Men cried out, falling to their knees in fear and wonder.
Arthur, gooseflesh spilling across his skin, damned near joined them. Could the Lord have actually chosen him in truth . . . ?
“It’s Morgana, Arthur,” Gwen told him in the Truebond.
He blinked and looked again, finally seeing the healer’s features in the angel’s blinding face. “It’s a trick. She’s playing on their belief.” He recoiled, years of priestly exhortations ringing in his ears. “Blasphemy . . .”
“Perhaps, but if it saves Britain from war with the Pope, it’s worth the price.”
“Aye.” He snorted. “I suppose I’ll just have to spend the rest of the night on my face on the cold chapel floor praying for forgiveness.”
“Or perhaps God really does favor us,” Gwen told him in their bond. “You just overcame the worst odds seen in combat in hundreds of years. Perhaps God’s hand truly is upon us.”
Mounted on her glowing horse, Morgana made sure the rebels quit the field, the Knights of the Round Table providing steely encouragement to speed any stragglers along. Playing her role to the hilt, the Druid “angel” adjured them to pray for forgiveness for their treasonous sins. Hopefully all that prayer would keep the lot of them from considering rebellion for a very long time.
Lancelot groaned.
Arthur turned to watch as his friend realized whose lap lay beneath his head. Reddening, the champion scrambled to his feet, giving Gwen an uncharacteristically awkward bob of the head. “Thank you, my queen.”
“You’re welcome,” Guinevere said, her tone desert dry.
Rolling his shoulders, Lance winced. “Sweet, infant Jesu, I felt like one of the queen’s pincushions.”
“And well, you should,” Arthur told him tartly. “That was a fool’s move—though I’d be dead now without it.” Reaching out a hand, he grabbed his champion’s forearm in a warrior’s grip. “Thank you, my Lord Lancelot.”
Lance gave him a tired smile. “Well, somebody has to run the country.” His gaze flicked toward Gwen, and just as quickly away again. Making a show of scanning the mud, he spotted his sword and shield and picked them up, then flicked each to rid them of clinging mud and gore. “I’d best go help the others encourage the rebels’ retreat.” Turning, he strode off down the hill.
• • •
Gwen watched Arthur watch his champion walk away. The king’s back was straight, his shoulders unbowed, but she could almost feel his pain. He’d won a great victory—they had won a great victory—but Arthur would do no celebrating.
He’d had to kill his son.
Never mind that it had been necessary. Never mind that Mordred had given him no choice, and would have killed him given the chance. Whether he wanted to or not, Arthur needed to mourn, even if it was only for the son Mordred had never been.
She knew that, though he’d blocked the Truebond again, as if to give himself privacy to grieve. Fortunately, there were ways for a woman to comfort her husband even without a magical mental link. Stepping up behind Arthur, Gwen slid her arms around him from behind. With a deep sigh, he turned in her arms and drew her close.
The smell of blood and death and battle sweat had ceased to bother Gwen almost two decades before; she scarcely noticed them now. Instead she stood on tiptoe and pressed her mouth to his.
For a moment his lips felt sealed and cool against hers. Then he dragged her hard against his powerful body, and his mouth crushed over hers in fierce, anguished need. Gwen gave herself up to him, kissing him back with all the passion she had in her, opening herself in the Truebond, should he reach for the comfort she offered. Arching her breasts against his chest, she pressed close until there wasn’t room for so much as an eyelash between them.
“We won, Gwen,” he told her in the Truebond. “We won . . .”
Though to his heart, Gwen knew, it felt more like a defeat.
• • •
They gathered on the hilltop—Arthur and his knights, Gwen and her ladies. The witches had burned the bodies of their fallen enemies with a spell that poured across the battlefield, wiping away all traces of blood and death.
The people of Camlann would be able to plant wheat in the spring.
Gwen watched Arthur with a wife’s concern. He listened with apparent attention as Kay gave his report. The rebel lords were dead to a man, as were Varn and his lieutenants. There would be no more trouble from that quarter, particularly given Morgana’s trick. Gwen suspected Kay did not entirely approve, but he wasn’t about to argue with her success.
