Chapter 3 #2
“This,” Trace shook Reaper’s arm, “means you have the blood of the Wolf Walkers in your veins. You need to go to Tír na nóg, sooner rather than later. Before the next full moon, or you and your Grá Croí will die.”
A what now?
“What’s a Wolf Walker?” Viper asked the question before Reaper could. He stood up and leaned across the table to peer at the marks on his arm. “I mean, we all know Reaper ain’t normal most of the time, but you’re actually serious, that he’s actually not fucking normal at all?”
Yeah, a normal person would have reported Derek to the cops years ago.
Wait—he is the fucking cops.
Trace’s lips quirked, more like the ghost of a smile than an actual smile. “Deadly serious. He crossed my fairy ward protection barrier without being zapped, remember? We knew then he had fairy blood, just not what kind of fairy blood.”
Juice snorted, nudging Trace’s shoulder with his own. “Well, now we know it’s Wolf Walker.”
Reaper’s molars ground together. “Someone want to clue me the fuck in on what the hell a Wolf Walker is?”
“Wolf Walkers are the Guardians of the Fianna,” Trace said, “Like me. We are the Hounds of the King.”
Ward stole Viper’s iPad and tapped in a Google search. “Let me see if I can find anything.”
“Why are you searching Google?” Zero asked, “When we’ve got the equivalent of a fairy encyclopedia sitting right here.” He pointed to Trace. “Spill it, wolf-man, what’s our boy Reaper working with here?”
Trace sipped his coffee and eyed him for long moments.
“For all of eternity, there have been entire bloodlines who live in the forest.” He spoke as if he weren’t talking of himself or even Reaper, and his voice took on the power and storytelling flavor of what the Irish would call a Seanchaí.
“It is said there are families who leave their bodies behind at night and walk as wolves.” He pinned Reaper with a gaze as if he could see into his soul.
“They are called Wolf Walkers. By day they are ordinary villagers, by night something slips free of their skin, while their human bodies lie sleeping.”
“But you can shift at will?” Viper interjected, “You nearly gave us a damn stroke when you just changed into a fucking wolf when we were under heavy fire.”
“Ah, but remember what I did to the people who hurt my Grá Croí.”
Unless he developed Alzheimer’s disease, there would never be a time when Reaper didn’t remember dropping his fucking weapon mid firefight when that had happened. Even then, it would be a close call, because some things were just burned into your memory forever.
“I know my parents.” The food he’d eaten threatened to come back up and he swallowed against it. “Neither of them turned into wolves while they were sleeping. There are plenty of stories like that shit in the Bayous, right, Zero?”
“That’s right.” Zero drummed his fingers on the table. “But—”
Oh no. The asshole may have grown up deeper into the fucking swamps, but he didn’t get to tell tall tales about something this freaking important. “I think I’d know if my folks turned into fucking wolves.”
“That depends on how diluted the blood is,” Trace said. “The further down the line you are, the more you need a Grá Croí bond to change.”
“If you think I’m letting Cian fucking bi—”
Shit.
He knew he’d fucked up the second he let the warrior’s name slip past his lips.
“Ah, so tis. Our Cian, is it?”
“Does it matter?”
“Maybe.” Trace squinted as if he was trying really hard to remember something. “It’s been thousands of years.” He lifted one shoulder. “There is something I should know, but it appears I have forgotten it.”
“Can we go back to the Wolf Walkers?” Trust the archeologist to be fascinated with ancient fairy tales and stories.
“Sure,” Trace agreed. “So the Wolf Walkers protect their pack’s territory in wolf form. Some hunt and defend for the Fianna. They are the chosen guardians, and most became Hounds of the High King.”
“Fascinating.”
He didn’t agree with Ward. At. All. He’d much prefer if Trace would shut the hell up.
“Wolf Walkers are kinda different from Shifters. Typically, if one is wounded in wolf form, the human body bears the same injury when they wake up.”
“Do you do that?” Juice caught Trace’s chin and tugged his face around to scowl at his Grá Croí. “That sounds like something I should know.”
Trace shook his head. “The Champion of the Hounds is immune to the curse of bearing the wolves’ injuries. I have never been defeated in our warrior games, so I am still the Champion Hound of the High King.”
Does that mean Cian carries his wolf’s injuries in his human form?
“Anyway,” Trace stole Juice’s coffee, took a sip, and gave him back his mug, “before we crossed the veil into Tír na nóg, the ordinary people feared the Wolf Walkers and most went to Tír na nóg with the Fianna.”
“Okay,” Viper said slowly enough that Reaper knew his CO’s brain was running in overdrive as he tried to make sense of what their resident shifter was saying. “We’re going to need more details.”
“Me, too.” He had no intentions of doing anything with it, and it wasn’t as if he wanted jack shit to do with the warrior, but his natural curiosity was riding him hard, and combined with his training to run all the intel, he wanted to know what Trace had to say.
“They are said to be the children of a shifter and the Tuatha Dé Danann and closer to the land than to the laws of normal people.” Trace said.
“Their numbers are few, and the ones who stayed behind, refusing to cross the veil, were driven from their homes. It was a shitshow of epic proportions.” He reached for Reaper’s arm and ran his finger over the marks that were starting to develop. “Know what this means?”
Reaper shook his head. “Tell me.”
“It says you are descended from one of the families of the Tuatha Dé Danann who mated with a shifter. That is why you could cross my fairy protection spell.”
Shit.
