Black Dog: A Christmas Story (Knights of Black Swan Book 13)

by Victoria Danann

  Where had the time gone?

  Helm smiled brightly when Elora came into view, tears already forming in her eyes. “Mum!”

  She grabbed the sides of his head and peppered his entire face with kisses while he chuckled, partly from the delight of a mum who thought he was the best elf ever born, and partly from knowing that his face had been covered with Blackie’s ‘kisses’ minutes before. Knowing his mother, she probably wouldn’t have cared. He was sure she loved that dog as much as her own children.

  When she let him go, she said, “Welcome home, love.” She grabbed his collar and looked at the top of his head. “Did you get taller? You DID, you little stinker. I told you to stop growing.” She looked at her mate. “Ram. He’s taller isn’t he?” Ram shrugged. She turned her attention back to Helm and bathed the room with her megawatt smile. “And handsome enough to blind the sun.”

  “Mum. You’re startin’ to sound like an Irishwoman.”

  “I’ve been takin’ lessons from your da for fifteen years. It’s a total immersion program.” She lowered her voice. “Nobody does silver tongue better.”

  “Heard that.” Ram smiled smugly.

  “Of course you did. Just look at the size of those ears.”

  “I happen to know you like the size of these ears,” Ram said.

  “Great Paddy, do no’ start this,” Helm said. “The two of you have a room on the premises for carryin’ on.” He shook his head, but secretly loved the fact that his parents had so much affection for each other that it constantly spilled over. “I see no’ much has changed.”

  Elora pivoted to a new subject without warning. “We’re having your stew and soda bread.”

  Helm grinned. “Right now? Excellent. ‘Cause I’m starvin’.”

  “’Course you’re starvin’,” Ram said. “You’re fourteen. But no. We’re eatin’ dinner at dinner time. You can stuff your face with stuff your sisters made earlier.”

  He laughed. “I’m thinkin’ that means they made a complete haymes of it. Where are they?”

  He’d barely got the question out when his sisters came running into an already crowded mud room with their own version of welcome; squeals, hugs around the waist, and jumping up and down. Helm was thinking that homecoming wasn’t all bad. It could only do a fella good to be reminded how much he meant to his people.

  Charlie Sweeney had told his mother he’d be home for Yule. The widow, Mav Sweeney lived a quarter mile from the Hawking place on a tiny farm that the family had managed to keep through thick and thin. The little house was rustic, white stucco and small; no bigger than the smallest city apartment. Still, Charlie invited his friend and business associate, Jack Doyle to come home with him since Jack had no one and nowhere to go.

  The light was failing when they passed the Hawking farm, but it wasn’t so dark that the sight of a large black German Shepherd racing down the hill didn’t catch their eyes.

  The two men exchanged a meaningful look before Jack’s face spread into a wicked smile. “Looks like Yule’ll be good to me after all this year.”

  After a minute Charlie said, “They’re my mum’s neighbors.”

  “Aye,” said Jack. “Your mum’s rich neighbors. Bet they ne’er did a thing for her.”

  Charlie sighed, silently agreeing that was probably true.

  In fact, the Hawkings were generous with their neighbors. They made sure that people in their little corner of the world had fuel for warmth in winter, enough to eat, and help of the amateur veterinary variety, which Ram could manage in a pinch. Earlier that day Elora and the twins had delivered feasts they’d made themselves to several neighboring families.

  But the idea of a well-off family being kind to those less fortunate didn’t fit the rationalization that people who lived in a place like the pretty farm and kennel had some bad luck coming to them.

  “Did you get a look at that big fucker? Moran might turn loose a commission and a smile.”

  “Bloody unlikely. In any case, we’re doin’ Yule with my mum.”

  “Aye. To be sure. That hound’s not goin’ anywhere.”

  “That was no hound.”

  Jack grunted.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Elora thought nothing could be more heavenly than the scene in front of her. Rammel, the twins, and Helm laughing and arguing over some board game while Blackie looked on from his braided rug bed by the centuries-old fireplace. He caught her staring at him and raised his head as if to say, “You need me?”

