So Jack sat on a bale of hay and let some horse named Snowball nuzzle his shoulder. He was surprised to realize he was going to miss Camry. She had grown on him over the last couple of weeks, and he was sorry she was leaving.

The large stable door suddenly slid open and Kenzie Gregor walked in, stopping short when he spotted Jack.

“How’s your favor going with Megan?” Jack asked.

Kenzie walked to a stall and led one of the huge draft horses into the aisle. “It’s going quite well, thank ye.”

“And your pet? How’s that little problem coming along?”

Kenzie gave Jack a warning glance and went back to bridling his horse. “I told ye I’d take care of it, and I will.”

“No, actually, you never did tell me you would.”

Kenzie turned to face him. “The beast won’t be breaking into any more shops. He’s sick, and I fear he may be dying.”

“Well, that takes care of that problem,” Jack said, standing up to leave.

“Ye don’t understand, Stone. I intend to do everything in my power to save him.”

“Or your brother’s power?”

Kenzie looked momentarily startled, then narrowed his eyes. “What has my brother got to do with this?”

Jack shrugged and stepped outside, Kenzie following. “You save that creature’s life, Gregor, you better find a way to send it back where it came from.”

“I will deal with it,” he said, leading his horse toward the path heading up the mountain. He stopped, swung up onto its bare back in one easy motion, and gave Jack a speculative look. “Camry and Megan were talking at lunch today, and Camry mentioned a word I haven’t heard before. Would ye happen to know what shaman means?”

“What it means, Gregor, is that you Celts aren’t the only magic act in town,” Jack said, walking away.

Jack’s foul mood continued through the rest of the day and into the evening. It also was likely responsible for the heart-pounding nightmare he had that night, in which he repeatedly found himself battling one monster after another as he frantically tried to get to Megan, who was struggling in the icy water of a tundra lake.

Each time he was just about to reach her, another adversary got in his way. Kenzie Gregor tried to cut him in half with a large bloody sword, Jack barely deflecting each blow with his tiny hatchet. Then a faceless Mark Collins stood with his small army of students, forcing Jack to hack his way through them, their cries of betrayal caught up in Megan’s scream for help. The dragon flew at him next, shooting fire from its nostrils as its tail lashed at Jack, trying to knock the hatchet from his hand.

And just when he thought he’d defeated any and all foes and could finally save Megan, Jack found Greylen MacKeage blocking his path. Looking a good forty years younger, wearing a gray and red, dark green, and lavender plaid and holding an ancient and bloodied sword in his hand, the fierce Highlander was the final gauntlet he had to run in order to reach the woman he loved.

The hatchet dangling in his hand at his side and blood seeping from his wounds, Jack’s entire body trembled with exhaustion and apparent defeat. He could only watch helplessly as men from three different clans pulled Megan from the icy water and then flew off, carrying her to an impenetrable fortress on a distant mountain.

“Ye failed, Stone,” Greylen said, moving to block his way when Jack tried to follow. “You’ve disgraced your ancestors by failing to protect what’s yours. Ye don’t deserve a family of your own, especially my daughter and grandson. We’ll raise the boy to be a powerful warrior.”

“I don’t want him to be a warrior!” Jack cried out. “And neither does his mother.”

“Turn around, Stone. See what your way has gained you.”

Jack slowly turned and saw Kenzie, the dragon, and Collins and his students regrouping, preparing themselves to come at him again.

“You possess the skills of a warrior, Stone,” Greylen said, drawing his attention again. “But ye refuse to use them.”

“I prefer peaceful solutions to problems.”

“And so you will continue to fight the same fights, refusing to see that sometimes a man must act decisively, even when it goes against his nature.”

“I fought them,” Jack said, nodding behind him without taking his eyes off Megan’s father.

“Aye, but your blows were ineffectual, and instead of solving anything, ye only postponed the inevitable. Did ye not hope to avoid taking action yourself by giving Kenzie a week to deal with the dragon? And so your problems come at you again, and my daughter and her child pay the price of your hesitation.”

Jack dropped his chin to his chest. “There has to be a way I can save her,” he said, more to himself than to Grey.

“There is, Coyote.”

“What is it, then?” Jack asked, looking up, only to find his grand-père standing beside Greylen, the two men appearing to be different sides of the same coin.

“You must embrace your dark side,” his grand-père said. “And acknowledge the shadow your heart creates when you stand in the light. One does not exist without the other, Coyote—which means you cannot exist unless you accept both.”

“If I acknowledge the shadows, will I get Megan and my son back?” he asked, looking up to find himself in his pitch-black bedroom, his sheets soaked with sweat and his heart pounding in dread.

Jack untangled himself from the bedding, showered, dressed, and went to work, his mood from yesterday compounded tenfold by the nightmare he couldn’t seem to shake—which vividly echoed the fact that he hadn’t seen Megan since Matt Gregor had whisked her off to Gù Brath in his plane.

Jack’s day continued its downward spiral when he walked into the police station and found John Bracket in their makeshift holding cell. The man had a cut on his forehead and blood on his shirt, and was hollering at Ethel to get him a lawyer.

And Jack realized he was looking at yet another monster he hadn’t fully dealt with: just like a battered wife, he had hoped this particular problem would solve itself. But here it was, haunting him again.

“Did Mrs. Bracket finally press charges?” Jack asked Ethel.

“No, we did. John Bracket got in an accident on the way home from some bar in Greenville, and sent our sand truck off the road. It plunged into Pine Creek.”

“How’s the driver of the sand truck?”

“He’s at the hospital with Simon. They both needed stitches.”

“Both? What happened to Simon?”

“Bracket split open Simon’s cheekbone when the boy tried to handcuff him to bring him in.”

Jack bit back a curse. “If I’d pressed charges last week when Bracket punched me, this wouldn’t have happened.”

“It would have eventually,” Ethel said. “He’d have gotten out on bail, gotten drunk again, and something just as ugly would have happened.” She shrugged. “It’s always the same vicious cycle.”

“This particular cycle stops today. We’re drawing up a list of charges that will keep him locked up for a couple of years, and pray that’s long enough for him to find some religion.”

“I’ve already done the paperwork, and a sheriff’s deputy is on the way to transport John to the county jail,” Ethel said, just as the phone rang. “I put your messages on your desk,” she finished, picking up the phone.

Jack walked into his office, sat down at his desk, and stared at the opposite wall. It wasn’t just time to think like his ancestors; it was time he had a heart-to-heart talk with them.

Jack’s mood did an immediate one-eighty when he walked into Pine Creek PowerSports that afternoon and found Tom Cleary hunched over the partly dismantled engine of his sled. Tom actually looked like a mechanic: he was wearing clean coveralls, his hair was shorter—though it looked like his mother had cut it—and he had on safety glasses and steel-toed boots.

Paul Dempsey was hovering over the boy as if he expected Tom to pick up a sledgehammer and start thumping away.