“I’m fine, Lance! He’s not hurting me, he’s just irritating the hell out of me. It’s not the first time, and I assure you it won’t be the last. Quit listening at the door before you hear something that will embarrass you as much as it does us.”
There was a long, uncomfortable silence. “Excuse me, my queen. I was but concerned. You sound . . . breathless.”
“Breathless or not, I’m in no danger.” I hope. She had never been so intensely aware of her husband’s size and strength, especially compared to her own far more delicate body. Was he actually bigger than he had been the day before, if not in height, then in sheer muscular breadth?
He looked down at her, his black stare hungry as he bared those fangs again. “Mine.”
Gwen actually felt the word rumble from his chest to hers. “Yes, my king. Yours. Still. Always.”
His snarl became a smile, sensual and hot. Gwen knew that smile. That was Arthur. The tension in her knotted shoulders began to relax.
Arthur lowered his head slowly, still watching her with that lupine intensity. The hand not holding her wrists reached up to cup one breast through her thin linen tunic. Pleasure unspooled along her nerves as she stared up into her husband’s face, at the smile that looked both familiar and alien with the curve of his lips baring those white, white fangs. His cupping fingers curled to milk her nipple with exquisite delicacy, pinching and tugging with steadily increasing force. Delight grew with each stroke, given an extrawicked kick by the undercurrent of danger added by those fangs. She tried to squirm, but he didn’t budge even the fraction he would have before. Instead he smiled, obviously well aware of her tangled emotions.
Then Arthur pounced.
She was in his arms before she even felt him move. He spun and dropped onto the bed, pinning her beneath his hot, hard strength as she yelped in alarm.
“Betterrrr,” he growled, and smiled.
The dark satisfaction in his black eyes made her catch her breath. Her sex tightened in the kind of wet clench that usually followed a whole evening’s worth of skilled, determined foreplay.
Arthur knew it, too. He leaned down and wrapped one big hand in the front of her gown. He did it slowly, giving her plenty of time to realize what he intended—and plenty of time to realize there was nothing she could do to stop him, even if she’d wanted to. Which she definitely did not.
Even so, Gwen gasped when he shredded the gown with one easy tug. The sound of ripping linen sounded incredibly loud—and just as erotic. “That was one of my favorite tunics,” she told him. Which it was, though with such animal want pumping through her veins, she really didn’t care about the tunic.
His lips curled in another fang-revealing smile. “Wet.”
“Hard,” she retorted. The hot length of him pressed against her belly. He was also naked, since they’d put him to bed that way. Normally, that wouldn’t give her pause; Arthur slept nude on all but the coldest nights. Their running joke had always been that he had enough fur to keep him warm—and her, too, for that matter. The man radiated heat like a human hearth.
So it had been a very long time since Gwen had felt this kind of aching awareness of her husband’s nudity. Yet now every last inch of him seemed branded on her quivering senses. Gwen found herself staring up at him in the lamp’s flickering golden light, wide-eyed as a virgin.
He stared back, levering off her to look her up and down. Under that wolfish gaze, her nipples drew hard as cherry stones. Lowering his head, he took one rigid peak into his mouth.
And moaned.
The sound was deep, ragged, distilled male eroticism given voice. She found herself echoing him as he swirled his tongue over the peak, back and forth, around and around. Strong fingers found her breast, stroking and squeezing, increasing her arousal until Gwen found herself pressing her thighs together in an attempt to alleviate the ache between them. She groaned, rolling her hips against his thick length as she fisted her hands in the gleaming raw silk of his hair.
Feeling out of control, Gwen shivered, overwhelmed by Arthur’s animal sensuality. So familiar, yet simultaneously so alien.
Suckling hard, he rumbled a rough, wordless sound that might have been warning or need. Or both. She gasped back at him, digging her nails into the thick muscle of his shoulders, feeling just as lost in incoherent hunger as he was.
Arthur transferred his mouth to the other breast, triggering another bright ping of delight. Wanting to give him the same kind of pleasure, Gwen reached between them. His cock felt huge, hot, insanely tempting as she curled shaking fingers around its meaty width. “In me, Arthur,” she whispered. “Now. Please.”
