by Shea Balik
“What? Huh?” Those blue eyes cleared a bit as Wylie glanced down at his niece.
Tess pointed to the ground. “Sit. Now.”
Wow, she was a demanding little thing. Fritjof was impressed not only by the way she sounded so stern and commanding, but with how Wylie just followed her instructions.
“Impressive, pumpkin,” Fritjof complimented her as he knelt next to Wylie to check his vitals. They were okay, although his pulse was racing a little faster than he liked. Reaching for the backpack Wylie wore, Fritjof hoped there was at least one bottle of water in the thing.
Opening it up, he smiled when he saw not only water but power bars. He quickly opened up one of the waters and handed it to Wylie. “Drink,” he ordered.
When Wylie took it and did as told, Fritjof unwrapped one of the bars. After Wylie had taken several sips, Fritjof took it and replaced it with the now opened bar. “Eat.”
Tess gave a sharp nod when her uncle did. “Impressive,” she told Fritjof in an imitation of him.
“What in the hell is going on here?” Dùghall demanded as he and Wylie’s mother came up to them. “We were nearly a mile ahead of you.” Then he waved his hand to Wylie who was sitting on the ground, still appearing dumbfounded as he ate. “And you’re what? Having a snack? We don’t have time for this if we’re going to get out of the Amazon before nightfall.”
Fritjof didn’t want to state the obvious, but there was no way they’d make it to the boat before then. It had taken him ten hours of hard hiking to get from where his boat was to their farm. Already the sun’s rays had stopped offering much brightness as they filtered through the canopy.
If he had to guess, full darkness would be upon them in less than two hours. With at least eight hours left to go, they’d need to find a place to camp. Something made harder by the way they’d left so quickly without proper supplies.
“If you think you’re going to get to that river before dark, you’re crazy,” he told the man straight out. “You’ve lived in the Amazon for years. You damn well know it is too far to walk to the river in one day, especially since we started out so late.”
The only good part had been they’d done the ritual long before the usual dusk, a point which still hadn’t been explained well enough for his peace of mind. Since the damn curse, they’d been led to believe it had to occur as the sun set and not a moment before.
But with how often the Fae were now getting through not only long before that, but able to create holes even when it wasn’t one of the ritual days, they’d discovered the ritual could be performed whenever and still work. How?
Then again, it had been just over twelve hundred years and he still had no clue how in the hell something like a curse was not only real, but it could make eight people immortal. The only thing Fritjof really knew, was that he hated druids. But, he hated the Fae even more, which meant he needed to work with the druids if he was ever going to stop the Fae from taking over their world.
Dùghall’s face grew red as he pointed a finger right at Fritjof. “You don’t tell me what we can or can’t do. We’re getting out of this jungle.”
Then he turned on his heel and strode back the way he came from, mumbling about hating everything to do with druids and regretting ever getting mixed up with them.
Both Fritjof and Wylie turned, stunned, to Wylie’s mother, who blushed so red, he swore her cheeks might actually start on fire. But instead of answering their unasked questions, she followed her husband, leaving them behind.
“He’s not druid,” Wylie whispered almost to himself. “How can that be?” Since the question wasn’t directed at Fritjof, he decided to give Wylie some time to himself to figure things out on his own.
Well, not alone, physically, since he wasn’t about to leave the one person he needed to get back to Colorado if they had any hope of sealing that damn Veil once and for all. But he wouldn’t say anything until Wylie was ready to talk.
Standing, he held out his hand. Tess grabbed it instantly and started pulling herself up into his arms. Fritjof laughed lightly at her determination to have him carry her, but helped her up. Then he held his hand out once more.
When Wylie sat there shaking his head and staring at nothing, Fritjof said, “Wylie, you coming?”
“Huh?” Wylie glanced up at him, then his hand. Taking it, the still stunned man stood.
As if he were on autopilot, Wylie followed Fritjof, thankfully. Other than the occasional mumbling from Wylie about what they’d heard from his father, there was no conversation, not even from Tess, who had fallen asleep within minutes of them starting out.
