Chapter 1
Reaper sucked cold, crisp, early morning air into his lungs as he pounded along the trail that wound through Trace’s property.
What the hell am I running for?
Ain’t nobody shooting at me today.
His boots ate up the uneven ground as he contemplated the question.
He didn’t run unless he was being shot at, but he’d woken up with his skin feeling too tight and his thoughts way too loud.
He’d learned over the years that the burn his muscles gained from running until he dropped was one of the few things that forced the spiral to stop.
They’d been home for three days, more than a week since they’d left Tír na nóg, and he could still feel the brush of the warrior’s knuckles on his skin.
Don’t go there.
Stop.
Fuck!
All the internal orders in the world weren’t going to work.
Hell, he’d spent every spare moment he had, even when he was supposed to be sleeping, telling himself that there wasn’t a chance in hell that he was the Grá Croí of the Hound of the freaking Fianna’s High King.
He didn’t need anyone but his team brothers, his weapons, and the little bit of sanity he’d managed to hold on to for the last decade or so.
Yet there was something about the way the warrior Cian’s voice had wrapped around him that made everything that he was sit up, take notice, and demand he never leave his side again.
Not gonna happen.
He dodged to the left to avoid the overhanging branch that attacked him out of nowhere, and made it to the clearing where the dolmen and its Fianna door loomed.
The stones hummed with that same low-level magic that had been prickling under his skin since they’d returned.
He slowed as he neared it, hands on his hips, his breath sawing in and out of his lungs.
Trace had mentioned something about how it was where he, in his wolf form, had gone to heal, back when Juice had been half-dead thanks to an RPG sticking out of his leg.
He still wasn’t convinced this whole shitshow wasn’t some kind of whacked-out dream.
Maybe the military was trialing a new drug or something, and Volcano team had drawn the short straw.
That might be a hell of a lot easier to accept than magic, legends, and the Fianna, a brotherhood who’d been waiting for their High King.
If they’ve fucked with our DNA, the freaking payout better be worth it.
There better be a fucking payout.
His phone buzzed in his pocket, snapping his focus back to reality—if you could call it that—and Reaper yanked it out of his pocket. His thumb smudged the screen as he swiped to unlock it.
Unknown number. His stomach dropped before his brain even registered why.
No. No, no, no.
He stabbed the call button, then pressed the phone to his ear like it was a live grenade. “How the fuck did you get this number, Derek?”
His asshole ex’s low and familiar laugh was like nails dragging down a blackboard. “You really think I don’t have connections? C’mon, baby. You know me better than that.”
Reaper’s grip tightened, knuckles cracking.
Baby. My ass.
It had been six years, and still the poisonous bastard hadn’t moved on. “I’m not your fucking baby, and I sure as hell ain’t yours. Not anymore.”
“Aw, don’t be like that.” Derek’s voice dripped with the false sweetness that used to make Reaper’s entire body lock up, bracing for the blow that always followed. “You know you miss me. All the way out there in bumfuck nowhere—”
“It’s none of your fucking business where I am,” Reaper snapped. “Using police resources to stalk me is fucking illegal, asshole. And I don’t miss shit about you.”
Derek chuckled, dark and knowing. “Liar. You miss the way I took care of you. The way I kept you in line.”
The words hit like a gut punch, stealing his breath.
Reaper’s vision blurred for half a second, the dolmen’s stones swimming in front of him.
He could see it—the way Derek’s face had twisted right before his fist connected, the way his voice had gone all soft and sorry after, like Reaper was the one who’d made him do it.
Like it was his fault for not being good enough, strong enough, perfect enough.
Abuse is abuse, no matter who it happens to.
Reaper stretched his free hand out in front of himself.
He’d been trained by the best the US Navy had to offer.
His hands dealt death on a regular basis, and in a court of law, his whole body could be classed as a lethal weapon.
It was a hell of a thing when the knowledge that fighting back could send you to jail for the rest of your life, and that kept you under the thumb of an asshole on a power kick.
“That was a long time ago.” But the shame of being a Navy SEAL who, when he went home, became a battered spouse would never leave him. “I’m not yours anymore.”
