Fire and Fantasy: A Limited Edition Collection of Urban and Epic Fantasy

by CK Dawn

  My hands slipped from the bullring, the pressure easing from Bully’s snout, and before the bull had a chance to strike, I placed my hands on his head. Smack bang on the swirl of chestnut hair between his beady eyes.

  My touch opened a pathway between us, and I shook as images passed between us. His mind was empty, and all I could see was the blind rage that had taken over his base instincts of food, power, and mating. There was no way of deciphering what had set him off, but it didn’t matter. He was angry, and when a bull was angry, he struck out. It was as simple as that.

  “Calm, boy,” I murmured.

  Bully seemed to settle as I murmured to him, my fingers stroking his fur. After a minute, his eyes stopped rolling, and his breathing eased.

  “Boone, we’re out,” Sean said from somewhere behind me. “Ye best follow.”

  Nodding, I was in complete agreement. The moment my palm left Bully’s forehead, he retreated with a wild bellow, his hooves churning the mud and sending it flying. Taking the opportunity to get out of the pen while the going was good, I clambered over the fence out of harm’s way.

  Roy was lying on a patch of grass, his back resting against the bale of hay he must’ve been hauling in for Bully.

  “What the hell was that?” Sean exclaimed, kneeling over him.

  “He was on me before I knew what was happenin’,” the old man replied, wincing. “I think me leg is broken. He stamped on me real good.”

  Sean glanced at me. “Boone, would ye wait here while I run down to the house and call the ambulance? There’s no movin’ him without a great deal of trouble.”

  “Of course. Anything.”

  As Sean ran down the path, Roy glanced up at me, his frown created from more than pain.

  “What did ye do to Bully, laddy?”

  “I don’t know,” I murmured. “I really don’t know.”

  As I sat there beside Roy waiting for the ambulance to arrive, I knew I’d used my power to calm Bully. There was no other explanation for it. He’d just backed down the moment my hands touched his fur, and that was that. How I’d done it was a complete mystery.

  It wasn’t until later that afternoon, I realized there was no possible way I could’ve heard Roy’s cry for help inside the tower house. It could only mean my magic was growing.

  I was finding my balance.

  Nine

  “There Bully was, standin’ over Roy, mad as a bee in a jar…”

  Slouching in my seat, I wrapped my hand around my pint of beer and watched Sean McKinnon recount the story of my showdown with Bully. For what felt like the hundredth time in the last two weeks.

  Molly McCreedy’s was full of locals tonight, even Aileen had come, but it was all for a special occasion. Roy had come home from the hospital that morning, and this was his welcome home party. Any chance for little craic in this village.

  The old man was sitting in the seat of honor beside the fireplace, a pint of ale in his hand, his cheeks red, a smile on his face, and his leg set on another chair before him. He’d been plastered from ankle to mid-thigh, and after an operation to put a metal pin in his femur, he had two weeks of recovery before he was allowed to return home. It seemed Bully had broken his leg in two, shattering the bone rather than snapping it. Hence, the metal rod.

  “Boone leapt toward Bully with no fear at all,” Sean declared, sweeping his arm wide. “He jumped…” He did the action, his boots thudding on the floorboards, the beer sloshing over the rim of the pint glass in his hand. “And grabbed Bully’s bullring and swung off it like a trapeze artist.”

  “I can’t believe you’re still talking about that,” I complained.

  “Who lit the fuse on ye tampon, Boone?” Sean shot back. “You’re the hero of the story. Ye should be thankin’ me.”

  Hannah burst out into peals of laughter from behind the bar. “What happened next?”

  “Yeah, Sean. What next?” someone called across the room.

  “You all know what happened next,” I said. “How many times have we heard this story?”

  Sean held up his hand to shut me up and said, “Bully and Boone were eye to eye.” He pointed to his eye and turned to show the room. “The air was thick with tension… Would Bully knock him flyin’? Or would he be the one to tame the wild beast?”

  “Ciach ort,” I swore in Irish.

  “Let them have their fun,” Aileen murmured beside me.

  “I used my powers,” I replied under my breath. “Blatantly.”

