Immortal Flame (The Excalibur Duet Book 2)

by Kim Loraine

  He grits his teeth and I can see the flash of jealousy at my mention of the baby in her belly. The baby I most likely put there. “I’m not going to waste my energy trying to escape. Nimue won’t have put us here without a plan. She’s smarter than that.”

  My efforts stall at his words. He’s right. Nimue will come for us when she needs us and there’s no way we’ll leave this cell without her knowledge. I take a long breath and close my eyes against the anxious roll of my stomach.

  I don’t know how long we sit there in silence, but the churning in my gut doesn’t lessen. The cell seems to grow smaller as time passes, the window vanishing before my eyes.

  Looking up from the dirty floor, I find Brooks’ gaze on me. “I can’t let her down again. What kind of champion am I if I don’t ride to her rescue?”

  Brooks shakes his head and grins. “She’s never needed a champion. Guinevere was brave enough to love us both, and strong enough to save us all.”

  “And Nimue thinks she can take that from us by force and magic.”

  “But we have something she doesn’t.”

  I look into his eyes and my chest tightens. I know what he’ll say, so I beat him to it. “We have love between us. The three of us. Is that what you think? Love conquers all?” Anger builds in me, bright and blazing like a bonfire. What has love done for us but end up putting Gwen in danger time and time again? Perhaps that love isn’t the healing thing we think it is.

  He nods. “In this case, yes. Why do you think we didn’t get our happy ending the first time around?”

  “Because we weren’t meant to. We weren’t destined to be three. That’s not how soul mates work.”

  His fingers dig into my shoulder. “Stop with that idiotic notion that all we’re meant for is suffering.”

  “It’s the truth. You were right to keep us apart. A love like ours was never supposed to be.”

  Brooks’ jaw tightens. “Like ours? As far as I can remember, you never shared my feelings. All you did was take my wife.”

  “You gave her to me.” Rage fills me. “You cast her aside and gave me your wife. You sent her to my bed, begged me to give her the child you needed. I took nothing that wasn’t already discarded by you.” The dam breaks the moment I let those words free. A crack in my walls that spreads faster than can be contained. “We both loved you but you treated us no better than you would a whore in a brothel. You let us give you what you wanted and then left us to pick up the pieces before you turned her to ashes.”

  His fist flies through the air, connecting with my jaw in an explosion of fury. Before I know it, I’m on him, shoulder barreling into his stomach as I let out an enraged scream. I run, full tilt until I shove him against the damp stone wall.

  His knee catches me in the ribs, all the air leaving my lungs in a rush. Stars erupt in my vision and I let out a grunt as my head rears back and I move to slam my forehead into his.

  Instead, his hands find my face, and his heavy gasps give me pause. Such anger glows in his eyes, but there, behind the livid irises is something more. Self loathing.

  “I’ll regret what I did to her for the rest of my existence.” His whispered words tremble with his voice. “I’ll spend every day making amends. Every night dreaming of her screams as the flames licked her skin. Every single moment wishing I’d been stronger.”

  “As you should. You killed the love of my life.”

  I know the moment I say it, I’ve won. But it doesn’t feel good. It feels like a low blow. His eyes narrow and he growls. “And still, even now she wants you. She’s mine, but she cries for you.”

  “And you? Do you still call my name when you’re inside her?”

  The soft gasp from his lips tells me everything I need to know. “She told you?”

  I shake my head. “No. But I knew. I knew because I felt the same. If you’d taken the time to look in my eyes, you’d have seen your own desires echoed in me. You’d know I stroked my cock to thoughts of your heated gaze on me while I fucked her. I touched myself until I made a mess on my sheets nearly every night after we three shared that moment. But it wasn’t just the memory of her slick heat and her firm tits bouncing as I pounded into her. It was the look in your eyes.”

  He loses some of his fire, relaxing his hold on me before letting out a pained groan and crushing his lips to mine. There’s heat and desperate longing behind his kiss, and this time I don’t back away. This time he has me at his mercy even though I’m the one pushing him against the wall.

