Gwen was responsible. If anyone had to die, it should be her. Besides, her death would ultimately silence the gossips in a way Lance’s would not. As long as she was alive, there would be rumors she was cuckolding the king again, even if she was as blameless as the Blessed Virgin. That was simply the way gossip worked. You could never truly silence wagging tongues, no matter what you did.
Besides, the simple truth was, Gwen had betrayed Arthur. She’d had sex with another man. She’d committed adultery. There was a reason they called it a mortal sin.
“Queen Guinevere, you must call Sir Kay,” Lancelot told her in that dead man’s voice. “You put yourself in danger by being alone with me, if not physically, then from the gossips. You must call Kay.”
Gwen thought of what Nimue had told her about the Truebond. It was too bad she didn’t have that perfect psychic connection with Arthur right now. If he’d known the way she’d felt . . .
“Sir Kay!” Lancelot’s bellow made her jump. “Sir Kay, the queen needs you!”
Panic clawing at her, Gwen grabbed for her magic and sent it streaming toward his head—right between his thick dark brows. Lance gasped, eyes widening.
Praying she wasn’t using too much force, Gwen concentrated on what she wanted him to believe—the story she’d just concocted. She only hoped it would be convincing enough to save Lancelot.
There was no hope for Gwen herself. Arthur would kill her, and it was no more than she . . .
“What have you done, you bloody bitch?” The vicious male snarl made her jump. Startled, Gwen looked up into Lancelot’s face to find his handsome features twisted with rage and contempt. “Why did you do this to me?”
For a moment she couldn’t speak a single word.
“Why the hell did you force me to sleep with you?” His lips curled off his fangs in an animal snarl of fury. “What made you think you could make Arthur form this . . . Truebond with you, you faithless little . . .”
Something struck the door so hard, it hit the wall with a thunderous boom. “What the hell,” Kay snarled as he filled the doorway, “is going on in here?”
• • •
It was uncomfortably close to dawn when Arthur rode through Camelot’s massive timber gates, Galahad and Gawain in his wake.
Exhaustion dragged at the king until all he wanted was his bed and Gwen, not necessarily in that order.
Jesu, he craved her. Thirst had nagged him for the three days he’d been gone, making him imagine the long column of Gwen’s white throat, the feel of silken skin yielding to his fangs, the intoxicating taste of her blood flowing over his tongue.
He’d tried to ignore that fantasy, to block it from his thoughts, but his body refused to cooperate. The thought of her kept creeping back, over and over, every time he’d been distracted.
And he’d been distracted a great deal. They had ranged all over the surrounding area, but Mordred might as well have been a ghost for all the signs they’d seen of him.
That was when Gawain began arguing they needed to return, pointing out that this was not normally the kind of problem a king wasted his time on. And he was right. Arthur had many more urgent concerns. Tracking Mordred down was important, but the search would be better conducted by a detachment or two of royal troops.
Of course, finding Mordred had never been Arthur’s primary objective. He’d really wanted to buy time to think, to find the necessary self-control to avoid hurting Gwen.
After three fruitless nights, worry had begun to nag at him. How was Gwen managing her transformation from woman to witch? “I’m fair mad for you, my love. Don’t leave me.” She’d sounded so desperate.
Then there was Merlin’s warning. “She is no longer human, Pendragon. If you try to treat her as though she is, you will rue it.”
Now Arthur tried to remember how he’d felt when he’d awoken a Magus. To his frustration he could recall little beyond a gnawing ache, a thirst so intense that speech, even simple thought, had been beyond him.
Gwen had saved him from that.
She’d given herself to him without any hesitation at all. Indeed, his first clear memory was the feel of her slender body, the taste of her blood in his mouth. He couldn’t even remember if he’d known it was Gwen.
And she’d been only human then.
When it had been her turn to change, she’d begged him for only a fraction of the trust she’d given him. He’d refused her. All she’d wanted was his body, and he turned away.
You will rue it.
He’d ignored that warning, ignored Gwen’s pleas. Now he was haunted by the fear that he’d been a fool.
