Douglas tilted his head in an almost fae-like expression. He
had
changed. “Parties don’t interest me the way they once did. My work here is important. I enjoy feeling needed rather than merely being someone’s amusement.”
“I have never seen you that way,” Tràth said, leaning forward. “You know that.”
Douglas nodded, conceding the point. At least he didn’t deny what the bond told them about each other’s feelings and intentions. “The drinking, the parties, the drugs…after a while, my whole existence seemed so frivolous. I found purpose here, something I’m good at.”
“
Frivolous
is the very word my father used tonight when describing my life.” Tràth chuckled without humour.
“Ouch,” Douglas said.
Tràth shrugged. “He’s not wrong, though. Is he?”
“I’m not judging,” Douglas said. “I know what you have to do to cope with the flows of time.”
They’d rarely talked about the struggles Tràth had with the thunderous demands of his magic, stresses that had nearly driven him insane. The drink, the smoke, the physical stimulation and pleasure distracted him and kept what Douglas called
his demons
at bay. Tràth met Douglas’ eyes. “Nothing helped as much as bonding with you.” Affection surged from Douglas, so the faerie prince slid across to the bed and sat beside his druid. “I miss you. We don’t need to resume the life we had before. I know your work is important. There may be little in the Halls of Mist for me, but I can compromise, visit more often. Perhaps you can come to me when you need a break from time to time. We might move our home to a city closer to the portal to make travel easier. The palace at the Gap of Bria means nothing to me.”
He touched Douglas’ face. They’d never lain together alone or when sober, only enjoyed sex in groups and only under the influence of smoke or, in the faeries’ case, wine. But Tràth’s feelings for Douglas went beyond the drunken, lust-fuelled parties. The bond drew them together, but over time, they had grown to love each other. The passion stirred in Douglas as well, and Tràth knew the sentiment was mutual. Leaning across, he kissed Douglas, softly at first, but their ardour grew. Douglas placed a hand on Tràth’s chest, and the druid’s fingers snaked up to the back of his neck and into his hair.
“Oh!” A voice came from the other side of the room. Douglas pushed Tràth away and stood. Aaron was backing toward the entry arch. “Sorry,” the other druid said. “I saw the girl leave, and I thought you were alone.”
Douglas bellowed with fury and shouted at his friend, “Get the fuck out of here!”
“Sorry,” Aaron repeated and spun around, beating a hasty retreat.
Tràth stood, confused by the sudden anger burning through Douglas. Sure, they’d been drunk or high when they’d kissed before, but wasn’t this better? To express themselves without hiding behind intoxicants? Wasn’t this what Douglas had wanted, rather than their previous
frivolous
existence? “What’s wrong?” he asked Douglas and reached for his arm.
Douglas jerked away. He threw off his robe and began to dress, putting on his usual kidskin clothing.
“Douglas?” Tràth recoiled from the harsh emotions pumping through their bond. “Why are you ashamed of me? What have I done to make you feel this way?”
Douglas sat on the far side of the room and shoved his feet into his boots. “I need to feed the Stone,” he said.
Confusion and anger swept over Tràth. He
knew
Douglas cared for him. Before they’d been interrupted, he’d sensed not only the desire, but the love in their bond. Now, that love had dissolved into a crashing storm of shame and hatred. Bracing himself against the sudden swirling of his own out-of-control magic, he spoke between gritted teeth. “What is wrong with you?”
“Nothing is wrong with me,” Douglas said. “For one, I’m not a goddamned queer. The fucking bond is doing this to me. I only bonded with you because they thought you were going to die. They told me the bond would bring you back.”
Tràth stood motionless, unable to think, and barely capable of breathing. With a shaken whisper, he stopped time. As immobilised as Douglas, he replayed every shared moment for the past two years, every conversation with or about Douglas. He paced back and forth through the galaxy of time as only a temporal fae could. He ignored the slowing of his heartbeat and the pain of extending his reach too long. Nothing he saw or heard in his near-perfect memory contradicted what Douglas had told him.