  I break the kiss, gasping as I let the power of what just happened wash over me. My heart races, pounding against my ribcage like a trapped thing begging to escape. But he’s a starving man, and he grips my shoulders, spins me around like I weigh nothing, and presses me to the wall. His hips pin mine, his steel length pressing into my side a reminder of his masculinity. So different from the soft warmth of Gwen, but not in a bad way. In an enticing, electrifying way. My own cock throbs with the need for him to touch me, and I want more than his lips on mine can offer.

  “Fuck, Lance,” he groans, rolling his hips over me. “I need…I need—”

  “Me too,” I answer, not letting him finish. I pull at his tunic, wanting his skin to be at my disposal. “Off,” I murmur.

  He backs away and tears the fabric over his head, his broad chest glowing in the light of the torches. Everything about him is hard where Gwen is soft. He runs his hands over my breeches, cupping my aching shaft and making me grit my teeth as pleasure races through my entire body.

  Then he drops to his knees before me, those dark eyes glittering in the flickering light. With trembling hands, he unfastens my pants and frees my cock.

  “Let me taste you, Lance.”

  I can’t stop the groan that falls from me as I nod and thread my fingers in his hair. He strokes my length once and my knees nearly buckle at the overwhelming sensation. I won’t last. Not past the warmth of his mouth.

  “Yes. God, yes,” I plead.

  He leans forward to take me into his mouth, the brush of his hot breath along my oversensitive skin driving me wild, but the sound of a lock being thrown breaks us apart. Brooks jumps to his feet and throws his tunic over his head with lightning fast agility while I shove my painfully hard cock back into my pants.

  The door creaks open and Nimue appears in the light.

  “Oh, my, my. Am I too late for the show, boys?”

  Gwen

  Everything around me is dark. I can’t see my hands in front of my face, and then I remember I’m trapped in a sleeping curse. Although, sleeping isn’t really the right word. I can’t move my physical body, but I’m aware. I was aware of Lance standing sentinel at my side, of him cradling me close, of us being ripped from one another when they walked into Nimue’s trap.

  A spark of green flame lights in the distance though I can’t honestly tell how far away it is in this prison. But it’s growing, stronger and stronger, the flame turns to a blaze, and my eyes hurt from the bright light as it closes the distance between us. Looking down, I can see my limbs, my dress is floating as though I’m under water, and everything is cold.

  Whatever the light is, I need to get to it. All my answers lie there. I move like a mermaid through the water, fast and fluid. And when I reach the light, I touch it and everything around me explodes in luminescent fury. I close my eyes against it and when I open, I’m standing on a cliff’s edge, the wind whipping my hair around my face.

  Blood covers my hands and tears stream down my cheeks, nothing but emptiness fills my heart. Brooks lies dead on the ground at my feet, his blood pooling in the grass. Lance is splayed out across the earth in the distance. My sisters stand by my side, Izzy on my left, Helena on my right next to another woman I’ve never seen before, but I feel like I know her. My gut clenches and I let out a heart wrenching sob.

  Then the blackness takes over again, and I know I’m going to lose them both.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Brooks

  Nimue stands in the op
en doorway, a wicked grin on her pretty face. “Go on, it looks like things were getting…heated.”

  I all but growl as I charge forward, ready to take her out here and now. I spent my past life feeling shame for my desires, my love of Lancelot, my needs. Not anymore. She won’t sully what I share with the two of them by making it into entertainment.

  “Oh, isn’t that cute? The little Nephilim thinks he can fight me.” She raises a hand and twists her wrist, the action wrapping an invisible chain around me and bowing my spine at an unnatural angle.

  “Fuck you,” I spit.

  “Don’t you mean fuck Lancelot? I’m sure that was where this was headed.” She walks around me, gaze traveling my form before she turns her attention to my knight. “I wonder, which one of you is the bottom?”

  Lance’s cheeks burn crimson. “Where is Gwen?”

  She giggles and loosens the enchantment around me enough for the pressure on my spine to ease. “She’s safe.”

  “I don’t believe you,” he growls.