Arthur still wasn’t sure he trusted himself with her, but he knew he had no choice except to try. His only other option was to drink from another woman, but that seemed too much like adultery. Especially given that his need for blood and his need for sex seemed harnessed like a chariot team.
Reaching the stables, Arthur dismounted and handed his gelding off to a stable boy, who led the big black horse away for grooming and a meal.
As Galahad and Gawain dismounted, Arthur started toward the main building, intent on repairing whatever damage he’d done to his marriage.
Sir Kay strode toward him. One look at the big blond’s grim face made his every muscle tense. His foster brother only wore that particular expression when they faced disaster.
“God’s teeth, what’s wrong now?” Arthur braced, expecting to learn that Mordred and the rebels had seized one of his allies’ holdings. That or worse.
Kay hesitated a little too long, then said as if to buy time, “All the Knights of the Round Table passed their tests—including me. Everyone’s completed the transformation.”
“Good.” Arthur lifted a brow. “But somehow I doubt that’s what made you look like we’re arse-deep in dragon shit.”
“No, but I’d rather not go into it out here.” Kay’s voice dropped. “This is not a conversation you want overheard.”
• • •
Gwen sat in the dark. Not that anyone had refused her a lamp—she just hadn’t cared enough to light it. And she could have.
A flick of her hand made fire appear and dance along her fingertips, flame leaping from index finger to middle finger to ring finger, where it lapped coolly at the huge sapphire Arthur had given her when they wed. The flame winked out, leaving her in darkness once again. He could burn me, I suppose.
No, probably not. Arthur had never had a taste for vicious cruelty in his revenge, even when warranted.
Gwen remembered the appalled horror on Kay’s face when she told him, an expression that quickly turned to incandescent rage.
For a moment, she’d thought he’d kill her and save Arthur the trouble. He was tempted. She could see it in his hazel eyes.
She’d found herself hoping he’d do it.
Then a flare of animal hunger replaced the rage as his eyes went fixed in lust. She’d tensed . . .
Kay had turned away and sent her to her chambers, where she’d been under guard ever since. Human guards. This was not the job for Arthur’s Magus knights.
One corner of Gwen’s lips curled, but it definitely was not a smile.
The door opened, admitting a spill of balustrade torchlight and the cool waft of night air. The door closed again, leaving them in darkness.
She tensed but did not look up, instead flicking her fingers to call the fire again.
“Gwen, you’ll burn yourself.” Arthur sounded alarmed rather than angry, as if he automatically feared for her, forgetting what she’d done to them. No, to him. There was no “them” anymore. She’d seen to that.
“I’m in no danger—from this, at least. The flames burn without heat.” The fire went out. She gestured again, making them lick and dance. Index finger, middle finger, ring finger . . . The sapphire seemed to explode into blue flame, as if the stone had become a torch. “I’m a witch now, remember? Not human anymore. Like you.”
“Kay says you slept with Lancelot.” He said the words ba
ldly, with no emotion at all.
He was too damn calm. Why wasn’t he angry? She’d expected rage. “What does Lance say?” Index finger, middle finger, ring. The sapphire flared bright.
“He says he raped you.”
Damn you, Lancelot du Lac! Gwen’s gaze snapped to her husband’s face. Why wasn’t he angry? “He didn’t. If anything, it was the other way around.”
Arthur’s cool gaze probed hers. Bloody hell, he was investigating this. Trying to determine what had actually happened, as he had before when some delicate mess landed in the royal lap. “I fail to see how you could have forced a knight who outweighs you by seven stone. And somehow I doubt the unwillingness of a man stiff enough to do the job.”
“I’m a witch, Arthur,” Gwen said. “I chained him like a stallion at stud, and I mounted him. He’d just awoken from the sleep of the Grail, and he didn’t even know who I was. I fed him from my wrist, and then I fucked him.”
She braced for the explosion.
NINE
Instead of flying into a fury, Arthur frowned at Gwen, his expression searching. “Why?”
