The Walls of Jericho

Lofty Adventure

“We’re not going to do the whole torturous thing in the car like we did from the airport, are we?” I ask, remembering reason number one why traveling with your mate is a bad idea. I trail Channing down the two flights of stairs from our third floor room to the ground floor.

Stopping mid-way on the steps as he hauls both pieces of our luggage, he glares over his shoulder at me.

“What? I’m just asking.” I shrug as reason number two why traveling with your mate is a bad idea pops into my head. “I don’t want to do that whole business with the maps again.”

“Well, we can’t, now can we?” he drawls with uncharacteristic sarcasm. “Because someone moody threw out all the maps and threatened to murder me if I tried to retrieve them.”

I smile sweetly, utterly unrepentant. In fact, I’m thoroughly enjoying putting a crimp in his full-time map ecstasy. “Hmmm. Looks like there’s still someone moody on this trip.”

With an annoyed shake of his head, Channing continues down the stairs with our luggage. “Jericho, you’re pushing it.”

That comment makes me laugh outright. His little temper has cemented my belief that traveling with your mate should require marriage counseling, both before and after the trip. It should probably include some sort of trauma therapy too.

For the safety of all involved parties.

Our arrival in the restaurant is later in the day than Channing normally leaves and earlier than I dredge myself out of bed for coffee and breakfast. The activity level here reflects it. Despite the fact that it’s the middle of the workweek and a small place anyway, most of the tables are filled and Nora’s rushing around.

She smiles and chatters a cheery, “Good morning! Ah go on and take a seat wherever you like so.” Then she’s rushing off with her empty coffee pot, hurrying to deliver a hot plate the cook has just placed on the window ledge between here and the kitchen.

While Channing takes our bags out to the car, I grab a table, my back to the room so I can tune out the busy goings-on. I’m startled a few seconds later when someone hugs me tightly from behind. Someone with delicate hands and slender arms wrapped in one of those awful animal-smelly Irish sweaters. Then Fia kisses my cheek and plops down in the chair next to me.

“Hey,” I acknowledge, wondering if both Channing and I were wrong about what was happening between Fia and Damien last night. I glance around the crowded dining room, looking for Brianna and Kieran. Neither of them are here either. “You’re out and about early, and without your usual entourage.”

“Och, I’m not though.” She giggles, then replies in a hushed whisper. “I’m out late. Grandda and Brianna are late risers, like you are, Jericho, so I’ve time yet to get cleaned up before my absence is detected. I just wanted to thank you before you leave.”

“Thank me? What did I do?”

Before Fia can answer, Nora hurries up with two mugs and a fresh pot of coffee in her hand. “I wasn’t expecting you so early, Fia. I’ll bring another cup for your lad straight away,” she tells us, patting me on the shoulder.

“There’ll be no need,” Fia returns. “I’ll be back later with Brianna and Kieran.”

With some relief, Nora rushes off to attend another table, then my unexpected guest leans in again.

“You told me you wouldn’t have waited to give the big lad his chance,” she says, answering my earlier question. “That’s truly excellent advice.”

“Oh boy.” My brows arch as I stir the first packet of sugar into my hot coffee. “I don’t need to know, Fia. That’s between you and Damien.”

She giggles again. “Aye, it was. Many times throughout the night.”

I flinch, closing my eyes and shaking my head. “Okay. That’s enough.”

Fia pats my arm consolingly. “He tells me he’ll return next week. Will you be coming too?”

“No, I’m afraid not. Channing, Ferdi and Damien will be unsupervised again.” My thoughts wander briefly to my KDS on-boarding that starts next week. Then to all the work I need to do in the Heritage databases, once I have the necessary access. “You’re welcome to stay with us in Crossroads, if you’d like to visit.”

“I may just take you up on that,” she replies. “I’ve lots to see and learn. Lots to enjoy. Oh! The big lad’s returned.” Her comment is accompanied by the jingling of the bell over the restaurant’s door. Abruptly, she rises, hugging me hard again. “You’ll come back, won’t you?”

“I don’t know. We’ll see.”

“Hey, Fia,” Channing greets.

She smiles up at him, and there’s no mistaking she’s just a little awestruck. “Good morning to you. I look forward to your return with your Luna, Alpha,” she whispers softly, then takes her leave with a pert nod.

