The Druid Next Door

by E. J. Russell

  Mouth suddenly dry, dick attempting to emulate a compass needle to Mal’s true north, Bryce turned sideways and scooted past, ass brushing Mal’s hip. “Bathroom’s all yours.”

  “Yes. Glad you remembered that.”

  He scanned the room for the rest of his clothes while Mal continued to lounge in the doorway. As Bryce’s gaze skittered from the top of the dresser to the floor to the bed, he still managed to collect enough data about Mal’s body to know (a) he sported no tan lines, (b) he was uncut, and (c) Bryce was in so far over his head that he might as well be at the bottom of the Mariana Trench.

  For lack of anything better to do with his hands, and to keep his obvious interest out of Mal’s line of sight, he turned his back and fussed with the bed, pulling the sheets straight and mitering the corners like Gran had taught him.

  “Don’t know why you’re in such a pelter, Dr. MacLeod. You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of. It happens to the best of us. Or so I’m told.”

  Bryce’s anger trumped his libido for a change, and he faced the god in the bathroom doorway. “Listen, Kendrick. You can’t have it both ways. Either we fucked like randy teenagers, which given the dearth of physical evidence, I seriously doubt, or nothing happened at all.” Mal opened his mouth, but Bryce forestalled him with an open palm. “And if nothing happened, it was not because of erectile dysfunction.”

  Mal winced. “Shite, man, watch your language.”

  “Will you tell me what happened?”

  “First you declared your undying devotion to—”

  “Enough. At least tell me how I got this.” Bryce shoved his hair off his forehead and pointed to the bruise.

  “Shite.” Mal took a step forward, but retreated when Bryce pulled back. “Look. All jesting aside, we have to talk, so I’ll try to be quick in there.” He grinned. “Unless you’d like to shower with me? You being such a devoted conservationist and all.”

  “Thank you, but no.”

  “Suit yourself.” He stepped into the bathroom.

  “Wait. Do you mind telling me what you did with my clothes?”

  “They’re strewn around the living room. You got a bit enthusiastic with your striptease.”

  “Kendrick.”

  “Sorry, mate. They’re in the other room. I thought we’d have to camp out on the sofa at first, and your tactical costume was a wee bit lumpy for comfort, so I, er, helped you out of it. Then I managed to wrestle you down the hallway after all.” He nodded at the bureau. “Since you won’t be able to reach them until I come out, help yourself to shorts and a fresh T-shirt. I shouldn’t be more than a half an hour or so.”

  “Wonderful.”

  He paused, doorknob in hand, and grinned. “By the way, nice legs.”

  Despite his taunts about taking his time, Mal didn’t linger in the bathroom. Bryce had barely pulled on a T-shirt and a pair of sweat shorts before he was out again. Still naked. Still tempting. Still totally out of Bryce’s league.

  “Listen, mate. Sorry about your forehead. You went facedown amongst the dead soldiers before I knew you’d had one too many.”

  “Dead soldiers?”

  “Empties.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  Mal bent over (ass!) and pulled a pair of faded jeans out of the bottom (don’t think about bottom) dresser drawer. He stood up and stared at them dangling from his left hand for a moment.

  “Shite,” he muttered. “You mind sashaying over to the bed? Don’t worry. I won’t try to have my wicked way with you. It’s just . . .” He brandished the jeans, not meeting Bryce’s gaze, a faint pink staining the crests of his perfect cheekbones. “Can’t pull them on while standing. Haven’t quite got the way of the one-hand, one-leg action.”

  “Of course.” Bryce matched Mal’s pace across the room to the bed, but when Mal sat on the foot, Bryce edged around to the other side so he wasn’t sitting smack in the middle of the man’s personal space while he wrestled his jeans over his legs. “How long ago did it happen? Your curse?”

  Mal huffed. “Remember that much about last night, do you? Couple of months. Right after the summer solstice.”

  “Not long, then.”

  “No? Seems like for-fragging-ever.”

  “I suppose it would. I’m sorry.”

  “Not your concern, is it? Except—” Mal stood and pulled his jeans over his hips, commando, tucking his penis inside but leaving the button fly open to display a thatch of curly black hair. “I need your help.”

