The Irishman (A Legacy Novella) (The Legacy Series Book 7)

by Sheritta Bitikofer

  There were so many voices in his head that told him he could have been so much more than a husband and father. John wanted him to be an alpha, as did many within his former pack. But Darren didn’t wish for the responsibility. He never did. He could now wield his dominance as effectively as any good alpha could, but Darren saw the kind of stress such a position entailed. No. He was quite content to not be responsible for anyone else but his wife and daughter. They were a handful as it was.

  Darren couldn’t regret the detour in his fate. He was happy, as all men should be when blessed with such a perfect and loving family.

  While he watched Eleanor reach down and flick a bit of seawater at Lucy, a sensation crept up his spine. One that he hadn’t felt in the months since they last visited Bordeaux to see his father-in-law. It was that same prickling feeling in the back of his skull that alerted him to the presence of another loup-garou.

  His smile faded as he turned away to look up and down the beach. There wasn’t another soul for miles around and he heard no one coming from the forest behind him. The sensation was faint, as if the loup-garou were far away, but even then, Darren would have sensed his approach otherwise.

  It wasn’t until his gaze swept over the receding tide that he finally saw him. The current had washed up his body onto the shore, probably just a minute or so earlier. Darren hadn’t detected him upon their arrival to the beach.

  The stranger wasn’t too far away, but the signal was still weak, and the longer Darren watched, the more he came to understand the man’s situation. Whoever the loup-garou was, he was close to dying.

  He stood and cautiously made his way down the beach.

  “Darren,” his wife called out, “what is it?”

  He held out his hand, telling them not to come any closer. Lucy must have seen it first and let out a startled squeak before rushing to her mother’s side for protection.

  The closer he came to the near corpse, the stronger the sensation in his skull became, but it was still incredibly feeble, just like his heartbeat. The loup-garou lay face-down, his clothes torn and tattered as if he had been beaten against the rocks mercilessly by the tide.

  Was he a castaway from a shipwreck? Or did he drift down from the northern shores to arrive at this tiny bay? What luck was it that Darren’s family decided to take a trip to the coast on the same day when this man happened to be washed up onto the beach?

  Darren perceived him to be unconscious and rolled the loup-garou over so he could get a better assessment of his condition. Pale and in great need of nourishment, he would have certainly died if left alone for long enough. He let out a sigh and pitied the poor boy, whoever he was. He couldn’t have been more than eighteen or nineteen years old. Freshly turned, too.

  He looked over his shoulder and saw the expectant stares of his wife and daughter. Without ever having to say a word, Darren was given all the permission he needed to take the boy home when Eleanor nodded her approval to the unspoken plan. Her father would have done the same thing for any wayward soul, and she knew that the same compassionate heart beat within Darren’s chest as well.

  Whether he could do anything for the boy was another question entirely, but Darren knew he had to do something. He couldn’t just leave him there to die. Not when he had so much more life left to live.

  Landes Forest, France, Three Days Later

  Dustin felt his senses return to him in bursts of definite clarity through an indeterminate span of dreamless sleep. He hated those moments when he heard the voices of strangers in the darkness or smelled food roasting over a fire somewhere in the void. Every bit of it reminded him that he was not dead. Not yet. And with each new brilliant awareness of his surroundings, he willed himself to sleep again, hoping that eventually he would simply pass away without effort.

  When the sounds and scents bombarded in, he was also aware that someone had dressed him in clean clothes and tucked him in on a soft downy mattress. He could smell the feathers stuffed in his pillow and the musty aroma of wood all around him. He didn’t want to be warm, but he couldn’t force his muscles to push away the blanket that covered him.

  As time dragged on and death didn’t steal him away, Dustin became familiar with the voices. Two women and one man. Whenever the man’s voice was particularly close, another sensation that reminded him of his painful existence prickled at the back of his head. He likened it to once when he had drank too much and fell backward against a support column inside the pub in Glengarriff.

  One of the feminine voices was marked by a youthful, childlike pitch and he couldn’t attach it to the image of a grown woman as he could with the other voice. When his wakefulness came more and more frequently, he learned their patterns. Though he couldn’t fully understand their words, because they often spoke in intermittent French, Dustin sometimes grasped their meaning just by their tones and inflections. For example, he knew the little girl found herself in trouble quite often and the father was far more tolerant than the mother when it came to discipline.

  It was on that final morning – and he knew it was morning because of the bird songs that fluttered through the air outside the home – that Dustin woke up and could no longer force himself to pass out again. He stayed awake, achingly alert to the gnawing hunger in his gut and the close proximity of the man who brought with him that tingling sensation.

  Dustin let his head roll to the side, reflexively shying away from the light that burned through his eyelids like that morning he awoke in the forests outside Kenmare. The man stirred from his place on the other side of the room and came to Dustin’s bed.

  A few long moments passed, but the man didn’t go away. How Dustin wanted to be left alone to die. Why hadn’t the fall off the cliff killed him? Why hadn’t the ocean received him and dragged him down to the depths as he had hoped for? Why couldn’t he just will himself into the abyss of death?