I groan, rolling my eyes. I’ll never hear the end of her fawning appreciation from Channing now.

“What was that all about?”

I arch a brow as he takes the seat Fia only seconds ago vacated. Stirring a second packet of sugar into my coffee, I reply, “She called you ‘Alpha’. Can’t you guess?”

Channing dumps a packet of sugar into his mug, then gives it a cursory stir. As he takes his first sip, he says, “She’ll make a great addition to Avernus. Very polite. Very well-behaved.”

The words roll off his smooth tongue with a casualness that belies the barb he directs towards me with them. I'm tempted to punch him in the mouth, but there's more than one way to skin a cat.

Stirring in my cream, I smile sweetly. “I’ll reject you if you want,” I offer. “You can find yourself a more docile type like Fia.”

He sets his mug down before him. “Where did you learn that?”

“What? That I can reject you and sever the mate bond?”

“Yeah,” he replies flatly.

I laugh at his consternation. “Her Royal Rudeness Rebecca isn’t totally useless.”

“I might’ve known,” he replies, shaking his head. “As soon as we get home, she’s going back into the catacombs. In a body bag.”

“Now, now,” I soothe. “She was only informing me of my rights as a mate—the ones you neglected to tell me when you exerted your claim.”

“There was a reason for that," he snaps. "Did you order already?”

I shake my head. “No. Nora’s running ragged this morning. I expect she’ll have a few Belfast baps out here soon enough. If you want something else, you’ll have to catch her then.”

“We should ask her for some snacks to take on the road with us,” he suggests. “Healthy stuff you like. Like apples. Bananas. Maybe a few hard-boiled eggs if she’s got them.”

“Are you kidding?”

Channing heaves a sigh. “Tell me what’s wrong with asking?”

“Nothing’s wrong with asking. Asking for bananas, hard-boiled eggs and apples though?”

“I thought you liked all that stuff!” he huffs.

“I do,” I affirm, nodding vehemently. “Except for the thought of bananas and hard-boiled eggs keeping company with apples on a road trip. Wherever we wind up, the bananas and eggs will emerge sometime later looking like they lost a fight with the apples along the way and we won’t want to eat them.”

Fusspot that he is, Channing grouses, “Jesus, Jericho. I just want to enjoy this extended alone time with you. Grow closer together. Make our relationship deeper. Why do you have to be so impossible?”

Reaching over the space between us, I tuck my fingers into the collar of his V-neck sweater. I pull him to me, and plant a firm lingering kiss on his mouth. While I’m enjoying teasing him about this road trip, I do get the experience he’s after.

Trapped in a car with your significant other for a protracted interlude, you’re forced to rely on each other. You have no choice but to be each other’s entertainment and companionship. Clearly, Channing and I thrive in each other’s company, and based on the years of blatantly arousing flirting we did when I was still working at Esteban’s, we always have. At this point, neither of us voluntarily chooses to spend time away from the other.

It’s still a learning process though. One where working the pieces into a cohesive picture can be challenging for two people from as diverse of backgrounds as my mate and me.

Channing’s shoulders have relaxed when I release his mouth. To keep that electric humming connection between us rolling smoothly, I gaze into his gorgeous blue eyes while I answer. “I’m not impossible. I’m trying to compromise. We both have to be team players, right? How about you try too? If we need a snack, we can stop somewhere. It’ll give us a chance to explore together and try something off the beaten path.”

Remarkably, it works like a charm.

Leaning to me again, he pecks a quick kiss on my lips. “Mmm. Okay.”

Abruptly, he pulls away, making space so Nora can set a plate of hot Belfast baps in front of him, then a second plate with my preferred single vegetarian bap and a side dish that has two smallish pastries.

“Vegetarian,” Nora informs us tersely, pointing to the pastry with a creamy yellowish spread that smells like lemon topped with a generous mound of fresh blueberries. “Lemon curd and blueberries. Carnivore.” She grins at Channing, pointing to the second pastry which smells like peanut butter and is clearly topped with a thick slab of crispy bacon. Patting him on the shoulder, she darts off.

Immediately, he snatches the peanut butter and bacon-topped pastry off the plate. Then he pops the whole thing into his mouth and gives a satisfied “mmmm” at the crunch. “I didn’t know they had that on the menu. It’s really good. Do you always get the special treatment?”