The Knights of the Round Table had made sure Arthur’s loyalist lords had survived the battle, though more than one had suffered injuries that needed the healer’s attention.
Now all that was left was mopping up, a routine familiar from countless other battles. Arthur would reward his loyal lords with the fiefdoms of the traitors, while granting knighthoods to those warriors whose bravery and service had been outstanding. Kay being Kay, he’d already compiled a list of names for the king’s consideration.
Though Arthur seemed to be listening closely, Gwen sensed his seneschal had only half his attention. Opening herself in the Truebond, she could feel the weariness dragging at him. It was more than physical exhaustion; it was a deep ache of the soul.
And she had no idea what to do about it.
Glancing around the hilltop, Gwen saw she was not the only one paying close attention to one of the Knights of the Round Table. All of her ladies seemed intent on one or the other of them, cleaning the blood and sweat from weary Magi with a spell, or offering a cup of mead and the implied promise of a more intimate drink when they returned to Camelot.
She could see the deeper emotions that tied the Knights to the ladies, the bonds of more than blood that would potentially form over the years. If they were fortunate, perhaps some of them would find what she and Arthur had found.
The only exception to the mood of sensuality, it seemed, was Lancelot. He stood to one side, watching the byplay between the couples with a cynical twist to his mouth.
It struck Gwen yet again that she had done damage to the knight that would not easily heal. Unfortunately, she had done all she could; the rest was up to Lance himself.
But as she watched, Morgana approached him. The healer laid a hand on the side of his face and sent a wave of magic across his skin, wiping away the blood, sweat, and dirt of his struggle to protect his king. She gave him a smile and offered him a cup of mead. He accepted it and drank, eyeing her with a familiar hunger. Yet the sense of distance lingered. There’ll be no bards singing sweet songs about that pair.
Still, Gwen was comforted that her friends would have each other tonight at least.
Morgana turned to create a gate with a gesture, then took Lancelot’s hand to draw him through it.
“Let’s go, my love,” Gwen told Arthur, as she conjured her own gate. She knew just where they needed to go—and it wasn’t the fortress.
• • •
This, Arthur thought as he stepped through Gwen’s mystical doorway, is definitely not Camelot.
Magic surrounded him, foaming over his skin, invigorating him when it had been all he could do to walk when he’d entered her gate. Arthur took a deep breath, feeling like a drowning man who had suddenly been granted a deep, life-giving breath. Strength flooded him, lifting the mood of despair that had almost sucked him down.
He glanced around. It was dark here, so much so even his normally acute night vision could make nothing out.
Gwen gestured. A fireball appeared in the air, shedding a golden glow over the soaring quartz walls of some kind of cave. The faceted stone threw back a thousand glittering points of reflection, illuminating the lake that dominated the cavern. A wide stone circle occupied its center, while a waterfall pattered at its other end.
God, Arthur longed to plunge under that inviting flow. “Where are we?”
His wife smiled, looking around the cavern in pleasure. “Nimue called it the Mageverse.”
> As she went on to describe Excalibur’s creation, Arthur remembered the pain he’d felt in the Truebond about the same time. She paid the magical price to get me that weapon, just when I needed it so badly.
As she spoke, Gwen began to play squire as she so often did after a battle, first pulling off his helm and gauntlets before reaching for the sword belt’s knot. He stopped her with a gesture.
And drew Excalibur.
Driven by some deeper impulse he didn’t really understand, Arthur strode to one of the great boulders that lined the cavern. Lifting the sword, he plunged it downward, though he half feared the blade would break at as it slammed into the rock. Instead, the enchanted steel bit into the crystal as if sinking into a ripe melon—and began to glow even brighter, as if it was drinking in the magic of the stone.
Arthur studied it with satisfaction. “Better than a torch.”
“What gave you that idea?” Gwen moved to join him.
