“If he has control, why is he so desperate to get his hands on Queen Guinevere?”
“She’s not the queen anymore!”
“Except she is.” Midas didn’t give a rat’s ass about politics, but he very certainly cared about the Scarecrow and his followers attacking this woman. “I don’t recognize that usurping dickhead or his piss-ant authority.” He arched a brow. “And I’m not the only one. That’s why you’re after this woman, right? Because there are quite a few Bad folk who won’t support your new regime. Who will back her and the child, if there’s a war.”
“We don’t need your support.” Percival hissed. “By the time we’re through, you won’t be able to inflict your villainy on the rest of us. Every damn one of you will finally know your place.”
“Oh, I know my place. It’s right here in the house I built, on the land I own, at the party I’m hosting. And you weren’t fucking invited.” Midas looked over at his towering bodyguard. “Trystan? Kindly have the men escort Percival off of my property. He was just leaving.”
Trystan wasn’t much for talking. Or subtlety. He just pulled his double-bladed axe free and spun it in his hand. The rest of Midas’ men took the hint and reached for their own weapons. Midas believed in hiring lots and lots of armed killers to guard his parties. He was entertaining criminals, after all. Who the hell knew what they might try?
The Scarecrow’s flunkies froze, weighing their options. None of them were great. The King’s Men were outnumbered three to one. Hell, Trystan could have been alone with the knights and still outnumber them.
The wings alone were an advantage.
With no other options, Percival stepped back, grasping his wounded shoulder. “This isn’t over.” He snarled, trite to the last. “I told the Scarecrow to take care of you long ago, Midas. You’ve always been a stupid, vulgar brute. And that’s how you’ll be treated.” He turned on his heel, gesturing for his men to follow, and went striding out of Midas’ home.
For the moment, anyway.
Midas had no doubt that they’d be back. He needed more guards. And weapons. And supplies. …And girly things, since Guinevere was going to stay with him for the foreseeable future. Where else could she go? Gwen and the child clearly weren’t safe on their own.
That fact made everything easier for Midas, actually. For all intents and purposes, the queen and her daughter were shipwrecked in his home. But, they’d no doubt need frilly pillows and flowery skirts and all kinds of mysterious feminine items to comfortably adapt. They both seemed very small and dainty. They’d need stuff he didn’t have, so he’d just have to get it for them.
Time to buy out Camelot’s weapons depots and dress shops.
Guinevere released a long breath as the knights slammed the door behind them. “You made them leave.” She whispered. “No one has ever defeated the King’s Men, but you frightened them away in --like-- two seconds. That was incredible. You were… incredible.” She smiled as if he’d just impressed the hell out of her.
As if he was a hero instead of a tawdry feral animal.
It felt pretty fucking amazing.
“Well, you shot their captain in my ballroom.” Midas reminded her, uncomfortable with how damn pleased he was with her obvious admiration. “I believe that kick-started the process.”
“Yes, but I didn’t have enough bullets for all of them.” She explained blithely. “Actually, I’ve had this gun hidden in the palace gardens for months, buried under a statue of Arthur’s odious father.” She glanced down at the weapon with the vaguely unsettled expression of someone who’d never really held a gun before. “I’m kind of shocked it worked, at all.”
Midas stifled a wince at that news. Definitely a “damn the torpedoes” kind of girl.
“So, thank you for helping us.” She finished sincerely. “Thank you so much.”
“It was my pleasure.” Midas swept a gloved hand towards his office. “Why don’t we go in here and talk about business?”
Guinevere nodded and followed him towards the elaborate double doors, like she wasn’t worried about being locked in a room with the Kingpin of Camelot. The woman should’ve been warned about blindly trusting Bad men, but Midas certainly wasn’t fool enough to do it.
“You plan to be alone in a room with that girl when she’s still armed?” Trystan demanded in his people’s language. From his tone, it was clear that he thought Midas was the one blindly trusting somebody and he didn’t like it.
Midas was used to his attitude. Trystan believed that everyone born without wings was an idiot.
Midas held the door so Guinevere could enter and met Trystan’s eyes. “I’ll be fine.” He assured him in the gryphons’ dialect. It wasn’t a particularly lyrical language, but, since most gryphons were long dead, only a handful of people still spoke it. That came in handy when you wanted to communicate privately. “The queen is half my size.”
“Arthur was bigger than her, too.” Trystan agreed with a credible amount of sarcasm for someone so utterly humorless. “Right up until the moment he was significantly shortened by an impact with the pavement.”
“I promise not to visit any tall balconies with her. Just make sure the soldiers don’t double-back on us.” Midas fixed Trystan with a warning look, because it was always a bright idea to be explicit when you dealt with a paranoid, arrogant, trained assassin who carried an arsenal everywhere he went. “This woman is mine.”
“Since when? She only just arrived.”
“Since now. Do nothing to frighten her.”
“Have you missed the last few moments? Be concerned about the violence she might inflict on you, not what I might do to her. She is a remorseless killer. Believe me. I know the breed well. You should let her people take her away and save yourself the trouble.”
Midas ignored that analysis. “Ha’na, Trystan.” Gryphons were born without emotions, but that word was sacrosanct.
Trystan hesitated. “You’re sure?”
Midas nodded. He’d never been more sure of anything. “No matter what happens, don’t hurt her.”
Midas paid Trystan a great deal of money to act as a bodyguard, but the man wasn’t exactly a traditional employee. He only bothered to follow directions when he agreed with them and he basically considered Midas a teenager with poor impulse control. Despite his misgivings, though, Trystan wouldn’t hack Gwen to pieces if he understood the truth.
Sure enough, Trystan relented with a sigh. “She is your woman.” He agreed, grudgingly. “But, claiming her is ill-advised, even for you and you have many stupid ideas. She is dangerous.”
Midas ignored the (no doubt accurate) naysaying. He could no more have stayed away from Guinevere than he could have stopped the sun from setting behind Mount Baden each night. Midas followed Gwen into the office and shut both doors, sealing them in.
…And he was finally alone with his True Love.
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Best Knight Ever (A Kinda Fairytale Book 4) Page 57
