Stag and the Ash (The Rowan Harbor Cycle Book 5)

by Sam Burns

  Damned werewolf movies.

  The stag wasn’t a dream, and it wasn’t his imagination. That was the only possible explanation.

  It had been a week since the incident, as he’d taken to calling it in his mind, and it was his first day back on the rune circuit. It was slow, mind-numbing work, but it had to be done.

  So he’d been walking the crescent, bored as usual, and after crossing to the north side of the road, there was the stag, standing five yards away. There was no mist, no dream-like quality to any of it, just a huge white stag, watching him with a curious, and curiously calm, gaze.

  Then as casually as it had stood there, it turned its back on him, cast one final, taunting glance his way, and bounded off.

  Well, that tore it. He couldn’t let that pass unanswered.

  He sprinted after the stag, like he had in his dream of the hunt. When it slowed, so did he. When it sped, tossing a challenging look over its shoulder, he sped to match.

  He was dimly aware of them passing each tree in the ring of runes, each there and functioning as they should be, but they weren’t as important as the goal.

  Not that the goal was to catch the stag. He didn’t have the slightest urge to kill it, even with his most feral of instincts. He thought it would be a travesty to put such a creature on his dinner table, even to feed his beloved pack.

  All he wanted was the wind in his fur, the trees zipping past, and the stag in his sights. It was like playing tag with Wade in the ash trees as a kid. It was fun, challenging, and the most free he’d been since he had graduated high school.

  The stag skidded to a stop in the middle of Oak’s grove, right next to the venerable dryad themself. They looked at each other, and then back to Jesse.

  “My friend the stag tells me that you have returned to the forest, Jesse Hunter. I am most pleased to hear this.”

  Jesse huffed and padded over to them. The wolf wanted the stag to bolt again, to continue playing, but the man realized that this was important. He wasn’t fluent in the ways normal wolves communicated like his grandmother was, but he figured all Oak needed was acknowledgement, so he gave as nonthreatening a bark as a wolf his size could.

  He’d have licked Oak, but he didn’t much care for the thought of splinters in his tongue.

  Oak seemed to understand and smiled serenely at him. “I knew you could pass this test, Jesse Hunter. You have always been the alpha our harbor needs.” They stepped away and gave a little bow. “But I would not like to interrupt the hunt. Please, do carry on.”

  Without waiting for Jesse to react, the stag leapt away, and the chase was on again.

  It was almost noon when Jesse loped across the back lot of the house, between the enormous greenhouses and past his SUV where it sat in the driveway. He pushed into the flower shop, shoving his body weight against the door to open it. He was filthy, having slipped in the mud at least twice during his hunt, and he couldn’t stop panting, but he couldn’t think of any other way he’d have preferred to spend his morning.

  Then he saw Sean behind the counter, and his breath caught. This was perfection. His beautiful Sean, right where he belonged. He was focused on a small potted plant, snipping leaves off the lower part of the stem, but he looked up when Jesse came swaggering over.

  There were still stitches and a bandage on one side of his face, where it had hit the hard-packed earth when Charles had hit him. Doctor Jha had said it would give his baby face character, but Jesse didn’t care. As long as Sean was happy, nothing else mattered.

  “Have a nice patrol?” Sean asked, setting down his clippers and leaning on the counter.

  Was that what he’d been doing? Patrolling? It hadn’t felt like any kind of work. He shrugged as best he could before putting his front paws up on the counter and pulling himself up to lean on it as well. He stretched his head across and licked Sean’s face.

  Sean gave a carefree laugh that Jesse hadn’t heard in more than a month, and instead of shoving the muddy wolf off his counter or insisting that Jesse not lick him, he wrapped his arms around Jesse’s muddy neck and hugged him tight. “I love you, you big jerk.”

  Jesse licked his ear.

  “That reminds me!” Sean exclaimed as he pulled away.

  Being licked reminded him of something? Jesse liked that idea. But Sean turned to the back of the shop, leaning over and grabbing . . . a pot?

  No, Jesse’s friend the oak sapling!

  Miss Vander must have potted them as he’d asked, and brought them to Sean at the shop or the treehouse. They had moved to the treehouse on the day of the incident in the woods, leaving Jesse’s old place to the pack’s newest wolves. The Blakes had been recovering well, if traumatized, and everyone in town told Jesse that they were delightful.

  After some serious deliberation, Josh had asked, and Jesse agreed, that he would go stay with the pack they knew in Canada. Josh had a lot to work through, and he needed a pack who didn’t see him as a threat. Jesse’s pack needed to feel safe in their homes, and at least for now, Josh’s presence didn’t give them that. The Canadian pack had been duly warned about Josh’s behavior, and had been more understanding than even Jesse, so he had hope for the boy’s future.

  Sean had set the sapling’s pot down on the counter and was digging through his tools to produce a small trowel and a few other gardening implements that had always reminded Jesse of torture devices. He tucked them into his tool belt and picked the pot back up.

