“I didn’t get any new ink.” Reaper followed Juice’s gaze and twisted his arm to glance at the skin just above his elbow. His eyes widened at the red swirls.
What the fuck?
Trace eyed him, took a slow sip of his coffee while his thumb traced idle circles over Juice’s hip where he still sat perched on his lap. “Those are the mating marks of a Hound of the High King,” Trace said, like it was the most normal thing in the world. Like they weren’t all sitting around his kitchen table, talking about a place that belonged in bedtime stories and drunk Irish uncles’ tall tales. “Which of my hound pack brothers is your Grá Croí?”
“No—none of them.”
“Liar.” Trace nudged Juice to stand up and then got to his feet. He snatched Reaper’s arm, pulled it close, and peered at the mark. “Remember how you crossed the fairy wards when you first came here?”
“I do. But that means shit.”
“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, butyou’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—heisthe 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?”
