The Druid Next Door

by E. J. Russell

  “How long ago?”

  “Not long as the crow flies.”

  Bryce squinted at him, obviously trying to focus. “The crow doesn’t fly across time.”

  Mal snorted. “That’s all you know.”

  “And everyone was okay with that?”

  “Define okay.” He held up his right hand. “Let’s not forget the foiled coup attempt by Rodric bloody Luchullain, ex-Consort, traitor to Queen and realm. Or, as we now call him . . .” he grinned and mocked the royal wave, “Lefty.”

  “So why are the Seelie and Unseelie still at odds?”

  “She unified across nationalities, not affiliation. You need another beer?”

  Struggling upright, Bryce frowned at the bottle in his hand. “Is this one empty already? No wonder I—” The bottle dropped from his fingers and rolled across the table, caroming off several others before it spun to a halt. He head fell forward onto the table with a clunk.

  “You can’t be that drunk, can you?” Or am I that boring?

  Suddenly, the pressure in the house fluctuated, flattening the blinds against the windows and popping Mal’s ears with the kind of displacement that signaled a major working.

  With his only ally passed out and drooling on the table, Mal regretted the last three beers. Only a high mage—or fae royalty—could cross the boundary without a fixed gate, and given that Mal had no weapon—and no way to wield it if he did—he was at a distinct disadvantage.

  Ah, bugger it. He had no defenses; he was either dead or he wasn’t, so no point cowering here, waiting for his doom to fall. He thrust his chair backward and staggered to his feet. With the hair on his arms standing on end, he edged past Bryce and peered into the living room.

  The caped figure standing in the shadows by the fireplace had to be at least seven and a half feet tall. Its deep hood completely hid its face, although the uneven silhouette suggested that the skull underneath the heavy black fabric might rival Alun’s old beast-face.

  “Didn’t hear you knock.” Mal kept his voice casual. Yeah, a half-dozen beers’ll chill anybody out.

  “I didn’t.” The being, whatever the hells it was, had a voice like a brass gong.

  “Ah. That would be why. Mind telling me what you’re doing in my house—uninvited, I might add?”

  “I believe we have an opportunity to benefit one another, Lord Maldwyn.”

  “I never bargain with anyone if I can’t look them in the eye. Are you willing to drop the disguise?”

  “That would be . . . inadvisable.”

  Damn it, he should have pulled that twelve-inch blade out of the knife block. If he was about to get snuffed, at least he’d do some damage on his way down. At this point, he’d almost welcome the release.

  Except Bryce was passed out and vulnerable not five feet away, possible collateral damage if Mal pissed the intruder off. Despite being a druid, Bryce didn’t deserve to be slaughtered in his sleep by something he hadn’t known existed until two hours ago.

  “Can I offer you a beer? Some Thai curry?” A blade through the eye?

  “I’m not here for conviviality.”

  Clearly, because this guy could make a circus sound like a funeral. Mal propped himself against the wall between the dining room and living room. “Could you spare me your name? Or didn’t you come here for that either?”

  A rumble in the massive chest could have been a growl, a suppressed laugh, or simply gas. “You may call me . . . Steve.”

  “Steve.” And I’m bloody queen of the May. “Right, Steve. What’s your proposition?”

  “We’ve something in common, you and I.” Steve paced from the fireplace to the front door, his cloak swirling around his massive booted feet. “We both suffer under a curse.”

  Mal shifted so his left shoulder was toward Steve. “Mine is as good as handled.”

  Silence, except for Steve’s stentorian breathing. “We both know that is a lie. If you had any hope of lifting your curse, you’d not cower here in this Outer World hovel.”

  “Hey. It’s not a hovel. It’s state-of-the-art passive house construction.” Or so the brochures claimed.

  “Yet you make no secret of your disdain for it.”

  “I haven’t . . .” Well, maybe he had, but that Steve knew about it sent a bolt of alarm down Mal’s spine. I’m being watched—by beings more powerful than redcaps. “Your point?”

  “We can aid one another. You assist me in lifting my curse, and I will assist you with yours.”

  “Promises are easy. How do I know you can deliver?”

