The Stag Lord (4 page)

“No internal injuries. And even better, just a wrenched shoulder, not a cracked collarbone. He does have a concussion and a goodly number of scrapes and bruises, but otherwise, he's one lucky kid.”

“Not
so
lucky,” Bann murmured, gazing down at his son.

“Sorry?”

“Thank you for your help,” Bann said louder. He lifted Cor, nestling him close to his chest, and rose with the same trepidation he had used the moment the midwife had first placed the newborn in his arms. With Shay walking ahead to keep the branches from scratching father and son, Bann made his way to the trail.

Where he realized that he had only a vague idea how to get back to their campsite.

“Do you live nearby?” Shay asked.

“We're staying at the campground.”

“Is your wife waiting there?”

“My wife has passed.”

“Oh. Oh, I'm sorry.” Unlike so many others, Shay sounded like she really meant it. She looked up at the ledge overhead, then back at Bann. “My car's at the trailhead. Not too far from here. Let me drive you.”

In silence, they walked single file down the ravine. Goosebumps broke out on Bann's bare torso from the dropping temperature; he wondered if Colorado was always this cold in early October. He tightened his arms around Cor to keep him warm. Ahead of him, as if sensing the need for speed, Shay picked up the pace, her long legs covering ground with ease.

Bann found himself watching her. The knuckle-dragging part of his brain noted that this was a woman who kept herself in good shape. Make that
great shape
. A firm, sweetly rounded, and shapely shape.

Shame made him stagger. How could he be carrying Elizabeth's son, the child they had created together on a night so deep in winter the very air wailed from the cold, while eyeballing another woman? What was wrong with him?

Everything was wrong with him.

He was dragging his boy across the country in a hopeless flight from a monster that had haunted him his entire life. All the while, he was nursing a rage against his people for turning their backs on him when he had needed them the most, a bitter resentment that was causing a rift to grow between himself and Cor.

The horned one is after
yer
bloodline, Bannerman Boru, not ours
. He could still hear the voice of their local leader back in Pennsylvania, a man so cautious he probably sat to take a piss. How he had risen to the rank of chieftain was beyond understanding. Bann had begged for aid after discovering the creature had somehow managed to get to the New World.
The monster seeks vengeance against the descendents of Brian Boru alone, not the rest of us. ‘Tis yer family's curse
.

“Almost there,” Shay spoke over her shoulder, pulling him from his thoughts. “How's he doing?”

Bann looked down at the half-asleep Cor, whose eyelids drooped. “In and out of it.”

Walking out of the ravine ten minutes later, they passed the trailhead sign before reaching a small graveled parking lot. A lone vehicle, a newer-model SUV, waited in the deepening dusk. Overhead, the first stars made their debut.

“Why don't you two ride in the back?” Shay unlocked the doors, hovering nearby as Bann slid inside.

Letting Cor rest across his lap, he murmured his thanks as she eased the boy's feet out of the way, then closed the door. She climbed in the front and started the engine. Flipping on the lights, she made a cautious U-turn out of the parking lot, steering around potholes.

Cor blinked awake when they turned onto the park's main road. He looked around. “Where are we?”

“We're safe.” Leaning back against the seat, Bann flexed his arms, grateful for the respite from carrying a boy who, while pending-growth-spurt scrawny, still weighed plenty. “I ought to take a switch to you,” he grumbled. “Running off like that. What were you thinking?”

“I-I don't know.” Cor peered at the back at Shay's head. “Dad?” he whispered. “Who's that?”

Bann caught Shay's eye in the rearview mirror. He shook his head once, certain she would declare who, and even worse,
what
she was to Cor. Which would return him and his son to a battlefield that, frankly, he was sick of.

“Oh, I was just jogging by when I saw you fall and stopped to help. Now I'm giving you and your dad a lift back to your campsite.”

“Oh.” The boy closed his eyes with a sigh.

“I thank you, Shay Doyle,” Bann said after a long minute.

She nodded. Their eyes met in the rearview mirror. Shay looked away first.

Five minutes later, they reached the deserted campground. Shay slowed, easing the vehicle off the road one wheel at a time so as not to jostle Cor. The SUV's headlights bounced, then landed on the camper, illuminating the rig.

