The Druid Next Door

by E. J. Russell

  Mal caught it easily, grinning. “Too right, mate.”

  “Anything else you can tell me?” Bryce’s voice held a hesitant note. Not will you but can you, acknowledging that there were some things Mal couldn’t reveal. Yes, he was sharp, all right, his druid. And thank the Goddess for that.

  “We’ll be going to one of the spots in Faerie that’s common ground for both Seelie and Unseelie. The Stone Circle.”

  Bryce’s eyes lit up. “Like Stonehenge?”

  “Quite a bit, only it’s intact. All its menhirs are still upright, the capstones in place.”

  “Does it have an altar?”

  Mal swallowed, remembering some of the things that had happened near or on that altar, like the murder of Alun’s first love. “It does. If we’re fortunate, though, it won’t see any use.”

  “And if we’re not fortunate?”

  “We likely won’t care anymore, will we?”

  Bryce shook his head and walked toward the bathroom. “Damn. You take me to the best places.”

  Mal laughed and followed him. No matter what awaited them in the circle, whether he talked the Queen into whoring herself for the good of Faerie, whether he made it past dawn alive and whole—he’d at least had the chance to laugh again.

  In the woods beyond the wetlands, with the low sunlight filtering through the trees, Bryce gaped at Mal, completely at a loss. “I’m supposed to what?”

  “Find the gate.”

  “But I can’t do that.”

  “You did before.”

  “Not on this side of the threshold. That was you.” Besides, they’d followed the bauchan until it’d vanished, so at least they’d known where to start looking. Now, with the whole of the woods and wetlands spread out before them? “I don’t know what to do.” He felt panic rising in his chest, the same kind that used to hit him when he was unprepared for a critical exam or a crucial funding meeting.

  Mal stepped up close behind him and wrapped his good arm around Bryce’s waist, hand squeezing his hip. “No worries, mate. You’ve got this.”

  Bryce took a breath, and against all odds, the panic faded, as if Mal’s hand on his hip had banished it. He might not know precisely how, but he had the confidence that he could do something. He took another deep breath and leaned into that certainty.

  “When we were in Faerie before, it was like a game of hot-cold. I thought about what we needed and—” There. Warmth bathed the left side of his face, as if he were standing next to a crackling fire. “This way.”

  Mal patted his ass. “That’s my boyo. Lead on, Macduff.”

  “I said that already.”

  “Guess it’s my turn, isn’t it? And at least you’re a bloody Scot.”

  “If I’m all that bloody, maybe you should call me Macbeth.”

  Mal’s expression turned serious, and he caught Bryce by one shoulder. “Don’t even joke about that. No matter what happens tonight, you’ll be safe. I may not have the influence I once had in Faerie, but I have that much.”

  “Hey.” He kissed Mal lightly, just for comfort. “We’ll both be okay. Unless . . .” He peered into Mal’s face in the fading light. “Is there something else? A greater danger?”

  Mal shrugged, and his gaze slid away. Still hiding things from me, damn it. “Much the same. We won’t be in the middle of the Unseelie throne room.” He hitched his vest—which was a little too small—further onto his shoulders. “Although I’m not sure this isn’t worse.”

  “Why? What’s the significance of this place?”

  “Well, it’s a place of power, so everyone’s a bit tetchy about it. As for me, I don’t have the fondest of memories—last time I was there, I cut off Rodric Luchullain’s hand and got myself cursed and exiled from Faerie.”

  “Mal—” Tell me. Tell me what you’re about to do so I can help you. So I can save you from yourself.

  But Mal simply shrugged again. “Never mind that. Let’s get on with it, eh?”

  Bryce squinted at Mal, who avoided his gaze. Fine. I’ll bide my time. But he vowed to get Mal to confess. Even if I have to order him to do it.

  He led the way between the fir boles and past a lichen-encrusted boulder with Mal sticking close to his heels, until they reached the spot where the stream that fed the wetlands burbled over a knee-high fall of rocks. On the opposite bank, two birch trees leaned toward each other, their branches entwined.