I snort. “If you call being used as Nora and the cook’s guinea pig ‘special treatment’.”

He closes one eye and peers at me through the other, but he’s smiling now. “’Guinea pig’ is far too tame for you. Eat up, babydoll. Let’s get this show on the road.”

**

Even with a quick stop to top off the gas tank with petrol, it only takes an hour and a half from Belfast to reach our first stop on Channing’s Northern Ireland tour

As he drives, it’s hard not to notice the beautiful green scenery. And it’s impossible not to be moved by it. It’s not raining, but the skies are overcast and against their boring grayish background, it’s easy to understand why Ireland is called the Emerald Isle.

Once we reach the micro-mini-car’s cruising speed, my mate steers, navigating the narrow roads with one hand. He laces his fingers with mine with the other, kissing the back of my hand tenderly. “I’m really glad we’re doing this,” he gushes.

Twice we stop, just for the sake of it, and so Channing can hound me into taking one of those cutsie selfies that i********: couples always fake. One of the ones with the beaming smiles and a casually spectacular backdrop, with a stupid headline like: ‘First Vacay Together!’

His enthusiasm is contagious though, and I smile despite my disdain of the selfie practice, which seems to make him happy.

“God, Jericho,” he breathes almost reverently. Staring at the photo he just took as I look out over the expansive vista beyond us, he zooms in to one section of the image. “I can’t lie—I hate that color that Rebecca made your hair, she almost ruined it—but you are so beautiful anyway.”

“Don’t be sappy, Stark.” Lifting my arms over my head, I lace my fingers together. The slight stretch, first left, then right, feels incredible and I moan softly in enjoyment.

“Ooh.” Immediately, his eyes reorient from his phone to me. A moment later, his strong arms coil around my middle from behind. “I’m not being sappy,” he insists. “And if I am, is it really such a bad thing that a man adores his mate?” He rests his chin gently on top of my head.

I let my arms drop behind my head, then thread my fingers into his silky waves of dark brown hair. The humidity here makes it curlier, making him even more hunky though I’d never admit that out loud. “You’re really tall,” I comment, ignoring his question.

“That, babydoll,” he turns me to face him, tangling his fingers in my hair and tipping my head back to look up at him, “is because you’ve mated into the longest alpha bloodline in Avernus’ history. And you’re pretty tall too, particularly for a woman.”

“What does that mean? ‘Longest alpha bloodline’?”

“It means yours truly can trace his ancestry back to the wolf king who captured the dragons Ejder and Veles and banished them to their underground realm,” he explains. “Aside from a couple of short-lived stints that lasted less than a generation, my lineage has ruled Avernus since it was a city on the edge of a dragon-decimated world.”

“Are you?” I drawl. “Well, that little tidbit of information certainly adds a new dimension to the whole wolves-are-finishing-off-the-dragons feud you’ve got going on.” I don’t bother mentioning it aloud, but it also adds an interesting twist to his friendly relationship with Ferdi’s usurping bloodline.

“Jericho, would it kill you to consider that maybe this isn’t as cut and dry as you want to make it? Especially since you’ve spent only few weeks as a werewolf.”

“There was no judgment, beefcake,” I reply, trying to diffuse the sudden tension. “The only thing I’m pointing out is what you just did—there’s a lot I don’t know that you haven’t told me. Seems like now might be a good time to cover it.”

Channing takes my hand, tugging me towards the micro-mini-car. “I’ll think about it. Come on. Ballintoy isn’t far.”

**

Looking out over Ballintoy Harbor, it’s strange to imagine this remarkably green yet still rocky stretch of land abuts open water the same way the beach at Tassler Heights does. The difference the rain makes is striking. It’s also quite beautiful. Channing steers the car up a windy hill and through the tiny village of Ballintoy. We pass a Church of Ireland there, and within a couple minutes pull into a car park for the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge.

The sign in the car park indicates that it’s just over one kilometer to the bridge, so we set off with a few other visitors. Despite the early steep at the beginning of the trail and the ups and downs of stairs along it, we soon outdistance the little pack, compliments of my mate’s werewolf energy and zest for adventure.

