Darshan bit hard on his lip, fighting to keep even a single moan from escaping. His breath panted through his nose. His head flopped forward, the light from the hall below further obscured by his hair. He shut his eyes, squeezing them tight.
When Hamish chose to swallow Darshan’s length in its entirety, he couldn’t stop the inelegant jerk of his hips.
His hands slapped either side of the window frame to keep himself steady. Magic flared through him. The stone beneath his fingers grew hot, groaning as he dug his fingers in. In the darkness behind his eyes, his head spun. Raw power continued to pour through his fingertips. Everything inside him grew taut.
Darshan tumbled over the edge like an avalanche.
He opened one eye, assessing the mezzanine for whatever damage he might’ve caused. Slowly, he extracted his fingers from the holes they had moulded into the window frame. It seemed otherwise intact. As did everything else.
Good. His body trembled, drained. He had almost expected to find he’d blown out the windowpane or the wall, or that the floor had caved in.
All acts he had inadvertently done in the past.
Hamish stood, half-tugging Darshan’s clothes up with him. He pressed close for a chaste kiss. “Sleep well, me heart.” Then his lover was off down the stairs before Darshan could think enough to respond, never mind make himself publically presentable again.
Darshan hastened to pull up his clothes. He rushed down the stairs after the man, still securing his trousers and barely halting in time to miss colliding into Gordon.
Of Hamish, there was no sign.
Well now. What was he to do? Chase his lover down or find a somewhat gentler pursuit to calm his still thundering heart? One thing was definitely certain, he wasn’t going to sleep anytime soon.
Hamish grumbled under his breath as he paced between the roots of the two giant yews, waiting for Darshan to show. He had specified morning. Hadn’t he? Did the man not realise that meant daybreak? It was well past that now, although the forest floor still clung to grey light.
His fingers idly trailed across the yew trunk before he ground his heel into the dirt and marched back to the other yew. The trees were rumoured to be over four hundred years old and supposedly marked the spot where the young prince had lost the usurpers looking to destroy the last of his clan. Of course, the truth behind the tale was always a matter for debate, the story having become more myth than history.
Hamish tipped his head up as he passed the midway point between trees. The branches were gnarled. They wrapped around each other, eternally connected. Until one of them dies. Perhaps the connections forged through the centuries of growth would be enough to hold the other up.
“Do you think he’s gone and gotten himself lost?” Gordon asked, neatly snapping Hamish’s thoughts back to the present.
Hamish paused for a step in his pacing to glare at his brother. They had only been waiting in the forest for a short while. The fog hadn’t even shifted from beneath the canopy. “He said he would bloody be here and he will come soon enough.” Was his lover having difficulty getting to the tunnel unnoticed?
With Gordon’s key in Darshan’s possession, they had been forced to circle the cliff. But, in bringing his nephews along, their travels came with a plausible story of taking them out to practice their archery.
The three boys stood nearby, firing arrows at a tree one of them had marked with shallow slashes.
Hamish halted by the second yew, leaning against the trunk to watch the trio. They jostled each other between draws, sometimes biffing leaves or dirt to throw off their brothers’ aim. Just like we used to. That little trick Bruce did to flick debris behind his back was almost identical to the one Nora had used on him as children.
Gordon joined him, his gaze swinging between the surrounding forest to the boys. “I ken this isnae something you want to hear, but I dinnae think he’s coming.”
Even as the words passed his brother’s lips, Hamish couldn’t help the twinge in his gut that maybe Gordon was right. Or maybe it was all the liquid sloshing about in his stomach. Waking had come with a dreadful headache, alleviated only by a jug of water and one of the cook’s bitter concoctions that also left him with little desire for grub.
He took a deep breath. “Give it until midmorning. Dar’s probably just held up.” The spellster would have to avoid detection to the tunnel entrance, traverse it and then find his way through the forest without arousing anyone’s suspicion. If only he could make himself invisible. Sadly, Darshan had already informed him such magic wasn’t possible.
“You really are putting a lot of faith in him.”
Tell me something I dinnae ken. Darshan could decide to back out of the contest with no one the wiser at any given moment simply by not participating. But… “He loves me.” Surely if Darshan had any misgivings about competing, it would’ve been in the first trial, not now. “Said I was his eternal flame. I think it means he believes me to be chosen by the Goddess for him.” He remembered that part of last night quite clearly. As if he could ever forget the golden warmth that had bathed his very soul at the confession.
His brother’s brows rose. “He’s that serious about it?”
Hamish nodded. At least, he hoped Darshan was.
Gordon rubbed at his jaw. “I suppose we can wait until the fog burns off.”
They stood there, minding that the boys didn’t get quarrelsome with each other whilst also continuing to keep the usual watchful eye for anything that might mean harm, be it an aggressive stag or a startled bear. Although, the amount of noise his nephews made would likely to scare off all but the most cantankerous of beasts.
The boys, seemingly bored with practising their archery on
