Free Caledonia Fae 04- Druid Lords by India Drummond Page A

library since he touched the artefact six months before. The event affected him differently than the others, maybe because of his magical injury. Connecting with the Stone strengthened the positive and powerful within him but also intensified his nightmares. He wasn’t in any hurry to relive the experience.
    “Can’t hurt to check,” Huck prodded him.
    “What’s our excuse though? With the queens, we asked for access to their gates.”
    Huck shrugged. “We’re druid lords. Do we need an excuse?”
    “We’ll say we’re looking for Munro. He spends half his life in there.” Rory wasn’t sure why he hesitated. Like Huck said, they weren’t likely to be questioned, but cold dread filled his stomach. With great effort, he pushed past his fear. “Okay,” he said.
    With focused willpower, he followed Huck to the library entrance. He silently commanded his feet to move one in front of the other, down step after step, until they reached the vast foyer below. Black pillars held mounted runestones dotted within like a museum display. The druids’ steps echoed off the high, stone walls and ceiling. It felt like a tomb.
    Keeper Oszlár shuffled in, as he tended to do, bent from extreme old age. He straightened his back and met Rory’s eyes. He looked sad. “You’re not ready,” he said.
    Rory approached the old faerie. “What?” He thought he hadn’t heard the keeper right.
    “And neither is she, for that matter.”
    “She’s here?” Huck asked.
    Oszlár tilted his head noncommittally.
    “How long?” Rory said, rapidly becoming angry. “How long have you been hiding her?”
    “Why?” Oszlár asked. “Why do you want to know? Do you seek revenge? Justice, even?”
    “I need her help.”
    “You aren’t ready.”
    Rory fumed. “What gives you the right to decide when I’m ready?” he shouted. “I want to see her.”
    “Are you still having nightmares?” Oszlár asked.
    Rory flushed. The question caught him off guard. “How do you know about that?”
    “I saw within you when you touched the Source Stone. Her actions damaged you. Deeply.”
    “Yeah, well, I’m over it.” Rory didn’t believe the bravado he forced into his voice. Still, he bloody well wasn’t going to be told how he felt by someone who saw a vision in a rock, even one as powerful and strange as the Source Stone.
    “Ah, but she isn’t.”
    The statement only made things worse. What did she need to get over? She attacked him, ripped off his clothes, and forced her way into his mind. His bond was shattered by what she did. He felt as though he would never be able to love anyone or anything again. And she was upset?
    “I thought a druid’s word was law,” Huck said.
    “Some things,” Oszlár said, “are more important than tradition. You will see her again, but not before you’re both healed.” His eyes grew sharp and keen. “It is vital that she join you. If anything gets in the way of that coming to pass, the consequences for the entire fae race are far worse than you can imagine.”
    The keeper’s words struck Rory as both ominous and peculiar. “You’re claiming you know the future?” he asked.
    “I know a few things,” Oszlár replied, his previously harsh tone melting into wry humour.
    “Flùranach is important to the future of your race?”
    “She is the key to our survival.”
    Rory sighed. “I’m not going to hurt her. I just want to talk to her.”
    A soft voice spoke from a side entrance. “Rory.”
    All three turned. Flùranach stood fifty feet away near a darkened archway. She looked changed, more mature, possibly. Like the difference between a woman of twenty-five and the same woman at thirty. Her skin was the palest, most delicate pink , and strands of dark red hair wisped from beneath a hooded robe. Her green eyes swirled with magic, but still held that haunted look he’d seen in them the last time they met.
    “I didn’t notice you there,” Rory said.
    “I’ve been learning to mask my