Half afraid if they didn’t keep up with Dùghall, the man would take Fritjof’s boat and leave them stranded, Fritjof kept up a decent pace, even passing Dùghall and his wife after a few minutes. What would happen when they had to stop, and they would need to break for the night, as it was too dangerous to keep going in the dark, Fritjof wasn’t sure.
It would make for a long night but he would probably need to stay awake to ensure Dùghall didn’t take off. Fritjof had zero doubt the man would leave at some point, but he seemed to want Fritjof’s help to at least get him out of the Amazon. Once they’d done that, he wasn’t so sure the man would still be with them when they arrived in Colorado.
But no matter what Dùghall decided, or his wife, for that matter, Fritjof would protect Wylie and Tess with his life. Those two would make it to his home in the mountains, no matter what.
CHAPTER 6
“Fuck,” Wylie cried out as he tripped over another root, branch, snake, or whatever other godforsaken thing that littered the ground.
A firm hand wrapped around his arm, stopping him from face planting into the dirt. Grateful, he started to murmur his thanks to Fritjof, but his papa stopped him when he said, “Watch where you’re going, boy.”
“I would if I could see my hands, much less my feet or the ground.” Wylie winced the moment the words came out of his mouth. Talking back to his parents had never been tolerated, but even he could sense their patience with him and Tess were at an all-time low.
He could hardly see his papa, but there was just enough light for him to see his arm rise up as if to hit Wylie. But before the strike could come, a growl rumbled around them as Fritjof’s hand came out of nowhere and held his father back.
“Touch him and I’ll end you,” Fritjof warned.
Mama raced over to papa and put her own hand on his still upraised arm. “Dùghall, please. No. This isn’t going to help.”
“Help?” Papa yelled. “Nothing is going to help. Weren’t you listening? The Fae will do anything to kill all druids, but especially him.”
Wylie’s heart sank as tears sprang to his eyes. “Papa?” he whispered, unable to make his voice any louder around the lump that had formed in his throat.
Dark brown eyes that appeared black in the night, flashed with what Wylie would swear was hatred. “Don’t call me that. Ever.” The last word was practically screamed at him.
Then his father turned to his mama, the rage still visible in his gaze. “I never should have married you. Having to raise your two kids was bad enough, but this…” he waved his arms around. “I never signed up to live in the middle of the fucking Amazon and I sure as hell didn’t expect to have monsters come after me.”
Tears streamed down mama’s cheeks. “Please, Dùghall, I told you I was a druid. I taught you our ways.”
“But you didn’t mention anything about your daughter being knocked up by a fucking Fae, or having to run for our lives, not once, but twice, assuming you don’t count the several times we had to move to try and hide from that Fae.”
Mama held onto her husband’s arm with a death grip. “There was no way I could know that was going to happen. I never thought the Fae were real, much less that they could come into our world. You have to believe me,” she pleaded.
But Dùghall only shook off her hold. “Whether you knew or not doesn’t matter. I’m not going to risk my life for somet
hing that had nothing to do with me.” Then he started to stalk off.
Fritjof gently transferred a sleeping Tess to Wylie. It always amazed him what Tess could sleep through. As tired as he was, he nearly stumbled to the ground under her weight, but Fritjof placed a hand on his lower back to steady him. “Give me just a minute and I’ll take her back.”
Then Fritjof went after the man Wylie had always believed was his father. The advantage of night was that sound tended to carry, making it easy for him to overhear Fritjof even with his mama crying next to him.
A part of him felt sorry for her, but Wylie was still reeling from learning she’d lied all these years about who his father was and he wasn’t quite ready to offer comfort.
“Touch my boat and I will hunt you down.” The threat may not have been directed at Wylie, but he had to admit there was still a shiver of fear that raced through him. Fritjof was one scary guy.
“You’d have to catch me first.” What possessed Dùghall to say something that stupid, Wylie couldn’t imagine. By the choked off squeal that followed, he could only assume Dùghall was realizing his mistake right about then.