  His stomach growled so violently that his body shivered with the need to eat. The man instantly stood and left the room, only to return with what Dustin could assume was a plate of food. And it was the sweetest thing he had ever smelled in his life.

  Something implored him to open his eyes, to turn his head toward the stranger and look upon the plate piled with some sort of roasted, sliced meat that made his mouth water. Dustin continued to stare at the meal being offered to him, one half wishing to lunge forward and snatch it away with greedy hands. The other half still wished to die and waste away in his frailty. How could two desires exist within him at the same time?

  “I know you’re hungry,” the man spoke in perfect English. “Don’t force me to push it down your throat.”

  Dustin glanced briefly up into the brown eyes of the Englishman. His features were shadowed out as he faced away from the open doorway into the room. There was little use in hiding his surprise to hear this man, whom he assumed to be French, speaking like the hated British aristocracy back in Ireland.

  His voice failed him when he opened his mouth to question the man. He was still far too enervated to form words or sentences. But something told him that if he only ate a little, then he’d have enough strength to ask about everything. Still, he refrained from taking the meat and his fingers twitched beneath the blanket, unsure of whether to disobey his own will and give into the survival instinct.

  The man let out an agitated sigh and picked up a bit of the meat between his fingers to offer it to Dustin.

  In a move that seemed so entirely unlike him, a low growl rumbled in his throat that he thought would be incapable of speech. The stranger didn’t withdraw the meat that he held just inches from Dustin’s nose.

  Something like a cold draft passed over his eyes and all sense left him. Before he realized it, the meat and the plate were in his hands. The blanket was thrown back and Dustin’s mouth was full at last. The man eased away and let his guest devour the meal in no time at all.

  When it was done and the food was secure in his stomach, Dustin’s hands began to shake with the realization of what he had ju
st done. It was not a sin to feed oneself, but he began to understand what it was that kept him alive.

  It wasn’t some hateful God or angel that kept him safe from harm when he jumped off the cliff in Ireland. It wasn’t luck or fate that he was handed into the care of this perfect stranger that seemed to understand exactly what he needed. It was the monster caged up in his chest. The monster wanted him to live and continue to be tormented by the memory of his dead wife. The monster wanted him to eat and revive, so it could kill again one day. Rage and self-loathing ignited within him once more and he cursed himself for being so powerless against this inner enemy.

  Dustin took the plate and threw it across the room, making it shatter against the wood paneling. The stranger didn’t even flinch, but he heard the hurried footsteps of the woman come from the other side of the house.

  The woman, tall and with a sturdy frame that gave the impression of strength and resilience, stood in the doorway as she wrung her hands in her apron. Dark eyes looked from Dustin to the man and she asked a question in French that Dustin didn’t understand. By her pinched expression, he could tell that she was more troubled by her guest than the destroyed dinnerware.

  A short conversation passed between them and Dustin only grabbed the edge of the blanket. He rolled over until his back faced them both and he burrowed deeper under the covers, wishing once more that some miracle would occur, and he could be free of his suffering.

  The woman left again and a silence settled between the two men.

  “I know what you must be feeling,” the stranger began. “I know how confused you are, how frustrated… But you’re not alone. There have been countless men that have come before you and lived through these first few months. It’s not impossible to gain control. You just have to –“

  “You don’t know anything of what I’ve been through,” Dustin growled.

  A few beats went by before the man spoke again. “I know a great deal,” he returned. “You may have woken up in a strange place you didn’t recognize, naked and with new abilities you never dreamed of having. You can hear things you shouldn’t, smell everything down to the tiniest detail, and you can feel something inside of you that you know isn’t yourself.”

  Too startled by this bold speech, Dustin looked over his shoulder and regarded the man with suspicion.

  The Englishman only smiled and nodded. “Yes, I know a great deal. What I don’t know is your name or why an Irishman washed up on a French beach.”

  So, he was in France. That didn’t explain why this man was so obviously English though. Dustin looked him over for any clue as to how he could know so much. Had he been talking in his sleep somehow? There was no way he could have simply guessed all of these things.

  “How did you know?” Dustin finally questioned, unable to suppress it any longer.

  The man eased back on the stool he was sitting on. “Because it happened to me. It’s happened to many. You do know what you are, don’t you?”

  Dustin turned away again, unwilling to face the reality of what this man was asking. Yes, he had an idea of what he was, but he would never say it aloud if he could help it. To think that there were more monsters, more beasts roaming around in the world gave him absolutely no consolation. It only proved to make him more irritable that he didn’t know such things existed before he became one himself.

  “Can I at least have your name?” the stranger asked, mercifully dropping the previous topic.

  At first, Dustin didn’t see the point of exchanging names. As soon as he was well again, he planned to leave this house and give self-destruction another try. Yet, something told him that whoever this man was, he wasn’t going to let him go that easily. What harm was there in giving him his name?

  “Dustin Keith,” he replied.

  “My name’s Darren Dubose. That was my wife who came in a moment ago. I’ll introduce you two once you’re well again.”

