BANN FORCED HIMSELF NOT to react when slender fingers curled around his chin, their coolness in contrast to the fire that still raged inside him. They reminded him of Elizabeth’s—soft and delicate. Pretending to keep his eyes half-closed was easy, considering he felt like someone had gone to town on him with a baseball bat.
Letting his head loll after the fingers released him, he relaxed his muscles further, trying to fool his captors—those bastard Fir Bolgs. And when did they capture me again?—into a false sense of control as they dragged him toward some building he had never seen before. His vision swirled. He blinked, trying to get the world back in focus. A strong, nasty taste, like the way week-old fava beans smelled, coated his tongue.
A figure in white appeared, murmured something, then floated away. He thought he heard Shay’s voice. Did they capture her, too? And where is Cor? All the while, the fire within threatened to burst into flames.
Wait, the Voice told him. Wait, and then, when the time is right, snatch the nearest weapon and start a-slashing. Fight free, take your woman, and go in search of your child. Testing his captors’ attention, he pretended to stumble. Hands caught him, surprisingly gentle as they patted his arms. It’s a trick, the Voice warned him.
“Shay?” he whispered.
“I’m right here.” A hand squeezed his biceps.
Good. She’s near. “Where’s Cor?”
“He’s not here yet. Ann is—”
“Be ready to flee,” he murmured to her. “I’ll fight them off as long as I can, then follow you.”
“It’s the belladonna,” Bann heard Shay say to someone. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
Clever lass. She’s lulling those creatures into thinking I’m drugged. Good. Very good.
He raised his head slowly, eyes half-lidded. Shay walked on one side of him. A large figure was on the other. Something about his captor seemed familiar; the light from the nearby street lamp made his hair a red flame. Since when did Fir Bolgs have hair, red or no? he thought wildly. A building loomed up in front of him… some sort of shop with a display window. For a moment, the captor’s grip loosened.
NOW! shouted the Voice.
With a cry, Bann wrenched free of the hands, then rammed his shoulder into the redheaded Fir Bolg and shoved him into the display window. The shrill tinkle of breaking glass ripped through the night. And probably through some flesh as well. He bared his teeth in savage joy.
“Bann!” Shay reached for him.
“Run!” Grabbing her hand, he bolted around the corner of the building. Two other creatures jumped in front of him. Plowing into them with a snarl, he knocked them off their feet and kept running. Hope flamed when he spotted Shay’s SUV parked in a nearby lot. He sped up, dragging a resisting Shay who kept yelling at him to stop for one damn minute. Reaching the vehicle, he dug through his jeans and yanked out his key ring. He fumbled for a moment, cursing, as he tried to find the right key.
“Bann! Listen to me.” Shay tried to grab the keys from him. “You’re infected with—”
He pulled away and unlocked the passenger door. “Get inside. Now.” Running around to the other side, Bann flung himself into the driver’s seat and started the engine. “Shay! Hurry!” he shouted over the engine.
Shay hesitated, looking back over her shoulder, then jumped in. “Bann, please! You need to stop and listen—”
He gunned the engine and tore out of the parking lot, just missing several figures that were running toward the only other vehicle in the lot. Tires screeching, he made a U-turn in the street and headed east.
“Where are we going?” Shay clicked her seatbelt in place.
“We need weapons.” He wiped the sweat running down his face. “We’ll return home, arm ourselves, then free Cor.” He glanced over. The skepticism on the woman’s face made him even more furious. A red haze filled his vision.
The Voice whispered again—it seemed to be growing louder with every minute. Who is she to doubt you? “I know what I’m doing.”
“Bann,” Shay began again, using the patronizing tone he was finding irritating. “You’re sick. Cernunnos has made you—”
He slammed his hand on the steering wheel. The blow reminded him how much damage he had done to his arm. “Enough! ’Tis nothing wrong with me. I’m trying to keep ye and the boy safe from those creatures. Now, obey me!” He sped up.
Lips pressed in a thin line, Shay said nothing, but tightened her seatbelt.