“No?” Derek’s voice dropped, all pretense of warmth gone. “You’ll always be mine, Michael. Why’d you take that transfer all the way across the country like a little bitch with his tail between his legs? Because now I’ll have to come get you and bring you home.”
Come here, asshole.
I dare you.
I want to see your face just before Bran rips it clean off your head.
Even hearing his fucking voice twisted something deep inside him.
He wasn’t able to beat back the breath that came faster, or the pulse that roared in his ears.
He was strong. He was a goddamn SEAL. He’d survived hell and back, had blown up half of Afghanistan with his bare hands if the team room stories were to be believed.
But standing there, with Derek’s voice in his ear, he was twenty-two again, and trapped in a relationship that he couldn’t find a way out of until the Navy offered him a lifeline and a transfer from San Diego to Dam Neck.
Pathetic.
The word echoed in his skull, Derek’s favorite term for him. His fingers twitched, itching to hit something. To destroy something. “Because we were done,” he snarled. “Because I’m done letting pieces of shit like you tell me what I’m worth.”
Derek laughed, harsh and mocking. “Oh, baby. You think you’re so tough now? Think your little Navy buddies would still respect you if they knew the truth? If they knew what a pathetic little—”
“Fuck off.” He ended the call. His hand was shaking, hell, his whole body was shaking. He hurled the phone at the ground, watching with grim satisfaction as the screen shattered and the case popped off. It wasn’t enough. Nothing was ever enough.
He dropped to his knees in the dirt, his breath coming in ragged gasps, his fingers digging into the earth as he tried to anchor himself to this reality, fucked up as it was.
Not the one where Derek’s hands were around his throat.
Not the one where he was curled up on the bathroom floor, wondering if he’d be better off fighting back and spending the rest of his days in a jail cell, and definitely not the one where he’d stood in front of a mirror and wondered what the hell was wrong with him that he kept going back.
You got out, that’s what counts.
The thought was a lifeline, something he clung to like a drowning man. He was stronger, and he had gotten out. He’d built a life where no one knew, where no one could use it against him. Where no one could look at him and see weakness.
But his memories didn’t give a shit about any of that.
They crawled up his throat as bile and flashed behind his eyelids, showing him a reel of memories, ones he kept trying to keep buried, but somehow never quite managed, because they liked to blindside him at times.
How Derek had smiled at him the first time he’d hit him, like it was a joke, like he’d been overreacting.
The way he’d apologized after, his voice all soft, his hands gentle as he cupped his face, promising it would never happen again.
The way it had happened again. Over and over.
Until he’d stopped flinching and started expecting and bracing for it.
Until he’d believed, deep down, that he deserved it.
A raw and broken sound tore out of his throat, and he pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes, like he could scrub the images away. He wasn’t that man anymore. He wasn’t that victim.
But you’re still the guy who ran rather than fighting back.
Not exactly SEAL-like behavior, is it?
The unwelcome thought slithered into his head. He’d jumped at the chance of a transfer to the East Coast, and Dam Neck, like a coward, tail tucked, because facing Derek—facing what he’d let happen—had been worse than starting over someplace where only his prowess in Teams mattered.
His breath hitched and his chest burned.
He scooted back on his ass until his back rested against the dolmen.
In his fucked-up spiral, it almost felt as if its magic thrummed against his skin like a pulse.
He was so goddamn tired of being unable to stop the feelings and memories Derek’s voice always brought to the fore.
He’d known better than to call that number back.
Maybe he was just a glutton for punishment.
Maybe he was just a weak-assed man behind the warrior facade.
No. I’m not weak.
I was never fucking weak.
I just couldn’t believe it was happening to me, and by the time I accepted it was, it had fucked with my head, and getting out was…harder.
The shame was still there, burning in his gut like acid. He didn’t know how long it took for that to fade, but it wasn’t eight years.
He didn’t know how long he stayed like that, sitting against the upright stones of the dolmen, his body trembling with the force of finding his equilibrium again.
The sun climbed higher, and the air gradually warmed around him, but he couldn’t bring himself to move.
Because if he did, he’d have to admit that Derek’s voice was still in his head, that the past wasn’t as buried as he’d thought, and worse, no matter how strong he was now, there would always be a part of him that was still that scared, stupid younger version of himself, wondering what the hell he’d done wrong.