  She walked over, squatted down, and rubbed his favorite petting spot behind his ears. “Have I told you lately how much I love you? How glad I am that you’re my dog?”

  There were words that Blackie understood, but whole sentences were beyond him. Still, he read the sentiment behind the words loud and clear. He gave her wrist a tiny lick kiss and lowered his head to rest on his paws, all the better for watching Elora fuss with presents under the tree.

  Ram rose from the table. “Time to see to the wolves.” Ram never referred to the wolf-dogs as anything but wolves. He gave Helm a pointed look that said, “Home for the holidays means home in every sense of the word, includin’ chores.”

  Helm knew there was no point in arguing and, had his soul been bared, it would have revealed that Helm had always liked working with his da, even if he put up a show of complaining. He stopped in the mudroom to shrug on a puffy coat and pulled a knit hat down over his ears.

  Once outside and walking toward the outbuildings, Ram said, “’Twas nice of you to come home with gifts for your mum and your sisters.” Helm laughed. “What’s funny?”

  “You think I forgot ye?” Ram started to protest, but allowed a sheepish smile to tag him as caught. Helm laughed again. “Got you somethin’, too, Da. Although ‘tis no’ easy to find the right thing for the fuckin’ prince of Irish elves, Hall of Heroes inductee, master of the uni…”

  “Enough of the flattery, Flannery.” He grinned. “So what’d you get me?”

  “No’ tellin’.”

  After dinner, the family opened gifts by the fire. It turned out the large wrapped, but unmarked package that had arrived days before was a present for both Ram and Elora. Helm had taken a photo of the photo that sat on the mantel at the New Forest cottage and had it made into a large oil painting of a younger Ram and Elora in front of the Rockefeller Center tree.

  Of course Elora cried. “Helm. You are the most romantic boy who ever lived.”

  Of course Ram looked at his son with the kind of admiration and appreciation Helm craved.

  They hung the painting over the fireplace, not in the great room, but in the small, easier-to-heat family living room with shabby chic furnishings where they spent most of their time.

  “I love it,” Elora said, just before giving Helm another big kiss on the cheek.

  When the house was quiet, Elora turned to spoon Ram’s back. She heard Blackie’s nails on the old wood floor. It was his habit to patrol every so often during the night, but he always returned to his heavy corduroy loveseat that sat at the end of their bed.

  Elora listened to Blackie rustling as he got comfortable and then heaved a mighty sigh. It made her smile.

  “I can feel you smilin’,” Ram said.

  “You cannot.”

  “Can.”

  “How?”

  “Been with you a while.”

  She laughed silently against his back. “I love having everybody in the house.”

  “I know you do.”

  “Don’t you?”

  “No’ sayin’ anythin’ likely to get you goin’. You’re ripe for tears at the slightest provocation. Have been all day.”

  “It is kind of emotional.” He took the hand attached to the arm thrown around him and brought it to his lips for a kiss. “I can’t believe the time is going by so fast. Our baby is taller than you.”

  Ram turned over so that he was facing Elora. “’Tis goin’ by fast because it’s good. I’m grateful that I survived to have this life, fast or slow
. Grateful that you survived.”

  “You promised me that most knights die of old age in their own bed surrounded by great-grandchildren.”

  He grinned. “Let’s make that a goal.”

  In the gray of early morning Elora heard a soft whine at her back and groaned. She wanted to stay right where she was, spooned against Rammel’s back; hard, warm heaven. She didn’t have to hunt for a device to know it was early, just like she didn’t have to hunt for a device to know it was cold outside the cocoon of warm covers.

  With a groan she turned over far enough to see Blackie staring intently into her eyes as if he could communicate urgency that way. His entire body was moving from the wagging of his tail.

  “Oh, alright,” she said and threw away the covers with a mighty effort. Her feet found the reindeer slippers she’d left by the bed as she grabbed for the robe she’d tossed on the chair by the bed. It was thick white fleece with faux fur collar and sleeves. Ram had given it to her. He loved seeing her in white.