  I feel Gwen’s presence through our marriage bond. She is alive, that much I know, but she’s in pain. “Safe, but fading,” I whisper.

  Nimue rolls her eyes. “Oh, for fuck’s sake. That meddling Lisola and her damned handfasting. This would be so much easier if you two weren’t joined.”

  “Not powerful enough to break a simple handfasting?”

  Her response to my taunt is to twist her wrist far enough that my bones creak and I have to let out a bark of pain. “Powerful enough to break you. How do you think she’ll fare when her husband is dead on the floor?”

  “Then you won’t have what you need. I’ll be gone and no one will be able to wield Excalibur.”

  She grits her teeth and lets me go. I fall to the floor, my muscles aching, bones sore, but not broken.

  “You and I need to have words, Arthur,” she says. “Now it’s up to you whether your lover stays alive while you’re gone.”

  “What?”

  She waves her hand and Lancelot is suspended in the air, a noose around his neck and a post under his feet, just tall enough for him to keep from hanging. He gasps and his hands tug at the rope around his throat. My heart lurches at the fear in his eyes. “Now, I don’t need Lancelot alive. But you? You seem to need him very much. You’ll come with me and do as I say. If you refuse that post will disappear and Lance will meet his maker.”

  My gaze shoots to him and those ice blue irises lock on mine. I didn’t do everything possible to save Gwen from death centuries ago, but I’ll be damned if the same thing happens to Lance. Nodding, I take a long breath. “Fine.”

  She grins and threads her arm through the crook of my elbow. “Oh, what fun we’ll have tonight. And Lancelot got you all primed and ready for me.”

  Dread curls in my stomach as we leave the cell, Nimue not even bothering to close the door.

  “What do you mean?”

  Her finger trails over my jaw. “You’re going to get the heir you always wanted. I’m going to give him to you.”

  Then her lips settle over mine and the world sways, my vision going hazy as my body heats with an undeniable desire. I blink a few times, trying to clear the fog from my sight and warmth fills my chest at the scene before me. Gwen, in a long flowing robe of burgundy velvet, her dark hair spilling over her shoulders as she smiles at me.

  “Gwen?” I say, disbelief in my voice. “You’re awake.”

  She nods, her skin glowing in the light of the fire. We’re in our chambers, in Camelot, together. “I defeated her. She tried to take you from us, but I wouldn’t let her.”

  Reaching out, she crosses the room and cups my cheek with her small, soft hand. “You look so troubled,” she murmurs.

  “I thought we lost you. Lance was…” a flash of Lancelot in a hangman’s noose burns through my mind and pain stabs my head.

  “None of that, now,” she says. “Lance will be here shortly. He promised to join us.”

  She unties her robe and the fabric pools on the floor, baring her body to me, but my vision flashes and instead of my petite beauty I see Nimue’s tall form. It’s just a second, but it’s long enough to give me pause.

  I shake my head, confusion swirling. “Am I drunk?”

  She giggles. “Don’t you remember?” Then she leans in and palms my shaft through my pants. “Lancelot let you suck him off after we celebrated our wedding. You need…relief.”

  I’m achingly hard, desperate for her heat. I want inside her. Threading my fingers in her hair, I pull her to me, claiming her lips. My tongue shoves inside her mouth and I taste her, needing devour her. She moans and presses her full breasts to my chest while shoving my pants to the floor and freeing my steel erection. Then she pulls back and smiles down at me.

  “There we are. I need you to give me what I want.”

  What does she want? “I’ll give you anything, Gwen.”

  “Good. Let me ride you and take your seed. Give me a baby.”

  I can’t help but frown. What does she mean, give her a baby? She’s already pregnant. Does she really not know?

  I back away, frowning. The scent in the room isn’t Gwen’s familiar floral perfume. It’s cloying rosewood. “Stop. Something is wrong.” My vision blurs and Gwen’s form shifts back to Nimue for a flash. Apprehension grips my chest and I see Lancelot in the dungeon, a noose around his neck. No. This isn’t real. This is an enchantment.