“I wanted him. You weren’t here. He was naked and handsome enough to tempt a nun to sin. So I took him.” Why didn’t he rage at her? Why didn’t he draw the blade that hung at his hip and end this agony?
Still no fury, though there was pain in those dark eyes now. Pain and confusion. “He denied you’d been carrying on some . . . love affair.”
“Because we weren’t.”
“Well, that was pure truth, at least.”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Thanks to the Grail, I can smell a lie now. I know, because people have been lying to me for days, saying they haven’t seen Mordred. Apparently he’s been making the rounds. Recruiting.”
Gwen cursed softly. “And men have answered his call.” She thought of the dream that woke her again and again these past three days. “There’ll be so many of them at the battle . . .”
“What battle?”
“When he breaks your sword and kills you, Arthur. The one I’ve been warning you about for days. Why won’t you listen?”
“Did you fuck Lancelot?”
She showed mercy to neither of them. “Yes.”
“To force me into a Truebond?”
That was what she’d made Lance believe, but if Arthur could smell lies . . . “No.” She swallowed, guilt, anguish, and fear a roiling stew in her heart. “I lost control. I just meant to feed him from my wrist, but the need I felt . . . I had him bound in my magic, but he broke free. He didn’t even know who I was, Arthur. It wasn’t his fault.”
He stared at her, numb shock in his dark eyes. “You did it. You actually betrayed me.” He looked so young now. Stripped of the crow’s-feet and battle scars, the pain showed that much clearer.
No matter what she’d said, Gwen hadn’t expected to see such devastation on her husband’s face, as if his world had ended. As if she’d cut the heart out of his chest and served it to him with carrots and spring greens. “Arthur . . .”
Now came the rage. “The servants already whisper of this. They don’t know I can hear them.” A muscle jerked in his broad, sculpted jaw. “They say you used black witch magic to take my best friend, to bind him with chains and rape him. They heard him rage about it to Kay when he caught the two of you. Apparently, Lance’s fine deep voice carries quite well when he’s in a killing fury.” Something vicious slid into his eyes, cruel and predatory.
For the first time in her life, Gwen found herself afraid of Arthur Pendragon. Swallowing, she gazed up into furious black eyes and struggled not to cringe. “I didn’t intend . . .”
“Didn’t you? It’s been three days, Gwen,” he spat. “By now the rumors are halfway to Dover. I wouldn’t be surprised if Mordred’s spies have already delivered the news. He’s likely using it as a recruiting tool by now. Hell, the bards are probably composing songs!”
The hiss as Arthur drew his sword chilled Gwen’s blood. She tried to remind herself this was what she’d wanted: a quick death to silence the whispers and avoid weakening him any further.
There would be consequences, of course. Likely the Pope would threaten to excommunicate him again. But then, Arthur often joked he was threatened with excommunication every time he skipped morning Mass.
The point of the great blade hovered inches from her chin. Gwen watched it with a kind of hypnotized fascination.
“How am I to rule with my crown balanced on a cuckold’s horns?” Arthur asked in a deadly velvet whisper. “Who follows a king who is the butt of jokes? In years to come, who will remember how I stitched a dozen warring kingdoms into Britain? They’ll know me only as the fool betrayed by his wife and his champion. And your one night of lust will become a doomed, immortal romance.”
The sword came to rest on her throat. She closed her eyes and waited for the cold bite of his swing.
“You think I’ll actually do it.” He sounded surprised. Almost wounded.
But when she opened her eyes to study him, whatever he was feeling hid behind a warped smile. “Though I’ll admit, it would certainly quiet the rumors. No trial, no pretense of Solomon’s wisdom. Just a bloody end to seventeen years of love, God curse you, Gwen! Why the fuck did you do this to me?”
The sword clattered into the corner, making her jump. As she stared after the weapon, he snatched her into his arms.
Instinctively, Gwen planted her palms against Arthur’s chest in a futile effort to keep those furious eyes at a safer distance. He bared his teeth at her—and Mary help her, she’d seen duller fangs on a winter-starved wolf.