  Jesse let himself down from the counter, walked halfway to the door, and looked back to make sure Sean was following him. He was, and in fact, he got ahead and opened the front door of the shop for Jesse with his free hand.

  Jesse had spent long hours during his enforced rest thinking about where his friend should go. It had to be somewhere that they could grow as tall and broad as their parent, but Jesse wanted them to be closer to town. If they were to be forced to deal with the dangers of people, they should at least be able to have their company too, if and when they wanted it.

  He sauntered through the lightly wooded area to the clearing where he, Devon, and Isla used to picnic when he was a child. It was just a few minutes’ walk from the house, equidistant to home and a park where many of the town’s children played on the weekends. Jesse thought Oak would have liked the ability to visit with children whenever they wanted.

  He led Sean to the middle of the clearing and sat down in front of an empty patch of grass. He looked at the grass, then back to Sean.

  “Looks good,” Sean agreed. “But I’m not doing this on my own, wolfy. Better start digging.”

  So Jesse did. With Sean’s trowel and Jesse’s claws, it didn’t take long to dig a hole Sean deemed deep enough for the tiny sapling. Jesse worried about the scratch on his friend from Josh’s ill-considered dive through the window, but they were strong. They could handle it.

  Jesse didn’t know why he had decided that they would be a dryad. Miss Vander said you never knew, so he wasn’t sure why he believed his friend was special. They just were.

  Carefully, Sean took the sapling from the pot and settled them into the hole they’d dug together, then pushed extra dirt back into the gap. Once they had it packed in to Sean’s satisfaction, they both sat back, looking at the tree, feeling accomplished.

  Jesse barked at it.

  “Are you expecting it to do a trick, Jess?”

  As though in answer, two pinprick, glowing, green eyes blinked open on the slender twig of a trunk, the hint of a face pushing forward, then retreating again. Sean dropped his trowel and stared. Jesse barked again and wagged his tail, dancing from foot to foot.

  “Hell, Jess. I knew you were amazing, but that’s something else.” Sean grinned at the sapling dryad. “Hey there, friend. I hope you like your new home.”

  They sat there with the new dryad for hours, Sean talking to them both about nothing and everything, and Jesse rolling around in the grass. He didn’t get clean, really, but he managed to wiggle much of the drying mud off his fur.r />
  “You still have to shower when we get home,” Sean said when they left the dryad to settle in.

  Jesse bumped his shoulder against Sean’s legs. Oh yes, he planned to shower all right. He was going to take a shower with his boyfriend, and since Doctor Jha had finally given him a clean bill of health for both the poison and the stabbing, he was damned well going to have sex with his boyfriend, too.

  Afterword

  At the end of this book, Jesse and Sean’s story isn’t over. Fletcher’s and Devon’s stories aren’t finished either. The Rowan Harbor Cycle is a trilogy of trilogies: nine total books. Each main character will have his own book in each trilogy. You’ll get a happy-for-now in the short term, and those happily-ever-afters are coming, I promise.

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  Excerpt from Adder and Willow

  Technically, it wasn’t Fletcher’s morning to patrol the woods.

  Heck, since Jesse had started spending time in the woods every day, Fletcher didn’t have to patrol at all. But in the years he’d been partners with Wade, it had become second nature. Every day he had a shift at the station, he ended it with a turn through the woods around Rowan Harbor. Whether it helped the town or not, it made him feel more secure.

  He wasn’t with Wade on this particular day, and he hadn’t just finished a shift.

  No, he was running through the woods on four legs because it was three in the morning and he couldn’t sleep. The woods usually made him feel better, so he’d gone for a walk. Unfortunately, it seemed nothing was calming his restlessness.

  Sometime in the next twelve hours Conner’s mother and stepfather were arriving in town, and part of the plan for their visit was Fletcher meeting them. Conner had known Fletcher’s father for months, and the two of them got along famously. There wasn’t a valid excuse for Fletcher to avoid meeting Conner’s parents. He just didn’t want to.

  Fletcher sighed and sat down in the middle of the forest floor. He wanted to find a nice cozy little foxhole and hide out until the Masons left. He was sure they were nice people, but meeting them was a very permanent step. It felt premature, and overwhelming, and—

  Okay, fine, he was just scared. What if they didn’t like him? What if they found out he was a shapeshifter and reacted just like Conner’s father had, with murderous intent?

  He whined aloud.

  A rabbit poked its head from behind some new foliage. At first sight of a fox, it reared back and hid behind the leaves, trembling. When Fletcher didn’t move for long enough, it got curious and came out. It hopped over to him, nose sniffing madly and looking ready to bolt, but when he didn’t move it came closer, practically climbing on top of him. It found some green shoots that he was half lying on, and contentedly munched on them while he lie there doing nothing.

  He gave another deep sigh and it froze for a second, but almost immediately it started eating again. He wondered if he could become a rabbit. Probably.