  Half asleep she descended the stairs. She’d done it so many times raising three elflings that she could be completely asleep and still navigate the stairs.

  She shuffled straight to the mud room and opened Blackie’s door flap. He charged through without a backward glance.

  “You’re welcome,” she mumbled as she made her way back to bed thinking about how much satisfaction there would be in putting her freezing cold feet on Ram’s warm bare legs. He would make a sound that could only be compared to a squeal and then insist that knights of The Order of the Black Swan do not squeal.

  The next time she opened her eyes it was in response to bacon and coffee aromas drifting up the stairs from the kitchen. She didn’t need to confirm that she was alone in bed. Ram was the only other person in the household who would fill the early morning with smells designed to draw young from their beds.

  She brushed her teeth and put on skinny jeans with a white turtleneck and a thick red cable-knit sweater.

  As if he could sense her arrival, Ram turned just as she was coming into the kitchen. He was wearing a ridiculous Santa’s Helper apron she’d given him the year before and couldn’t possibly have been more handsome. There was nothing more romantic than an apron-wearing knight with a spatula in his hand and a sexy smile on his beautiful mouth.

  “How much longer?” The twins said, almost in unison.

  Ignoring that, Elora said, “Happy Yule,” and gave Ram a holiday-commemorative kiss.

  “I’m thinkin’ we should do Yule more often.”

  Helm stumbled in wearing jeans with a red plaid shirt and no shoes. “Pancakes?” he said. “I get the next one.”

  “Do no’!” Aelgale rose up with the hotheaded intensity that her father had been infamous for in his younger days. Her twin, Aelgavain, said nothing, but glared at her brother. “We were here first. Right, Mum?”

  “Maybe you were here first,” taunted Helm, “but I’m the guest of honor.”

  Gale looked incredulous and sounded flummoxed. Her face turned pink just before she said, “You’re no’ a guest of anything. You’re a dick face.”

  “AELGALE!” Elora didn’t have to pretend to sound scandalized.

  Ram turned away so that none of his children would see him trying to control laughter. “Helm,” Ram said calmly as he slid one pancake on each of two plates and set them down in front of the twins. “Stop provokin’ your sisters.”

  Helm smiled wickedly at the girls, first one, then the other. “They’re the ones gettin’ fed. Seems to me they’re provokin’ me with bein’ first.”

  “Great Paddy,” Ram said as he flipped two pancakes on the griddle.

  As he set the two perfectly round and golden pancakes on a plate for Helm, Elora said, “Has anybody seen Blackie?”

  Charlie Sweeney had shaken Jack awake when the sky had begun to lighten to gray. “Come on. We got a job to do. And a long way to go.”

  Jack nodded. He didn’t have to get dressed. He’d slept in his clothes. It was too cold to strip down and he wasn’t the flannel pajamas sort.

  Charlie handed him a cup of tea and day-old bread and indicated they should stay quiet and not wake his mother.

  While Jack consumed the meager breakfast, Charlie wrote a note to his mother that simply read ‘Happy Yule’, and left a handful of cash with it. He didn’t like tearful goodbyes or questions about when his mum would hear from him next.

  They slipped away shortly after sunrise on Yule morning. The ground was covered with a fresh dusting of snow. The air was still, but it held the kind of damp cold that went straight through clothes and settled in bones; the kind of cold shivers and teeth-chattering are made of.

  Charlie pulled into the curve of the lane at the bottom of the hill where the Hawking farm sat looking proud and pristine. Jack didn’t want to get out, but Charlie insisted.

  Charlie knew dogs.

  He knew the family would let the dog out to do his business early in the morning. And he knew the big German Shepherd would notice two strange men and come to investigate. Chances are good that, had they realized that particular dog belonged to members of the royal family, they would’ve kept driving.

  Charlie had spent years working for Owen Moran. It wasn’t the kind of relationship that could rightfully be called employment, but Charlie’s finances, or lack thereof, depended on pleasing Mr. Moran, the dog fight promoter.

