Stag and the Ash Read online

  Stag and the Ash

  Sam Burns

  Copyright © 2018 by Sam Burns.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Content Warning: this book is intended for adult audiences only, and contains violence, swearing, and graphic sex scenes.

  Cover art © 2018 by Madeline Farlow at clause-effect.com

  Editing by Madeline Farlow at clause-effect.com

  Contents

  Also by Sam Burns

  1. Playing Dress Up

  2. A Note from a Friend

  3. Nkotb

  4. Duck, Duck, Alpha

  5. A Day at the Beach

  6. A Night to Remember

  7. A Little Poisoning Between Friends

  8. Back to the Future

  9. In the End

  Afterword

  Excerpt from Adder and Willow

  About the Author

  Also by Sam Burns

  The Rowan Harbor Cycle

  Blackbird in the Reeds

  Wolf and the Holly

  Fox and Birch

  Hawk in the Rowan

  Adder and Willow (Coming Soon)

  Eagle in the Hawthorn (Coming Soon)

  Salmon and the Hazel (Coming Soon)

  Wilde Love

  Straight from the Heart

  Sins of the Father

  Strike Up the Band

  Saint and the Sinner

  A Very Wilde Christmas

  For more information, click or visit:

  Burnswrites.com

  For my husband, for always supporting my hunt.

  1

  Playing Dress Up

  It was a foggy Sunday morning in March the first time he saw the stag.

  The woods around Rowan Harbor were full of black-tailed deer, so a stag was nothing out of the ordinary, but this one caught his attention. It still had full, undamaged antlers in a month when most stags had not only dropped theirs, but already started to regrow new ones. It was also snow white. Either fact on its own could be an anomaly—a bit of genetic coding that set this one apart from the others. Both combined caught his attention.

  Since December, Jesse had been spending more time in the woods. He saw a lot of deer. While his instincts told him to run down every single one to provide for his family, he mostly ignored them and stopped at the grocery store on the way home. Something about this stag, or this morning, was different. His heart rate sped, and his body tensed to leap into action, to give chase when the thing inevitably ran.

  But it didn’t run. Wind blew through the trees, sweeping tendrils of fog between them. When they cleared again, the stag was gone, as though it had never existed.

  Maybe if Jesse had been a real wolf, the encounter wouldn’t have meant anything—just one more deer he didn’t catch. But Jesse wasn’t a real wolf, and like a single out-of-tune key on a piano, something about the scene was discordant.

  If the deer had taken advantage of the momentary camouflage and run for its life, then why hadn’t Jesse heard a sound?

  He couldn’t remember what white stags were supposed to symbolize. Deer were for hunting, white was usually attached to some backward notion of innocence, and . . . what else? Was it supposed to lead him to some great personal revelation? That sounded nice. Easy. Follow the stag and figure out the answer to your problems.

  His problems would have to be much simpler, to be solved by hunting.

  Heck, he didn’t even like venison that much. He wondered if Sean did. He shook his whole body, as though he could shake off the thoughts like water, and continued his walk.

  As he passed another ash tree that he and Sean had reinscribed wards into, he reached out to feel the magic resonate in his mind. Still there, still working, still connected to the others. Another rune still humming with protective energy. That was number twenty-nine, the last one south of town. He had to cross the county road that led into town and then check thirty-four more trees on the north side. Walking the whole crescent of wards made for a long and uninteresting morning.

  Maybe he’d imagined the stag in a desperate attempt to distract himself from his boredom. It hadn’t worked for long. He sighed to himself as he loped across the road and hunted for tree number thirty.

  By the time he finished the circuit and got back to his car, it was nearly eight in the morning. He’d parked in a spot by the river, hidden just inside the woods, so that he could easily change out of his fur and into his clothes without giving anyone an eyeful, except maybe Uncle Nate on his way to work. That didn’t make it any less awkward to change into a naked guy in the woods, but at least it reduced the chances of emotionally scarring people he hardly knew.

  He rushed through dressing, thankful he hadn’t bothered with socks on his way out of the house that morning. Sitting in the open back of his SUV, he dusted his feet off then jammed them into his oldest tennis shoes. He sat there staring at the river for a while. His stomach was grumbling and he ought to head home, but he did like the quiet time he got in the woods.

  Uncle Nate drove by, waving to him and looking way too chipper for someone who was awake before ten in the morning. Jesse waved back, trying to look like he wasn’t tired and cranky. That wasn’t Nate’s problem; it was Jesse’s.

  It would probably be simpler to leave his back door unlocked and change into fur before he left his house in the morning, but he didn’t want to do that. He couldn’t explain why, but the whole process of patrolling the woods left him feeling like a grade-schooler playing dress up in his mother’s things. Worse, wandering through town as a wolf made him feel like everyone was watching him do it, knowing that he was a kid playing at being an adult.