“Son of a bitch,” Bann breathed.

Broken glass glittered on the ground below the window of the camper, the shards sparkling in the headlights. The door was dented inward in the center, like it had grown a giant navel in the last hour. Small punctures in the aluminum panel, about the thickness of Bann's thumb, were scattered across the dent.

Bann eased his door open. “Stay. Both of you.” He slid out from under Cor, who was looking around in confusion.

“I think you got that backwards.” Shay reached down and fished something out from under her seat. Before he could protest, she jumped down. In her hand, a wicked-looking hunting knife, slimmer than the one Bann carried but just as lethal, gleamed bronze in the headlights. She started toward the camper.

Bann hurried after her, his own weapon already drawn. Halfway to the camper, he caught up with her and grabbed her elbow. “This is not your bleedin' fight, Shay Doyle,” he hissed.

She looked down at his hand on her arm, then up at him, eyes narrowed. “If it involves one or more of my people, then it
is
my
bleedin' fight
.” She jerked free and crept forward on silent feet.

Bann groaned silently, then joined her by the side of the camper. Motioning for her to wait, he tried the door. Still locked. He dug the keys out of his pocket with his free hand. Teeth bared with the effort, he manipulated the lock as silently as he could, then laid a hand on the knob.
One. Two. Three!
With a shout, he wrenched the door open.

Empty, except for the wind moaning through the shattered windows on either side of the camper.

Bann leaned further in. He frowned when Shay crowded him to look for herself.

“Random vandalism?”

No
. “Possibly.”

“Is anything missing from—” Shay looked down at a snapping sound by her feet. She bent over and picked something up.

It was an antler.

The hairs on Bann's neck stood at attention as a cold finger stroked his bare spine. “Drop it,” he hissed. “Quickly now, before Cor sees it.”

“What's wrong?” Shay asked as it tumbled from her fingers.

Bann booted the antler as far under the camper as he could, praying the darkness had hidden it from his son. “I'll ask you not to mention to the boy that you found that near our camper.”

“Ooo-kay. And why?”

“Dad?”

They turned at the voice behind them. Cor stood swaying a few feet away, his face a pale oval in the dusk. He clasped his switchblade in his uninjured hand, business end at the ready.

“What the hell are you doing?” Bann and Shay yelled at the same time.

“I-I was just…just…” He held up his knife. “Helping.”

“I'll make sure there aren't any other
you-know-whats
around,” Shay said in an undertone. “You get Cor back in the SUV out of the cold.” She climbed inside the camper, shoes clanging on the aluminum rungs, and disappeared. “Hey, Bannerman.” Her voice drifted out. “Wait a sec.” She reappeared with a man's flannel shirt. Tossing it to him, she explained. “Saw this hanging on a hook.”

“Thank you.” He pulled it on and began buttoning it, grateful for its warmth. “And I go by Bann, not Bannerman.”

“Yeah, I figured.” She disappeared again.

He frowned, perplexed by the statement, then shrugged. “And
you
, boyo.” He turned and pegged his son with an icy glare. A tiny part of his brain was grateful Cor was too distressed from the fall to notice the blade—
a bronze weapon, the traditional weapon of our people
—in the woman's hand. “Didn't I tell you to stay in the vehicle?”

“Yes, sir. But you didn't say for how long.” Cor pointed the knife at the camper. The weapon shook in his grip. “What happened to our—”

“Just some mischief makers.” He escorted the still-wobbly boy back to Shay's car. “Get in. Stay in. Or else you'll be standing to eat for a week.” He shut the door hard enough to make a point and started back. A part of him marveled that the boy could be upright and walking, much less playing backup, after falling off a cliff.

“All clear. Just broken glass everywhere.” Shay jumped out of the camper, eschewing the steps, and trotted around the far side. A faint snap-crunch. She reappeared a few moments later and joined him on his way to inspect his truck. “I pulled that thing out from under the camper and threw it in the underbrush. And maybe it's your reaction to it, but something about it gave me the heebie-jeebies in the worst way.” She shuddered, then spat on her fingers and scrubbed them dry on the hem of her shirt, nodding toward his pickup. “Well, at least your truck seems okay.”