  On the other hand, he would also probably fall on his face repeatedly trying to figure out the way they moved. He still couldn’t fly as an owl—the best he’d managed was a controlled glide. Two legs and four were easy enough, but if a creature’s main movement skill wasn’t plain old walking, he struggled.

  He had a meeting with Oak that morning for practice shifting, since it was the last time he was going to be able to sneak away for a few days. Sheriff Green wanted him to take those days off because of Conner’s parents. Everyone he wanted to spend time with wanted him to go away and spend time with the people who made him nervous.

  The rabbit finished the meal it had found and moved on, so Fletcher figured he’d been wallowing for long enough. If he was going to say he had patrolled the woods, lying around feeling sorry for himself wasn’t going to cut it.

  Dragging himself off the ground was a struggle, but he managed.

  A snake slithered out from its den right in front of him, which was odd. He didn’t eat snakes, but they were usually at least as wary of him as rabbits. Not that he ate rabbits either.

  This snake seemed to be in a hurry. It hardly took note of him, just slunk right past him and kept going. He searched the tree roots surrounding the small hole for anything odd, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. It was dark, but he didn’t see anything out of the ordinary about the tree, either. Just one of the many thousands of ash trees surrounding the town.

  Ah well. Not everything had to have a reason.

  That was when a soft noise caught his attention. The woods were full of sound, even in the dark of night, but this one was unusual: a crying human.

  He followed the noise out to the county road that led to town. There, he found a fancy car that had seen much better days. It was huge, shiny, and black, but it had a deep gouge along one side, and the front passenger window was smashed out. It smelled of constant use, like Fletcher’s own car when it overheated in the summer.

  The sound was coming from inside, and given the state of the car, that wasn’t a surprise. Fletcher figured the owner must be in dire straits indeed, if they were in the middle of nowhere at three in the morning, in the remains of that car.

  A tiny pale face poked up over the window in the back seat, a serious child with white-blonde hair and enormous eyes like a cartoon character. Fletcher wasn’t a judge of children’s ages, but he’d be shocked if the kid was more than ten. They stared at Fletcher for a moment, then raised a hesitant hand in a wave.

  Over his years as a fox, Fletcher had learned that even when people knew you were human, they expected a dog to act like a dog, and people thought of foxes as dogs. He panted and hopped from foot to foot as thought excited to see the child, who gave a tiny smile. They looked over their shoulder, disappeared for a second, then the door popped open and they slid out, almost silently.

  From the somber suit and tie he was wearing, Fletcher assumed the child was a boy. The outfit looked like it had once been expensive, but it was rumpled and stained, and smelled like a few days’ continuous wear.

  Fletcher approached, and the boy treated him like he was the nervous one, holding out a single hand, palm-up, his smile tentative and hopeful. It probably wasn’t behavior he should reinforce in a kid, but he wanted to help these people, whoever they were. So he inched forward, finally sniffing at the boy’s hand, which smelled like sugar and gas-station bathroom soap. He swallowed his distaste for the flavor of soap and licked the kid’s hand to show how friendly he was.

  The boy giggled.

  There was a particularly harsh sob from inside the car, and they both looked back.

  “It’ll be okay,” the boy whispered to him conspiratorially. “It was hard to get here, and she’s scared and sad, but this is where we’re supposed to be.”

  That was an odd thing for a kid to say, even such a serious one. Fletcher cocked his head in the way that said “I’m a curious dog.”

  The boy smiled again, but ignored the implicit question. “Can I pet you?”

  With no good way to answer, Fletcher shoved his head under the kid’s hand. He wanted to hop up and get a glimpse of the woman who was with the child, but he figured that was a good way to scare the hell out of her. He hoped that she was an adult, and the gouge on the car wasn’t a result of dangerous driving by a preteen.

  “She bought a phone at a gas station, but she doesn’t know anyone’s number. She doesn’t think they’d help anyway, since we didn’t help you much.” He gave a sigh, sadness in his eyes that a child his age shouldn’t ever feel, and scratched behind Fletcher’s ears. “I’m Noah. She’s my mom. We ran out of money, and now we’re out of gas, and she’s scared we’re still far from town. Or they won’t want us.”

  Fletcher whined and pressed up against the boy, who
giggled again.

  A woman’s voice came from inside the car. “Noah? Oh no, Noah, where—”

  “Out here, Mom,” the boy managed through his giggles. A drawn face appeared in the broken window, eyes widening when she saw Fletcher. The boy looked up at her and smiled. “This is Fletcher. He’s going to help us get into town.”

  Fletcher stared up at the kid. What the hell?

  About the Author

  Sam is an author of LGBTQIA+ fiction, mostly light-hearted romances. Preferably ones that include werewolves, dragons, magic, or all of the above. Most of her books include a little violence, a fair amount of swearing, and maybe a sex scene or two.

  She is a full-time writer who lives in the Midwest with her husband and cat. Her personal white stag is being a full-time writer who lives near the ocean with her husband and a pet fox.

  For more information:

  www.burnswrites.com

  Sam@burnswrites.com