  Steve raised one enormous gloved hand and pointed. Magic crackled in the room like captive lightning, lifting the hair on Mal’s scalp.

  The fingers of his right hand tingled and twitched. Mal sucked in a breath. He extended his arm and, for the first time in two months, made a fist. And he could feel it—nails biting into his palms, the stretch of long-frozen tendons.

  Relief shot through his chest. I’m whole again. I can—

  Then, just as suddenly, the magic bled from the air, his hand once more a dead weight on his wrist.

  “As you see, I’ve the means to aid you. My abilities are limited by my curse, you understand, so I can only loosen your bindings for a brief moment, but when I am returned to my true form, my power will be likewise restored.”

  Mal closed his left hand over his right, forming it into a fist again. Goddess, it had felt so good to feel again. And if Steve was true to his word, Mal could be free of his curse without giving anything back to Rodric bloody Luchullain. But with high mages, just as with druids, there was always a catch. Now I really wish I hadn’t had those last three beers. If he were slightly more sober, he’d stand a better chance of reasoning his way past Steve’s evasions.

  Nah. Cassie was right—thinking had never been his strong suit.

  “You’ve told me how you’ll help me. How do I help you?”

  “By performing three tasks.”

  Three. Why was it always three? Bleeding Welsh triads. “Let me guess. Bring you the Spear of Lugh? The Stone of Fál? Hells, why not the head of Bran the Blessed while we’re about it?”

  Steve rumbled. “Nothing so difficult. At least, not difficult for one such as you—someone with a degree of natural cunning and a certain disregard for . . . tradition, shall we say?”

  “I’m not sure whether to be flattered or insulted.”

  “Flattered, to be sure. You’re a man known for getting the job done, and results are all that matter here. My bane lifted as well as your curse, and both of us restored to our full rights and responsibilities.”

  Mal squinted in the dim wash of light from the dining room. He was missing something in his beer-induced haze, but damned if he could figure it out. At least Steve had said responsibilities and not privileges. He grinned. Look at him, paying attention to words. Alun would be so proud.

  “All right. I’m in. But—”

  White hot pain seared the palm of his left hand. He doubled over, his hand clutched to his chest.

  “What the bloody hells, man?” Eyes watering, he uncurled his fingers and peered at his palm. A Celtic knot glowed in the flesh, fading to the reddish black of a tattoo as the burn receded.

  Steve removed the glove from his left hand and held his palm up. The same knot glowed there, and in this light, his flesh looked blue. “Lest you think you alone suffer, we share the geas brand.”

  “I’d have appreciated a little warning.”

  “Would it have rendered the pain any less?” Steve pulled his glove on. “We’re now bound by the contract.”

  “Wonderful.” The pain had cleared some of the alcohol haze from Mal’s brain, and it struck him that perhaps he should have asked for a little more detail about the nature of these alleged tasks. Bloody hells, he couldn’t even open a jar of fecking pickles.

  As he stalked toward the liquor cabinet next to the fireplace, a tug in his belly halted him, reminding him of his other disability.

  “Ah, shite.”
Mal might be willing to endure a little—all right, a lot—of discomfort for the sake of another drink, but Bryce didn’t deserve the added torment. The poor blighter was already the victim of a supernatural Mickey Finn. He stopped, stretching his arm toward the brandy bottle, but couldn’t quite reach.

  Steve plucked it off the cabinet with one long arm and held it out.

  “Thanks.” Mal snatched it and took a swig directly from the bottle. “You may not know this, but I’ve got an unscheduled sidecar.”

  “If you mean the druid, yes, I’m aware. That’s why I rendered him unconscious before our discussion.”

  Mal peered through the archway at Bryce, still out cold with his head amongst the empties. “You did that?”

  “It seemed prudent.” Steve strode to the archway in an operatic swirl of cape. “I can increase the play of your bindings while you’re in Faerie, but I cannot remove them. You must simply convince him to accompany you.”

  “Right. I’ll tell him I’m about to engage in a little supernatural espionage for a mysterious—”

  “No.” Steve’s voice rang, vibrating the bones behind Mal’s ears. “You cannot tell him—or anyone—about our agreement, nor anything about me.”

