Chapter 11 #2
Viper worked in silence as he moved on to checking an eyepopping number of blades.
Every time Ward was convinced it had to be the last one, he produced another from somewhere on his person.
The clink of metal against stone and the whisper of cloth over steel were almost comforting.
Viper’s movements were careful, precise, and respectful as if there was something sacred in how he cared for the tools of his trade.
Ward had always found ritual in the quiet work of excavation, the brushing away of centuries to find truth beneath the dirt.
He figured this was no different for Viper, because it didn’t look like he was prepping for war.
It looked like he was winding down and letting the rhythm of the task ground him.
Ward let his body sink into the thick furs, the heat from the hearth a gentle pressure against his spine.
His limbs throbbed with that post-adrenaline ache he usually only got after a long day in the field, followed by an all-nighter in the lab.
He didn’t want to talk, and he certainly didn’t want to ask questions he wasn’t entirely sure he was ready to hear the answers to.
But his mouth opened anyway. “Why are you cleaning your weapons in the middle of the night?”
Viper ran the cleaning cloth along the bolt. He kept his eyes focused on his task. “Because I never sleep as well when my gear hasn’t been cleaned. It kinda feels like unfinished business or something.”
Ward let out a soft sound that might’ve been a laugh. “That’s… weirdly relatable.”
“Is it?”
“Yeah.” He rolled onto his side, pulling one of the pelts over himself. “I catalog artifacts for hours after digs. Even when I’m dead on my feet, it’s like if I leave them lying around untagged, they’ll forget who they were before I found them.”
Viper glanced over at him, his expression unreadable in the flickering light. “You think they remember?”
“Don’t you?”
The silence that followed stretched between them until Viper returned to his task. “Sometimes. Sometimes I think the ones that mattered remember more than the ones who didn’t.”
Ward closed his eyes and breathed deeply. The air inside the crannóg smelled like peat smoke, oiled leather, and ashes. But underneath it was something more alluring, enthralling.
Him.
It’s him.
He had to say something, because everything he was told him that Viper wouldn’t unless he did. “I’m not sure I’m ready for all this,” he whispered. “Magic. Mate bonds. Warrior kings, not being able to go home.”
“You don’t have to be ready,” Viper said quietly. “You just have to keep moving forward. We’ll figure it out.”
Ward’s fingers curled into the pelt. He stroked his fingers over the soft fur. He was too tired to argue. Maybe… maybe, ‘we’ll figure it out’ was enough… for now.
The fire burned low by the time sleep dragged him under.
He didn’t remember closing his eyes, rolling onto his side, or the moment exhaustion overrode the churn of thoughts that had refused to still in his mind.
But sometime in the middle of the night, he surfaced—slow, thick, heavy-limbed—like floating up from beneath the surface of something ancient and dark.
The room was nearly pitch-black save for the faint silver wash of moonlight coming through the open slats of the window and the soft red glow of coals in the hearth. The silence wasn’t empty, though—it breathed. Deep and slow, a rhythm that matched the lake outside. Or maybe…
Him.
He was warm against his back. The weight of an arm wrapped around his middle, heavy, solid, unyielding.
The long line of Viper’s body pressed full length against his from thigh to calf, and chest to spine.
It should’ve startled him. It should’ve had him scrambling out of the bed like it was on fire.
But all he could do was lie there, blinking into the dark as the sound of Viper’s slow, even breathing brushed against the nape of his neck.
Ward couldn’t bring himself to move, not even when the arm across him twitched slightly.
Then Viper murmured something low and thick.
The words sounded as if they were dragged from his throat.
It wasn’t English or anything that Ward recognized immediately, but his brain recognized the cadence of old Irish.
He was just too tired to figure out the exact words.
What the hell?
Viper hadn’t said anything about speaking Irish in any form. He’d picked up bits of Gaeilge on digs before, had tried more than once to wrap his head around medieval syntax, but this… this was something else. Raw. Primal. Beautiful.
The words spilled out again, softer this time, as Viper’s hand flexed against his chest, pulling him in tighter as if Ward were the anchor keeping him from drifting too far from shore.
Ward exhaled slowly as his eyes adjusted to the dark.
Faint, like moonlight caught the mate mark and brought them to life, the swirling lines on his arm shimmered where the furs didn’t cover his arm.