Instead he pulled out of her arms and backed down her body. Settling between her thighs, he nudged them apart as she whimpered in helpless longing.
He bent over her clitoris, his lips sealing the little nubbin inside his mouth’s piercingly sweet hold. His tongue swirled around it, wet and maddening, before he tightened his lips and sucked so hard, she twisted like a woman in agony. Her entire body shuddered, her thigh muscles jerking as her sex pulsed in need.
Ecstasy shot up her sensitized body. “Arthur!” Gwen’s spine arched as her hands flew to fist in his hair.
Staring down at him, she found him watching her face as his tongue swirled and lapped and stabbed between her slick folds. His dark eyes narrowed, and she tensed, knowing that look. Sure enough, a beat later she felt the tips of his fangs against the sensitive inner lips. Not biting. Quite. But the erotic threat of it shot heat and fear and stark arousal through her blood. Jolting like a mare under a knight’s spur, she ground her pussy against his mouth. Wanting. Burning.
She needed him. In her, as deep as she could get him. “Fuck me,” she gasped. “Ohhhhhh, Arthur, my king, please . . . Fuck me!” Her hands tightened on his hair, barely resisting the need to pull. Goaded, she hooked one calf over his shoulder and dug her heel into his back. “Please, oh, please . . . Mary and Joseph, Arthur . . .”
He growled and reared, jerking out of her hold to grab the thin gold cord she’d used to tie her now-shredded tunic, still loosely in place around her bare waist. Big hands snapped it like thread.
“What are you . . . ?” she began, only to yelp as he flipped her over onto her belly. Dragging her hands down to the small of her back, he lashed her wrists together with a few efficient coils of cord. “Arthur, curse it, stop that! What do you think you’re doing?”
“Fucking you. Like you want.” He pulled her hips upward, positioned the smooth hot head of his cock against her, and drove to the balls in one merciless plunge. “Mine!” The word emerged from his chest wrapped in a feral growl as he withdrew and thrust again, then again and again, punctuating each word with deep, hard plunges. “Mine, mine, mine!”
If she hadn’t been so wet, so insanely hot with need, being stuffed so savagely with his big rod would have hurt. Instead pleasure slashed her like a whip. “Arthuuuuuurrrrr!” she wailed, her voice high and breathless.
He growled back and began to fuck her in earnest, spearing her in long thrusts that crammed her with exactly what she needed. Convulsing, Gwen writhed as his plundering strokes hammered her in a searing erotic storm.
Her knees went out from under her. Arthur followed her down, not even breaking his rhythm, his hips pounding hers, his cock digging so deep, his balls swung against her sex. Gwen gasped, half-blind with pleasure. The movement of his pelvis hitting her rump ground his weight down on her pinned wrists, but before she could manage a protest, he was already rolling them both over. Fingers circling her clit, he fucked up into her from beneath.
Gwen cried out as the orgasm intensified, pulsing in time to his stroking fingers and driving cock. Fisting his free hand in her hair, he dragged her head back against his shoulder. And bit, sinking his fangs into her skin. Gwen screamed as the bright sting added to the sensation of his ramming thrusts. Growling against her skin, he drank, corkscrewing his hips in circles, grinding his cock deep. The pain and delight blended until she co
uld no longer tell where one ended and the other began, all of it driving her climax to searing heights. Finally he stiffened in climax, spine arching to impale her to the balls, cock jerking as he drank and drank and drank.
Dazed from her pounding climax, panting in heaves, she listened to his rippling swallows as his brawny arms held her helpless and his cock slowly softened in her depths. Eyes drifting closed, Gwen let herself float as her Magus husband fed.
• • •
The light was odd when Arthur woke, so intense and golden, he thought it must be morning. But when he looked toward the balustrade window, he found it still shuttered.
Then the wet heat around his cock registered, and he realized he lay beneath Gwen, buried to the balls in her. Next he became aware of a metallic tang filling his mouth. Blood. Though the meaty copper taste had always revolted him before, now it struck him as deliciously erotic, like distilled sex.
His eyes widened. I drank her blood!
Fear sheeted through him as he realized her skin felt too cool, almost as if . . . “Gwen!”