  “You didn’t realize, and neither did they. They think you’re the bull whisperer.”

  “You don’t know how true that is.”

  “Oh, I can have a good guess,” she replied.

  I groaned and sipped on my beer. At least no more craglorn had been drawn to the village before or after the day Aileen had saved me by the hawthorn behind Sean’s farmhouse.

  “You did a good thing, Boone,” she added. “Not only did you discover that your abilities as a shapeshifter run deeper, but you also saved a man’s life. Bully could’ve trampled Roy to death, and this might’ve been a different kind of party.”

  I suppose she had a point. Time was a strange thing when you were stuck in the one place.

  “Are you sure using my abilities won’t draw any unwanted visitors?” I muttered under my breath.

  “No, you’re safe, Boone. What you do is instinctive. It’s a part of your physiology. It’s completely different to how a witch uses her magic.”

  “Then,” Sean declared, the entire room hanging on his every word, “Boone let go. He let go of Bully’s bullring. Can ye believe it? Standing a mere inch from an angry bull, he let go.”

  A dozen fists hit the table in a riotous exclamation. “No!” they chanted.

  “Never fear! It wasn’t over, not by a long shot. Boone placed his hands on Bully’s head.” He slapped his palm on Roy’s forehead, much to the old man’s amusement. “Then…” The room was on a knife’s edge. “Then he sent Bully runnin’ across the yard, his tail between his legs. Just like that!”

  Everyone hollered and hooted, raising their glasses toward me. Embarrassed at the attention, I nodded, hiding behind the shock of unruly black curls that usually hung in my eyes. Lifting my pint, we drank, and with that, the story was over, and all eyes returned to Roy as he began recounting his stay in the hospital.

  “Damn Bully shattered me leg, the cúl tóna,” he was saying. “They cut me damn leg wide open and put metal rods inside. Can ye believe it?”

  “Are you feeling better about everything?” Aileen asked now the attention was on Roy.

  Setting my pint down, I inclined my head. “I guess so.”

  “Be a little more enthusiastic, Boone.”

  “All this chattering is exhausting,” I said, nodding toward the room. “Ever since I touched Bully’s mind, the noise is hard to tune out. I never noticed it before.”

  “Then you must notice how Hannah looks at you.” Aileen smirked and nodded toward the bar where the young woman was having a hard time keeping up with the demands of the villagers. “She’s sweet on you.”

  Glancing over to the bar, I contemplated the notion of a romantic entanglement with a human woman. Hannah was pretty enough with her fiery hair and freckled cheeks, but I wasn’t sure I could be with someone like that and not have them understand who I was. Keeping my abilities secret from Derrydun was hard enough, so what would happen when she wanted me to take her to Dublin for a weekend? Or even to the coast? I couldn’t leave the boundary set by the hawthorns.

  I must’ve been staring at her too long because she turned and saw my gaze was fixed on her. She caught my eye, her cheeks flushed slightly, and winked.

  “I know,” I said to Aileen. “I can feel it, and not in an inappropriate way.”

  She laughed softly. “I was about to say… With that and your bare ass, I’ve had about enough of you.”

  “You’re like my mam if I do say so,” I retorted, not even missing a beat.

  “You’re
making me feel old. I’d stop it if I were you.”

  I thought about her daughter Skye and smiled. I wasn’t too old that I could be her son, and honestly, our relationship was more than a witch helping a shapeshifter. In the few short months I’d been in Derrydun, she’d become just that. A surrogate mother with all the trimmings.

  Finishing her lemonade, the witch turned to me. “I’m off for the evening.”

  “Aye, I’m not far behind you.”

  “Don’t leave on my account. You should flirt a little with Hannah. Have some fun. Wouldn’t hurt, you know.”

  “I’ve had just about enough excitement for one evening,” I replied, not wanting to lead Hannah on. “I might go for a run to clear my head.”

  “Don’t forget to give your best to Roy before you do,” Aileen commanded in her motherly way. “After the mess with Bully, he thinks of you as a son.”

  “I know…”

  “I’m sure you do,” she said mysteriously before rising to her feet and smoothing down her skirt.

