by Kim Loraine
“I will always do what has to be done to keep her protected.”
Anya smiles and nods. “Ever faithful.”
“To her.”
She reaches out and places her palm on my chest. Warmth flows through me and it’s as though she’s banishing the darkness from my aura. I close my eyes and breathe deeply, feeling free from my anger and jealousy.
“I feel…better,” I murmur.
“It’s only a temporary solution. You have to fight for what you want, but that fight doesn’t have to be with Brooks. Right now, you’re fighting yourself.”
She leaves me with a smile and I let out a relieved sigh before striding back toward the house. I need a shower, some time to think and put together the right words I want to say to Gwen.
My queen is standing at the kitchen window when I come into the room. She has a mug in her hands, steam curling from the top, and the rich, slightly spicy scent of earl grey fills the room. There’s a sketchbook next to her with a detailed drawing of a pendant on the exposed page.
“Afternoon,” I murmur. Judging from the tension radiating off her, a conversation won’t be welcome right now. “What’s this?” I ask, running my fingers over the sketch.
“It’s the moonstone. I was trying to conjure it.” She gives a bitter laugh. “Except I can’t, because it has my power locked inside.”
“You will find it. I promise.”
She takes a sip from her mug and sighs, staring out the window and pointedly ignoring me. But then she stiffens and turns to face me. “Is something going on between you and Anya?”
Her words catch me off guard, causing me to pause getting a glass from the cupboard mid-reach. “I beg your pardon,” I say.
“You heard me. Have you been playing me this whole time with your pretty words?”
“Me? You think I am playing you?” I let out a bitter laugh. “You are the one who went back to your room with Brooks last night. The one who let him kiss you.” The words sit in the air between us, heavy and laced with hurt.
“He kissed me. I stopped it.”
“It looked to me like you enjoyed it.” She doesn’t deny that, and I die a little inside. “Gwen, I can’t share you. I won’t. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, but this time I won’t be second best. It ruined me last time.”
“Last time was different.”
“True. Last time you didn’t have a choice. You were married off by your father, not given free will. But you said it yourself, you loved Arthur. This time…” I drag a hand through my hair and wince when my fingers get caught in a tangle of unruly strands. “This time you’re knowingly doing this to me.”
“Lance, don’t—”
I shake my head. “Please stop. You can’t continue putting me through these trials. You are the only thing I want. The only person I’ve loved. It’s okay if you don’t want to be with me, but I’ll need to distance myself from you if that’s the case. Don’t talk to me unless there’s an emergency. Don’t touch me. Don’t let your gaze linger.”
“You don’t understand. I’m trying to do the right thing, regardless of what I want.”
I laugh. “So, he’s the right thing?”
“It’s what my visions tell me.” Tears swim in her eyes. “I end up with him. I marry him.”
Sharp pain lances my chest at those words. She can’t marry another man. She can’t end up with him. What was the point of bringing me back if not to have another chance with her? “No.”
“Yes, Lance. If I don’t…well, I’ve seen your death. But not just you. If I end up with Brooks, the world is safe. This is bigger than the two of us.”
“Tell me you love me then. At least give me that.” As soon as I say the words, I want to pull them back. Would it be worse to know? Or can I carry them with me and use them as a healing salve when the pain of losing her is too much?
“I’ve always loved you. I always will.”
Oh, God help me. My knees nearly buckle at the sound of her admission. I’d wanted to hear it for so long, but I never thought I would. “I dreamed of hearing that from your lips.”
A soft sigh comes from her and when she blinks, trails of tears line her cheeks. “It doesn’t matter. We can’t be together. It would be selfish of me to keep you. It would mean the end of everything.”
I cup her jaw and nod. “I understand. But…there’s right now. There’s this moment. Give me one night to take you as I would my wife. One time where we can love each other in the way we were supposed to.”
Indecision flits across her face. “I…What if something happens to you?”
