Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Viper woke before the sun. It wasn’t instinct so much as conditioning—the internal clock of a man who’d spent decades trusting his life to split-second decisions and pre-dawn patrols.
But this morning was a welcome reprieve from the usual chaos.
He lay still for a long moment, cataloging the soft weight of Ward pressed against his side, the warmth of furs tangled around their legs, and the scent of woodsmoke and pine trees lingering from the hearth.
The bond between them thrummed low and steady, like the pulse of something sacred beneath his skin.
He shifted slightly, careful not to disturb Ward. His Grá Croí’s face was relaxed in sleep, and the marks on his skin had dulled to a faint blue, no longer glowing, but still unmistakably there.
Mine.
The thought was more protective than possessive, and he welcomed it.
He hadn’t known it was possible to feel something this deep.
He’d faced enemies, led men into hell and back, and carried the weight of missions no one could ever know about.
But this? This quiet moment beside the man who had unraveled every locked part of him and rebuilt him from the inside out?
I’d trade every medal I ever earned to keep this.
A knock at the crannóg’s door pulled him from his thoughts.
Can we not have one morning where nobody fucking comes knocking on our door at the ass crack of dawn?
He exhaled quietly and peeled himself from the warmth of Ward’s side.
His body ached in places he never known could ache so damn sweetly, and his muscles protested with the same satisfaction he used to feel after a twenty-mile forced ruck.
He grabbed his pants and tugged them on, stepping over to the door and cracking it open.
Trace stood outside, already dressed in his combat gear, a steaming cup in one hand. “Morning.”
“Too early for that,” Viper muttered, rubbing a hand over his face.
“Sorry, Boss. I wouldn’t be here unless it was time.”
It can’t be that time already. We only went to sleep about an hour ago.
“Portal?”
Trace nodded. “She’s stable, at least for now. Ward locked it tight. Unless something completely fucked happens, it’ll hold.”
Thank Christ for that.
Should he be thanking a god that hadn’t even been born when the men of this realm had walked the earth? He had no clue, and he was too damn tired to figure it out. He glanced back at the bed. Ward hadn’t stirred. “How long before you guys want to go through?”
“You’re the commander. Isn’t that your call?”
“Any other day, I’d say aye, aye, I am and it is. Today I want to crawl back into bed with my Grá Croí and not leave it for a month.” Viper took the offered cup. He sipped once, and immediately grimaced. “What the hell is this?”
“Magic coffee,” Trace deadpanned.
“I hate it here,” Viper muttered.
Trace smirked. “If you tell us when you want to leave, you’ll be sipping the good coffee by close of business today.”
Viper glanced back at the firelight dancing over Ward’s bare skin. “Tell the others we’re moving by noon. I’ll wake him up.”
“Will do.” Trace hesitated. “You okay?”
Viper looked him dead in the eye. “No, I’m too old for this shit. But I’ve got Ward. I’ll survive.”
Trace’s smile was small and understanding. “Yeah. You will.”
He closed the door with a soft click and leaned back against it.
For one long breath, he let the weight of everything sink into his mind.
Reality was creeping in—mission parameters, timelines, the inevitability of questions he couldn’t answer.
The moment they stepped through that door, the clock would start ticking.
Reports, investigations, and chain-of-command clusterfucks all would demand answers he wasn’t sure he had to give.
But first—Ward. He moved back to the bed and crouched beside it.
Ward stirred as he reached out, his long lashes fluttering open, revealing eyes still soft with sleep. “Time?” he murmured.
“Not yet,” Viper said gently, brushing a knuckle down his cheek. “But soon. Here’s some magic brew.”
Ward exhaled, his gaze clearing. “That better not be alcohol, because I need a clear head in case I have to shore up anything.”
They didn’t rush. Ward pulled on his tunic and ran fingers through his hair while Viper strapped on his weapons, all the while hoping that he wouldn’t need them soon. The crannóg was quiet except for the soft sound of boots against wood and the occasional scrape of leather straps being fastened.
“You think they’ll believe us?” Ward asked as they stepped out onto the bridge.
“Nope,” Viper said honestly. “But they won’t have a choice. We’ll give them a version of the truth they can choke on if they try to twist it.”
“And if they try to separate us?”
Viper stopped walking. He turned, stepped into Ward’s space, and gripped the back of his neck. “They won’t.”
“You sound sure.”