  Taking her cue, I approached the old man and smiled.

  “Ah, Boone,” Roy declared, patting the chair next to him. “Have a seat and chat with me.”

  Sitting beside him, I studied his cast. Someone had put a brightly colored hand-woven sock over his foot.

  “I missed ye at the hospital,” he said.

  “I know you don’t like to be fawned over, so I helped Sean make sure things were running on the farm. But after tonight‬, I’m not so sure about that.” ‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬

  “I must say, I’m likin’ the rise in popularity.”

  Smiling, I looked around the room, and all I could feel was warmth. It was rather nice. These people genuinely cared about one another, no matter how many shades of crazy they were. Even old Fergus—the ancient Irishman who sat out near the coach bay every day with his donkey and scrappy little dog, selling his hand-woven crosses of St. Brigid to tourists—had come in for a drink. The donkey had to stay outside, but his dog sat by his chair as quiet as a mouse.

  “How did ye do it?” Roy asked. “How did ye calm Bully like ye did?”

  “I can’t say,” I replied with a shrug. “I knew I had to distract him long enough for Sean to drag you out so…I distracted him.”

  “That was more than distractin’,” Roy stated. “I’ve never seen a man stand eye to eye with a bull like that in me life. Sixty years of farmin’ and handlin’ bulls and never…”

  “I wish I knew.”

  Roy eyed me with an air of skepticism. “Sometimes, I’m not sure how to take ye, lad.”

  “What do you mean?” I didn’t like the sound of that, and my skin bristled as I felt wariness fill the air around him.

  “Ye don’t talk about your past much, do ye?”

  I frowned. “There’s not much in it. Derrydun is my home now, and everything before is irrelevant.”

  “Ye don’t have the Guard after ye? Last thing anyone needs, especially Aileen, is the law comin’ down on her.”

  I shook my head and laughed. “Take it easy, Roy,” I said, rising to my feet. “Don’t you worry about the farm. I’ll be there with Sean in the morning. You can count on that.”

  “Ye little bugger,” he cursed after me.

  Outside, the air was clear, and I shook off the warmth that had overtaken Molly McCreedy’s. Fergus’s donkey raised her head from the cast-iron pot at her feet and immediately disregarded me, sticking her nose back into the chaff.

  “Nice to see you too, girl,” I murmured, placing my palm on her back. Immediately, I felt her sense of satisfaction. That must be some good chaff.

  “You going home already?”

  Glancing into the darkness, I caught sight of Hannah leaning against the side of the pub.

  “Aye, I’m not big on all the attention.”

  “I can tell.” She pushed off the wall and came to stand before me. “You’re a bit of a mystery, aren’t you?”

  “There’s not much to me,” I replied.

  “Tall, dark, handsome, and brooding…” She edged closer, placing her hands on my shoulders. “That’s very sexy, you know.”

  Her palms wrapped around my neck, her fingers teasing the hair at my nape. It felt good to have a woman touch me, and as her lips moved closer, I knew this wasn’t right. I couldn’t give her romance or a relationship or a family…not even a little bit of fun. I had too many secrets, and they would forever keep me apart from those things. The more kind of things.

  I wrapped my hands around her wrists and moved my head back. “Hannah…”

  “Shite,” she cursed, letting me go. “I misread everything, didn’t I?”

  “You’re pretty and all but… I can’t. I’m sorry.”

  Embarrassment mixed with disappointment bled from her skin, and she turned her face from mine.

  “I don’t want to lead you on, Hannah,” I went on, not wanting to upset her. “It’s not right.”

  “You’re a rare man, Boone,” she said, shaking her head. “One day, someone will catch you, and the rest of us will die of jealousy. You’ll see.”

  I hoped she was right because I wasn’t sure how long I would be satisfied with living a life among everyone but being apart at the same time. Eventually, something had to break.

  As Hannah walked back into Molly McCreedy’s, the donkey raised her head and let out an enthusiastic hee-haw.

  Ten

  And so life in Derrydun went on much the same way as it always did.

