Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
“What in the almighty…?” Silas stared at the ceiling, shaken and severely aroused as another dream about the stream faded.
He had been laying on the sandy bank, his feet in the water and the bright blue sky above them.
Silas’s mystery man had swallowed every inch of his cock before riding him.
No one had ever ridden Silas that hard. But the best part of the dream happened after Silas came.
His faceless partner dismounted and turned around so he could sit on Silas’s face.
Silas happily licked him clean before sucking him off.
Silas whimpered in frustration. “I swear, I can still taste him!” He scrubbed his face with both of his hands, aching and worried that they were running out of time, that he’d be too late. “Fuck!”
He threw the covers back and yanked down the front of his pajama pants. His hard-on sprang free, throbbing in time with his pulse. Eyes closed and mouth watering, Silas went back to the soft, wet warmth of his ass, remembering how sweet it tasted and the beautiful sounds they made as they got off.
Sex was supposed to be tender and pleasurable and fun but Silas felt possessed and like he had claimed everything he’d touched and tasted in his dreams. Coming alone—without him—barely took the edge off and Silas was still frustrated and worried when he stumbled into the shower.
“Rough night, lad?” Merlin asked when Silas stomped into the kitchen, already pouring him a cup of coffee.
“Rough morning,” Nox corrected in a suggestive whisper, grinning at Silas over his cup.
Silas pulled a face, his mood punchy. “Rough morning,” he mimicked before taking a cranky gulp.
Merlin clicked his teeth at Nox. “We shouldn’t give him a hard time. Poor Shelby has had a lot to absorb in just a few weeks and he’s spent far too long with that vision.”
“I’m fine,” Silas muttered. “Where’s Nelson?” he asked and Nox grinned.
“He went into work early. Forensics came back with a banger of a reconstruction late last night and he sent pictures to every field office, ranger station, sheriff’s office, and police department within fifty miles of the Appalachian Trail.
He told them to be on the lookout for a missing hiker or outdoorsmen and that he could be injured or in danger.
Nelson wants to be there when the calls start coming in so he can run with any strong leads. ”
“That’s great!” Silas said, his mood quickly lifting.
He was in higher spirits when they moved to the study. As usual, there wasn’t much for Silas to do so Nox gave him some homework. Silas was reading about the fianna and gallowglasses when they heard the front door open.
“We found him,” Nelson said as he strode into the study, holding up his notepad.
“Are you sure?” Silas asked, setting aside the tome Nox had given him and rising.
Merlin nodded in agreement and Nox raised his brows expectantly. “In less than twenty-four hours? There have to be a lot of hikers matching his description,” Nox said, earning a peeved look from Nelson.
“We had the picture of the reconstruction and Shelby gave us a strong profile to work with. I had four messages by the time I got to the office and they all said it’s the same guy.”
“Brilliant work, you two!” Merlin declared and waved. “Give us the name!”
“Right…,” Nelson checked his pad. “His name is…Tighe Ossor.”
Merlin let out a shocked yelp and Nox swore and shook his head. “An Ossor? He’s definitely our man but that’s…bad.”
“Bad?” Silas asked as Nelson frowned at Nox and Merlin.
“Why is it bad?” Nelson asked warily. “I did a quick background check and there isn’t anything on a Tighe Ossor. He doesn’t have a criminal record so I looked into the motor vehicle databases and he doesn’t have a license. Or a social security number attached to that name.”
Silas’s neck craned. “How is that possible?” he asked and Nelson pushed out an exasperated breath.
“Three rangers and a volunteer firefighter identified him as Tighe Ossor and described him as a little odd—possibly Amish?—but harmless. Apparently, he’s a bit of a legend on the Trail but he doesn’t exist anywhere else.”
Nox and Merlin traded concerned grimaces before the older man went to the rolling board and picked up a piece of chalk.
“I strongly doubt that he is Amish and it would probably be more accurate to call him Tighe of the Ossors, as it is likely that this lad doesn’t have a surname. They are all called Ossor.”
“No surname?” Nelson frowned as he scribbled in his notepad. “Who are they and what’s an Ossor?” he asked and Nox whistled at the board as Merlin wrote and underlined Werewolves of Ossory.
“The Ossors are a secretive and extremely primitive group,” Nox began.