He craned his neck to peer at Viper’s and frowned as the patterns on his forearm pulsed once, then again… in sync with his own.
Ward’s heart stuttered. He swallowed hard, unable to look away. The patterns were identical, and they moved with the same rhythm, the same flow, like two halves of an ancient script finally brought together after centuries apart.
Magic.
This isn’t real.
Damn it, magic isn’t fucking real.
His brain tried to catalog the phenomenon, break it into logic, reason, science—but none of it fit or made sense to his academic mind.
Viper murmured again, his breath ghosting across the shell of Ward’s ear. The sound should’ve sent him bolting, but instead, it made something low in his chest unfurl. “Of course you’re muttering ancient Irish in your sleep,” Ward whispered to the dark. “Why wouldn’t you be?”
But even as the words left his mouth, his eyelids grew heavy again. The warmth of Viper’s body, the steady thrum of magic, and the quiet, unspoken gravity pulling them closer carried him back toward sleep. This time, he didn’t fight it.
When he blinked awake again, sunlight filtered through the narrow slats of the window, soft and golden, dancing across the carved oak branches that served as beams overhead.
The light painted the room in warm amber and cool blue, where it caught the still-simmering fire in the hearth and the gentle ripples of the lake outside the crannóg.
He stretched, slow and stiff, only then realizing how deeply he’d slept. Bone-deep. No dreams. No panic. No ache in his chest from the constant state of adrenaline that had become normal over the past few days. He immediately missed the warmth at his back.
Did Viper leave?
He was sitting cross-legged on the floor, stripped to the waist, facing the fire pit.
His tattoos and the mating mark on his arm caught the morning light like the ink was kissed by fire.
His hair was messy, his face still shadowed with sleep, but his focus was razor sharp as he cradled something metal in his hand over the coals.
A tin.
Not some ancient relic or tribal offering, but an actual, honest-to-god metal tin with English writing printed on the side. Ward squinted. “Is that… coffee?”
Viper looked up, one brow cocked. “It’s only instant.” His voice was low and husky. “Gross as hell. But necessary for survival.”
Ward sat up slowly, dragging a fur with him as he leaned on one elbow. “You packed instant coffee, and you didn’t think to mention that you had it?”
“I pack it for every mission.” Viper poured some of the steaming liquid into a cracked clay mug, eyeing it like a man weighing his odds in a knife fight.
“Because no matter where the fuck I end up—war zone, hostage op, or ancient mystical dimension—I refuse to face any of that shit without at least one daily dose of caffeine.”
Ward chuffed a sleepy laugh. “Right. The indomitable SEAL leader’s Achilles heel is shitty powdered coffee.”
“Damn straight.” Viper handed the mug over. “Drink it slow. It’ll burn the skin off your tongue if you’re not careful. Because I don’t know if the lake water is drinkable without treating it, and you can taste it in the coffee if I do.”
Ward’s fingers brushed Viper’s as he carefully took the mug.
A faint pulse surged up his arm again, as if the freaking mating magic didn’t care that it was morning, or that his brain still hadn’t caught up with reality.
He sipped the coffee and winced immediately.
“This tastes like something that dripped out the ass end of a cat.”
Viper smirked. “And yet, you’re still drinking it.”
“It’s growing on me. Like a fungus.”
The silent beat that passed between them was comfortable. He was so damn relieved it wasn’t strained or awkward as he’d expected it to be. Just two men sitting in the space between myth and morning, caffeine and chaos.
Viper leaned back on one arm, eyes drifting to the lake outside. “Sleep okay?”
Ward didn’t answer immediately because the memory of his arm around him, the sound of ancient Irish murmured in dreams, and the pulse of tattoos dancing in moonlight slammed into him.
“Yeah,” he said softly, watching steam curl up from the mug.
“I think I actually did.” He could convince himself all day that everything was fine, but he knew he’d be lying to himself.
Waking up in a house built on stilts above a lake, in a land pulled from the half-sung lines of myth, next to a man who could kill with a flick of his wrist and cradle Ward like he was something sacred…
was normal, sort of. Maybe if he squinted hard enough, it could be classed as normal.
“Shall we go find the others?” Viper drained his coffee and placed the mug on a bench. He took Ward’s empty mug and put it with his. “I heard Zero’s voice a while ago. It sounded as if something was going on.”