  “Considering I don’t bloody know anything about you, that’s no hardship, but how am I supposed to—”

  “I’m confident of your powers of persuasion.”

  That makes one of us. Mal leaned against the wall across the archway from Steve and crossed his arms. “Let’s cut to the chase, then. What’s this famous first task?” No harm in finding out what Steve had in mind. If it sounded impossible, he could back out now by calling Alun and telling him some jacked-up mage was trying to convince him to go on the take.

  “Retrieve the Seat of Power from under the throne of the Unseelie King.”

  Mal blinked. “Say what?”

  “Retrieve the—”

  “Yes. I heard that, but what the bleeding fuck, man? Even when I wasn’t an exile, I couldn’t enter the Unseelie Court, let alone the throne room. I didn’t know there were separate gates for the blighters until today. If the Queen finds out—”

  “As long as you keep to the Unseelie lands, avoiding the common sites, I can guarantee you’ll remain undetected.”

  “Great, but that still doesn’t explain how I find my way in, or how I can waltz into the King’s presence and ask him to move his arse so I can steal the Seat of Power, whatever the bloody hells it is.”

  “Here.” Steve reached under his cloak and pulled out something that glinted gold in the lamplight. With a flick of his thumb, he sent it flipping through the air.

  By reflex, Mal tried to catch it with his right hand, only to have the thing drop to the floor when it hit the deadened flesh. He retrieved it, and the light from the dining room sconce revealed a hand-hammered gold disc etched with the same Celtic knot as the geas brand.

  “What’s the purpose of the shiny?”

  “The token will grant you access to the Unseelie sphere for the next twenty-four hours, as well as the ability to find the needed threshold.”

  “Twenty-four hours? Are you mental? I’ve never been to the Unseelie sphere, and you expect me to plan and execute a heist inside the throne room?”

  “Twenty-four hours is all you’ll need. The King has decreed a mandatory gathering at the Stone Circle at midday, so the Keep will be deserted. That will give you the necessary window of opportunity.”

  As intelligence went, it left a lot to be desired, but it was better than nothing. Mal pocketed the coin. “I’m not exactly up to my old fighting trim. What if we run into some hungover lordling playing hooky from the King’s little jamboree?”

  “You won’t. A mandatory decree is magically enforced. But if you suffer from an excess of sensibility, this—” he flashed the brand on his palm “—is the same spell used to lock the Keep, protecting it when it’s unmanned. If it’s activated, your mark will allow you to pass. Does that soothe your troubled nerves?”

  “I don’t have excess sensibility or bloody troubled nerves, you blasted—” Mal crossed his arms, tucking his right hand against his rib cage. “Fine. What exactly is the Seat of Power?”

  Steve hesitated. “I cannot describe it. But you’ll know it when you see it.”

  Steve’s certainty of Mal’s ability to navigate unfamiliar terrain and recognize previously unseen objects was touching but alarming. “Can you give me a ballpark idea of size? Is it bigger than a bread box? Able to dance on the head of a pin?”

  Rumble rumble. “Small enough to fit under the throne. Large enough to be visible, even with eyes less keen than Balor’s.” He reached under his cloak again and pulled out a carved wooden box, about the size of his two massive fists. Shite, where does he keep this stuff? “When you’ve secured it, place it in this casket, and I will retrieve it.”

  Mal took the box. He tried to open the lid, but it was locked. “How am I supposed to put anything in it? You plan to give me the key?”

  “It will open in the presence of that which it seeks.”

  “Of course it will.” He gestured to the mantelpiece. “Is this an acceptable location for it, or do I have to bury it under an oak tree by the light of the full moon?”

  “The mantel will do.”

  “Grand.” Mal set the box on the narrow shelf next to a blown-glass vase (courtesy of David). “Especially since the moon won’t be full for another week and a half. Shame for you to have to twiddle your thumbs for so long to get your prize.”

  “As you say.” Steve turned in a billow of black velvet. And he accuses me of drama? “One last thing. If you think to violate our contract in any way, the geas brand will render your left hand as lifeless as your right. You’ll do well not to betray me, Lord Maldwyn.”