Fifteen minutes later, they pulled into the driveway. The house was dark. “Wait here, Shay. I’ll fetch the weapons, then we will be gone. And keep the doors locked.” He climbed out, taking the keys, and nodded when she locked the car doors behind him. Glancing around at the shadows, he jogged to the front door. Inside, he headed down the hallway to their bedroom.
From the knives hanging on the inside of the closet door, he selected four and jammed one into his sheath, two through his belt. The other, he kept in his hand. And now for Cor. He headed back toward the front door. Just as he reached for the knob, he paused, head cocked.
The sound of car doors shutting softly. Then voices speaking in low tones as they approached. Shay’s was one of them.
That bitch. I ordered her to stay in the vehicle.
He tensed when the doorknob rattled. With a curse at the realization that Shay had betrayed him and joined the enemy, he spun around and bolted out the back door. Halfway across the yard, he skidded to a stop when he spotted two forms, both with drawn weapons. He raised his knife.
“Easy, Bann.” One of the figures held out a hand, palm up. “It’s James. James Doyle. For Cor’s sake, you need to—”
“My son,” Bann said in Gaelic. “Where is he?”
The two men looked at each other. “Something about ‘my son’ was all I got,” the other man said.
The porch light blazed on. Bann jerked around. Two others stepped out from the doorway—to his dismay, Shay was one of them. He slid a second weapon free as the foursome, the largest one bleeding from a gash on his forehead, surrounded him. Lips pulled back, he snarled, the sound a rumble in his chest. Like a hound’s.
Like a hound’s.
For a split second, his vision cleared. The red haze he had been peering through faded, leaving the night air clean and pure and holy. Lowering his weapons, he looked around at Shay’s family—my family—circling him with wary expressions.
Shay edged forward. “Bann?” She studied his eyes, as if desperately searching for something.
Licking dry lips, Bann swallowed, then spoke. “Cor.”
“Still safe.” She took another step toward him. “Now, let’s take care of you.”
He looked down at his arm. “Cernunnos?”
“Yes. But we know how to cure you.” She took another step. “But we need to hurry. So what do you say you put down those knives?” She reached for him.
They are trying to trick you, you know, the Voice said. They have your son as hostage for some nefarious reason, no doubt. Well, two can play at that game.
With a growl, he grabbed her and spun her around, pinning her to his chest with one arm while he pressed a knife against her throat with his other. “Stand down,” he yelled at the others. “Stand down or I will—”
With a cry, she yanked an arm free, grabbed his mutilated finger, and twisted it as hard as she could. White-hot pain almost made him black out. A blow from her elbow to his solar plexus, then she was loose. Spinning on her toes, she cocked back her arm.
The last thing he saw was her fist approaching.
A voice—not the Voice that had haunted him for the last few days, but a beloved voice—whispered to him from the far edge of wherever he was. Just the tenor alone, a mix of concern and love and annoyance, was like a light in the darkness.
“Bann?” Fingers ran along his cheek, then stroked his forehead, smoothing his hair back. “Anytime you want to wake up would be fine with us.”
Shay, darlin’? He tried, but lifting his eyelids was just too hard. He settled for a facial twitch.
“I think he smiled. Just for a moment.” Another voice spoke. The boyish tone made Bann’s heart swell so much he swore he cracked a rib. “Dad?” A soft breath on his face, then a forehead pressed against his. “Wake up, Dad.”
To be sure, I’m trying, son.
“Can he hear us, Shay?”
“I don’t know, Cor. But, if he can, I bet he’d like to know that everything’s okay.”
Another whiff of breath, this time in his right ear. “Dad, Shay says everything’s okay. They cured you. And I’m fine. And Sam is fine. And James is trying to fix that bed thing.” A sniffle. “So wake up, okay?”
Right. Just as soon as I remember how. He tried again. The effort alone made him want to go back to sleep. But Shay was waiting. And Cor. Knowing he would chew his way back through the seven hells to reach them, he forced one eye open.
A blur of blue-black shadows and a yellow light off to one side. He peeled open the other eye and blinked. The world swam into focus. He blinked again.
He was lying in their bed, the comforter tucked up around his shoulders. Shay perched on the mattress next to him. In the glow of the bedside lamp, her hair was a royal gold mantle around her shoulders. On his other side, Cor sat cross-legged by his hip. A purple dinosaur bandage was affixed to the inside of his elbow. They both beamed at him.