  He didn’t think he was bad at the job. His mother never patrolled the woods every day or worried about the wards; if she had, one of them wouldn’t have spent almost twenty-five years broken, thus weakening the whole circle.

  On the other hand, Jesse didn’t remember anything overtly dangerous happening in Rowan Harbor until around his thirtieth birthday, so he imagined his mother’s complacency was understandable. He had no such luxury. Between the efforts of wizards, “hunters,” trolls, and some mysterious villain yet to come, the town had seen more violence in the last five months than in the previous five years. The previous fifty years, maybe.

  It was no wonder his mother had wanted him to take over. He wouldn’t have wanted to deal with the mess after decades of peace and quiet either.

  Finally, he stood from the back of the SUV and turned to slam the trunk closed behind him. He stretched, reaching toward the sky, and his back gave a couple of cracks that were deeply satisfying.

  He decided to make Sean breakfast in bed. He made a decent omelet, and they might have some grapes in the fridge. It was pitiful for a home-cooked meal, but Sean would appreciate the sentiment, if not the cuisine. Jesse didn’t feel like going to the grocery store and dealing with people so early in the morning.

  He climbed into the car and headed back into town. It wasn’t a long drive home, which made driving instead of walking completely unnecessary, but no one had ever called him on it. They probably thought he was lazy. Come to think of it, they probably didn’t care.

  He pulled into the drive at almost exactly eight and found Miss Vander, the elderly wood nymph who lived next door, messing with the wood bits scattered around the roots of her front shrubs. Mulch? He didn’t know a damn thing about gardening, which he should probably work on, since he was dating a hortic
ulturist with a flower shop and plant magic.

  The lady gave him a nod. “Good morning.”

  “Morning, Miss V. How are you today?”

  “I’m fine. You?” She didn’t even wait a beat for him to answer before tacking on, “And Sean?”

  He stopped walking and turned toward her. “He’s, uh, okay. Not great. He’s grateful you’re looking after the shop for him while he works through this stuff. I know it’s not your responsibility—”

  She waved off his platitude. “I ran that shop for fifty years. I can manage a little longer while he needs the help. I’ll never forget my mother’s death.” Her expression clouded, eyes unfocused and sad. “You never really get over it. You have to keep going, or the world leaves you behind.”

  There had been a time when Jesse believed he’d had a tough life. When his boyfriend’s mother had died the month before, he’d realized how easy his life had been. He inclined his head to her. “I appreciate your help too. It means a lot that everyone has been there for him and his dad.”

  “I’m not sure poor Frank is ever going to get over it. Sean has you, but Frank is all alone in that big house now.”

  “He’s been staying with Eric Lane, actually. Fletcher tells me they’ve bonded and they’re spending a lot of time together.” That friendship might be the only good thing to come of Leah Anderson's death, not that anyone would have chosen to make that trade, but sometimes Jesse needed to look for a silver lining in the constant storm clouds.

  Miss Vander was thoughtful for a while before nodding. “That’s good. Being alone is hard.”

  The words were simple, delivered with no real emotion, but they hit Jesse like a sucker punch. Was she lonely? Should he be doing something to help? He was no good with emotional stuff. He should ask Devon to talk to her. Devon was all about being the council guy, and he was good at it.

  Jesse was convinced he couldn’t lead a PTA meeting, let alone a town, but Devon could do it, so he cut himself a little slack.

  She seemed unaware of his turmoil and nonchalantly wandered into Jesse’s half of their shared yard. She turned toward the big bay window next to the front door and looked down at the tiny seedling of a tree coming up there. “You won’t be able to keep this little one here for long, you know.”

  He hadn’t, in fact—he hadn’t thought much about the baby tree at all. The day before he bought the house, a squirrel gave him an acorn. It was still in his pocket the next day, and it had seemed serendipitous that for the first time in his life, he owned land to plant on. He’d buried the acorn in the dirt in front of the window, and the tiny sapling had come up a few weeks later. “Um, sure. Does it, like, need to be free or something?”

  She rolled her eyes at him. “It’s an oak tree. It’s going to grow too big to have right next to the house, unless you want it to become a part of the house.”

  “Is that what happened to your old place?” The house Sean had bought from her on the edge of town had an old tree growing through a large portion of the back, complete with indoor squirrels. Sean loved the place, but it creeped Jesse out, nature encroaching on civilization like that. Like it broke the natural order of things.

  The look she gave him said that he was utterly hopeless. “No, dear. That house was intended to be that way. There’s magic binding the building and tree in harmony. This would just grow under the foundation and crack it. Eventually all the houses on the block would be affected, since they share walls.”

  Jesse gaped at her. “Oh. Well, I’ll get right on that.” He thought about pulling it out then and there, but he didn’t think she’d be too impressed with that either, since that might hurt the tree. “Would it be okay over there, or should I take it out to the forest?”

  She looked at the spot he pointed to, in the middle of their lawn. “It would be okay there for longer, at least.”