  “To button your fly? I don’t think so.”

  He smirked. “Not that that doesn’t raise some interesting images, mate, but this is something else again. Not as entertaining for us both, perhaps, but it might tempt you nonetheless.”

  This persuasion shite had been a damn sight easier when Mal had been in possession of his fae powers. For most of his life, he’d only had to lean a little heavier on the glamourie, and no man could say no to him. Even without the glamourie, he’d managed to get his way with a suggestive charm that had failed him only once—with David, who had a jaundiced, club-wise ability to identify a player at fifty paces.

  Just his luck that his tree-hugger neighbor would be the second man in history to be able to resist him.

  With Bryce, however, it seemed more like a shy nobility—he refused temptation precisely because he wanted to give in to it. Mal hadn’t missed the obvious evidence, despite the man’s clumsy—and rather endearing—attempts to conceal it. He was like one of Arthur’s more virtuous knights. Bors, perhaps, or Peredur—never as self-righteous as that bloody prig Galahad.

  But Galahad himself couldn’t have been more restrained than Mal last night when Mal had hauled Bryce into the bedroom so they wouldn’t have to sleep on the dining room floor. One-handed, removal of clothing had been a frustrating thirty minutes, during which he couldn’t enjoy any of the scenery. He hadn’t even copped a single feel—at least not on purpose.

  Despite David’s claims of Mal’s hero status, though, he wasn’t so much of a bloody saint that he hadn’t looked once Bryce was stretched out on the bed.

  The man was beautiful. Long and lean, and although his chest was hidden by his shirt now, its proportions were obvious, tapering in a neat V to narrow hips. His legs were dusted with hair that glinted copper in the light, and when he’d rolled over? Goddess have mercy. That arse in tight cotton was a bloody work of art.

  But although Mal was no saint, he was not so much of a sinner that he’d take advantage of an unconscious, nonconsenting man, no matter how tempting the target or how long it had been since his last hookup. He’d virtuously covered that delectable arse with the sheet and lain down on his side of the bed.

  But with Bryce awake and looking ready to bolt, Mal needed a plan. He had twenty-four hours before he’d be in default of Steve’s first task. If he failed, would that mean he’d forfeit the whole bargain, depriving him of the hand he had left? Shite, he wished he’d been more sober last night. He’d have asked for more bloody details.

  As Mal watched Bryce fidgeting about the room, he realized Bryce reminded him of those prissy knights for a reason other than his virtue. He had a cause, just like they did. A quest. His wetlands and this ridiculous “green” community were his obsession as much as the Grail ever was for Arthur’s goons.

  Seduction—it’s all about the right lure.

  “You know that bauchan we chased yesterday?”

  Bryce stopped faffing about with the insulated blinds and turned around. “The one who was contaminating the creek? The one we lost in the woods?”

  “The very same. What if I told you we have a chance to track it into Faerie?”

  “I thought you said you couldn’t—”

  “Normally, no, I can’t. But while you were so fetchingly asleep”—Mal grinned at the wash of pink that stained Bryce’s face—“I received some information and a . . . a talisman that changes things up a bit.”

  Bryce’s eyes narrowed. “Changes things how?”

  “What do
you say we discuss this over coffee and a nosh?” He patted his belly and realized he’d left his fly hanging open. No wonder Bryce’s gaze kept drifting to points south. Maybe button-fly jeans were the wrong choice. He could unbutton with one hand—he’d had plenty of practice in clubs and alleys—but the reverse? He had no desire to share that awkward process with Bryce. He’d just have to spill some judicious hot sauce on his pants to give him an excuse to change. “Don’t know about you, but I’m feeling a bit peckish.”

  “Right. I . . . uh . . . Sure.” Bryce bolted from the room, and Mal followed before the invisible leash could yank him down the hallway.

  In the kitchen, Bryce frowned at the refrigerator, the cabinets, the pantry, as if his glasses granted him x-ray vision into Mal’s pathetic food stores.

  “What do you normally eat for breakfast?”

  “Whatever’s left over from last night’s takeaway.”