  The warmth pulsed against his face. “That’s it. Across the stream and between those trees.”

  Mal patted his pockets, where the paintball charges created lumps like oversized grapes. “Then let’s go. Our timing is fecking perfect.”

  When Mal followed Bryce through the birch tree arch, the power of the One Tree welled all around him, but faint, untouchable—as if he were encased in invisible armor. Apparently, even in Seelie-accessible lands, he was still cut off from his fae abilities.

  Shite.

  Ah well. Maybe it was for the best—if he couldn’t touch the One Tree, perhaps the One Tree couldn’t detect him, and they wouldn’t be overrun by a cadre of guards who’d slash first and ask questions after.

  He could always hope.

  Bryce’s face held the same look of wonder that he’d worn the last time they’d crossed into Faerie. “I still can’t believe it. It’s a different world. The twilight—the sky is lavender, and not just at the horizon.”

  “Don’t let anyone hear you say ‘lavender,’ boyo, or they’ll know for sure you’re gay.”

  “Is that a problem in Faerie? I mean, is homosexuality as great a potential stigma here as it is at home?”

  “The Outer World is your home. My home is here.” Or it used to be. Considering he felt as if he’d been excised from the realm as surely as if he’d been cut out of it with a dagger, he wasn’t sure he had a home anymore.

  “You know what I mean. Is sexual orientation and gender identity important?”

  “It’s important, but it’s not an issue. In Faerie, gender is optional.”

  “Even for procreation?”

  “Procreation is different here. Like I told you, we aren’t born as humans are. There hasn’t been a high fae spawned since the last war before Unification. I think the elder gods must have gotten fed up and decided to let attrition take care of us.”

  “But the elder gods—you said they’d vanished.”

  “Vanished from our ken. Doesn’t mean they’re not still out there. Best to live as if they’re still watching, if you get my drift.”

  “Got it.”

  Mal glanced around, attempting to orient himself. He hadn’t realized before how much the One Tree controlled Faerie and shaped his own sense of direction. “It’s like the bloody cell tower is down and I can’t access the map app.”

  Bryce stopped gawking long enough to give him a puzzled look. “What?”

  “I have no fecking notion where we are.”

  “Seriously? Didn’t you live here for a couple thousand years?”

  “Yeah, but put it this way—how well would your compass work if suddenly the north pole decided to go on holiday?”

  “Oh.” Bryce grasped his right wrist, and warmth flared in his palm. “You’re still an exile, even though you’re physically here. Is that it?”

  Mal blinked against the prickle in his eyes. Trust his tree hugger to get it. To get him. He tore his gaze away from Bryce’s concerned face and—there. The shape of that rock. He’d only ever seen it from the other side, but it was distinctive enough—like a brownie’s profile, all hooked nose and potbelly.

  “I’ve got it now. We’re at the base of the tor where the Stone Circle lies.”

  Bryce turned and started down the obvious path, but Mal grabbed his arm. “Not that way. That leads into Seelie lands. I can’t go there. If we’re not to bring a kennel full of the Cwn Annwn down on our arses, we need to keep to neutral ground. That way.”

  Bryce nodded and followed Mal down the other path—the one full of brambles and stones the size of a tro
ll’s head. Of course this couldn’t be an easy trek, now could it?

  “What are the—the coon anoon? You mentioned them once before.”

  “Bloody great hell hounds. Ever heard of the Wild Hunt? Herne the Horned Huntsman?”

  “Those are real? Gran used to tell me stories about Herne, but she didn’t call his dogs that.”

  “She was a Scot, mate. Probably couldn’t pronounce it.” Thorns caught in the fabric of his borrowed pants, and Mal wished mightily for his leathers. “Your damn tactical trousers are for shite in brambles.”

  “Let me go first. I’ve got the pruners.”

  Right. Trust a druid. Always prepared.

  When they emerged from the thicket, the path to the top of the tor loomed above them—long and rocky and steep. Bloody marvelous. It’ll be a treat to climb that one-handed.