They walked around it. It was untouched, as far as Bann could tell in the dying light. Resting an elbow on the hood, he dragged a hand down his face. His muscles felt like someone had taken a club to them. Even his teeth ached.

As if in sympathy, the wind moaned louder, complaining about the falling temperature. Trying to remember if he had any spare cardboard to block up the busted windows, he blinked when Shay said his name.

“Sorry?”

“I said, why don't you and Cor come home with me tonight? He shouldn't be spending the night in a drafty camper. And it feels like a bad storm's coming in. I've got a spare room you two can share.”

“No, but thank you.”

“Why?”

“Because…because…” He waved a hand about, hoping to pluck a plausible reason from midair.

“Because I'm some stranger-danger woman? And I might take advantage of you?” She looked at him, pointedly comparing her own strong but slender build to Bann's rugged frame, then snorted. “Yeah, I don't think so. So, look, Bannerman Boru, I'm not only a Tuatha Dé Danaan, but I'm also a Healer. I took the oath to dedicate my life to the service of the people.
Our
people.” She pushed strands of hair off her face in an impatient gesture when the breeze blew them into her eyes. “Now, I get it that you've got issues with our kind, but Cor needs a warm bed, hot food, and a few days to recover. What better place than in the home of a Healer? I promise not to say anything about…
anything
.”

Bann opened his mouth to say no. His mind had other plans. “Perhaps you're right.”
Where in the name of the Goddess did
that
come from
? He found he couldn't take it back. “I have your word you'll keep silent?”

“I promise not to say or do anything. Unless…” She squared her shoulders and locked gazes with him. “
Unless
keeping the secret of my identity puts either of you or our people at risk.”

Bann raised an eyebrow at the declaration. Shay raised one right back. Each waited for the other to break.

“Obstinate.” Bann broke first.

“I prefer strong-willed.”

“The difference?”

“One is charming. The other is not.”

In spite of everything, Bann gave a short laugh. “Right.” He spat on his hand and held it out.

“My, aren't we old school.” She did the same. They shook. “Good. Now about your camper—”

“I suppose I'll have to leave it behind.” He rubbed his eyes as he tried to think what they should bring and what they could leave.

“Why? I've got plenty of room for it by the side of my house. You can follow me home and park it there. Easier to get it repaired
and
you'll have access to all your stuff.”

A clever one, she is
. The notion of dropping the load of eternal vigilance, even for a few hours, made him sag with relief. “Give me a few minutes to secure the camper and hitch it back up.”

“Can I help?”

“Thank you, no. I've done this hundreds of times. But if you would sit with Cor…?”

Less than ten minutes later, they pulled out of the campsite, Cor back in the truck with his father. Shay led the caravan. One eye fixed on her taillights, Bann glanced over when Cor pointed at the Healer's car.

“Guess what, Dad? She's got a dog.
A dog
. I wonder if he'll like me.”

Bann groaned silently at the sound of wonder vying with envy in his canine-crazed son's voice.
She
would
have a bleedin' hound
. His hands tightened on the wheel. He wondered how much it would bankrupt him emotionally to once again refuse Cor's demand for a dog.

With my luck
, he thought dryly,
the beast will most likely love him unto death
.

4

C
HASING HER HEADLIGHTS THROUGH
the park, Shay tapped her thumbs on the steering wheel, her thoughts focused on the injured boy in the truck behind her. The gone, but still beloved, voice of her master chuckled in her ears.
Ye may be as fine a warrior as I've trained, Shay Doyle, but yer heart is that of a Healer, not a Knight. And ye should always follow yer heart
.

She glanced back at Bann's vehicle trailing hers.
Well, my heart tells me they need help. And not just the kid, even if Bannerman Boru doesn't think so
. She frowned at the man's clan name.
Boru. I wonder how closely he's related. That'd make Cor a descendent, too
. She smiled at the image of the boy coming after them, barely able to stand up, but determined to have their backs.
We Celts grow them tough
, she thought.
Fey or Human
.