  Bryce lifted his eyebrows and peered at Mal over the top of his glasses, his lips tipped in a lopsided smile.

  A surge of lust tightened Mal’s balls, and his cock pulsed inside his inconveniently open pants. Holy shite. That mouth. Those eyes. He broke the gaze and opened the pantry. “Or . . . you know . . . cereal. Toast. Whatever.”

  “Do you have such a thing as a vegetable in this place?”

  Mal poked his head out from behind the pantry door, keeping the rest of his body safely hidden. Why hadn’t he thought to put on a shirt? Shite, even his nipples were hard, and it wasn’t all that cold in here.

  “Might have heard a rumor of one once or twice. David stocks the fridge and cooks for me sometimes. Have a look.”

  Bryce opened the refrigerator and bent over to dig in the produce bins, giving Mal an outstanding view of the way those soft terry shorts hugged that admirable arse. Gahh!

  He grabbed the coffee and scooted past Bryce’s tempting backside to sling grounds into the coffee maker.

  “So tell me about this change-up.” Bryce emerged from his refrigerator reconnaissance with a carton of eggs and a handful of green things of various shapes. “Rather overly convenient, don’t you think?”

  Mal dumped water into the coffee maker and switched it on, then retreated to a safe distance, putting the breakfast bar between him and Bryce. “Not necessarily. One of the things you’ll learn about the supernatural worlds, Faerie in particular, is that everything—people, places, events—are more closely woven than you might think.”

  “So a coincidence isn’t really a coincidence?”

  Mal grinned, able to relax now that his weakness wasn’t on literal display. “Never. Think of life, of all levels of reality, as a giant tapestry. Pull a thread in one place and you can change the fabric in places you don’t imagine.”

  “So you’re saying the bauchan pulled a thread.”

  “Or maybe its action was the result of a pulled thread. We can’t know. That’s the problem with fecking synergy.”

  “Listen to you. So scientific.” Bryce cracked an egg into a bowl with one hand.

  Huh. Maybe I could learn to do that.

  “Not science. Nature.”

  “Nature is science. Applied science. Science in its natural habitat, if you like.”

  “Your grandmother teach you that?”

  Bryce shrugged and selected the largest knife from the block. “To begin with. But it’s also an argument I’ve had many times over the years with colleagues. Whether science should force synthetic processes on a natural environment. Whether the very nature of the synthetic contaminates the natural biosphere.”

  “Well, however you want to account for it, we’ve got an opportunity. But it’s not open-ended.”

  Bryce chopped a zucchini faster than Mal used to parry sword thrusts. “Tell me.”

  “Midday today. That’s our target to be in place in the Unseelie sphere.”

  Bryce paused with a double handful of zucchini suspended over a hot skillet, a smile transforming his face. “You’re kidding. We’re actually going into Faerie? For real?”

  “Don’t set your hands on fire.”

  Bryce colored and dropped the vegetables into the pan. “Sorry. But another whole world? To someone who’s spent his whole life in one country—most of it in one city—this is a huge deal.”

  “We won’t be there to sightsee. We’ve got a mission.”

  “Right. We’ll track the poisoner.”

  Mal briefly wondered whether he’d be struck dead for deceiving Bryce the instant they crossed the gate into Faerie. However, considering one of the tenets of the Unseelie Court was Honor is a lie, for all he knew, he’d be hailed as one of their own.

  “We’ll look. But we may not be able to find it. You should know, however, that bauchan aren’t independent thinkers. We’re looking for a bigger fish.”

  Bryce’s brows knit together as he tossed the zucchini with a deft flip of the sauté pan. “Do we know who the alleged big fish is?”

  “No.”

  “Do we know where the alleged big fish swims?”

  “No.”

  “Do we have any idea if the alleged big fish even exists?”

  “Again no. But they must. Fae are captives to their nature. Some of the lesser orders have nothing resembling free will—only instinct and a desire for approval. The bauchan couldn’t have come up with the idea on its own. It had to be following orders.”

  “So what’s the plan?”

  Mal rubbed the back of his head. “Well . . .”

  Bryce pointed a fork at him. “Don’t tell me. We don’t have a plan.” He attacked the eggs in the bowl, beating them into submission before pouring them into a second skillet. Mal hadn’t even known he had two skillets. “Isn’t there something we could do to prepare?”