“The only thing that will happen is the culmination of everything I’ve been dreaming of. I’ll have you in my arms, as it should be.”
Our eyes lock and I step forward until she’s pressed against the table, her hands braced on the smooth wood. “Once?”
I nod and dip my head until my lips brush the soft skin of her throat. “One night. A memory to last me eternity.”
A harsh cough interrupts our tense moment, causing me to raise my head and find myself faced with Brooks. His brow is furrowed and lips pressed into a sharp line.
“Am I interrupting?”
“Why, yes, you are. Again.” My retort is tight and laced with annoyance. “Can you give us a minute?”
“Afraid not. Gwen, darling, the coven wants to work with you.”
Darling? He’s got more nerve than he should. Excalibur might not be able to kill him, but it can hurt him.
Gwen slides out from under me and rushes off in the direction of the library, leaving me with Brooks.
“You’re not right for her,” he sneers.
“And you think you are?”
“We are fated. She’s meant to be mine, and she will be—in the end.”
Just the mention of her being with him has my stomach turning. “She’s always been mine and she’ll always love me. Even if you do manage to take her from me, she’ll never love you the way she does me.”
His jaw clenches and my gaze falls to the clenched fists at his sides. They glow with a golden energy. “Don’t make me hurt you, knight. I can’t kill you. We need you too much. But I can leave my mark.”
I grab the hilt of Excalibur and the sword comes to life in my hand, its energy vibrating through me. “So can I.”
He’s mere steps away, the glowing in his hands intensifying as I approach. I’m not afraid of pain. I’ve fought countless battles, and I have the scars to prove it, but somehow, I know being hit with angelic grace is going to be worse than anything else by far.
Raising my blade, I ready myself for a fight, but invisible steel bands compress my chest and arms, holding me in place.
“Stop,” Gwen’s voice is strong and angry.
I can’t move, but I see her in the distance. She stands in the doorway, arm outstretched, a strained expression on her face. This is costing her, but that stands to reason. She’s restraining both a Nephilim and a knight wielding Excalibur. “Release me, Gwen. This is too much for you.”
Her arm shakes. “I’m not letting either of you free until you stop this fucking nonsense. At the risk of sounding like a damn Disney princess, I am not a prize to be won.”
A thin line of blood trickles from her nose, her face goes pale, and I know we have to put a stop to this. “Fine. As you wish, my queen. I’ll stand down.”
“So, will I,” Brooks says.
She sighs in relief and both Brooks and I visibly sag as she lets us free of the spell she’s been holding. Then she groans. Her fingertips pressed to her temples, the woman I love lets out a pained cry and falls to the floor.
Gwen
The next morning I’m fighting the exhaustion of a sleepless night. I don’t even know how I got to my bed. The last thing I remember was Lance promising me he’d stand down.
My head still aches from the magic I used to restrain Lance and Brooks. If I was concerned the coven’s spell hadn’t worked, I’m not any more. Until I’d had to aband
on my magical strengthening session with the coven, I’d been practicing simple incantations, things I have been doing for years. But the sharp taste of power in the air when the two men were facing off pulled my focus and I couldn’t help but intervene.
Now I have to try and make up for the practice I missed. Sitting in the middle of my bed, I hold my palms over my heart and murmur a simple incantation. All it’s supposed to do is light the candle placed atop a plate in front of me. It should be easy. Instead, my fingers turn cold and the wick bursts to life as a column of fire.
I scramble off the bed as the candle tips over and catches the quilt ablaze. “Bugger!” In a panicked rush, I dampen a towel and toss it over the flames. Then I erupt into uncontrollable giggles. I did it. I nearly burned down the flat, but I did a spell.
Lance bursts through the door, eyes wild. “What is it?” His brow furrows as he takes in the smoke, the towel, and me.
“I did a spell. I used magic without it going haywire.”
“And it looks like you could’ve ended up dead because of it.”
“But I’m not. I didn’t hurt anyone. I controlled it…mostly.”
