The Druid Next Door by E.J. Russell

Author:E.J. Russell [Russell, E.J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Riptide Publishing
Published: 2017-08-02T22:00:00+00:00

Bryce tried to keep his breathing steady, but he couldn’t.

He couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. Something in him, the equivalent of a druid roofie, had made it possible for him to ensorcell Mal without even knowing it.

Christ. His heart lurched and a lump formed in his throat. He’d essentially raped Mal. Twice. He should have known that someone as beautiful, as confident, as arrogant as Mal Kendrick would never have willingly submitted to gawky Bryce MacLeod without a mind-altering intervention.

And what about what he’d felt himself? He’d gloried in that feeling of holding Mal’s will in his hand. Was this druid crap going to change him? Turn him into a sociopath like that bastard Rodric, who saw everyone as incidental to his own desires?

“You can stop pretending,” David said, a thread of humor in his voice. “I know you’re awake.”

Bryce opened his eyes. David smiled down at him, his eyes the color of the slough at sunset. “I . . . Sorry. I’m not feeling so great.”

“I know. I’ll take care of that in just a minute.”

David grasped both of Bryce’s hands, and a tingling warmth spread from the man’s fingers up Bryce’s arms.

Bryce snatched his hands away. “Don’t.”

David blinked at him. “It’s okay. This is kind of what I do, and it doesn’t hurt.”

“Could you maybe make it hurt? I think I deserve it.”

David laughed. “I mean it doesn’t hurt me. Alun is always in a tizzy because of the way fae used achubyddion in the past, and no matter how often I tell him that aid freely given is its own reward and doesn’t drain me in the least, he won’t listen.”

“Alun. Your husband. Mal’s brother, right?”

A flicker of worry crossed David’s face. “Yes. And if the big doofus doesn’t contact me very, very soon, I will have some words for him that he won’t want to hear.”

Bryce smiled in spite of himself. David looked as fierce as the world’s cutest twink could look, but kittens were probably more intimidating. “If Alun is Mal’s size, I doubt words would make much of a dent.” Although . . . The grimoire had stressed the importance of the right words in conjunction with the right ingredients. Had something he’d said been the catalyst that had ignited the change in him and Mal?

“If the words are ‘No sex until you clean up your act,’ believe me, they’ll leave a huge dent.”

The mention of sex drained all desire for laughter out of Bryce. He zeroed in on something David said. “You said fae used the achubyddion. Do you mean like servants?”

David shook his head as the warmth emanating from his hands curled around Mal’s heart. “Worse. Kind of like disposable battery packs. Apparently none of the idiots ever asked the achubyddion how their powers worked.” He patted Bryce’s shoulder. “If you spend much time around Mal, you’ll find that’s a fae occupational hazard. They never ask. They simply do.”

Bryce swallowed. Mal had asked. No, Mal had begged. If that was aberrant behavior in fae, then Bryce had definitely done something to subvert Mal’s will.

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