They both had accepted that the bond had the ability to influence emotions and induce attraction. They’d been warned about the dangers early on. At the time, they had laughed it off. Tràth had been with many male and female faeries in his life. The caution hadn’t troubled him, as it had been given to warn him of the perils of becoming attracted to a human. Unlike most fae, he hadn’t thought twice about the conventions of the day, which told them humans were barely intelligent creatures, hardly capable of higher reasoning. He’d spent enough time in the human realm when he’d run away from his insane mother to understand the untruth behind the prejudice.
Tràth had never considered for an instant the bond would be painful to Douglas, never once realised his druid hadn’t wanted to share the intimacies they had. Had the drugs merely been his way of coping with the unwelcome intrusion of the bond? He’d always
seemed
willing, often eager. He’d appeared to welcome the parties and revel in his newly unbounded sexuality.
But the desire had been a lie, induced by the magic of their bond, a bond Douglas had not wanted. There was, of course, a way to break the bond. Doing so might send Tràth down the slow road to madness and death he’d been on before they met. Did he love Douglas enough to release him? Tràth cursed himself as a coward, the answer clear. He did love Douglas, but he wasn’t prepared to die to prove himself.
He released the time stream but still didn’t move. His extended grip on the flows had weakened him, but he had no desire to show Douglas that frailty. He let Douglas’ shame and guilt wash over him as penance for his inability to do the right thing and release Douglas’ bond.
The druid stood, hanging his head. “Goddamn it,” he whispered. “I didn’t mean to say that. I’m sorry.”
“Go,” Tràth said, his voice thick and unsteady. “You have important work to do.”
“Will you be all right?”
The bond told Tràth the concern in Douglas’ voice was genuine, but he had no words to respond in kind. Tràth wouldn’t be all right. But he’d chosen his own life over Douglas’ happiness, so he had to press on. “I need a moment. If you’ll excuse me.” He met Douglas’ gaze with some difficulty. “Please.”
Douglas hesitated, once again looking like the uncertain boy Tràth had met two years before. “Sure,” he said finally and walked through the main door.
Although he knew his druid would sense his grief, for some reason, Tràth hadn’t wanted the other man to see even one tear fall.
Rory sat in a comfortable corner chair while Huck browsed the shelves in the Hall’s library, which the druids jokingly called
the archive
. Unlike the complex that housed the Source Stone, this was a library in the human sense. Tall, wooden shelves bore mostly paperback novels the druids picked up on various trips to the human realm. These days, their trips were often to countries where English was not the primary language. Still, they managed to amass a large collection, usually by raiding the shelves of charity shops.
Before moving to the Otherworld, Rory hadn’t been much of a reader. Instead, he preferred cinema or television. Now, without access to those things, he’d grown to appreciate books more. Novels were a particularly human art form. Faeries didn’t make up stories for amusement. Some of the fae scholars had asked to borrow novels from the druids’ library, and treated them with the respect one would a holy text. What they hoped to learn, Rory had no idea, but they seemed fascinated.
Huck browsed the shelves, and Rory pretended to read. Mostly he was hiding from Flùranach. Usually they got on pretty well, but she’d taken to badgering him about completing the bonding. She’d said the ritual words, but he hadn’t. She complained that it had been a year and he still wouldn’t commit to their bond. He did love her, but something in him couldn’t completely trust her, not after what she’d done. So what if it had happened nearly two years ago? She wanted him to quit living in the past, to forget how she’d attacked him, forced him to bond against his will, how he’d been completely helpless in the face of her power. He wasn’t even entirely sure he trusted the love he felt for her. He wanted to, but perhaps wishing wasn’t enough.
While he was pondering and turning another page he hadn’t read, Demi arrived.
“Did you have the latest Lee Child?” she asked Huck.
Huck turned at the sound of her voice and smiled. Rory felt for Huck. He was clearly smitten with the lovely German blood druid, but she didn’t seem to feel the same. “When did you start reading thrillers?” Huck asked.
She shrugged. “I’ve read nearly everything else we have. You like them, so I thought I’d give them a try. They’re quite good.” She blinked as though she’d just noticed Rory. “Hello,” she said.
Rory nodded. “Hey there.”
“Hiding from Flùranach?” she asked with a grin.
Rory coughed. “Of course not,” he said, but her knowing smile told him he wasn’t as clever as he thought.
Huck gestured to a bookcase on the opposite wall. “I just put it back.” She tiptoed to reach the upper shelf.