  She snaps her fingers and I’m splayed across the bed. Then, she gives up the facade of Gwen and returns to her true form. Nimue shakes her head as she straddles me. “I tried to do you a kindness and make you think you were with your wife. I wanted your last moments to be happy as you gave me the Pendragon blood I needed.” Her fingernails trail down my chest and over my tense abdomen. “Now, your knight has to die, Gwen’s heart will break, and I’ll still take what I want.”

  Lancelot

  Rough rope burns my neck as I claw at the noose while trying desperately to maintain my balance on the post at my feet. I will not die here. Gwen and Brooks need me. Our child needs their father. I need them all.

  “What are you doing in there, Lancelot?” An old man’s voice flows in through the open slab.

  “Trying not to die by hanging,” I bite out. If I can just loosen the rope, I’ll be free. I can get to them. Save them.

  “What kind of knight doesn’t have a sword?” the man asks, chastisement in his tone.

  Relief floods me at his question. I do have a sword, it’s hidden by magic. Reaching behind me, I send up a silent prayer to the Lady for her gift to appear. But the post under my feet vanishes, and the rope digs into my flesh, cutting off my air supply.

  I choke and struggle, my legs kicking uselessly. My vision goes gray, but I fight through it, unwilling to let Nimue win.

  Please, Lady, don’t abandon me.

  I almost don’t recognize the heavy, cold hilt that settles in my palm. But instinct takes over and I lift my blade, swinging over my head and slicing through the noose before I black out.

  I fall to the floor, knees buckling as I gasp for breath. The sword clatters to the stones next to me. My lungs burn and gray spots fill my vision as my focus sharpens. I’m alive.

  On shaky legs, I stand and start down the hall. My sword is heavy in my hand, but I’m not letting go until I have Gwen safely in my arms.

  “Lancelot.” The old man’s voice falters on my name. He sounds like he’s in pain. “Please, don’t leave me here. I can hear your footsteps. You’re free. Do me the same kindness. Get me out of this place.”

  Water drips down the narrow dungeon corridor, the liquid shining in the dim light cast by the few torches lining the hall. “Where are you?” I whisper.

  “The beginning is where you’ll find me. Hidden in plain sight.”

  I sigh. Why does it always have to involve magic? I don’t have time for puzzles. Rushing down the hall, I find nothing but stone and damp, no pathways leading in other directions, no staircases. There’s nothing but
endless lines of bricks and torches.

  “Where? This hall doesn’t end.”

  The old man doesn’t respond, and I sag in defeat. Have I escaped only to have somehow gotten lost in Nimue’s dungeon? Turning on my heels, I frown in frustrated confusion when directly behind me I find the same cell where I’d nearly met my death. “What the bloody hell is this?”

  I reach out and touch the stone, making sure it isn’t an illusion.

  “Lancelot, hurry. We don’t have much time. Nimue will have figured out her plot failed by now.” The man’s voice is coming from inside the cell. I step inside and see him, sitting in the corner, shackles on his ankles. His clothes are torn and tattered, face caked with grime. Heat creeps up my cheeks at the thought of this old man witnessing my tryst with Brooks.

  “How are you inside here? I…we didn’t see you.”

  He shakes his head. “Enchantments work strangely, young knight. I am not here just as you were not with me. The fabric of reality is skewed. This is not the same cell you were held inside.”

  His glittering dark irises meet mine and a flicker of recognition ignites in my mind. “Do I know you?”

  A soft smile crinkles the corners of his eyes. “Have you really forgotten me?”

  “Merlin?” His name comes out an awed gasp before I can stop myself. He should be dead by now.

  “Good to see you again.”

  “You’ve been missing. Since before I…before I left.”

  He nods. “Yes, well, now you see where I’ve been. That crazy bitch kidnapped me. Now get me out of these chains so we can stop Nimue from getting her hands on that sword.”

  I frown at his shackles and say, “How would you have me do that? This sword isn’t that powerful.”

  He shakes his head and sighs. “You’ve always had such little faith. The Lady gave it to you to serve your needs. I can see her mark on the blade.”