He started to smile back when the memory of the last few days threatened to slam him back into oblivion. Oh, gods! The memory of striking Cor and holding a knife at Shay’s throat washed over him in a heatwave of shame.
“Oh, no you don’t, Bannerman Boru.” Shay leaned over and locked eyes with him. “You start beating yourself with that I was a monster to my family whip and I’ll kick your butt so hard, you’ll walk funny for a month.” She looked across at Cor. “How was that?”
Cor snickered. “Pretty good.”
Tempted to hang on to his guilt, but knowing that the Healer was Warrior enough to really kick his arse that hard, Bann surrendered. “Wha’ happen?” he slurred, his tongue only working at half-speed. A sharp pain zinged along the left side of his face and up into his temple. A memory poked him. “Did…did you clout me?”
“Yup.” She grinned. Rather proudly, he noted. “By the way, you’ve got a jaw like a Brahma bull.” She held up her right hand. Her wrist was immobilized with an Ace bandage, and her index finger was splinted and wrapped with white adhesive tape. “I’m lucky I only broke the one finger and sprained my wrist.”
“You should have used a club,” he rasped.
“Next time, for sure. Anyway, Orwren met us here and did her druidess thing.” Shay curled her lip. “Which, by the way, wasn’t all that impressive and hardly needed any preparation at all. She just likes to showboat. Plus, she stunk up the house with her cheap incense. It’s going to take days to air out—”
“Shay?”
“What?”
“Let it go.”
Shay blushed. “Right. So, basically, she drew blood from Cor, put a few drops of it in a fancy-shmancy goblet that had a concoction in it that looked and smelled just like root beer—no matter what Ann said—and mumbled some words in Urdu or something over it.” Bann’s lips twitched at Shay’s version of letting it go. She continued. “We dosed you with it, then put you to bed. You’ve been pretty much out of it the last few hours.”
“What time is it now?” He licked cracked lips, mouth dry.
She leaned over and picked up a glass of nettle tea. “A little after midnight.” Plunking in a drinking straw, she held it while he drank.
After a few good pulls, he nodded and sank back further on the pillow. Feeling the brew beginning to work its magic on him, he sighed in relief. “Now what?”
“Now you get your strength back.” She set the glass on the bedside table. “We’ve got a wedding to organize, a new house to move into, and a family to grow.”
“Am I cured, then?” Probably not. Our luck never runs that way.
“You are.”
“How can you be certain?” Determined not to get his hopes up, he frowned when Shay and Cor grinned at each other.
“I’ll show you.” Cor rolled off the bed and dashed out of the room and down the hall. A metallic clang. A murmur of voices. Then, a few moments later, he came back with Sam in his arms. He placed the puppy on the bed, then climbed up after him.
Sam stood for a moment by Bann’s feet, sniffing the air. Another sniff, then his tail began to wag. Bann eased an arm from under the covers and held out his hand. Tail wagging harder, Sam walked closer. His tongue darted out for a quick lick.
“Good lad,” Bann said softly. He ran a thumb along the top of the small head, then laughed when Sam scrambled on top of him to stand nose to nose.
As Sam tried to cover the man’s face with puppy kisses, Cor hooted. “See, Dad? He’s not scared of you, which means you don’t have any of that bad stuff in you anymore.”
“Apparently.” Bann cuddled the small, warm body until Sam yawned, showing all his teeth. He handed the puppy back to his son. “Back to bed with the wee one, now.”
“You, too, short stuff,” Shay said to Cor.
Bann settled back in the pillows to watch the show.
“But Shay, I don’t want to…”
“Tough Teflon.”
“Can’t I just…”
“Nope.” Shay rose and plucked Sam from Cor’s arms. “Say goodnight to your dad.”
Scowling, Cor slid off the bed. “’Night, Dad,” he muttered, leaning in to touch foreheads with his father. The scowl shifted to a reluctant smile when Bann pulled him close for a hug.
“Codladh sumh, son. Sweet dreams.”
Bann watched Shay, with the puppy in her arms, usher the boy out of the room. Now, maybe, sweet dreams for all of us.