Born Of Fire

by Heather McCorkle

home. This can’t be happening again, I was so careful,” she said in a soft voice.

  Soothing energy poured from Kevan into both her and Aiden. The tang of panic that had started to choke her slowly faded beneath the onslaught of his wonderful power. Feelings of safety and belonging filled her.

  “It wasn’t you me sweet, they found out another way,” he said as he handed her a folder.

  She opened it and saw a picture of an elaborate Celtic knot with four points. It was familiar and yet old enough that she couldn’t be sure of its exact meaning. Part of it she was fairly certain meant leader, or protector, but the rest she wasn’t sure of.

  “It means Master Rector. There’s more behind the picture,” Kevan said.

  Shannon’s hands shook. Rectors were leaders among her kind, the most powerful of druids. She’d never heard of a Master Rector. A hand went to her belly. Her son’s rare ability made a frightening sense now.

  “The other pages say a Master Rector can yield both sides of a druid’s power,” Kevan said.

  She didn’t want to look at the pages behind the picture but she knew she had to. They were photocopies of a text that looked to be hundreds of years old. Written in ancient Irish—or Gaelic as it was called at the time—was what looked like a prophecy.

  At the end of the Roman’s twenty first century the world will fall to ruin.

  Our kind will hear the earth’s call for a last battle to save her.

  A pair of Master druid’s will rise and to the old ways liken.

  One Master shall be of mixed blood and the other born of fire.

  Tears spilled from Shannon’s eyes. Aiden’s very name meant born of fire. Panic roared back up with enough force to make her sick to her stomach. She wanted to roll the window down but a glance at the speedometer convinced her not to.

  “Where did ye get this? Are ye sure tis authentic?” she asked in a voice that shook.

  “Quite sure I’m afraid. Tis from an ancient Irish text that Mr. Yaretz had in his vault. And he said I wasn’t the first to look at it. He said we and our son are in terrible danger.” The dark tone of his voice made her shiver.

  “But from who this time?”

  “Hunters.”

  Bile burned up the back of Shannon’s throat and she had to swallow hard to keep her breakfast down.

  “In America? I thought we were safe from them here.”

  “We’re not safe from them anywhere.”

  More tears tickled down her cheeks and she rubbed them roughly away. She wasn’t one to cry over much of anything, but this was her son’s life. “But Aiden is no threat, according to this prophecy he’ll help save the earth.”

  Kevan rubbed her leg and glanced at her with a sad smile. “Exactly. He’ll be one of the most powerful our kind has seen in a thousand years. People will kill to control that kind of power.”

  Shannon glanced out the window and was instantly sorry she had due to the rate of speed at which the trees were flying by. Her nausea returned full force. “We knew he was special, but I had no idea he was that special…”

  “Oh no,” Kevan mumbled right before dropping his foot on the accelerator.

  Her head hit the headrest as the force of acceleration sucked her back into her seat. The engine of the Subaru whined in protest as Kevan struggled to keep it between the lines of the road. The speedometer needle bounced above ninety-five and kept going as the Subaru hugged the curves. When the road straightened out a moment later, Kevan glanced up in the rearview mirror. A sharp breath sucked in between his teeth as the color drained from his face.

  “Come on, come on, come on,” he begged the car.

  Straining against the seatbelt, Shannon turned and looked out the back window. A black Lexus was flying down the road behind them, slowly, but steadily closing the distance.

  “We’re warrior druids Kevan, we should stand and fight,” she said. The urge to do so was so strong it made her muscles ache. Running like this felt wrong, unnatural.

  “Yer in no condition ta fight.”

  Energy prickled just beneath her skin, riding the wave of anger his words stirred up. “Of all people, ye know I’m perfectly capable of taking care of meself,” she snapped.

  “Course I do me sweet, but tis not only ye I’m worried about.” The sincerity in his voice worked like a cooling salve to take the sting out of her anger.

  Pain exploded through muscles low in her body, ripping a cry from her and bowing her back. It was as though her body was tearing apart from the inside out. She knew it was a contraction, she’d been having them for a week now, but this was the first time she’d ever had one this bad. An eternity seemed to pass before it stopped. She sucked in a desperate breath through teeth that refused to come unclenched.