  Bryce stood shoulder to shoulder with Mal, tucking the pruners back into one of his many pockets. “I take it that’s the way up.”

  “You’d take it right.” Mal looked at the sky. The lavender Bryce had so admired was deepening to violet. “Best get on with it. Our time’s running short.”

  He started up the hillside, but didn’t get ten feet before a rock turned under his foot. “Shite!”

  Before he could fall, Bryce caught him under the elbow. “Easy. Take your time. You lead, since you know where you’re going, but I’m right behind. I won’t let you fall.”

  “Thanks, mate.”

  Mal had never fallen before; he’d always been sure-footed and quick. Had that been part of his connection to the One Tree? Goddess, this bloody quest had to succeed. He couldn’t go through the rest of his life as a broken man. Bryce deserved more.

  Bryce. If he survived this night, whether his curse was lifted or not, he’d bound himself to Bryce. If Cassie could be believed, that was a permanent condition, and one of which Bryce was unaware. If he survived, he’d have to come clean with Bryce.

  Death might be the easier road.

  They made it to the top of the tor, chests heaving from the climb. Bryce gaped, stumbling forward onto the plateau.

  “Holy freaking shit. I mean, you told me it was intact, but I never imagined it would be so . . . so . . .”

  “So bloody pretentious?”

  “So impressive.” He placed one hand on his chest as if he were trying to hold something inside. “I mean, there have been places I’ve seen that affected me. Places I could tell held their own intrinsic power. But this . . .” He paced forward as if he couldn’t help himself.

  “It’s calling to your blood, mate.” Mal pointed to the altar stone at the spot he knew to be true north. “Your ancestors probably sacrificed the odd goat or villager on a stone just like that one yonder.”

  “Very funny.”

  “Not joking.” Mal set off toward the circle, tempted to run to beat the steady darkening of the sky. “Some places in Faerie are anchored to similar places in the Outer World.”

  “Like the gates. Or the wetlands.”

  “Right. This might be anchored at Stonehenge, or at another site in Brittany or Cornwall or Wales.” He shrugged. “Or all of them, for that matter.”

  “How can that be?”

  Mal grinned. “Magic.” And because he wasn’t sure he’d have another chance once they stepped inside the Circle and he set this whole bloody disaster in motion, he grabbed Bryce around the waist, turning him into an embrace that pressed them together from chest to groin. “But no more magic than this.” He kissed his man, his druid, his partner, with the passion and desperation that had pooled in his chest all day.

  Because if things went straight to the hells, it might very well be the last time.

  Bryce, although he grunted in surprise, didn’t hold back, lacing his fingers in Mal’s hair with the masterful control that Mal had come to crave like he craved air.

  They disengaged, both of them breathing hard as if they’d scaled that bloody hill for a second time.

  Bryce smiled at him, swiping his thumbs along Mal’s cheekbones. “What was that for?”

  “Luck,” Mal said, stepping away and turning toward the dolmen. “Because we’ll bloody well need all we can get.”

  When Mal strode into the Circle, Bryce stumbled to follow. He still couldn’t quite wrap his head around the fact that he was in an actual intact Stonehenge analog. Its proportions disturbed him on some deep level. He’d never realized how ingrained certain conventions were to the human eye and brain.

  He’d seen the pyramids, and they were damned impressive. So was the Sphinx. The Parthenon. But although those were incredible feats of engineering, they were constructed of materials that were proportional to the humans who’d built them.

  But these massive stones, raw and rough and primitive, were not sized for the convenience of any man. He could almost believe Mal’s tales of the elder gods, because it would take someone of titanic size, power, and, yes, ego, to construct something like this.

  He caught up with Mal, who’d stopped directly in front of the altar and reached into the pocket of his tactical pants. Bryce frowned. Nothing was threatening them. Why would Mal need one of the altered paintballs here? Bryce’s stomach clenched at the notion of paint splattering these ancient stones—sacrilege.

  He reached out, ready to block Mal’s throw, but the object he drew out of his pocket wasn’t a paintball.

