Storm Warrior

from Brandan. Mike had held up well. He’d accepted what they called first aid—was there second or third aid as well, and what might they consist of?—and then carried on with his swordplay as if nothing had happened. Mike’s instincts were good, and Rhys thought he’d have made an excellent warrior in his own clan’s time.

Thanks to Jay’s wife, Starr, much of the leftover feast had ended up filling the shelves of Rhys’s refrigerator. It appeared that Morgan would be free from having to concern herself with feeding him for days—and for her sake, he was glad not to trouble her. He hoped she would still come to the barn to visit. Tonight, however, the guests stayed long. By the time everyone left, Morgan had pleaded weariness and retreated to her house. He missed their time together, just the two of them, at the end of the day, but this time he was grateful she was gone.

He had a bwgan to bury.

There wasn’t another spade in the machine shed, but Rhys found a long steel pry bar. And amid the clutter, he unearthed a heavy yellow-and-black-striped sack—its label promising an even better tool than the bar: rock salt. He heaved the bag over his shoulder and carried both it and the pry bar to the field.

The dead bwgan looked ghastly in the moonlight. The bloated white body lay close to the crevice in the earth from which it had emerged. The mound that it had raised seemed smaller, however, and the gaping tear in its base narrower—was the earth trying to heal itself?

Salt, or halen as it was called in Wales, was a pure and sacred substance, and had been used since ancient times to repel evil and unnatural forces. As if he were sowing seed, Rhys scattered heavy crystals of salt over everything—the ground, the blood, the carcass. The salt pitted the pale hide of the monster, and a stinking smoke arose as the body unexpectedly began to collapse on itself. Encouraged, Rhys threw fistfuls of salt on the bwgan until its bulk was considerably diminished. Finally he used the pry bar to lever what was left of the creature into the hole.

As he stuffed the last of the tail as far into the pit as he could with the steel bar, a whoosh of dank air caused Rhys to spring backward. He landed on his arse but quickly tucked his knees to his chin, barely avoiding having his feet crushed as the rend in the earth slammed shut like a huge dusty mouth. Inwardly, he cursed the Tylwyth Teg in every language he knew as he swiped the dust from his eyes with his sleeve and stood up. Cursed aloud as he realized the highly useful pry bar had gone with the monster salamander.

He still had salt left, though, and plenty of it. The white crystals glittered like quartz in the moonlight as he spread them thickly all the way around and on top of the slight depression that marked where the mound had once risen. He hated to damage the soil in such a manner—nothing would grow in this spot again—but Rhys knew that the underground was the natural realm of the Fair Ones. In the British Isles, there were ways that were many miles long, yet the faery mounds, thus connected, seemed like adjacent rooms. And once a way for traveling through the earth had been created, there was nothing to prevent other creatures of that realm from using the same route. Because of the salt, however, unwanted travelers would find the door sealed shut on this end.

By all the gods, the earth will not open here again.

Not here, that was certain, but what about the rest of the farm? Rhys straightened from his task and looked around. He’d drawn them here, faeries and monsters—and the gods only knew what next—to Morgan’s land. And all she’d done to deserve it was to show kindness to a dog. True, the faery queen had declared Morgan to be eithriedig, and as such she should be fully protected. But would the bwgan have hesitated to prey on her? They were known for their ferocity, not their brains.

Perhaps that was why the Tylwyth Teg had sent the creature in their stead. The royal edict officially tied their hands from directly harassing Morgan, but the darker side of the fae realm was filled with things that often bit first and asked questions later. If at all.

For a moment, Rhys wished he could warn her…then realized that even if she believed him, it wouldn’t be nearly enough to keep her safe. No, it was up to him. He’d vowed to protect her, and he would find a way.

TWELVE

Morgan had been called out just before dawn to attend a goat. The owner had expected twins for certain, perhaps triplets because of the doe’s sizable abdomen. However, when labor set in, the doe strained without result. When Morgan arrived, she found a kid presented crosswise and had to coax it into proper position. Once she did, it practically popped out like toast. And so did three more behind it! The owner was ecstatic and so was Morgan. Quads weren’t unheard of, but they weren’t common. And such healthy and strong quads were rare. It was one of those gratifying cases that made her glad to be a veterinarian. As she left, the mother was munching grain, and all four of the kids were behaving more like spring-loaded toys than newborns.

She wondered if goats would do well on her farm and made a mental note to ask Rhys about it. The man seemed to know all sorts of things and was proving himself just as capable around the farm as he was with horses. She’d discovered the empty garden plot neatly turned over and prepared for planting next spring. The old apple orchard north of the barn and all the berry bushes were pruned, as were the rose bushes around the house. Roofing was repaired on the outbuildings, and fences were mended. Thanks to Rhys, the farm was gradually losing its overgrown and neglected appearance.

Morgan found herself less inclined to stay late at the clinic doing paperwork. She was still devoted to her patients and continued to put in long days when they needed her, but she looked forward to Rhys’s company in the evenings.

The Celtic warrior and faery grim stories had not been repeated. She couldn’t begin to guess his reasons for telling her such crazy tales in the first place but decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he’d just been embarrassed by being found naked in a stranger’s home; maybe he was trying to avoid revealing his identity. At the time, she hadn’t gotten close enough to smell his breath—maybe he’d been under the influence of alcohol, perhaps even a so-called party drug. It certainly wasn’t unusual for people to get naked when they’d overindulged. Or get strange. She’d had an instructor in college who, when he’d gone over his limit, often claimed to be the offspring of an extraterrestrial pairing with a human! Jay would no doubt have been fascinated…

As far as origins went, she still didn’t know a lot of personal information about Rhys. He recalled plenty about Wales but didn’t seem to remember how he managed to show up in Spokane Valley, Washington. Jay could believe that faery curse song and dance if he wanted to, but Morgan preferred to read up on topics such as clinical amnesia. Leo had suggested short-term memory loss, and she studied that too. There just had to be a rational explanation for Rhys’s mental condition, something scientific and solid, something she could accept.

Because if she didn’t find satisfaction for her mind, would it ever allow her to follow her heart?

Rhys pounded the last nail in place and stepped back to look at his work. A large horseshoe was fastened over one of the doors to the barn, its open end on the right-hand side.

“Won’t that let all the luck spill out?” asked a familiar voice.

“Leo! Good it is to see you again.” Rhys went to the old man at once and clapped him firmly by the shoulders. “I didn’t hear your car.”

“Probably because you’ve been pounding nails for the last twenty minutes. Plus, I parked by the road so I’d remember to pick some of those crab apples by the front gate—they make a good jelly, you know—and I walked up. Been sitting over there on Doc Edward’s porch swing, watching you.”

“You should have hailed me.”

Leo shrugged. “You looked pretty intense about what you were doing, so I thought I’d just wait. Besides, the swing’s in the shade, so it was no hardship to watch somebody else work. I thought you’d just be putting up one or two horseshoes, though. Instead, you got every shape and size of them over every doorway in the place.”

“I found a few stacked on a rafter in the machine shed,” said Rhys, stalling for time to think of how to