Ward blinked as his rational mind shoved itself into overdrive, fighting for purchase in the chaos. His adrenaline spiked as his instincts tried to slap a label on the impossible. Was he having a hallucination or a psychotic break? Was the volcanic gas making him high? He searched for something—anything—that made this make sense. Because magic didn’t exist. Shifters were legends and belonged in books. Yet here he was, watching something that should be anatomically, physically, historically, and universally impossible stare at him like it had a soul.
“Easy, easy.” The leader, Viper, the others had called him, reached for him. “I know it’s all kinds of fucked up, and you’ve never seen anything like it before, but that’s Bran, and he won’t hurt you.”
“B—Bran?”
“Yeah.” Viper reached for him, and Ward jerked away from him again. “Do you turn into a snake?”
“Nope.” His teeth were white in the darkness of his close-trimmed beard. “I swear, Viper’s just a nickname. I’m human.”
“You cannot be human.” A disembodied voice spoke from within the crack in the wall. “None of you would be alive in here if you were human.”
“Who the fuck—” Viper shot to his feet and spun with his weapon raised and pointed at the crack in the wall before the voice finished speaking.
The wolf—Bran, they called him Bran—whipped his head toward Viper. His lip curled upward, and he snarled viciously.
“Juice, what the hell?” Viper asked the man Ward thought was his second in command.
“I don’t know, Bran is losing his fucking mind in my head. Something about the Dord Fiann hunting horn sounding for the third time.”
The legends say that’s when Fionn will rise again.
Holy shit.
Holt sweet baby shitballs.
This cannot be real.
I’ve gone insane.
“You are the Grá Croí of my hound?” the voice rumbled low from the other side of the crack in the stone. It sounded rusty, as if the man hadn’t used it in a very long time. The gravelly grating of it made the hair on the back of Ward’s neck stand straight. That voice carried weight. Power. Age.
Juice blinked, frozen for a breath. “I—I think he’s talking to me.” He cocked his head to one side and ran his fingers over the wolf’s fur just behind his ears. “Bran says yes,” he said out loud,blinking rapidly. “He’s freaking the fuck out. He’s pacing inside my damn head. I can’t filter him clearly.”
“Try,” Viper ordered, his tone low and sharp. “Tell us what Bran is saying.”
Bran moved before Juice could answer, snarled, spun, and lunged at the wall. The sound of his claws scraping against the stone was like knives dragged down a chalkboard. His massive shoulder slammed into the crack, teeth bared, tail rigid.
“He’s trying to widen it.” Juice stepped back. He pressed his hand to his temple as if his head ached. “He’s saying something’s wrong. He thinks the chamber’s incomplete. I think it’s fractured or something.” Juice was clearly frustrated. “He’s talking so fast, and half in Irish. I’m only catching every second or third word.”
“Bran,” Viper demanded. “Stop.”
But Bran didn’t. He backed up and launched himself again. This time he hit the seam with a sickening crunch. Chips of basalt rained down in his wake. Ward flinched as one skittered across the floor near his boot.
“Bran, that won’t help,” Juice shouted, his voice fraying at the edges. “He’s in something. It’s not a room—it’s like a cage. A magical fucking seal.
“It is a prison bound by druid stone binding magic,” the voice said. “I do not have the magic to break it, as my power was drained before they enchanted this place.” While he spoke, Bran kept frantically clawing at the opening. “But with my hound’s help, I may be able to do it.”
“Stop him before he kills himself,” Reaper growled.
“He won’t stop.” Juice turned toward the crack and raised his voice. “Who are you? Who the hell are you?”
“I am Fionn mac Cumhaill,” the voice answered. “High King of the Fianna. Son of Cumhaill. Last Guardian of Ireland, and I have slept too long beneath a sky not my own. The Dord Fiann called me from my slumber, and I answered the call.”
Ward’s pulse surged so loudly in his ears, he could barely hear himself think.
Fionn mac Cumhaill?
That’s not possible.