“They keep to themselves in the wilds of Maine and New Hampshire. They live as they did in the old world and no one has ever seen an active pack of American Ossors. Dad and Clancy took me up to Maine one summer, to see some of the women. They stick together in a few predominantly female communities, scattered around rural Maine and New Hampshire.”
“The men don’t live with the women?” Nelson verified.
“Not until they’re too old to live in the woods with their pack.
The boys are sent off into the woods to learn to hunt and fight, as soon as they begin to grow hair on their balls.
If they survive and live to be old men, they’re allowed back into the community and to father children,” Nox explained, causing Silas and Nelson to flinch and rear back.
“No way,” Silas said but Merlin hummed in confirmation.
“A truly barbaric practice and a cruel way to raise a child.” Merlin said as he worked, the hand with the chalk sweeping and tapping swiftly as dates and symbols filled the board.
“I’m an ardent believer in experiential learning but the Ossors are like the Spartans with their children and would give up any that show signs of disability or illness, sadly.
The communities are matriarchal and the women choose their partners, but they do not practice marriage. ”
Silas was appalled. “They still do this?”
“It would seem so,” Merlin replied, trading the chalk for a pointer.
“And it would explain why our query has been so difficult to track down and why Nox sensed a wolf in the vision. Like our families, the Ossors are from a very old but extremely isolated Irish lineage. They claimed to be the direct descendants of the werewolves of Ossory. óengus Osrithe was the first king of Osraige, or Ossory as it later came to be known, back in 100 AD. King óengus claimed he was a direct descendant of Laignech Fáelad, a legendary warrior and chieftain. He and his most brutal and loyal fighters were known as the Werewolves of Ossory and were said to shift from man to wolf.”
“Literally?” Nelson asked, looking up from his notepad. He appeared to be writing every word and absorbing the information on the board.
Nox made a hesitant sound. “Most scholars believe it was a figurative transformation, obviously. But as we’ve learned, historical and mythological depictions aren’t always symbolic.
Sometimes, a harp isn’t just a harp and a metamorphosis isn’t always figurative,” he said, earning a dry snort from Nelson.
“Tell me about it. So, this Tighe Ossor might be a werewolf?” he asked and Merlin shook his head and tapped the end of the pointer against the board.
“We’re not talking about a werewolf from a horror film. But even if we were, it would be far less trouble than whatever Huge Douchebag has planned for our lost Ossor,” he said, making Nox chuckle.
“Nelson could take a werewolf. That’s just a man who turns into a beast during a full moon and can be stopped with a silver bullet.
An Ossor lives like a wolf and learns to fight like a beast. They claimed to be descended from werewolves but they were legendary for their brutality as warriors.
” He gestured at Merlin who looked giddy as he stretched and pointed at the word Fianna.
“As you’ve been learning, Shelby, it was a tradition in Iron Age Ireland for noble families to send their young men to live in the wild, amongst small bands of warrior-hunters.
They fed and dressed themselves with whatever they could kill and learned to fight.
Once they had proven themselves, they could return to Túath and become landowning aristocrats.
It was a right of passage but some stayed in the fían way of life and remained roving mercenaries.
Because of their impartiality, the fianna were hired by the kings of Ireland as bodyguards and by towns to protect them from raiders and aggressive neighbors. ”
“Fenianism and the Fenian Brotherhood are named after the fianna,” Nox added.
“Exactly!” Merlin said. “But the Ossors were the elite of the fianna and much like the Norse gallowglasses.”
“Just a minute,” Silas interrupted. “Nox said he sensed wolves in my blood and he called me a fian. Am I related to this Tighe Ossor?”
Was that why Silas had felt such an immediate and consuming love for the skull and thrilled at finally learning his name?
“I highly doubt that,” Merlin said dismissively.
“The gallowglasses were Norse and Gaelic warriors and mercenaries who were wild men and exceptionally fierce in battle.
The Werewolves of Ossory were as well, but they were believed to practice druidic magick and have a supernatural connection to the Otherworld.
“Eventually, the fianna and their ways were abandoned and the kings of Ossory were defeated by the Normans. Like us, the Ossors held onto their practices and they went deeper into the woods. Some made their way to America in the early 1600s, in search of a wilder, safer wilderness as the English and the Church took over more of Ireland. We know there are still Ossors in the Appalachians and where their women live. But we have never made contact and assumed they were nearly extinct.”