“There’s no point in shaking your head or trying to figure out how you can deny it,” Trace growled. “You have met your Grá Croí; you cannot escape the destiny the fates have written for you. You and the warrior will either bond or you will die on the night of the next full moon.”
“I’m not passing out like you are.”
Trace snorted. “You also aren’t a full-blooded Wolf Walker. Who knows what the dilution of your bloodline has done to your fate?”
That doesn’t sound good.
“All I can tell you for sure is, I have never seen a Grá Croí bonding mark that did not kill a full-blooded wolf shifter if not completed.” He pinned Reaper with a steady stare. “Are you going to sentence my warrior brother, Cian, to die? Because refusing the mating, that is what will happen.”
Yes.
No.
I don’t know.
Do I care?
He wasn’t heartless and didn’t want to be the reason another man, even one who existed through a fairy portal in another dimension, lost his life.
“Maybe we should go and ask Fionn,” Ward interjected. “Isn’t it said that he knows everything? Is that true?”
“Burning your thumb on the salmon of knowledge, and tasting its juices when you stick it in your mouth, will do that to you,” Trace replied. “It is a good idea, druid Ward. Only when Reaper and Cian are next to each other will we be able to figure out how this will play out.”
Reaper exhaled sharply through his nose. “Unbelievable.” He pushed his plate away, appetite gone. “So let me get this straight. You want me to waltz into the magical fucking wonderland that is Tír na nóg, because what, the fates have decided I have to toe the magical line they have set down?”
“It’s not just that,” Trace said, voice dropping into that quiet, dangerous register that meant he was two seconds from shifting and someone was about to get their throat ripped out.
His eyes flicked to Juice, then back to Reaper, gold bleeding into the brown like molten metal.
“The warrior is my brother, as are you. I want neither of you to die. I cannot guarantee that you will. But I know for sure Cian’s fate depends on your decisions, and he is running out of time. ”
Kaze let out a slow breath, rubbing at the back of his neck. “I’m not sure how I feel about you offering up Reaper to save the warrior.” His gaze cut to Viper. “Sir.”
Viper’s nostrils flared as he crossed his arms over his chest. The tattoos on his forearms, twisting, Irish knots and triskeles that had appeared like some kind of fucked-up neon sign after he’d mated with Ward, flexed with the movement.
“I think if we’re going to go back to Tír na nóg, then I’m gonna need to clear us some downtime, or command will lose their shit if we’ve all disappeared when they call us to spin up for a mission. ”
“Traitor.” Just because Viper was happily mated to Ward didn’t mean he wanted what they had for himself. Hell, all he wanted was Derek to leave him the fuck alone.
“If there is even the smallest chance that you could die if we do nothing,” Viper squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, then braced both his hands on the table in front of him, a sure sign he was trying to find words that would lessen the blow of a decision he knew the others wouldn’t like, “then we are going to make sure that does not happen, even if you end up with a Grá Croí for the rest of your days.” He turned his attention to Trace.
“Is the timeframe the same as for you two and us?”
“It is always the full moon,” Trace’s fingers stilled on Juice’s hip, “and the next one is coming up fast in Tír na nóg.”
There was a beat of silence before they understood what his words meant.
Are the full moons different in Tír na nóg than here?
They should have had close to a month before the next full moon. If what Trace said was true, now they didn’t have that time…he didn’t have that time.
“What?” Reaper and Viper snapped at the same time.
Trace winced. “Time works differently there; the next full moon is in twelve days.”
Reaper’s laugh was sharp, humorless. “Oh, fucking fantastic. So I have less than two weeks to make a decision that maybe decides if I live or die?”
“It is the way of the Fianna, the Tuatha Dé Danann, and the Wolf Walkers. It has been this way since before we became myths and faded from the memory of man.” Trace’s eyes locked onto his, unblinking. “I do not know a way to change what the fates have deemed is your destiny.”
The words hit like a gut punch, and Reaper’s breath hitched. SEALs were a superstitious bunch at the best of times; throw in a side of growing up in the bayous, and markings on his arm that itched and burned, and he just wanted to wake the fuck up from this dream.
Wake up.
We’re done.
Wake. The. Fuck. Up.
Somewhere in the back of his mind an echo of a hunting horn sounded.
He’d heard that noise herald some of the whacked-up weird shit that had happened since the battleground in Afghanistan where Trace had shifted in front of them for the first time.
He pressed his hands to his ear, “No. Shut. Up. Stop.”
They all looked at him, but it was Viper who spoke. “What’s happening? What’s wrong?”
“I’m fucking hearing things.”
“Hearing what?”
There was a strange demand in Trace’s voice that crackled around him, and as much as he didn’t want to answer, Reaper found he couldn’t prevent himself from doing so. “A horn. Kinda like what we heard in the ‘Stan and when that fucking volcano blew.”
“The Dord Fiann.” Trace got to his feet.
“The hunting horn of the Fianna. It’s…” He trailed off, shaking his head.
“It’s a call to arms. A summons because of imminent danger.
Cian is calling for you to help him because he is in danger.
” He gripped Reaper’s shoulder and spun him around in his chair.
“The Dord Fiann, the blood of your ancestors, and your Grá Croí have called you to fight, brother. Will you answer the call?”
The SEAL, who had gone to war on orders from his flag and his country, knew he should refuse.
But somewhere deep inside the recesses of his soul, something darker and deeper flared to life.
The words, when they emerged from his mouth, were filled with the snarl of a wolf. “Aye, Cú Chulainn, I will answer!”