Along the way, there are spectacular vistas that include Sheep Island, the island-based Kenbane Castle and the Larrybane Quarry along the hike to and from the bridge, and one sign advises that on a clear day you’re supposed to be able to see across the sea to the distant Mull of Kintyre in Scotland.

The original rope bridge was made by salmon fishermen in the mid-1700s, to connect the mainland with the tiny island of Carrick. It’s been rebuilt over the years, and the current bridge is the eighth iteration. It serves now mostly as an attraction, since the salmon left this part of the Atlantic Ocean as a result of river pollution and there’s been no fishing in the area for nearly two decades.

Ironically, the island’s name from which the rope bridge subsequently takes its name, ‘carrick’, is the English version of the Gaelic ‘carraig’ which means ‘rock’. Channing and I both get a laugh out of that, because there’s nothing about the nearly seventy foot long rope bridge that feels nearly as steady as a rock. There’s plenty rocky about the roughly one hundred foot drop to the sea beneath it though.

The rope bridge is owned and maintained by the National Trust, and there’s a charge to cross. We pay for the sake of adding it to our to-done list. Then we celebrate our fifteen-minute conquest of the tiny island and its replica fisherman’s cottage with another of Channing’s stupid smiley selfies and a couple cornball pictures of each other clowning around.

The walk back is steep at the start then levels out and is mostly downhill at the end. We take a few minutes to wander the Weighbridge tea-room and gift shop near the car park, and grab a nice hot cuppa and a small selection of sweets to share before we load up the micro-mini-car on our way to our next adventure. 

**

It’s not even lunchtime when we arrive at the Dark Hedges, a gorgeously eerie avenue of beech trees. The trees were planted by the Stuart family during the late 1700s as a means of impressing visitors to the entrance to their mansion, Gracehill House.

Something about the three-hundred-year-old border and their gnarly branches supporting the dense beech canopy overhead makes the place feel magical.

Channing parks the car in the car park not far away, and hand in hand, we walk the long narrow lane between the trees through the stunning organic tunnel.

“This is where you need your red hoodie, Jericho,” he says softly, then yanks me to him to nuzzle a squeal of protest out of me. “The big bad wolf will get you.”

Laughing, I shove him away. “It won’t be a wolf,” I counter. “This place is supposed to be haunted by a spirit called the Grey Lady who wanders along the trees, but always disappears at the last one. Sometimes she’s even joined by the ghosts from a nearby forgotten cemetery.”

As if the mere mention of ghosts gives the place leave to turn atmospheric, the air around me becomes misty and dense.

“Jericho!” Channing’s voice grows distant, and I can’t see him beside me anymore.

Time, storms and warming temperatures that cause droughts have taken sixty of the original one-hundred-fifty trees originally planted, but as the fog thickens around me, the years roll backwards and the hedges are solid once more.

“Jericho!” Now, my name is an almost inaudible whisper.

I let my eyes drift over the canopy overhead, the dark branches twisting disconcertingly. There’s a flittering among the highest branches, the flash of wings as countless roughly cat-sized birds hop and flutter among the leaves. They're all drawing closer, crowding into the branches directly above me.

Extending my arms, I reach out with my fingertips, expanding their reach with my invisible antennae. The caress of something warm touches me, like an exhaled breath over my skin and I close my fist around it. I hold tight and pull it closer. I pray I’ve caught my mate—like the last time at the Titanic Belfast waterfront—and my faith and his devotion reward me. Channing solidifies at my side, my hand clutched about his wrist.

“Jesus, Jericho,” he whispers, his gaze following mine. “They’re dragons, but—tiny.”

“I think they’re babies.”

Still gawking, like me, he mutters, “Holy s**t. There’s hundreds of them. Are they all related?”

“No idea.”

“I don’t think I want you wearing that ring anymore.”

“I don’t think the ring has anything to do with this.”

“Hello,” a female voice says, drawing both our attention towards the ground. “I wasn’t certain there were any left to come.”

“Um. Who’s this?” Channing mumbles out of the side of his mouth.

I study the woman before me. The billow of her gray dress, the writhe of her gray hair worn long and loose and flowing nearly to the ground. There’s a second shape to her though, an outline all too familiar. “I think this is the Grey Lady.”

“But—she’s—a unicorn.”

I cast one more quick glance at the dragon-filled treetops overhead, then look back at the Grey Lady. “It appears she is.”