“Are we doing this or what?” Bruce yelled.
“We’ll be there in one flick of a deer’s tail, lads.” He turned back to Gordon. “I dinnae suppose I can get a wee bit of assistance with the guards tonight?”
His brother raised a brow at him, one green eye squinting. “Tonight?”
Hamish nodded. His face steadily grew hotter the longer Gordon mutely stared at him. An act he was well aware his brother did to elicit such a reaction. But knowing that didn’t exactly help him control his blushing.
After what certainly felt like an eternity, his brother chuckled. “That man of yours doesnae drag his feet, does he?”
Hamish bit the inside of his cheek. Darshan wasn’t his by any stretch of the imagination.
Gordon clapped a hand on Hamish’s shoulder and squeezed. “Try nae to have this one go sour, you hear?”
“Come on!” Ethan called, rattling on the bars that made up the gate blocking their path. “It’s locked!”
“Aye, we’re on the way!” Hamish shot back before frowning at his brother. “You still got a key on you?”
“Hang on,” Gordon muttered. He patted himself down, his search growing more frantic until he produced a heavy key. “Thought I’d lost it for a second there.”
Hamish eyed the key enviously. He used to own one—everyone in the royal family was gifted a key once of age—until his mother had confiscated it under the guise of protecting his interests, whilst also claiming he would use the tunnel to set up affairs in the city. An act he had never even thought to attempt.
Gordon trotted down the final few steps to the locked gate. Through the bars, they were greeted by only the cold stone face of an alcove. Out in the forest, this entrance was hidden from the casual observer. No tracks, no sign of manmade structures.
The old lock groaned, then offered up a heavy clonk. The boys filed through as soon as the gate had swung wide enough for them to pass with his brother on their heels, leaving Hamish to put out the lanterns before he followed.
Beyond the alcove, old targets hung just along the forest edge. How many months had he spent with his siblings shooting those same painted slices of tree? He had lost count. “All right, lads,” Hamish said. “Show us what you’ve got.”
Hamish stood before the closed door of the guest chambers. His stomach churned. Nerves or hunger, it was all the same. Dinner had been a short time ago, but the fluttering in his gut had him far too distracted to consider food.
The mere thought of being with Darshan again, especially so soon, had his heart thundering. All of his past encounters had been the single night kind. Any attempt on his part for a repeat performance—if he could find the men, given that most mysteriously vanished—was always harshly dismissed.
What if he screwed up? Maybe his reaction last night repeated itself and he went off early? Darshan might’ve understood about it then, but the man would have limits. Especially when heaped atop everything else.
Absently wiping his palms on his tunic, he all but crushed the door handle in his fingers. Turn, he commanded his hand. There’s nae point standing out here all night.
The hushed patter of feet reached his ears, echoing from down the halls.
Hamish glanced over his shoulder. No one was there, but his heart still skipped several beats, he was sure of it. “You’ve nae been followed,” he murmured, trying to stop himself from shaking. If anyone was near, it would be a servant and they had long learnt to keep their heads down about matters like this.
Gordon would see to it that the guards wouldn’t think to look for him until much later and, by then, he was to meet up with his brother to concoct a viable excuse. The very fact he needed to do so at all set a bitter taste in the back of his mouth, but if skirting the rules was what it took to live as he wanted, then so be it.
He gently opened the door, not entirely sure what to expect.
Warm light bathed him, the source a half dozen candles. His eye was immediately drawn to Darshan. The man sat on the end of the bed, leaning back on his arms with one ankle propped on a knee.
“H-hello,” Hamish mumbled, his face growing hotter with each thunderous pulse of his heart. Darshan might not have been naked—nor was he wearing the embroidered sherwani, leaving only the plainer clothes beneath—but that didn’t help. If anything, knowing he would have to remove those flimsy barriers to the man’s bare skin only served to have his heart pound harder.
Darshan silently beckoned him closer with one crooked finger.
He took a few halting steps forward. His heart leapt into his throat as he crossed the threshold. He hadn’t fully entered this room since that disastrous night with the dwarven ambassador, hadn’t even ventured near here in all the years between then and first escorting Darshan to the door.
The room didn’t appear to have changed with the years. The walls were the same bare stone, the natural grey turned ruddy in the candlelight. The bed was no different, even the worn bearskin rug looked to be the one he’d been kneeling on when the guards found him all those years back. There was a little more heat in the room, courtesy of the furnace the spellster had just about made of the fireplace.
“Are you going to shut the door?” Darshan enquired. “You are letting all the heat escape.”
Hamish complied. The faint scrape of a key drew his attention. He glanced down as the lock clicked. It should’ve reassured him, but he had witnessed this very door fall. At least the guards’ initial thud against the iron-banded planks would give him enough time to attempt hiding. Maybe Darshan’s magic was capable of turning a man invisible.
“Turn