  “Look. My informant claims the Unseelie masses will all be occupied from midday for at least a while, and the Keep will be deserted. We have this narrow window to get there and retrieve an artifact from the throne room.”

  “Will this artifact help us find who’s responsible for the pollution?”

  “It’s the best lead we’ve got.” Mal forbore mentioning it was a lead that had nothing whatsoever to do with the Unseelie incursions into the wetlands, but Bryce accepted the evasion at face value.

  Gwydion’s bollocks. The man should not be let out alone.

  “All right, then.” Bryce divided the eggs between two plates, topped them with fragrant vegetables, and pushed one serving across the bar to Mal, along with a fork. “Eat up. I’m not walking into an unknown world with no field gear, let alone in your shorts and yesterday’s underwear. We’ve got to prepare.”

  By midmorning, Bryce was so antsy he was surprised Mal hadn’t clocked him on the head just to keep him from fidgeting. But he couldn’t help it—he was about to enter another realm. How freaking cool was that?

  For a brief time when he was a kid, he’d dreamed of being an astronaut, of being the first man to set foot on another planet. He’d been obsessed with the stars and astronomy. Then he’d realized that the level of technology necessary for extraterrestrial exploration had no chance of materializing during his lifetime, and he’d focused on his own planet instead.

  But this was nearly as good. Maybe even better, because it had the possibility to transcend science. To give him a glimpse into that other, the flip-side of science.

  Magic.

  He glanced at Mal standing in the doorway of the bedroom. Why did he look so much bigger here in Bryce’s house than he did in his own? Architecturally, the buildings were identical, but reversed. Both had muted natural tones on the walls and floors. Maybe the juxtaposition of the larger-than-life man—no, fae—with the furniture Bryce had owned for years threw the perspective off.

  Not to mention that the sheer raw beauty of the man—damn it, fae—caused everything within range of him to look shabby, dull, and paltry.

  Bryce patted the pockets of his vest and pants, assuring himself that all his gear was in place. “Are you sure you don’t want to borrow a
pair of pants?”

  Mal glanced down at the leather pants he’d changed into after breakfast. “Something wrong with the ones I’ve got on?”

  “No.” God, no. The leather hugged Mal’s anatomy in almost pornographic detail. “Just, you know, some extra pockets could come in handy.” Bryce winced. Poor word choice, given Mal’s sensitivity about his disability. “I mean, you said yourself we don’t know exactly what we’re up against.”

  “These have always served in the past.” He slapped his hip, his hand lingering over a welt pocket. “I’m willing to risk it. Besides . . .” He waggled his eyebrows. “I’m sure you’re tactical enough for the both of us. You’re kitted up like we’re off on a month-long trip down the Nile.”

  Bryce ducked his head, the heat spreading up his throat and over his cheeks. “It only makes sense. It’s a place I’ve never been—a place I never even imagined. Who knows what we’ll run into.”

  Mal pushed himself off the doorjamb with one shoulder. “You’re building this up too much, mate. It’s bound to be anticlimactic.”

  “You don’t know that. You’ve never been to this part either.”

  “True enough. But Seelie or Unseelie, it’s all bloody Faerie. Can’t imagine it’ll be that different. Shall we?”

  Mal led the way out the French doors onto Bryce’s patio and strode off down the slope toward the wetlands. Bryce followed, the instruments in his pockets clacking and clinking against one another, noises he’d never noticed before. When they got to the shoreline, Mal stopped and gestured for Bryce to precede him.

  “This is your territory. Lead on.”

  Bryce skirted the water along the path and entered the woods following the same route they’d used yesterday. When they reached the edge of the clearing, he halted, appalled.

  The leaves of the crabapple that yesterday had been healthy and green, if dusty from the seasonal lack of rain, had curled in on themselves like Mal’s cursed hand. He touched one of the shriveled leaves with the tips of his fingers, but flinched back when something skittered along his skin, raising the hair on his arms. He touched the leaf again. Pain. A burn like acid as the tainted water was carried inexorably from root to leaf.