  Autumn faded into winter, and snow covered the far-off mountains, and the very tip of Croagh Patrick was ice. Then the melt came, and the weather bloomed into spring. Flowers erupted, and the landscape burst with color. Lush emerald ferns coated the ground while wild fuchsia tinted it with shades of cherry and plum.

  Animals came out of hibernation, and young ones were born left, right, and center. I could feel the ebb of life in the air, my powers growing sharper than the edge of a carving knife. The farm was alive with it as the herd welcomed lamb after lamb and three calves fathered by the troublesome Bully to the fold.

  It was a peaceful time. A good time. But with all things, the lure of growth and bounty drew greedy eyes and unwanted attention.

  One morning, in early spring, I was on my rounds of the farm. The air was crisp, signaling any kind of true warmth was a long way off yet, and a fine layer of dew coated the ground. Droplets of water sparkled in the sunrise, and light forced its way through the fog, limiting my line of sight. Ahead, I could see the fine outline of a group of sheep huddled together, but further afield, the mist clung into the dips and valleys of the landscape. I would wager that not five meters above my head, the air was free and clear.

  It was a beautiful sight, but I still buried deeper into my coat to stave off the chill.

  My boots squished on the wet grass, the toes damp with dew as I crossed the top field, counting sheep and checking the drywalls. It was the time of year lambs popped out without warning, so we had to make sure the little ones that might’ve been born during the night were well, along with their mams. Predators roamed the land and the sky, waiting for unsuspecting babes to be forgotten by their mothers long enough for them to be snatched. It was my job to make sure none of that happened and if it did, deal with the horrible aftermath.

  My nose twitched as a foreign scent flitted past, and I raised my head. Raking my gaze over the field, it took a moment before I noticed the fox sitting by the gate. Hidden by the mist, its russet fur blended into the landscape, its snout twitching slightly as it scented me in return. It was so still, it was no wonder I hadn’t noticed it until the wind changed. Breathing in again, I noted it was a female.

  The fox stared directly at me, and I reached out with my power, intending to frighten her away, but there was nothing for it to grasp onto. There was no emotion or even any base instinct emitting from the animal. It was strange, and the lack of anything tangible for me to find raised a mighty large red flag. Frowning, I waited…
and so did the fox.

  Leaning against the drywall, I glanced at the sheep and the lambs frolicking at their mother’s feet. If she were here to snatch a newborn, she would regret it while I was on the lookout. I considered shifting into my fox form to scare her away, but I quickly disregarded the idea. Aileen had instilled in me the virtue of patience and care, especially where using my abilities so blatantly were concerned. There were still many things out there I didn’t understand about the world of magic, so I had to be careful.

  What had Aileen told me about the fae of the forests? They were tricksters, shades, and phantoms…though not all were troublesome. The fox could be any one of those or something darker with a taste for malicious behavior. Like the craglorn, it could be an illusion designed to lure me from the protection of the hawthorns and into the clutches of whoever had stolen my memories.

  The doorway to the fae realm had been sealed long ago, but there was every likelihood that some of those spirits still roamed the forests even after all this time. Desperate for magic, the friendly fairies of the forests could’ve twisted into something evil.

  Or the fox could be another shapeshifter…just like me.

  I wasn’t sure why the thought alarmed me. Perhaps it had everything to do with the wolves and the ravens that had been attempting to chase me down the first night I began remembering. Or perhaps it was the lack of power I felt from the creature. I could sense Aileen’s magic, and the craglorn had sensed mine when I was in animal form, so wouldn’t that mean I would be able to feel out another shapeshifter when I saw one? I wasn’t entirely sure.

  Watching the fox closely, I noticed she didn’t even pay a scrap of attention to the lambs. If she wasn’t hungry, then why was she here?

  Ignoring the niggling sensation in the back of my mind that was warning me she was here for me, I pushed off the fence and walked toward the group of sheep, keeping my body between them and the fox. I approached, placing my heel down before my toe to quieten my footsteps, and counted six of Roy’s blue and three of Mark Ashlyn’s orange from over the rise. He was an English fellow, who’d moved to Ireland for love when he was a young man.