fianna stepped forward and extended a carved bracer toward him. “Wear this in battle,” the man said. “It will mark you as one of us. None shall strike down who bear our sigil.”
Ward hesitated. Then slowly, he reached out and took it.
It was warm— alive somehow—and as he turned it over in his hands, something subtle and ancient whispered through him.
Not magic, exactly. But almost as if it recognized him or his blood.
“Thank you.” He wrapped it around his arm and turned it over to close the clasps.
The warrior who had given it to him paused, his eyes going wide. He grabbed Ward’s wrist and thrust it into the air while yelling, “The druid has met his Grá Croí.”
“What?” He’d heard Juice being called the Grá Croí of Trace and his wolf, Bran. But there was no freaking way he could deal with that.
He shook his head. “No—that’s not possible.”
“Everyone, line up,” the warrior yelled. “The druid needs to find his Grá Croí.”
“What, no?—”
“You alright?” Viper asked, watching him closely.
“I don’t know,” Ward whispered back, still staring down at the bracer. “They think I’m… they think…” His brain freaked out completely. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back. “Shit, I don’t know. I can’t be someone’s mate.”
Viper gave a small grunt, a ghost of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Easy. Nobody is going to make you do anything you don’t want to do. I promise.”
Ward glanced past Viper’s shoulder, where excitement was building in the ranks of the warriors as they fell into formations. “What’s happening?”
“I don’t know.” Viper nudged him behind him. “But I think we’re going to find out.” He scanned the crowd. “Juice, what the fuck is happening?”
“One of Fionn’s commanders says Sutherland has the start of the mating mark.”
“But I thought he had to meet his mate,” Viper replied, “before the mark can grow. Isn’t that what happened to you?”
“I don’t know, man.” Juice came to stand with them with Trace on his heels. “Mate, can you explain?”
Trace nodded. “Within three, six, or nine days of the birth of a female child, her mating mark will show. The number of days determines the age of the male children we bring to view the babe. The mate will reveal himself because his mark will grow in the presence of the female child.”
Ward recoiled. “They are babies. That is disgusting?—”
“Nothing is allowed to happen until the female is eighteen.” Trace cut him off. “If a mate is revealed before the age of nine, they are betrothed until the female reaches eighteen. Only once, nine times nine years have passed, will the mating bond come to fruition.”
“That’s some medieval shit right there,”
Reaper wasn’t wrong. Betrothals, warriors, and magical bonds were way outside his remit. “What if they don’t find their mate by nine years old?” Because if this was meant to happen before nine, Ward was going to argue that what was on his arm was not a mating mark.
“If a boy does not find his mate among the females before nine, then it is understood his mate is among the males, and he won’t know until he reaches eighteen summers.”
“What happens to the females who don’t find a mate? Are they among the females?” Viper scowled at a warrior commander who came too close, and shifted his stance to block the man’s view of Ward.
“They usually turn out to be our magical shields, and sometimes find their mates, either male or female,” Trace said, “and typically appear on a year that’s a multiple of three.”
“I’m thirty-six.” He figured there was no reason to hide his age; someone would think to ask him at some point. “That’s a multiple of three. Is that why this is happening to me?”
“No, no,” Fionn said, walking toward them. “If you do not find your mate at nine, then your mate is among the adult males. It is when you come close to them that the bond snaps into place.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Viper once again put himself in between Ward and the implication of a threat. “Don’t give your warriors any ideas, Mac Cumhaill.”
“What you see here is tradition in full swing,” Fionn spoke to Viper, but his eyes locked onto Ward. “You have been sworn in as one of our clans. You all must follow our laws on this.”
“I don’t want or need a mate.”
“You have one in this room.” Fionn waved his massive arm in a sweeping gesture that took in the rows of warriors. “To deny your mate mark means a painful death as that mark,” he gestured to where Ward scratched at his wrist, “will eat you alive from the inside out.”
“No mark will eat him from the inside out.” Viper ripped off his wrist computer and gloves. “He has a mate—me.”
“Wha—” His mind had had enough. Ward spiraled into overload as his eyes rolled back in his head and everything went blank.