Wylie considered interrupting and helping the man who raised him, but he stopped himself. Dùghall was ready to walk away from them. Not just that, but, based on his reaction to Fritjof, he’d planned to leave them with no way to get out of the Amazon other than hiking.
Fuck him.
At least, finally, he began to understand why Dùghall had kept his distance from Wylie. He’d believed all this time it was because Wylie hadn’t been able to be the son Dùghall had wanted, but now that he knew it was because he wasn’t his son at all, it helped a lot. Well, it took some of the sting out of his hurt anyway.
“You saw what I did to those beasts you are so afraid of, that you’re willing to leave the people you called family behind, as you tuck your tail between your legs and run.” Fritjof’s imagery was hilarious.
If the situation wasn’t quite so serious, Wylie would have laughed.
“Trust me when I say, those creatures that have you acting like a scared little kid instead of a man, won’t compare in the slightest to what I’ll do you when I find you.” There was a pause that was filled with so much tension, Wylie’s knees were shaking. “And I will find you, of that you can be absolutely certain.”
Then there was a hard thump before Fritjof was once more next to Wylie, taking Tess off his hands. “Let’s find a place to bed down for the night. I don’t know much about the Amazon,” he admitted. “Is it better to sleep on the ground or in the trees?”
Wylie had no clue. He might have lived here for the past five years, but he’d never really done any outdoor sleeping. Only when they’d had to hike to their new home, which then they’d had to sleep on the ground, since they’d had not only a baby, but several horses weighed down with supplies.
“I’m not sure I’d trust myself in a tree,” he said, doing his best not to blush. “I’m kind of afraid of heights.”
Fritjof didn’t make fun of him in the slightest. “Ground it is. I don’t suppose anyone brought any sleeping bags or something to sleep on?”
This time Wylie couldn’t stop the blush. He just prayed the darkness hid it from Fritjof’s too observant gaze. “Uhm, no. But we could rest our heads against our backpacks.”
When he turned around to grab the pack his mama had been carrying, she wasn’t there. The pack was, but then again, it had been filled with most of Tess and Wylie’s clothes, while Dùghall had been carrying their clothes.
“Mama?” he called out.
Silence greeted him.
When he kept spinning around slowly, trying to figure out where she went, Fritjof cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, Wylie, but she followed Dùghall.”
Dizzy, Wylie felt his legs starting to give out from under him. Fritjof could only use one hand to help him slowly reach the ground, as he was still holding Tess and unable to keep Wylie upright at the same time. “What?” he whispered, sure he hadn’t heard Fritjof correctly. “But…”
He wasn’t sure what he was going to say, or if there was anything to say at that point. His own mother left him for a man who had been willing to just abandon all of them. Who did that?
“What’s wrong with me that they could just leave like that?” he asked of no one in particular, which apparently was a good thing, because no one answered him.
Terrified Fritjof had also left, he considered closing his eyes and praying his nightmare would end. But then he heard a soft thud near him. A glance to his right showed the backpack his mother had left behind on the ground and Fritjof gently placing Tess so she was leaning against it, with her upper body off the ground.
It wasn’t ideal, but then again, nothing about living in the Amazon had been, so why would things change now?
The backpack Fritjof had started carrying when they’d stopped earlier was placed by him. “Get some sleep,” Fritjof told him. “I’ll keep watch.”
Between Fritjof showing up that morning, the Veil opening, the Unseelie pets coming after them, learning the man who’d raised him wasn’t his father, and his mother leaving him, Wylie found himself unable to think, much less stay awake. It had all been too much and blissfully, his brain was willing to shut down.
With any luck, things would improve in the morning. Maybe he’d even wake up and find all of this had been some sort of nightmare. Right, because that was his luck in life.
There it was, his twenty-first birthday. Anyone else he knew would be out celebrating at a bar. Drinking with friends as everyone tried to get him as drunk as possible.
