Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Ward didn’t know what he expected when they stepped through the portal—maybe vertigo, maybe nausea, maybe a wrenching sensation like something inside him would resist leaving the land that had remade them all.
But instead, the transition was seamless.
One step through and the mossy ground of Dun Fianna gave way to a damp forest floor and the earthy hush of Trace’s upstate New York woods.
The trees here were old, their trunks wide and gnarled, the Dolmen standing sentinel in the clearing like it had waited a thousand years to be remembered.
For a long moment, none of them moved. Viper’s hand was still clenched in his, Trace was breathing like he’d run a marathon, and Juice had both arms out like he couldn’t decide whether to hug Trace or punch him for dragging him through a veil again.
Then Kaze broke the silence. “That’s it? No thunderclap? No wormhole nausea? Not even a glowing butthole?” He looked around, disappointed. “Man, I feel cheated.”
“You want nausea?” Reaper asked dryly. “I can punch you in the gut.”
“Appreciate the offer, bro, but I’m good.”
Trace didn’t speak. He turned slowly, knelt in the damp earth, and touched the Dolmen. A pulse of gold shimmered across the stone and vanished. “It’s holding,” he whispered. “The portal’s stable.”
Thank fuck for that.
“Come on. Let’s go home.” Trace led the way down a winding forest path, the heavy canopy of trees overhead filtering the late afternoon sun into fractured beams of gold and shadows.
Ward walked just behind Viper, still holding his hand like a lifeline.
After the power they’d channeled to get through the portal, he felt a little stretched thin at the edges, like someone had drawn every last drop of magic from his bones or cut all but one of the puppet strings and he was hanging a bit lopsided on the last one.
He barely noticed the silence until Zero grumbled, “Are we going to have to go through your fairy barrier shit again, Trace? Because I’m not in the mood to get zapped right now.”
Reaper snorted. “You mean unlike last time, when most of us got our asses lit up?”
“Hey, I only got zapped once,” Kaze said. “It took Viper three times to figure that shit out before he tossed me under the bus like a fucking virgin sacrifice.”
“You are about as far from a virgin as you can get,” Viper grumbled. He stopped directly in front of Ward as they stepped into a clearing.
Juice and Trace scooted around them, followed by Reaper, and all three kept going for about ten steps before they paused and glanced back at the rest of them.
“Why are we waiting?” Ward looked around in confusion, but he couldn’t see any reason for stopping. He went to go around Viper and frowned when his warrior yanked him to a stop. “What the heck?”
“There’s a fairy protection barrier,” Viper said. “We can’t see it, but it zaps us every time until Trace says the password to let us through.”
Ward raised his eyebrows and turned to study the ground, hoping to catch a glimpse of fairy magic. “I don’t see anything.” He didn’t even see a glimmer of one, never mind a shimmer. The invisible protection had let every single one of them through without hesitation.
“Come on.” Trace smirked as if issuing a challenge. “It’s not going to bite you.”
“No, it will fucking zap us,” Zero growled at Trace. “It’s the same barrier, right?”
“Yup.” Trace nodded, his expression serious. “Same lines. Same threshold. But you’re not the same men.”
Kaze raised a brow. “Explain that before Reaper starts thinking he’s immortal again.”
“You’ve crossed the veil,” Trace said. “You didn’t just visit another world.
You became part of it. The Fianna have claimed you, whether you wanted it or not.
The moment you stepped through that door and helped bring Fionn home, you weren’t fully human anymore; you became brothers in blood as well as in heart when you swore an oath to Fionn on the stone in Dun Fianna.
The protection barrier recognizes that you belong, so it won’t spring into action. ”
Ward went very still.
“Wait.” Reaper narrowed his eyes. “You’re saying what exactly? That we’re magic now?”
“No.” Trace turned, walking backward a few steps so he could face them as he talked. “I’m saying you carry the mark of Fianna blood now. You are now trusted. The old protections recognize you as kin. And kin don’t get zapped.”
Kaze looked over at Ward. “So your zap a dick wire is on strike for us?”
“Pretty much.”
Viper’s fingers tightened slightly in his as Ward swallowed and they moved past whatever invisible line had kept three of the bravest men he knew from walking toward the squat cabin peeking from between the trees, partially hidden beneath vines and the sloping hillside.
When they followed Trace into the house, Ward leaned toward Viper and whispered, “I don’t think we’re all gonna fit.”