  He didn’t want to be well again, but he wasn’t about to confess that to Darren. Not yet. He didn’t know, didn’t fully understand what Dustin had done and probably never would. He neither turned over, nor gave Darren any acknowledgement.

  “I’ll let you rest for a while, but I fully expect you to join us for dinner. Eleanor’s cooking up a roast especially for you and she’d be very put out if you don’t have even a little bit.”

  Darren stood and quitted the room, shutting the door behind him. Darkness closed in once more and it was then that he realized the curtains were drawn over the windows to help block out the light that would keep him awake.

  Dustin took one last glance to the door and then to the shattered pieces of porcelain on the floor that Darren hadn't bothered to pick up before leaving. He remembered the uncensored anger he felt when he hurled the plate across the room and a twinge of guilt suddenly crept up to add to his anguish. Both Darren and Eleanor had been nothing but accepting and kind to him. They didn’t deserve such behavior, even if Darren was an Englishman. If Dustin were a normal man, he would have never been so irrational and careless with someone else’s property.

  It only proved a point that he could never forget. He was a beast.

  Darren softly closed the door behind him, sealing up his new ward in the spare bedroom of their modest cottage. Eleanor was still occupied in the kitchen with her meal preparations for that evening and he could hear the light scratch of pencil to paper as Lucy continued her lessons close by.

  He let out a long breath, unsure of exactly how to proceed. This new loup-garou, Dustin, was clearly vexed by something that he was unwilling to confess. The spark of rage he displayed against the unoffending dinner plate made it evident enough. He must have known what he was, what they were.

  Three long days and nights were spent looking after him in what little way they could until he was well enough to stay awake. Darren often heard Dustin’s heartbeat become unsteady with fear each time he became conscious again. And each time he fell back asleep, Darren wondered if he would ever revive again.

  If he didn’t know better, he would have thought the boy didn’t want to wake up. His last unanswered question confirmed what he suspected. Dustin was alone in the world and did not fully understand what he had become. Either he never knew his father or he was never told about what would happen when he came of age. Or worse, perhaps Dustin had been bitten.

  It was far too early to pry into the particulars of his condition, but one thing did have to be decided upon. Would Dustin stay with Darren and his family, or should he be sent to Albi to train with John at the chateau? Darren had never personally trained up a young loup-garou without another mentor close by to assist. He knew the lessons, the training, and the precautions that had to be taken. Just having Lucy and Eleanor nearby was a risk in itself, but as long as Dustin confined himself to the bed and refused to move, they were in no danger.

  Darren joined his wife in the kitchen and leaned in the doorway, watching her chop the vegetables that would be cooked separately from the roast. It was a fortunate thing that she had been taught the best ways to prepare a meal for both human and loup-garou stomachs.

  She looked to him with that same worried expression that she had given earlier when she came to check on the men.

  “Will he be all right?” she asked again, concern laced in her words.

  Darren nodded. “I believe so. He just needs time.”

  Eleanor set down the knife on the cutting block. “Did he say anything to you?”

  “Nothing but a name and even that was with a great deal of resentment.” He wasn’t afraid of Dustin hearing their conversation. More accurately, Darren didn’t think that he would understand them. If he really was Irish as his accent suggested, then it was likely he didn’t have the proper education to understand French.

  The endearing alarm in her face was tainted by a bit of indignation. “Resentment? What has he to be resentful of? If we hadn’t taken him into our home, he would have died there on the beach for sure. I can’t believe he just threw that plate against
the wall like he had any right to –“

  Darren held up his hand to silence his wife’s rant. “Plates can be replaced, mon cheri.”

  She knew that he was right, but that didn’t sooth away the tension in her shoulders. “I simply don’t want us to be taken in by this man.”

  “Dustin,” he corrected.

  Eleanor shrugged. “Fine. I don’t want us to be taken in by Dustin if he should prove too much to handle. What if next time, it’s not a plate and it’s our daughter?”

  Somehow, without really knowing the loup-garou, Darren doubted that Lucy was in any real danger from him. He shook his head to the notion. “She will be fine and so will Dustin.”

  Eleanor propped a hand on one of her full hips. “So, you will be taking him to John?”

  It was pointless to lie to her. She could see through a falsehood as easily as Darren could. “I’m not sure yet.”

  His wife bit her lips together in a pained look, and she probably assumed exactly what was passing through his mind at that moment. Finally, she asked, “You’re going to try and train him, aren’t you?”

  Darren pushed himself off the door casing and ambled toward the table littered with spice bottles and chopped up vegetables. “The thought had occurred to me.”

  For a moment, he wasn’t sure what Eleanor’s opinion on the matter would be. Her brows knitted together to convey both her anxiety and her pride for her husband’s irrational thought. Darren certainly had the ability to train a new loup-garou on his own, and he had the dominance to conduct the initial breaking once Dustin shifted again. Yet, to actually do these things in practice might have proven to be too much for their little family. Without the support of an allied beta to assist, it might have been even more difficult.

  “Don’t worry yourself,” Darren said, picking up a piece of chopped carrot. “If Dustin is too wild or breaks any more dishes, I’ll take him to John right away.”