But not him. No, Wylie was running for his life. Doing everything in his power to save the niece he promised his sister he would protect with his life.
Oh, and don’t forget having the two people he thought would always have his back, just walking away, like he was nothing but garbage. Because that made his birthday even more special.
It was time to face facts. Wylie was cursed. He almost laughed at that thought, because, apparently, he really had been damned. Maybe not directly, but he was part of something he didn’t understand and wasn’t sure he ever wanted to.
“Happy fucking birthday to me,” he mumbled as his brain finally shut all the way down and the peace of sleep enveloped him.
CHAPTER 7
Sure he had whiplash from the sudden but much improved emotional state Wylie was currently in, Fritjof was having a difficult time figuring out how it happened. When Wylie had pretty much dropped into a dead sleep after his parents, well at least his mother and the man he’d always considered his father, left, Fritjof thought the rest of the trip would include Wylie crying, sullen, or just plain moody, yet none of that happened.
That had been two days ago and even now, as they’d arrived in Colorado, Fritjof was reeling from the easy way Wylie appeared to be taking the events. Oh, he was still dramatic, but not in the crying, ‘woe is me,’ kind of way he’d thought Wylie would demonstrate.
“I’m telling you, it’s like finding out when I was a little kid, I’d been kidnapped and raised by strangers.” There were no tears, just lots of hand gestures, which was something Fritjof had learned during their journey, Wylie did – a lot. Several times Fritjof had been smacked by one of those flailing hands.
Kegan was shaking his head with his brows furrowed and his lips pursed as if he’d tasted something sour. “I don’t get it,” Kegan finally said. “If Dùghall wasn’t a druid, why bother participating in the rituals?”
“Yeah,” Ryley chimed in, with an equally perplexed look on his face as the other druids. “I would have given anything not to have to do them.”
When Teagan rushed over to sit next to Wylie, even putting his arm around the slim man - who was way too skinny in Fritjof’s opinion, causing him to want to force feed him for a week straight just to get some meat on his bones - Fritjof expected Wylie to break down. But he didn’t. Not even when Teagan said, “Wylie, I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”
“Bitch, please,” Wylie responded with a roll of his eyes. “I’m better off without them and so is Tess. I mean, seriously, Dùghall ran off the first chance he had after seeing those pets.” Then his arm shot out to point at Fritjof. “And it was Fritjof who fought. Dùghall didn’t have to do a damn thing but perform the ritual.”
“Which, again, why?” Kegan asked. “He’s not a druid.”
“Maybe he just wanted to fit in?” Dermot offered lamely.
Once again, Fritjof was struck dumb when Wylie gave an, ‘I don’t give a shit,’ shrug. “Who cares? At least I no longer have to worry about his judgmental ass.”
Did Wylie’s blue eyes flick to Fritjof as if accusing him of being just as critical?
“You know me, sweeties, I’m not one to let things get me down,” Wylie said as if that would make his blasé attitude perfectly acceptable. “Now, tell me what’s been going on for… what’s it been? Nearly six years since we last saw each other?”
Fritjof couldn’t help but let out a snort of derision, which earned him a sharp look from Wylie. Maybe he really was judging but Fritjof couldn’t imagine not giving a shit that his parents just walked away from him.
Or, he might just be a little jealous that Wylie was able to go on without crying his eyes out, like Fritjof had when his mother had screamed for him to leave and never return because he’d allowed his father to die. His friends had always told him she hadn’t meant it, she was just heartbroken, but still… his own mother hadn’t wanted him around. That wasn’t something Fritjof had been able to shake off.
So why could Wylie? And did he really care?
Fritjof had done his part. He’d gone down there and saved one of the eight the prophecy claimed would eventually seal the Veil. He wasn’t needed any longer.
Ignoring the voice in his head reminding him of the part of the prophecy that told him he could fall in love with Wylie, Fritjof turned on his heel and strode from the room while Wylie continued to joke and laugh with his friends as they swapped stories of all that had been happening.