  Bloody fecking hells.

  Someone was playing a timpani inside his head. Bryce moaned and rolled over, only to fetch up against . . . was that skin?

  He cracked an eye open. Yes, definitely skin. His scalp prickled with alarm. Oh God, am I— But no. He was still wearing his Henley, and as he patted down his body with one cautious hand, he found boxer briefs still in place, thank the powers that be, but no pants.

  What? How? And perhaps more to the point, where? He drew back cautiously, blinking at what appeared to be a veritable cliff of golden-skinned flesh, decorated by two copper disks that must be—

  He scrambled backward, which only served to expose his bare legs to the breeze wafting in through the open window. Clutching the sheet to his groin, he knelt on the mattress. Without his glasses, he could make out dark hair and delphinium blue eyes. Christ. He was in bed with Mal Kendrick.

  Why can’t I remember?

  A chuckle vibrated the bed. “Good morning.”

  “Uh . . .”

  “Looking for these?” Mal held out Bryce’s glasses.

  Bryce snatched them and jammed them on. Faced with Mal’s knowing smirk, he was tempted to yank them off again. Sometimes soft-focus was your friend, especially when humiliation threatened to swallow you up in a full-body blush.

  “What am I doing here?”

  Mal sighed hugely, resulting in a truly astonishing expansion of his already formidable chest. “You don’t remember? Those deep secrets, those tender avowals . . .” He waggled his eyebrows. “Those dirty promises. I’m hurt.”

  “We didn’t— You— I wouldn’t— Did I?”

  Rolling onto his back, Mal flung one arm across the bed and hid his eyes with the other. “You don’t remember our special, special night. I may go into a decline.”

  “Now I know you’re full of shit.” Screw it. Bryce threw off the sheet and scuttled the eight feet to the bathroom, keeping his back toward his infuriating neighbor to hide the fact that his dick was attempting a daring escape from his underwear.

  Closing the door on Mal’s laughter, Bryce checked his reflection in the mirror over the sink. No beard burn. Taking a fortifying breath, he peered down at himself. His shirt looked as if it h
ad been slept in, of course, but on first glance, he wasn’t sporting the residue of any embarrassing bodily fluids, nor was he sore in any telltale locations. That tightness in his chest was relief, surely, not disappointment. He didn’t fuck arrogant men—especially arrogant men so far out of his league.

  He staggered forward, but a muffled curse from Mal coincided with a pull in his belly. Those damned supernatural shackles. I’d forgotten.

  “Do you mind getting out of bed so I can make it to the toilet?” he called. “I need to pee, and being doubled over with cramps plays hell with my aim.”

  Judging by the stream of unintelligible words, Mal took as little pleasure in their predicament as Bryce, but at least the pressure eased and he was able to make it across the bathroom. He supposed he should be grateful—at least he could close the door. And what if the length of the invisible chain had been shorter?

  Didn’t bear thinking of.

  After finishing at the toilet, he washed his hands, splashed cold water on his face, and used a fingertip of Mal’s toothpaste to clean his mouth out, since it tasted like the floor of a brewery. How many beers had he drunk last night? Whatever the count, it was that many more than he usually drank.

  He pressed his fingers to his forehead and winced. Hangovers don’t hurt on the outside. He pushed his hair back and peered at himself in the mirror, where a bruise purpled his forehead. Had Mal frustrated him so much he’d finally given in and beaten his head against the wall?

  I need answers, and to do that, I’ll have to face him. So what if the man was the hottest thing this side of a solar flare? Bryce was a scientist, damn it. He could be dispassionate and analytical. But I still don’t want to have the conversation wearing no pants.

  He rummaged in the cabinet under the sink and located a towel to wrap around his hips, to give himself a little more coverage than his briefs. Then, taking a deep breath, he opened the door.

  Mal was standing on the other side, leaning one hand against the doorjamb, wearing nothing but a smile. “You know, if the old biddy doesn’t give over soon, we’ll have to install a recliner in the middle of the bedroom. The wall is rubbish for comfortable waiting.”