  Dog fighting might be viewed by many as the cruel pastime of a sordid underbelly of society. But Moran didn’t give two shits what people thought about his business. It was lucrative and tax free. At least the way Moran did it. It would be hard to imagine a practice more barbaric, but such things didn’t concern him. He was a practical man and it was a living. End of story.

  He moved the fights around, never more than one night in a single place. Kept law enforcement on his payroll and was careful about his clientele.

  The dogs were collateral damage, but he didn’t care about that either. Once they were swept up into Moran’s dark world, their fate was sealed. There would be no happily ever after. They would live in solitary, cramped lockups until the inevitable fight that killed them or left them for dead.

  Occasionally Moran was able to buy a dog cheap or get one for free from a family that wasn’t prepared for the responsibilities that come with owning one of the breeds on the restriction list, the kind of dog that held the potential to be more dangerous than a loaded gun.

  He pocketed the cash and moved on to arranging the next secret-location fight. To Moran the dogs were transactions that might as well have been inanimate. Since he’d never experienced empathy for others of his own kind, it would have been surprising if he’d had any feelings to extend toward the animals he used.

  Jack and Charlie were two of the ‘suppliers’ Moran used to continually provide replacement stock. Moran gave them a tidy commission when a dog was approved. It wasn’t enough to make them rich, but it was an easy enough, set-your-own-hours job description with enough compensation to keep them interested.

  Like Moran, the two thieves had no sympathy for dogs, which was a plus in their line of work. They didn’t take any particular pleasure in causing suffering. They just didn’t care.

  Blackie had trotted toward the hill, nose to the ground as he took in the scent of everything in nature from the minerals in the soil, to the footprints of the longhaired sheep, to the stray dog that crossed the property during the night. When he reached the three-sided barn, where the sheep went for shelter on cold nights, he veered away toward the enclosed north side of the structure and sought out one of his favorite spots to fertilize.

  After a satisfying defecation he turned back toward the house. When he rounded the sheep barn and looked back toward the house, he saw them. Two men standing next to a vehicle where no vehicle should be parked. He was too far away to catch their scent, but was disturbed both by their presence and something hard to explain; instinct.

  Assuming a stalking stance, he lowered his head, ears for
ward, nose pointed at the two men who were where they shouldn’t be. Too far away to see them clearly, he could still tell that they were looking at him, which escalated his feeling of alarm. Blackie was far too confident and mature to bark. He approached as slowly and silently as if he planned to have the strangers for a morning meal.

  At twenty feet away he stopped to glare and growl low in his throat. He was about to charge when he felt a sharp sting in his shoulder that caused a yelp of surprise. He jerked his head to see what might be causing the pain. He tried to grab at the dangling yellow plastic thing with his teeth, but couldn’t quite reach it.

  When he saw the men approaching out of the corner of his eye, he gave up trying to remove the foreign object and pulled his mask back into a terrifying snarl. He was preparing to lunge at the one on the right when he felt his legs give way. As the scenery began to blur he felt a stab of fear, but he didn’t have time to sort through what to do about that before everything went black.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Ram looked up when he heard the mud room door. He was on the phone, calling around to neighbors even though he knew that Blackie would never wander away. That dog would never be where he couldn’t keep an eye on his family by choice.

  Elora’s heightened color told the tale that she’d been out in the cold hunting for Blackie. She shook her head and Ram saw something on her face he’d never seen before in all the time they’d been together.

  Fear.

  “Aye. Much obliged,” he said and ended the call just as tears began to spill onto Elora’s cheeks. He set the phone down and moved toward her. “Here now. What’s this?”

  He took her face in his hands, kissed her mouth, and swiped at tears with his thumbs, as he’d done hundreds of times.

  Her face crumpled. “I couldn’t call for him.” Ram looked confused. “My voice just froze in my throat. I was trying to yell his name, but I’m so scared that nothing comes out.”

  He gathered her into his arms. “But ‘tis no’ true of Helm and the twins. If Blackie was within earshot, he’d hear them and come.”