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Malcolm instantly relaxed, though his voice was laced with rage as he addressed the interloper. “Bael, if you doona get the fuck out of here, I’ll forget ye’re my brother-in-law and—”
“Malcolm you gave us a fright!” A flame-haired woman bent into the hovel, filling the poor structure to the brim. “What in the name of the Goddess are you doing all the way out—” She cut off when Sean poked his head above Malcolm’s shoulder, her lovely blue eyes widening to the size of saucers. “Oh, my!” the lady exclaimed. “I thought… we assumed you were in danger… not…Oh my! Pardon us!”
Burning a bright pink, even in the dim light, the woman seized onto the dark-haired lummox next to her, and tugged at his arm toward the now ruined door.
The man relented, black eyes glittering with mirth. “My liege,” he said in a strange, foreign accent before executing a mocking bow to Malcolm’s back side, and ducking out of the hovel.
Their chuckles could be heard through the thin walls.
Malcolm’s groan of frustration was more of a menacing growl. His morning erection still pulsed against Sean’s thigh, and he’d yet to let go. “Sometimes family isna the blessing others make it out to be,” he grit out.
Sean began to panic. What would he do now? How could he face the Wyrd Sisters after his failure? They’d know he’d lain with him, and that he’d chosen not to carry out his charge. “I… suppose you must be going now.” Fighting to keep his voice even, he mentally berated himself for the weakness the king brought out in him. Was this the last morning he’d ever see?
“Aye,” Malcolm sighed, pulling away and running his hands over his tired eyes. “Gather what things ye want to take with ye.”
“What?”
Malcolm’s jaw cracked on a yawn, and he reached for his discarded kilt and tunic. “I’ll get ye home so we can finish what my sister and her husband so rudely interrupted.” He kissed Sean’s forehead, and pulled his tunic over his unruly auburn curls.
Sean gaped at him in absolute shock, frozen in place.
He pulled his kilt over his tantalizing backside and then turned as though to ask why he hadn’t moved yet. Upon seeing his face, he crouched down to him and touched Sean’s cheek, obviously taking his astonishment for outrage.
“I doona mean to offer ye the dishonor of being the kept lover of a king,” he amended, green eyes sparkling with mischief. “I mean to make an honest lad out of ye.”
He couldn’t mean…
“What are you saying?” Sean breathed, his heart slamming against his ribcage.
“I’m saying I would bind with ye, Sean.” He grinned before leaning in for a kiss. “Now get dressed, dawn is upon us.”
Malcolm felt lighter than he had in months as he guided his steed over the moors toward Dun Moray. He ignored the silent, astonished glances of his sister and the smug, lifted eyebrow of his brother-in-law as they each followed behind him on their own horses.
He supposed he deserved both. Since Morgana had returned home from exile in England with a Berserker mate, he’d lectured both of them over the unwise speed of their union. He would reap what he’d sown, and try to keep a good humor about it.
Morgana was full to bursting with questions. Malcolm could feel them swimming inside her, but she wouldn’t ask him until Sean was no longer clinging to his back in dazed silence. If nothing else, his sister was a lady.
And she’d always known that Malcolm had been born beneath the stars of two warriors. That he wasn’t meant for progeny. Before, the Earth Druid had always been a woman, and he had that very strong, very female urge to create and nurture life.
He somehow always assumed he’d live life without a mate. That he was some sort of anomaly.
A mistake.
And yet, the moment he’d seen Sean trembling and wounded on the ground, something inside him had shifted. For so long, he’d been consumed by his work, by the responsibility of being the king of a proud and clannish people, and by the charge he’d been tasked with by the Goddess.
A de Moray Druid.
With his soft, bruised amethyst eyes and skin that seemed as though it had never been kissed by the sun, Sean made him feel like a man. Just a man. A creature of blood and bones and hunger and lust. Nothing more.
In truth, he could have stayed with Sean in that hovel and lived out his days roaming the forest, fishing the lake, and tilling the earth together. They’d tell stories, shape clay, weave baskets, and let the forest help them to forget that an Apocalypse loomed on the horizon.
“Is that Dun Moray?” Sean’s question shattered his brooding fantasy as they broke over a rise and the Moray valley spread out beneath them. It shimmered like an emerald in the autumn sunlight, the village alive with activity.
“Aye,” Malcolm answered, the mantle of obligation again beginning to weigh upon his shoulders.
“So, it’s really true… You’re King of the Picts.” He said this as though the fact disappointed him, somehow, and that endeared the man to him all the more.
Most women of his acquaintance chased him with the vigor of a pack of wolves. His crown being the prize rather than his heart. “Do ye think ye could take to being my Consort?”