  It was a dagger—a dagger that pulsed with the beat of its own malevolent heart.

  Bryce nearly gagged. “What the hell is that?”

  “It’s what we’re here for.” Mal peered at the sky, which had darkened to deep purple above them, only a narrow band of lavender on the horizon.

  “That’s not—” He swallowed against nausea. “I don’t think that thing should be here. It’s got its own . . . I don’t know . . . agenda.”

  Mal snorted. “Who doesn’t?” And he dropped to one knee and plunged the dagger into the ground at the foot of the altar stone.

  A force slammed into Bryce and knocked him flat on his back. Momentarily breathless, he lay gasping like one of the poor dying fish in the slough, blinking up at the purple sky.

  Mal’s face appeared above him, his brows drawn together in concern. But by the way his gaze kept shifting from Bryce to different points around the circumference of the circle, the concern might not be for Bryce personally.

  “You all right, then?” Mal put his hand on Bryce’s chest, but Bryce knocked it away and sat up.

  “What have you done?”

  “What I had to do.”

  “Really? Somehow I doubt it’s benign. Certainly not on me.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “Nothing? It knocked me on my freaking ass. And do you see that?” He pointed to the altar, which had taken on a sullen glow, chips of reflective stone sparking red on its surface.

  “See what? The altar? It’s bloody huge, but it’s always on its back like that. Not as if I knocked it over.”

  “No. It’s like someone’s trained a failing spotlight on it.”

  “Sure you didn’t hit your head, mate? Because it looks like it always does to me.” Mal reached out and felt the back of Bryce’s head, but Bryce jerked away and stood up, weaving a little, still a bit breathless.

  “My head is fine, but this—whatever you did—it’s not good. And you know it’s not good. I can see it.”

  Mal lowered his chin and pushed himself up with his left hand. “Don’t know what you’re on about,” he mumbled.

  “Yes, you do. You knew it was wrong and that I’d want no part of it. I trusted you to do the right thing.”

  Mal flinched. “How in all the bloody hells can you know what’s right or wrong for Faerie? For me? You’d never heard of either of us before last week.”

  “True, but I can tell you feel guilty about it. You practically reek of remorse.”

  “Now what do you suppose might cause that, eh? Can you think of anything that’s happened in the last few days that I might regret?”


  Bryce ignored the sneer in Mal’s voice, because it was clear from the way his gaze darted away, from the flicker of despair across his face, that Mal was in full denial mode again. “This is the real reason we’re here. The one you couldn’t tell me about. For God’s sake, Mal, if it hurt you so freaking much to even try to talk about it, how could you think it would be a good thing? You know better than that. You are better than that.”

  Mal wrapped his right arm across his body, tucking his paralyzed hand under his left elbow. “You’re a fine one to talk. You’ll do anything for your precious wetlands, so you know everyone has his price. Well, this is about my price, my—my life. Mine.”

  “You said . . . you implied that this was our life. Our true desires.”

  “And you—you, who’s supposed to be so fecking smart. You swallowed it like a spoonful of cream.” Mal bared his teeth in a travesty of his smile. “Or should I say a spoonful of come?”

  Bryce recoiled as if Mal had knifed him in the gut, the pain so real that when he pressed his hand against his belly, he expected it to come away wet with blood. “But . . . you wanted me to . . . What about taking your responsibilities? Making choices for you?”

  “Seems like everybody does that, whether I ask for it or not. Why shouldn’t you get in on the party? First it was Cassie and her bloody magical chains. Then it was—” He turned his back, but it didn’t mask the way shame fairly vibrated under his skin.

  “What? The sex? Is this what it’s about? You had a choice the last time. Maybe not before—” He still felt sick to think he’d coerced Mal into those first two times. “But the last one? You seduced me.”

  “Didn’t fight against it, though, did you?”

  “But . . . but you said it was right for us. If we both wanted it so much—”

  “We wanted it because it’s in our fecking nature. And if it’s in our nature, none of us have any bloody choice.”