  “Are ye alright?” Kevan asked.

  Just when she was able to get her breathing under control and open her mouth to respond, another contraction seized her. Crying out, she doubled over as much as the seatbelt would allow. But there was no escaping the agony. Her vision went white as she felt her son move within her.

  “Oh God no! This can’t be happenin’ right now,” Kevan said.

  His voice sounded so far away that it scared her. For a desperate moment she groped for his hand and clutched at only air. Just as the pain started to subside his hand closed around hers, anchoring her back in the world.

  “Our son thinks differently,” Shannon said between gasps.

  Calm flowed from Kevan into her, filling her with a profound peace that took a considerable edge off the pain.

  “Alright then. What Aiden says, goes. We can do this. Lay yer seat back,” he said.

  Some of the calm slipped away as logic fought through the hold Kevan’s power had on her. “Are ye insane? I can’t give birth during a car chase!”

  Another contraction hit her like a mule kick and she bore down against it, gripping Kevan’s hand so tight bones shifted. His fingers tightened around hers and power flowed from him into her, giving her the strength to endure the pain.

  “Course ye can. Yer a warrior druid, one of the strongest I’ve ever known,” he said.

  Something suddenly struck them from behind so hard that Shannon felt the seatbelt cut into her as she was thrown forward. The pain from the belt tightening across her stomach put her out of her mind.

  “Bloody wanker!” Kevan yelled as he struggled to regain control of the swerving car.

  Wet warmth spread down Shannon’s legs. “Me water just broke.” She loosened up her seatbelt as much as she could and laid her seat back. Another contraction hit her and she gave in to the need to push. Agony stole her breath away.

  How do women breathe when they go through this?

  After what felt like an eternity, the contraction passed.

  “Concentrate on keepin’ us on the road, I’ll do the easy part o’er here,” she told him in as calm a voice as she could muster.

  With a nod, Kevan put both hands back on the wheel and focused on the road. For several excruciating minutes, Shannon endured contractions that were coming fast and hard while trying not to get too jostled around as they hugged corner after corner of the blacktop. Worse than the pain was the fact that she could feel her baby’s fear. His power pulsed with it. Between the mind numbing bouts of agony, she did her best to send soothing energy to him. The crackling of his energy calmed, but only a little.

  Kevan reached over and stroked her arm. “That’s the last corner for a while.”

  The pain in his voice made her worry about how much of her agony he was feeling. As a bonded druid couple, they could feel one another’s most powerful feelings. Under normal circumstances she’d be able to block him from it, but she’d never been in this much pain before. She wondered how women could survive such a thing once, let alone multiple times.

  A colorful curse in the old Irish language slipped from Kevan and she glanced over to see him eyeing the rearview mirror.

  “Brace yerself, they’re c
atching up,” he said.

  Another contraction tore through her body as the car was struck from behind again. The rear end of the Subaru slid, tearing the steering wheel from Kevan’s hands. Metal screeched and crunched as something collided with the side of the Subaru. Shannon caught a glimpse of Kevan’s wide eyes just before the world turned upside down. The turmoil and regret in those eyes was outshined by a love so powerful it made Shannon hurt in an entirely different way. A cocoon of his power enveloped her just as the car started to flip.

  “No!” she screamed, knowing it would leave him unprotected. But the sound was swallowed by the screeching of metal on asphalt and glass shattering. The cocoon of Kevan’s power kept her from feeling any of the impact and stopped the car from collapsing around her, but it couldn’t prevent the vertigo that came from rolling over and over.

  The roar of noise eventually ceased and the car came to a stop. It took a moment for the disorientation to fade enough for Shannon to realize they had landed right side up. With the car crumpled around her—gnarled metal only inches from her in places—it hardly mattered. There was no way she could get out.

  The snap of an electric current coupled with a steady dripping stirred panic within her.

  Kevan lay beside her in his seat, eyes half closed, blood flowing from a gash on his forehead. His chest rose and fell steadily and he looked to be in one piece as far as she could tell. She reached over to him but a sharp pain tore through her abdomen, forcing a scream from her. Instinct tried to make her sit up and bear down, but she struck