Though in his human days, he’d have needed help to shrug out of the heavy chain mail hauberk, now he dragged it off over his head as if it weighed no more than a silk tunic. “Well, you did say it was unbreakable.”
“Yes, but how did you know it would glow?”
Arthur hesitated, before giving her a sheepish shrug. “I don’t know. Somehow I just . . . knew. As if it told me, though I realize that sounds like bollocks.”
“Arthur, it’s a magic sword. Who knows what it can do?” She gave him that cheeky grin. “Now, do you mean to get naked or not?”
Laughing, yet intensely aware of her admiring gaze, he pulled off the padded jacket, the boots, and the britches.
For a long moment, she did nothing, said nothing. Simply stared at his naked body while his cock rose under her passionate gaze. Not to mention the sight of her wearing that chain mail hauberk.
There was something about Gwen in armor that made him want to strip her out of it . . . and fuck until they both went blind.
Then he took a deep breath—and almost gagged at his own reek. God knew what had been in that mud. And yet she stood there and looked at him with huge pupils eating the light. He wondered what she was thinking. Though he had no desire to spill his dark mood on to her, Arthur opened himself in the Truebond. What he found in her mind made his heart beat faster.
Filthy or not, she loved the look of him. Reaching out, Gwen traced her fingers over the contours of his torso, the thick ripple of muscle and the jut of bone. Her gaze roamed his body, admiring and hungry.
She wanted him. That alone was enough to make his cock thrust at her in silent demand.
Gwen began to undress.
She did it slowly, untying her belt and dropping it to the stone, then reaching for the hem of her hauberk and pulling it off by seductive inches before tossing it aside. It rang as it hit the stone floor with a heavy thump. The padded jacket was next; she drew that off even more slowly, revealing her slim, glorious body one delicate inch at a time. The shins, the knees, the thighs. By the time she reached her sex, he was as hard as Excalibur’s blade.
Gwen smiled at him, Eve with an apple in her hand, and pulled the jacket higher, exposing her soft stomach, narrow waist . . . and finally, her breasts, full, pale, and round, with deliciously jutting nipples.
As she dropped the jacket to stand naked before him, he gave her the smile that he knew aroused her, dark and sharp, with just a hint of fang. “God, I want a bite of you.”
“And you’ll get it, but not just yet.” As she brushed her thumb across his lower lip in a slow caress, Gwen’s wicked smile faded to something more serious. “You don’t have to play a role for me today. You don’t need your scary King Arthur mask. You don’t have to flash your fangs.”
He had to grin at that. She did know him so well. “But I like my scary King Arthur mask. And so do you.”
She smiled then. “Well, yes. But you don’t need it just now.” Her fingers brushed over him, exploring the contours of his abdomen and ribs. For a moment he thought she’d take hold of his cock, but instead her fingers slid upward to brush over a pointed male nipple.
“Tease.”
“You enjoy my teasing.” She smiled at him, all wicked wanton. “Don’t you?”
“God, yes, wench.” She was running her fingers back and forth across his nipple until it was all he could do not to moan. Having her touch him like this, without his having to do anything except feel . . . It was so deliciously sweet. So exactly what he needed.
Gwen caught his hand and drew him toward the water lying still and dark in the center of the cave. Together, they waded into the water. It was deliciously cool, and it felt good to his battered body.
She smiled over her shoulder at him, a teasing flash of teeth as she led him deeper. The bottom dropped out from under their feet, and they both began to swim across the dark water.
Arthur picked up a flash of desire from her, a wicked little impulse. Obliging her, he paused to tread water as she ducked beneath the surface. Pale limbs flashed underwater as she swam around him, fingers brushing his body, effortlessly arousing. He treaded water, letting her tease him with delicate little touches to his arms, his back, his broad thighs.
And his cock.
Just the barest stroke, a whisper of it along his rising shaft. Delicately arousing. Gwen had always known how to drive him mad. He sensed what she intended an instant before she did it. Still submerged, she engulfed his cock for a quick suckle that made him jolt. She backed away, only to close long, tapered fingers around his balls, stroking the delicate sac and sensitive skin. Building his heat.