  That reminded him of something he’d been meaning to bring up with her. “Those acorns you used to buy from the squirrels. This is one of them, I think. Anything I need to know about that?”

  Since Sean had told him about the strange agreement between the woman and squirrels, something about the idea had stuck in his mind. White oak, Sean had called the acorns. Like the dryad who lived out in the forest, who was on the council.

  The coy expression she gave him didn’t quell his suspicions at all.

  “Should I be worried that I’m creating a new neighbor?”

  “Whether the little one manifests or not, every tree is a new neighbor,” she told him in her usual no-nonsense tone. She knelt down next to the sapling and ran a finger along what would eventually become the trunk. “I like this one’s chances, though.”

  “Is that what you’ve been trying to do? Seed dryads all over the harbor?”

  She patted the dirt next to the tree and frowned. “You should get some water on this. It’s starting to dry out now that the snow has gone.” Turning and standing, she looked up at him. “It’s never a definite thing. They have as much chance of manifesting as a human has of being born with magical talent. You never know before.”

  He definitely needed to move the sapling. Whether he knew it was going to achieve sentience or not, he didn’t want to take a chance on having a dryad right outside his window. He and Sean had made out on that window seat a few days earlier. He didn’t need an audience for that, however unintentional.

  Miss Vander gave him a knowing smirk. “No dryad will ever judge you and our friendly neighborhood succubus, dear. Judgment isn’t in the nature of trees.”

  He nodded to her, but he was going to move the thing posthaste. “I’ll move it over there for now, and we’ll see how it goes?”

  She looked at the spot again. “Yes, I think that will do nicely. At least for a while. We’ll see how fast little sibling grows.”

  Jesse thought again of the ancient, sprawling Oak, their tree covering the better part of half an acre out in the woods. They could take over the whole block easily with all of their branches. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he agreed.

  Her amused laughter followed him inside.

  The house was silent as a tomb, which Jesse took to mean that Sean was still asleep. He hoped Sean was still asleep. On Wednesday, he’d come home at noon to find him awake and staring at the ceiling.

  He listened intently for a moment. He heard Miss Vander humming to herself, having gone back to her mulching or whatever it was she was doing. The furnace was still on in the house on their other side, a constant low-level buzz. There, barely in his range of hearing, was Sean’s heartbeat, upstairs, still in bed. It was slow enough that he probably was asleep.

  Jesse headed for the kitchen. He was pleasantly surprised to find that they not only had grapes, but some strawberries as well. Omelets and fruit, it was.

  He wasn’t much of a cook, but he was efficient at making various breakfast foods. Breakfast was the best meal of the day, after all.

  He’d have to make a grocery store run and make pancakes for dinner sometime during the week. Everyone liked pancakes for dinner, right? He knew pancakes weren’t going to cure Sean, but he didn’t know how to help, so he was going to continue trying everything that came to mind.

  It had been hard to get Sean to eat lately, and it wasn’t only because of his newly awakened succubus side. It was depression, impossible to miss for Jesse, who’d been there and done that. Jesse ate more, not less, when he was depressed, but he knew that both options were possible.

  He added some cheese, and a few chopped scallions to the omelets before plating them, then threw the fruit in a bowl on the side. As an afterthought, he poured two huge glasses of orange juice and balanced them carefully on the tray. He had good reflexes, so it wasn’t likely that he’d spill them, but there was no reason to be careless.

  Sure enough, Sean was sleeping when he got to the bedroom door. He was on his stomach, all twisted up in the blanket—something Jesse had gotten used to quickly. Sean was a blanket thief. That was okay because he was also a furnace, and
all Jesse needed to do to keep warm was snuggle up to him in all his blanket-stealing glory.

  “Mmm?” Sean woke with a start and tried to roll onto his back, but was hampered by the sheet around his middle. He finally untucked it and flipped over, pulling it back securely around his midsection. “Hey. You cooked?”

  Jesse stuck his lip out in mock hurt. “Are you suggesting that’s not likely? I cook all the time.”

  Sean snorted. “I’m saying it’s ass-o’clock in the morning and you’re awake.”

  “Eight’s not that early. I woke up at three and decided to do the rounds then, since I do the whole circle on Sundays. Well, the part on land. Figured if I finished early, that was more time to spend with my boo.”

  “You really said that,” Sean said, one eyebrow raised.

  Jesse turned and sat next to him on the bed, setting the tray across Sean’s lap. “Sure did. Is that not what you whippersnappers are saying these days? Should I call you baby? Honey? Sweetie? Bae?”

  Sean laughed, and Jesse made a mental tally mark. That was one. He tried to inspire Sean to at least ten emotions a day that weren’t apathy or misery. Even if it was anger, it was better than sitting in bed staring at the ceiling. He thought he’d go for twenty since it was Sunday, and he had absolutely nothing to do but spend it with his boo.

  “You wanna watch a movie? We could watch that werewolf one you like to mock me about. The one with all the shirtless guys and muscles.”