Poor guy
, Rory thought. Huck had been relegated to
the friend zone
with Demi. Despite that, the pair seemed to enjoy spending time together. Her last relationship with a faerie who abused her for months ended with him hunting her and her family for years, then getting killed in her living room. Rory didn’t blame her for not pursuing a romantic entanglement. He sympathised with her trust issues.
Huck selected a mystery novel Rory had bought on his last trip to Scotland. “The organisation here is atrocious,” the American druid said. “One of these days, I’ll get in a mood and sort this mess out.” Their collection had started out pretty well ordered, but each time one of them brought back a couple dozen new books, they went on an empty shelf rather than being sorted in any recognisable way.
“Who is Annette Webster?” Demi asked.
Huck spun around, and Rory looked up from his book. Demi stood, holding a card that had been stuck inside a novel. Huck walked over to her and gently took the card from her hand. “Thanks,” he said. “I wanted to keep that.” He slipped the card into his book and closed it.
“Huck?” Demi said, frowning. “Who is she? A relative?”
“She’s my sister.”
“That’s a wedding invitation,” Demi said.
Huck chuckled. “It is.”
“The wedding is this coming weekend.”
“Yep,” he said.
“Don’t you want to go?”
“There aren’t any gates to the States,” he said.
“Hello? The Mistgate we just finished?”
He shook his head. “Munro said we shouldn’t connect to North America. They call it
The Bleak
. The faeries are freaked out about something, and we haven’t figured out what. If they thought the Mistgate connected to The Bleak, they’d desert the Halls of Mist. His words, not mine. ”
“So fly,” she responded. “I’m sure the others would agree to you using some of the money in the druid accounts for an important occasion like that. Don’t you think so, Rory?” she asked.
Rory shrugged and turned another page. He really didn’t want to take sides. “I’m nae bothered either way.”
“It’s too late. I probably couldn’t arrive in time,” Huck said.
“I haven’t been to America, but I know it doesn’t take three days to get there.” Demi put a hand on her hip and gave a stubborn scowl.
“They aren’t expecting me, Demi. I haven’t spoken or written to any of my family since I came here. I can’t just show up.”
“Of course you can,” she said. “Why are you making excuses?”
“Look at me. Do I look human to you?” He hadn’t begun to undergo changes until he’d touched the Source Stone. Now that he had, his ears had spiralling points and his skin had taken on a metallic sheen, as though he wore copper-tinted make-up.
“So wear a hat and sunglasses,” she said.
“In a church?”
“What’s the real reason you don’t want to go? Hardly any of the others of us have family. I only have Lisle and Jago. Munro has only extended family. The others have no one.”
Rory contemplated ducking out. Listening to these two argue about something so personal made him uncomfortable.
Huck sighed. “Except for my sister, I don’t get along with my family. It wasn’t a difficult choice for me to leave my life behind and come here.”
“Do you want to see her?” Demi asked. “It would mean a lot to her, I’m sure, if you went to her wedding.”
Why she cared so much, Rory couldn’t understand. Maybe obsession with weddings was a woman thing.
“If I did go, I don’t think I’d go to the wedding. Like I said, I can’t exactly wear sunglasses and a hat in church.” Huck shook his head. “It’s probably easiest for everyone if I stay away. I made a clean break.”
Leocort stuck his head into the library. “Lady Druid Demi,” he said. “Forgive the intrusion. I wanted to remind you I’m spending the day today with my daughter at the Ashkyne Hall. If you think you might need me, I can change my plans.”
“No,” Demi said, “You go. In fact, you can take a few days, if you like. Huck and I are going to America.”
“What?” Leocort and Huck said at the same time. Rory grimaced. Huck hadn’t stood a chance.
Demi put a hand on her hip. “His sister is taking a mate. He’s going to the ritual. I’m going along for moral support.”
Huck stared at her.
On the other hand, Rory thought, maybe Huck could use the situation to work on the
friend zone
predicament.
“You mustn’t,” Leocort said quickly. “My lady druid, you should not travel to The Bleak.” He turned to Huck. “I implore you. It is incredibly dangerous.”
“Seriously?” Huck said. “I grew up in America. It’s a lot of things, but not dangerous.”