Silence settled like a hush across the men watching them. Trace had something almost gentle in his expression, as he nodded once and stepped back. Juice looked sheepish, and he rubbed the back of his neck, but didn’t interrupt. Kaze muttered something about “unresolved sexual tension” before Reaper elbowed him hard enough to knock the wind out of him, while Zero just straight up leered, then winked at him.
Ward didn’t care. All he could focus on was the pulse beneath Viper’s skin and the way their marks had started to glow again, crawling higher, lines of heat and promises spinning across their arms and carving declarations of vows they should make to each other in it. He felt a strange hum in his blood. He hadn’t recognized it before. He thought it was fear or adrenaline, but he knew what it was now.
It’s the mating bond.
Viper reached up, brushed his knuckles over Ward’s jaw, and dropped his voice. “No one breaks this bond. Not even fate. Not unless you ask me to.”
Ward’s breath hitched, and he leaned forward until their foreheads touched. He soaked in the heat between them and relished in the steady shiver still riding his spine. “Okay,” he whispered. “We figure it out as we go, okay? Just you and me. No input from the peanut gallery you call a team.”
“Deal,” Viper agreed immediately. He turned his head to glare at the guys. “This mating bond and what’s between me and Ward is off limits. Understood?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Sir, yes, Sir.”
“You got it, Boss.”
“What mating bond?”
“No clue, Zero,” Reaper responded. “Mating bonds are things in the movies. I don’t need to know that you watch vampire and shifter movies in your downtime.”
“Asshole.”
“Jerk face.”
Just like that, the guys were back on an even keel. But for Ward, everything had changed—everything, including how he viewed the man standing by his side.
By midmorning, the quiet lull of camaraderie began to fracture beneath the surface. Warriors began to gather again, and tension crept in low and dense like fog along the lake. Ward felt it in his bones before anyone said a word. The Fianna moved with intent, hands clasped over hearts or weapons, heads bowed toward a rhythm only they could hear.
It was Oisín who approached them this time, his presence softer than Fionn’s heavy aura but no less commanding. He nodded toward the circle of flat stones that edged the far side of Dun Fianna. “It is time.”
Ward exchanged a glance with Viper.
Time for what?
Viper was already rising, his face closed off into something unreadable—that blankness he wore like armor. The same one Ward had seen in the tunnel system when chaos reigned. His stomach churned as they followed Oisín.
They passed between rows of standing, silent warriors to the edge of the stone circle. Fionn waited, clad in ceremonial leather etched with symbols. Oisín moved to stand at his right, and beside them, dressed in hoods with their faces shadowed beneath braids thick with beads and bone, stood four women—priestesses, maybe.
“This is the Rite of Binding,” Fionn said, his voice low but carrying. “Tír na nÓg does not lend power lightly, but it has chosen you.”
Ward’s mouth went dry.
Wait. Power?
Nobody said anything about that.
Ward’s heart thudded. “What does that mean?”
“It means the power is already written into your blood,” Oisín said, “and if it deems you worthy, it will root in you. It will live in you.”
“And if it doesn’t?” Viper demanded an answer.
“Then it will burn through you.” Fionn didn’t soften his reply.
Of course it will.
Why the heck did I expect anything different?