I run across the room and leap into his arms, holding him tight as I let the joy take hold of my senses. My skin tingles from the contact of our bodies. “I’m sorry about yesterday. About all the things I said and did.”
“Gwen.” His voice is rough and tight.
Sliding down his tall frame, I release him and step back, suddenly aware of my thin nightgown and his bare chest. My nipples pop as arousal takes its place front and center in my brain. “I…”
“Stop it, Gwen.” He holds me close, not letting me step back. “I know that look on your face. Don’t tell me we can’t be together. Your body responds to mine in the same way it always has.”
He’s right. My body wants his. But my heart can’t take losing him. “But my visions—”
He cups my face, those intense, sky blue eyes of his seeing into my soul. “Were complete bollocks, just as was the one which led you to believe I’d been untrue.” His fingers thread through my hair until he’s cradling the back of my head with one hand and tilting my chin with the other. “You are and have always been, my heart and soul. There has never been another, and there never will be.”
My brain takes a hiatus as instinct takes control. I can’t be in his arms and not melt against him. He slants his mouth over mine, warm, full lips claiming me without the tentative tenderness I used to expect from him. Lancelot kisses me like a man starved. Ravenous and wild. His tongue slides between my lips as he turns us until I’m pressed against the wall, my palms running up his heated skin and feeling the planes of muscle across his strong back.
Ragged breaths and frantic moans provide our soundtrack as we touch each other in a desperate claiming reserved for long lost lovers. He slides his hands down my body until he reaches the hem of my nightgown. I have to fight a shiver of longing when he moves under the fabric in search of my knickers. He won’t find any.
“Oh, my Gwen. You’re quite the temptress.” His voice is a low growl in my ear and when he nips the lobe, I whimper. I need him.
“It’s been so hard…being here with you. I can’t go a night without remembering.”
“And you, wanton little thing you are, you’ve been pleasuring yourself?”
I bite my lower lip and cry out when he traces a fingertip over my swollen clit. “Y—yes.”
“Did you whisper my name when your climax came?”
Closing my eyes, I fight the urge to call his name right the hell now. “Maybe.”
He pinches my clit and I squirm at the flash of pain which quickly melds with pleasure. “Don’t lie, little queen. I heard you in here, moaning. It left me aching to fill you. I thought you knew you were the instrument of my torture. I thought it was intentional.”
I buck under his attentions. “No. It was nothing like that. Oh, God, please, Lance.”
“Please, what?” There’s dark determination in his voice and when I open my eyes, I’m shocked to see his irises are the black of an ebony sky.
“Please make me come.”
He eases away, fingers sliding everywhere but the one place I need them. “You won’t have pleasure until I’m buried inside you.”
His cock is straining against the fabric of his thin sweatpants and I can just imagine the bead of arousal on the head, waiting for me to lick clean. Without a word, I climb the man like a bloody tree, wrapping my legs around his waist and pressing my wet pussy on his trapped erection. I roll my hips and he groans before shoving the pants down and freeing his length. And then the broad crown of his cock is pressing against my opening, just there, almost sinking inside, but not quite.
“Don’t tease me, Lancelot. I’ve yearned for your body for so long.”
He presses me hard against the wall and spears me with his throbbing erection. “Holy God in Heaven,” he murmurs when he’s fully sheathed. I let out a cry of my own at the invasion. He’s not a small man, but I’ve also never shared my body with another. Not by choice. It hurts, but it’s wonderful all at the same time. Our joining was always akin to a religious experience.
“Slow,” I whisper, my fingers digging into his shoulders as I try to relax around him.
“Gwen, I can’t. It’s so…you’re so…fuck, you’re tight enough to be a maiden.”
My heart lurches. Do I tell him the truth? He layers soft kisses to my shoulder and throat as he slowly and carefully pulls back before moving in me again. “I am. Was, anyway.”
“What?” The man stops his gentle motions and I want to kill him.
“I’ve never been with another man since the life I lived with you.”