He could hear the skepticism in Ward’s voice. “I am. Because the second they try to come between us, I’m walking. SEAL or not. I made a vow, remember?” His fingers brushed along the mating mark. “You come first now.”
Ward stared at him for a long beat, then smiled faintly and nodded. “Same.”
They reached the main clearing to find the others already up and moving.
Kaze was shirtless again, going through a kata with two short blades as if the feast had never happened.
Reaper was packing gear like a man possessed.
Zero had traded his usual stone-faced stillness for a quiet kind of tension, like he was already running scenarios in his head.
Trace and Juice stood near the fire pit, speaking low and fast. The tension between them was wrapped in urgency.
“What’s the sitrep?” Viper asked, voice steady. There was no room for anything but straight-up business from here on out. “What’s the plan for touchdown?” He hoped like hell someone had a plan, because he didn’t. He had exactly nada, zip, nothing at all.
Trace turned to him, his jaw clenched so tightly Viper could almost see his teeth grinding together. The shifter shook his head and pointed to his Grá Croí.
Juice lifted a hand and scrubbed it over his head. “We’re working that out now. Trace’s Dolmen in upstate New York has accepted the anchor, but we’ve still got a logistics issue.”
Viper raised an eyebrow. “Which is?”
Juice exhaled. “Getting us from rural New York back to the fucking Indian Ocean without the United States Navy wondering how we survived a volcanic blast that should’ve killed us.”
“Great,” Ward grumbled. “All we need for that to happen is a freaking miracle.”
“We’re not getting a miracle.” Viper scratched at his beard. “So we manufacture one.”
Juice nodded slowly. “I was thinking the same. Smoke and mirrors. We’re shit hot at smoke and mirrors.”
“Talk to me,” Viper ordered, stepping closer to the makeshift map Juice had etched into the dirt with a stick—two continents, a portal symbol marked in the forests of New York, and a wide arc drawn across the Atlantic toward the Horn of Africa. “How do we fake this?”
Juice’s mouth was grim. “We tell them the satellite data was wrong. The blast radius was off. We say we got pushed clear by the shockwave and holed up in a natural lava tube for forty-eight hours.”
“And that we made a land trek through hell to get picked up by a fishing vessel,” Reaper added, rolling his shoulders. “We fabricate radio contact from a third-party vessel. One with no incentive to contradict our story.”
“It won’t hold under full investigation,” Trace warned with his arms crossed. “Not if they do deep scans.”
“They won’t,” Zero said without looking up from where he was adjusting the straps on his blade harness. “Because the brass won’t want to dig into this too deep. We were on a Black Op with plausible deniability. They can’t pin shit on us without opening themselves up to courts of justice shit.”
Reaper nodded. “If they declared us dead. Black bags, folded flags, the whole nine. Resurrecting us would mean questions, political heat, and the liability they marked as denied for the mission. It might raise some eyebrows and they’ll call us lucky bastards, but it’ll still be easier to accept our miracle than investigate how the hell it happened. ”
“So it’s agreed?” Viper asked. “We tell them we holed up for what’s the time frame you said passed back home, Trace?”
“Just under forty hours now. By the time we hit the IO, it’ll be at least forty-eight, maybe slightly more.”
“We’ll have to make it work.” Viper looked at Ward. “Will the door be stable enough to move back and forth when or if we need to?”
Ward hesitated. “I can’t swear to it. I’ve never done this before. But Fionn seemed to think so.”
Viper nodded. “We’ll move carefully. One crossing at a time and give it a few days to refuel its power in between.”
“I’m coming back,” Trace said. “I can’t stay away. Bran’s part of this place. Part of them.” It wasn’t a surprise to anyone that The Hound of the Fianna would want to come back and forth to visit his brethren.
Juice’s hand dropped to his back. “And I go where you go.”
Viper was trying to wrap his head around what needed to happen as soon as their boots hit the real world. “Once we’re back, we’ll need to run black for a couple of hours and get our asses to that island.”
“Already on it,” Reaper said. “I have a guy who owes be a huge favor. He can probably ghost us in and out. But I can’t call him until we are back and I have access to a phone.”
Kaze rubbed the back of his neck. “You think the Fianna are gonna let us walk without a hundred more toasts, hugs, and mystic blessings?”
“We’ll take the blessings,” Viper said. “We’ll need all the help we can get.”
Ward’s hand found his. “And we’re doing it together.”
“Always.” He squeezed back. “Let’s bring it home.”