Then his cock was in her mouth again as she floated, treating him to the sensation of wet tongue and smooth throat working around the width of his shaft. He groaned, wrestling with the instinct to grab her head and drag her closer, tighter. If I’m not careful, I’ll drown her.
She had to be using some kind of spell to stay under so long, he realized with what little brainpower he had left. He watched her graceful back, the bare curves of her lush arse and long, strong legs as she floated, licking and sucking.
The sight of her, combined with those vividly erotic sensations, aroused him beyond bearing. He vibrated on the verge of climax, fists clenched, head thrown back, fighting his lust.
Finally she broke away and surfaced, flashing him a little devil’s grin before she turned and stroked rapidly for the other side. Arthur rumbled in feral male interest and swam after her, determined to give her a little taste of the same medicine. His feet hit the shallow end of the pool a heartbeat after hers, and he threw himself into a hungry lunge.
His snatching hand just missed as Gwen levitated out of the pool. Water streamed down her pale, glorious body as she floated in midair, giving him a taunting grin. His eyes narrowed, and he growled, preparing to spring up and grab her, but she waved an admonishing finger.
“Naughty,” she chided. “Patience, King Fang. You’ll get what you want in a moment—when I decide to give it to you.”
He gave her a hot, menacing grin. “Of course, my queen. I would be delighted to wait upon your whim.” His tone—not to mention the Truebond—told her just how far from submissive he really felt.
She lifted a delicate blond brow at him. “Would you like to be in chains again?”
His answering grin was downright feral. “I’d rather put you in chains. You look so good in them.”
Gwen gave him a wicked smirk. “I could say the same of you, my king.”
Arthur’s grin broadened as he let himself imagine all the delicious things he could do to a Gwen spread-eagle and bound. Judging by the sudden bloom of heat in her smile, he’d scored a direct hit. He laughed wickedly. “You like the idea as much as I do.”
“Unfortunately,” she purred in a tone he suspected she’d learned directly from him, “I have other plans.” She gestured at the waterfall pattering into the pool a short distance away. Her gaze softened. “Please, Arthur. You need this, and I need to give it to you.”
“I’ve never been able to
refuse you a damn thing,” he grumbled and stalked over to the waterfall, knowing what she wanted and where she wanted him. Turning, he found her holding a jar of soap she hadn’t held a moment before. She must have conjured it, judging by the flick of magic he could still feel in the Truebond.
Arthur watched her pour the soap into her palm as she stepped closer to stroke soapy fingers across his chest.
“You are so beautiful, my warrior,” she told him softly. “You wear the blood and sweat of battle the way another king wears royal robes.”
If anyone else had said it, he would have dismissed it as blatant flattery. But the Truebond told him Guinevere meant every word.
“Of course I mean it.” She sounded a little offended that he’d think anything else. Despite her irritation, she went back to caressing him, her elegant hands stroking slow circles over his skin.
His cock stood every bit as high and hard as Excalibur driven into that stone.
Gwen rewarded his erection with a teasing brush of her fingers along the balls and up the shaft. And then, with a tiny, evil little smile, she started washing him again. Every time he was on the verge of losing control and grabbing her, she gave him a light push under the waterfall, which had the effect of cooling his considerable lust just enough so he didn’t pounce on her like a wolf on a lamb.
Arthur could’ve withstood that kind of teasing when he was a mortal man. Now that he had a Magus’s appetites, he was even less capable of patience. Especially with his balls drawn tight under his shaft and his cock pointing more up than down, despite its length and weight.
But just before he lost control completely, she shoved him under the waterfall, dropped to her knees, and took his long, hard shaft in hand. He caught his breath as she swooped down over it and engulfed it in the heat of her mouth.
There was something about kneeling at Arthur Pendragon’s feet with his cock in her mouth that never failed to make Gwen’s lust rise. Despite the cool water sheeting down over her head as she licked and suckled him, she could feel herself growing deliciously wet.
Wicked Games Page 21