There’s pain in his eyes. “Never?”
I shake my head. “You ruined me.”
His sharp intake of breath is my only warning before his lips crush mine and he starts moving in long, slow thrusts. It’s pain and pleasure, love and hate, desperation and control all in one. I don’t see it coming, the golden edges of my climax barreling in like a freight train as they culminate into one brilliant explosion. His name is a scream on my lips and I dig my nails into his back as my body clenches around his.
With a groan of his own, Lance gives one more powerful thrust and floods me with his seed. His muscles tremble from the exertion, but he doesn’t release me or pull away. Instead, my knight, my heartbreak, stares at me with disbelief. “All this time, Guinevere. All this time I thought forgetting you was the only option. I thought I only wanted one more night. I couldn’t have been more wrong.”
“What option do you choose?”
“I choose you for as many days as I have left.”
The ominous tone in his words hangs between us, a pendulum swinging with our combined fates perilously suspended.
Chapter Nineteen
Lancelot
I don’t want to let her go. Gwen is finally, finally in my arms again, but this time I won’t accept her denial of me. Gwen is mine and I’m going to keep her until my dying day.
Scooping her into the cradle of my arms, I carry my queen to the bed, strip the singed quilt, and place her on the mattress. She giggles. “What are you doing?”
“We’ve no worry of discovery, no king to concern ourselves with. I’m taking you to bed and keeping you there until we near starvation.” I climb over her until I’m resting next to her beautiful form.
Her laugh is music, a balm to my soul. All my time in purgatory, I’d known something was missing, a piece of me lost to the time and place. As soon as I touched Excalibur I knew. She was my missing piece.
My hand trails over the softness of her skin, lightly brushing her arm until our fingers twine together. “Why did you tell me you’d chosen Arthur? That night we were supposed to run away. Why break me into a thousand shards and leave me?”
She stiffens. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Please stop pretending it didn’t happen. We’re together now, but I need
to know why.”
“Lance…I never made the journey to meet you. Morgan made a very public scene and Arthur had me locked in the tower that very night.”
My mind drifts to the moment Guinevere cut me down with nothing but words. Under cover of our hawthorn tree she’d stood, her hood shielding the long, dark hair I craved the feel of. I’d been so filled with joy and possibility, ready to start a new chapter with her. But her eyes met mine with a coldness I’d never seen before.
“Come now, my love. The horses await.” My voice was nothing more than a tense whisper, and she shook her head.
“I’m not going.”
Disbelief curled in my gut. “What are you saying? This is our plan. To be together. To love one another somewhere we’re free.”
“No. It was a mistake to make you think I loved you. I don’t. Arthur is my husband and I love only him.”
“Stop. Don’t lie to me.”
She shook her head as she brought down my world. “You were nothing more than a distraction. Now, leave this place. Leave me be before I call the guards."
Gwen's soft touch pulls me back from the painful memories. I can't keep her hurtful words out of my mind. There's nothing to stop her from doing it again, nothing but knowledge of my love. Maybe if I tell her. If I make her see that we belong together, she won't reject me again.
"You can't possibly have forgotten all you said. You told me I was a distraction. You said you never loved me."
She places a hand on my jaw and tenderly strokes my cheek. "I swear on my life, I never uttered those words. Someone enchanted you or sent you a vision. I promised you I'd never lie. All those things you believe I said are lies."
"Then who?"
A heavy sigh falls from her. "There was only one woman out to destroy me. Calista. And what happened after your meeting with the me who wasn't me?"
Guilt and shame join forces in my chest. How do I tell her? "I...I'm not sure. I woke in purgatory with no memory."
It hurts to lie, but she can't know of my bargain. If she does, she'll try to save me and end up lost herself.
”I’m certain Calista had a hand in that." Her arm wraps around my chest as she tucks herself close to me. "I'm so sorry. It's all my fault. She has spent every waking moment since cursing us to try and ruin all possible happiness."