“Juice said the same thing.” Trace grinned at his skepticism. “Like I told him, follow me, because there’s more to my home than meets the eye.” He moved to the Murphy door and demonstrated how it worked before stepping back and waving them ahead of him and Juice.
Halfway down the stairs on the middle landing, Viper opened a door and led his Grá Croí and their team into the kitchen that had become theirs over the months when Juice had been recovering.
“Welcome,” Trace dropped his bag in a corner, turned, and offered Ward a massive smile, “to the den of Cú Fianna.”
Inside, it felt like stepping into another realm all over again.
The living was massive, carved from stone and cedar, warm and earthy and homey.
The kitchen dominated the space—vaulted ceilings, glowing lights strung between wooden beams, shelves stacked with herbs and clay pots, and a fireplace so wide it could probably roast a whole deer.
Ward paused just inside the threshold, momentarily overwhelmed. “It’s beautiful,” he murmured, his voice catching.
“Feels like home, doesn’t it?” Viper said softly beside him.
Ward nodded. “More than it should.”
“Grab a seat,” Trace called. “There’s food in the fridge, drinks in the cold box, and I’m pretty sure the steaks survived the time skip.”
“I’ll cook,” Reaper volunteered, pulling open the freezer with the ease of a man who’d done it before. “You idiots would burn water.”
Viper passed Ward a bottle of water. “You good?”
“Getting there,” Ward said. His head throbbed faintly from leftover magic, exhaustion, the crash after threading two worlds together. “I think I need a shower.”
“Go,” Viper said softly, brushing a hand down his back. He pointed further down the hallway. “First right, third door. We’ll handle this part. You look like you’re about to pass out standing up.”
Ward nodded, grateful, and disappeared down the hall.
The further he went, the quieter everything became.
He reached the bathroom and stepped inside, peeling off his clothes with fingers that trembled more than he wanted to admit.
Steam filled the space within seconds as he twisted the knobs and stepped under the spray.
He let the water wash everything away—dirt, blood, magic, memory—until nothing remained but the ache in his bones and the faint echo of Viper’s voice in his head.
I’ve got you.
Yeah. He knew he did and he loved it.
The hot water didn’t fix everything, but it helped.
Ward stood with his hands braced against the tile, the pressure sluicing over his back and down his spine until the last of the tension in his shoulders started to unwind.
It had been days since he’d had the luxury of heat and solitude—hell, maybe weeks, depending on how the veil played with time—and he could feel the exhaustion soaking into his marrow.
His tattoos no longer glowed. The mating mark on his chest had quieted to a faint thrum, steady and loyal, like a heartbeat outside his body.
The magic might have faded from the surface, but it hadn’t left him.
It was still there, tucked beneath his skin, breathing in rhythm with the man who had claimed his heart and held his soul with calloused hands and battle-worn promises.
He shut off the water and dried off quickly, tugging on the soft cotton sweatpants and long-sleeved shirt someone had left on the bench beside the sink. Viper, no doubt. His man was terrifying in the field, but annoyingly thoughtful when Ward least expected it.
By the time he made it back down the hall, the smell of steak and garlic and something herbaceous hit him like a freight train. His stomach growled audibly, and someone near the kitchen laughed.
“That better not be my dinner. I just heard protesting,” Reaper called without turning around.
“I’ll fight you for it,” Ward muttered, stepping into the main den again.
“Wouldn’t advise it.” Zero was perched on a barstool at the kitchen island, knife in one hand, peeled apple in the other. “Man’s in a post-portal high. He’ll cut you just to make a point.”
“I heard that,” Reaper grunted from over the stove. “And I wouldn’t use a knife. That’d be overkill. Cast iron skillet’s got better heft.”
Kaze wandered past with two beers in hand, one already half gone, and clapped Ward on the shoulder. “Glad you survived the magic rinse cycle. You look slightly less like roadkill.”
“Thanks. You’re all heart.”
“Hey, I try.” He shoved one of the beers at Viper. “Don’t say I never did anything for you, Boss.”
Viper took the bottle and tilted it in a mock toast before handing it off to Ward instead. “Feel better?” he asked, reaching out to trail his knuckles down Ward’s arm.
“Like a human again,” Ward murmured, stepping into his space. “A very, very tired human.”
“Then eat, and then bed.” Viper pressed a brief kiss to his temple. “We’ve got time for one more quiet night.”