Free Caledonia Fae 05 - Elder Druid by India Drummond Page A

influence of the smoke, Tràth shrugged. He should care. His father was right. Even as attendants combed his hair and arranged his clothing, he wanted nothing more than to crawl back into bed. He couldn’t tell his father the truth. His heart was broken and he was too much of a coward to die for his druid. Better his father think him a worthless waste of royal seed than to know he was moping like an adolescent over a romantic humiliation.
    Griogair snapped his fingers. “This won’t do,” he said to someone. “Find another mantle.” Footfalls pounded around the room as faerie servants danced to the older prince’s demands.
    Someone else entered the room. Tràth turned toward the entry arch and was mortified when, through bleary eyes, he recognised the pity on Eilidh’s face. He could handle his father’s anger, even disappointment, but the pity crushed him. “Griogair, my love,” she said. “Would you and your attendants give me a moment with Tràth, please?”
    Tràth recognised that his father wanted to argue but wouldn’t. He leaned forward and spoke softly to his son. “I swear to you,” he said, “if you upset or embarrass her in any way, I will see you stripped of your titles and your holdings. You will spend the next thousand years working in some desolate swamp harvesting frog piss one drop at a time.”
    “I understand,” Tràth said. What he didn’t say was that he’d rather be in that desolate swamp right now. Anywhere would be better than here, where he could feel Douglas’ every emotion. When Tràth stayed in Caledonia and the portal separated them, he hadn’t been subjected to the dizzying array of unbridled human emotions. Here, Douglas’ seething shame and constant turmoil only abated when the druid lost himself in rapture with the Stone or sexual release. Even when he slept, the druid's mind was in perpetual tumult. If only Tràth had refused the call to the Halls of Mist, none of this would have happened. If only he’d not acted so impulsively in Douglas’ chamber. If only he’d paid more attention, he might have had some inkling of Douglas’ true feelings.
    Eilidh sat across from him, strikingly beautiful in her ultramarine gown. Its black mink trim complimented the pure white shade of her hair. “My poor Tràth,” she said. “Quinton thought you were doing all right.” She smiled. “You fooled him completely.”
    “I didn’t mean to,” Tràth said. “I meant what I said to him, but I suppose good intentions matter little.” He met her eyes. “I am crushed to have disappointed you.”
    “I can clear your mind. Would you like me to?”
    The haze had lifted somewhat, but the effects of the drug still cocooned him from the worst of what waited. “Yes,” he said. He deserved the pain that would soon come at her hands, but he despised the self-pity in the sentiment.
    When she touched his temple, his mind became unhampered in an instant. Before the pain of his memories burst with full force, a gentle presence soothed him. Eilidh used a delicate touch as she calmed his thoughts. The darkness of his self-loathing receded.
    “Humans,” she said, “are turbulent creatures. I know this well. Although young by fae reckoning, Quinton possesses a maturity the other men of his Hall lack.” She smiled. “I understand what you’re enduring. Douglas is barely even an adult by their standards. I can’t imagine what the mayhem of his immature mind must be like for you to endure.” Tràth fought an irrational desire to defend his druid.
    Eilidh went on. “I didn’t speak to you of this before because I thought you and Douglas were…well, I shouldn’t have assumed. You seemed to be coping.”
    “Speak to me of what?” Tràth asked.
    “When Quinton and I were first finding our way together, I inadvertently discovered that I could block our connection.”
    “What?” Tràth’s attention snapped to Eilidh.
    “At the time, Quinton was furious with me. I couldn’t bear his