“I know that’s not the best you can do, darling.” The menacing purr in those words made the hair rise on her vulnerable neck. “Where are the magical chains, Gwen? You’d better start conjuring, love—because it’s been days since I’ve drunk from that pretty white throat. And I’m hungry.”
• • •
Gwen’s blue eyes looked huge with terror, and her arms shook as she tried to hold him off. The fact that she now looked so bloody young made Arthur feel even more like one of those men he despised: the kind who abused women.
Under the circumstances, her vulnerability only added a nasty edge to his fury.
Still trying to draw rein on his temper, Arthur threw himself down on their bed, grabbed her by one wrist, and dragged her across his lap.
His hand smacked down across her rump. With a startled screech, she bucked. He stopped, hand raised. “Did I hurt you?”
“Why—are you going to try again if you didn’t?” She tried to jerk off his lap, but he planted a hand in the small of her back and held her there.
Just last night, Arthur had broken the arm of a soldier who’d made the critical mistake of drawing on him. Not that the bastard didn’t deserve a broken arm for attacking his king, but Arthur hadn’t intended to do it.
If he’d inflicted such damage on a grown man, he was lucky he hadn’t broken Gwen’s pelvis just now.
The mere thought sickened him—and infuriated him all over again. Grabbing a fistful of her skirt, he jerked it to her waist, meaning only to give her a well-deserved spanking while making sure he didn’t lose control again.
Instead he froze, balanced on a blade’s edge above a burning abyss.
Gwen’s arse looked pale, firm, and beautiful.
Staring down at its ripe curves, Arthur felt his mouth flood with saliva. He couldn’t remember feeling such lust in his entire life. His cock stretched to its full length, aching like a sore tooth.
But he also knew he was far too close to some bloody act of madness. I have to get the hell away from her before I do something I can never set right.
But she looked so lush, so utterly helpless splayed over his lap, the thought vanished like a leaf in a windstorm. His palm slapped down on that impossibly tempting arse in an immensely satisfying, highly erotic swat. Somehow he pulled the blow at the last second.
Gwen jerked, visibly biting back a ye
lp as she glared over her shoulder at him with outraged blue eyes. “Arthur, what the hell are you doing? Stop!”
“No.” He admired the pink handprint he’d left on that pale, lovely backside. Somehow it soothed his fury. Slowly, he began to spank her with carefully controlled slaps, watching the white flesh take on a fiery glow. By the third stroke she was yelping. By the sixth, a scent rose that made him smile like a demon.
Despite everything, Gwen was growing aroused, even as she kicked and cursed. “Dammit, Arthur, this isn’t the kind of problem that you can solve with a spanking and a poke up the arse.”
“How do you know? I’ve never tried it.” He’d never laid a violent hand on her in his life. “As for the poke in the arse . . .” SWAT. She jerked, rocking deliciously across his thickening cock. It felt like a tree trunk. “Thank you for the suggestion. I do believe I will.” SWAT.
Hard and hungry, Arthur went on spanking his wife with measured strokes, enjoying the jiggle and flex of that sweet, tempting little arse. Drinking in the scent of Gwen’s heat, until he clung to self-control by ragged fingernails.
Arthur’s cock pressed against Gwen’s belly, a long, hard testament to his feral lust.
For days, she’d been imagining this confrontation. Perhaps a swift arrest by his knights, followed by a quick trial, the inevitable verdict, and the headsman’s axe.
Or he might skip all that and just kill her on the spot, the way he’d come so close to slaying Mordred.
Not once had Gwen imagined he’d resort to this kind of seductive revenge. Probably because he’d never even threatened to spank her before, as if there was no connection between his wife and physical aggression in his mind. Not even as part of sexual play.
Maybe we should’ve tried it, Gwen thought numbly. It’s surprisingly erotic.
Was he trying to forgive her? Or would he just fuck her, then order her arrest? No, that would take a degree of emotional frigidity Arthur simply wasn’t capable of. Yes, he could be as ruthless as any other king when he needed to be, but when it came to his family . . . He couldn’t even kill Mordred, who richly deserved it. How could I imagine he’d slay me?
Wicked Games Page 13