For one horrific moment, he thought she was dead. Then he felt her slender chest rising and falling under his frantic hands. He could actually hear her heart beating, though it sounded a bit fast and far too loud. Arthur slumped in relief. “Guinevere, my lady? What happened? Did I . . . ?”
She didn’t answer. God, had he hurt her?
Lifting her, he rolled her over until he could rise on one elbow and scan her face frantically. Her pretty body shone with sweat, and her chest arched, thrusting her full breasts upward. That, he realized, was because her wrists were bound at the small of her back. He snapped the cord like gossamer thread, barely noticing how easy it was. I tied her up? Why the hell did I . . .
Arthur’s eyes locked on the two neat puncture wounds on her throat. I bit her, he realized anew, tasting the blood in his mouth with sick horror. I tied her up and bit her and drank her blood. And now she’s unconscious. She needs the healer.
“Morgana!” Naked, he rolled off the bed and headed for the door. Feeling a draft, he swore and stopped barely long enough to jerk on breeches as he roared, “Morgana!”
The door opened in a blinding explosion of light. “My king?” Lancelot’s familiar voice asked. “What do you . . .”
“Get Morgana!” Arthur snapped, and turned to grab the coverlet and flip it across his wife’s nudity. She wouldn’t want his knights to see her like that. “She’s unconscious.”
Voices murmured, followed by the slap of racing feet. Lance stepped inside. “Bors has gone to fetch her. What’s the matter with the queen?” Forgetting his habitual deference, the champion demanded, “Arthur, what the hell did you do?”
“I don’t know!” he snapped back. “The last thing I remember was drinking from Merlin’s damned cup. When I woke, she was unconscious . . .”
“There’s blood on your mouth,” Lancelot told him in an icy voice.
“Of course there’s blood on his mouth.” Nimue strode in, Merlin at her heels. Brisk and calm, she bent over Gwen and pressed two fingers to the Queen’s throat. “He’s a Magus, and he just woke from his transition. He had to feed. And no, Arthur, you didn’t hurt her.”
“Fuck that, heal her!” he growled, just shy of frantic. “Heal my queen now!”
“Patience, sire.” She closed her eyes. Golden sparks ignited around her fingers to dance the length of Gwen’s body.
Under normal circumstances, Arthur might have felt a chill at the supernatural display. Now he didn’t care what the witch did, so long as she healed Guinevere doing it.
• • •
Gwen bent low over the gelding’s neck, tearing down the rutted path at a pace far too swift for safety, especially considering how little light the full moon provided as it sailed behind the scudding clouds.
Yet as fast as she rode, it seemed she made no progress at all.
Arthur was in danger. If she didn’t get to him, he was dead. Him, and all his knights with him.
Despair digging its claws in her heart, the queen slashed her quirt hard down across the horse’s flanks. The gelding stretched out, hooves drumming on the packed earth.
A white figure appeared in her path, pale as a ghost as it melted out of the mist. Gwen raised the reins, meaning to guide her mare around the apparition.
“Guinevere, wake up!” Nimue said, her voice as plain as if she spoke directly in Gwen’s ear. “Your husband needs you.”
“But I’m late! I must get there or he’ll die!”
“Your husband is fine, my queen. This is but a dream.” She gestured. “And he fears for you. You must awake!”
With a wail of despair, Gwen felt herself being jerked from her laboring mount . . .
• • •
Gwen’s eyes flew wide. To her vast relief, she saw Arthur bending over her, concern in his dark eyes. “Gwen? Gwen!”
“You see? There she is,” Nimue said in a tone of elaborate patience. “Safe and well, as I told you she would be.”
With a muffled gasp, Guinevere threw herself into his beloved arms. “Arthur! I had the most horrible dream. I was trying to get to you, but no matter how fast I rode, I knew I’d be too late . . .” Tears pricked her eyes.
As if in echo of her own fear, Arthur’s arms encircled her so hard her ribs creaked. “Jesu, Guinevere, what happened? Did I hurt you?”
She tried to answer, only to discover she couldn’t draw breath. He’s about to break my ribs!
