“We neutralize the threat with fire and come find you,” Zero finished.
Kaze grinned. “With marshmallows.”
Reaper’s mouth twitched. “Noted.”
Ward shot him a wary look as they stepped away from the ridge. “You always give fire orders that fast?”
“Only when I’m not sure what kind of requested meeting we’re walking into.” He absently ran one hand over the mate mark, scratching at the itchy skin.
Is this something to do with these?
They followed the warrior in silence, their boots crunching over the mossy stones and damp grass as they cut back through the trees toward the heart of Dún Fianna. The quiet between them buzzed with questions neither of them was ready to voice yet. Viper’s thoughts circled like a hawk. He had a feeling that whatever Fionn had to say was going to piss him off big time.
By the time they stepped through the torchlit entrance of the great hall again, Viper felt every nerve in his body come online.The air felt heavier, and his instincts prickled. Fionn stood at a table at the top of the room with Oisín at his side. The High King and his son nodded at them and waved them toward the bench facing the door.
“We’re here.” Trace, fresh from the field, entered just behind them with Juice on his heels. “The others are outside,” he told Fionn. “Mo Rí, you need to grant permission for Diarmuid to allow them in, or we’re going to have one hell of a fight here in about two minutes.”
“They will fight?” Fionn narrowed his eyes and tilted his head toward his hound.
“Aye, to get to their chieftain, they will.” Trace followed Juice around the table and sat next to Fionn. His mate climbed over the bench to sit next to Viper. “As I or any of your warriors would to get to you or Oisín.”
Fionn waved the others toward the bench. “We need to talk. It matters not if they hear it from me or from you later.”
Viper slammed a mental operator’s mask into place. If there was a reckoning to be had, there was exactly no chance he wanted the Fianna or their king to know just how unnerved he was. “We’re listening.”
Once the rest of Viper’s men took a seat on the benches, Fionn moved to the head of the heavy table carved with ancient spirals and knotwork. He placed his palms flat against the worn wood and squared his shoulders beneath a mantle, Viper recognized as a leader who knew what was coming could not be softened. When his son Oisín mirrored him, stone-faced and silent, his gaze flicking to each of them like he was already calculating who would fall and who might survive, Viper cursed in his head.
Fuckballs.
That’s not a good sign.
“You’ve crossed a threshold,” Fionn began. “When you breached the veil to free me, the balance between worlds shifted. The threads that kept Tír na nÓg sealed and safe from the outside world have frayed, and cracks have formed in the veil.”
“You mean portals?” Reaper asked from further down the table. “Like the ones we came through?”
“I mean…” Fionn’s eyes pinned them with an unreadable stare. “Tears in reality. Places where creatures that should remain banished from all worlds can now slip through both to this world and yours.”
Viper’s spine went stiff. “Was this some kind of prison break?” Maybe given enough time, he’d be able to come up with a logical explanation. But then, logic wasn’t exactly on the table when portals and a place that belonged in storybooks were in play.
“Consider it a seal,” Oisín said. “No world is a cell or a prison, exactly. Tír na nÓg was never a cage—it was a sanctum. But when the blood of warriors spilled on sacred ground, and the mark of a Grá Croí lit the stones…you called the old power back.”
Wait, how the hell is this our fault?
“God damn it.” Viper tensed and locked eyes with Fionn. “We didn’t know any of that would happen. We were doing what you asked of us.” There wasn’t a hope in hell he was going to allow his men or Ward to take the blame for this shit.
“You weren’t meant to know. None of us were.” Fionn held his gaze steadily. “And yet it answered you. I have spent the night with our mystics and oracles, and the only explanation they cangive is that it happened because you are not intruders to this place. You were chosen by magic, but you were invited by me at the request of my hound.”
Juice rubbed a hand over his face. “So what, we’re supposed to stay here and play guardian at the gates? Leave our lives behind?”
“I didn’t say that,” Fionn said. “You have a choice to determine your own fate. But if you leave now, without finishing what you’ve begun… the realms will tear, and Tír na nÓg will be no more. I have just returned home to my clan. My warriors. My son. I do not wish to leave them so soon.”
Viper’s fingers curled against the edge of the bench. This was spiraling into something they hadn’t signed up for, and he hadn’t the faintest idea how to proceed with this shit.
Expect the unexpected.
This took ‘the unexpected’ to a whole new level. Breach an insurgent compound? Easy fucking day. Escort a VIP through enemy territory? Same shit, different day. Guard the fabric of reality against mythic fuckery? That had never been in his briefing packets… until now.
Trace leaned around Juice to catch Viper’s eye. “Fionn is right. I felt something strange the minute we stepped into this place. It’s like the land is, I don’t know, listening, maybe, or shifting. It feels like something is hunting across the ley lines, maybe even along the track of the same one we breached.”