“Let her go, Arthur,” Merlin snapped. “You’re hurting her.”
The arms around her vanished so fast, Gwen fell backward on the bed with a gasp of relief.
“God, Gwen, I’m sorry!” Somehow he was all the way across the room, as if he’d moved with inhuman speed. His handsome face was pale, his eyes wide and black with anguish. “I didn’t mean . . .”
With an effort, she gave him a tight smile and made an effort to manage speech. “I’m fine . . . Arthur.” She had to pant a few breaths before she could go on. “You didn’t . . . hurt me.”
“You are much stronger now than you were before,” Merlin told him. “You must take care. I would suggest practicing with raw eggs until you learn better control.” His too-young lips twitched in amusement. “Though it may be a bit messy at first.”
Arthur, however, was not in the mood for humor. He rounded on the wizard with eyes blazing in a white face. “Why didn’t you warn me? If I had known I might kill my own wife, I would never have so much as sipped from that accursed cup!”
Alarmed, Gwen scrambled off the bed and started toward him. “Arthur, you didn’t hurt me!” Belatedly remembering her nudity, she checked in midstep. She relaxed when she saw she wore a white silk tunic, though not one she recognized.
“I dressed you,” Nimue told her with a faint smile. “Magic is a most convenient skill.”
“Then use it to undo this,” Arthur snapped. “I have no desire for power that could exact such a price from my queen.”
“It’s a little late for that, sire. That bit of magic cannot be undone without separating your head from your shoulders,” Merlin told him coolly. “Luckily, if you can but muster a little control, your queen will be in no danger from either your hunger or your strength. I suggest you apply that formidable will to the task of self-discipline.”
A hot flush spread over Arthur’s angular cheekbones. Gwen winced and braced for an explosion of royal Pendragon rage.
Instead he visibly reached for the self-control Merlin had just mentioned. “I will, as you say, apply myself to mastering these new abilities.”
“I have no doubt of it.” Merlin gave him a very formal nod and swept out.
Arthur turned to her, his gaze searching. “My love, did I hurt you?” He gestured. “I don’t mean just now. Before.”
She realized he meant before he regained awareness. “No, my king. You didn’t hurt me.” Evidently reassured by her smile, he slumped in relief, then turned to his knights and gestured for them to fol
low. As Lance closed the door in their wake, Gwen heard her husband ask, “All right, what passed while I slept?”
As male voices murmured reports, Gwen became aware of Nimue’s considering gaze. “So, my queen, mortal or not, you seem to have survived your king’s passion—despite his fears to the contrary.”
“My husband is highly protective.”
“Possibly a bit too much so.” The witch shrugged. “But that’s a problem for another day. The more immediate challenge is proving yourself worthy of powers of your own—if you are still willing.”
“I’m willing.” That was putting it mildly. Gwen had no desire to remain a wife who looked more like her husband’s mother.
“Then, if you are ready . . .”
She blinked. “You mean . . . now?”
Nimue lifted a brow. “Unless you’d rather give Arthur a chance to ‘protect’ you from me?”
“Good point.” She lifted her chin. “I’m ready, then.”
The witch gestured to the chairs before the fireplace. “If you would sit with me . . .”
As her heart began to pound in long, fierce beats, Gwen sat down beside her. “How do we start?”
“Like so.” The witch touched cool, slender fingertips to Gwen’s forehead . . .
• • •
She might as well have been in hell.
Gwen stood on a battlefield surrounded by bloody chaos. All around her, men fought like animals, with swords and spears and axes, hacking and stabbing at one another with a frenzy born of desperate terror. Blood and chunks of meat flew, accompanied by a deafening cacophony: shouts of rage, howls of pain, high-pitched equine squeals. Horses reared and kicked as their riders fought to keep their saddles against clawing enemy hands. A few of the fighters wore the red and gold of Arthur’s troops, but in nothing like the numbers she would have expected. Even to her inexperienced eye, they appeared badly outnumbered.
Frozen like a rabbit by bone-deep, instinctive fear, Gwen stared out over the undulating mass of bodies. Arthur was out there somewhere. She could feel him across the width of the battlefield. And she knew every instant that ticked by carried him that much closer to death.
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