“But it wasn’t what you wanted.”
“Not what either of us wanted.” Only a few years later Gwen had met Arthur, and though he’d excelled at finding trouble then more than steering clear of it at the time, Gwen had fallen hard.
“That night in your tent,” she began.
“Gwen was there in hopes of seeing Arthur.”
Briana nodded thoughtfully. “But you never married her.”
“It was bad enough I’d chosen to turn away from the one who held my heart in her hands, I couldn’t sit and watch Gwen do the same. So I broke the betrothal.” And broke his parents’ hearts in the process. Morgana’s armies had invaded and killed them before he’d been able to set things right.
Fate had given him a chance to make things right with Briana, and there wasn’t a moment he’d let pass without making sure she knew how grateful he was for each and every opportunity.
“Were you the one to tell Gwen about Arthur?”
He shook his head, the past reaching out to drag him back into darkness. “By the time I’d returned to Camelot with Arthur’s body, she’d already heard and locked herself away, refusing to talk to anyone. Then she disappeared, and soon after Morgana claimed responsibility for killing her.” Not everyone believed that, some insisting Gwen had taken her own life, unable to live without Arthur.
“And Lancelot?” Briana brought the topic back to her original question as she settled next to him. The soothing comfort of her fingers tracing a path down the middle of his chest made his eyes grow heavy. “Kel mentioned there was heavy drinking involved when Arthur came up with it.”
“Kel?”
“When we were trapped in the catacombs.” Her gaze turned pensive, like she was trying hard to think about what he’d said. When she didn’t add anything else, he continued.
“It was a few months after Arthur pulled Excalibur from the stone. We’d stumbled across a group of men raiding a small farm. The two of us were out-numbered by over a dozen, and seeing as we’d just been kicked out of an inn for causing a disturbance, we were both feeling too good to care.”
“So you were drunk.” Briana grinned. “And you won?”
“Fuck no.” He laughed, his ribs tensing as though they remembered every bruise he’d taken in that fight. “Excalibur or not, we weren’t standing when they finished with us.”
“And they didn’t try to take Arthur’s sword?”
“More than one of them sure as hell wanted to. The guy leading their group, no older than either of us, wouldn’t allow it. Said if it hadn’t been for him, Arthur and I would have come out ahead in the end.” His lips curved remembering that night.
Briana rose up on one elbow. “And then what happened?”
“They rode away and I picked up a spear and threw it at them though I could barely lift my arm by that point.”
“Who did you hit?”
“No one the first time. So I threw another one. On my fourth try I clipped Constantine’s arm.”
Her eyes widened. “He was part of the group?”
“He was the leader.”
Sitting up, Briana shook her head. “Just so I’m understanding this, the three men known for building Camelot and uniting over half of Avalon all started out as…criminals?”
“Criminals might be a bit harsh.” Slightly accurate though when he thought of how many times he’d let Arthur talk him into breaking the rules. Only by some miracle his family hadn’t caught wind of his extracurricular activities with Arthur when they were younger.
“What changed?”
“I think only Arthur really knows the answer to that.”
Briana rested her head on his shoulder. “He’ll come back, you know that, right?”
He hadn’t believed it in so long he barely recognized the flicker of hope that caught in his chest.
Hours later, Lucan woke hard for her. Knowing he should let her sleep as long as they could before the next competition didn’t stop him from running his hand down her back and over the tempting curve of her ass.
She stirred in the sheets but didn’t open her eyes.
Pressing his lips to her shoulder blade, he followed the part that disappeared between her thighs. She was still wet. That undeniable fact redirected all the blood in his body to his cock. Hungry for her in every way, he slid through the dampness, pressing inside her in a slow thrust.
Briana moaned softly, arching back and taking him deeper.
Rising up, he barely gave her time to come awake before gripping her hips and pulling her to her knees. He took his shaft in his hand, fit himself against her snug opening, rubbing back and forth, and then plunged inside her.
Briana’s head fell back, her claws raking the sheets as she cried out.
The sound of total abandon prompted him to withdraw and sink back into her. And then he couldn’t stop moving, couldn’t stop pushing every inch deep into her core. He hissed out every breath, the silky walls squeezing him tight, so fucking tight.
“Briana,” he growled, pounding faster.
Her hips moved perfectly with him, rocking back to meet each frantic thrust. He slid his hands around her ribs, cupping her breasts. She arched her back, and he followed the graceful line down to where he could watch himself sliding in and out of her.
Almost hypnotized by the sight of her taking him deep, he closed his eyes, the same savage appetite as before surfacing in searing waves.
Taking a handful of her hair, he exposed her neck, and before he could talk himself out of what he wanted, what he needed, he traced a path with his tongue, and sank his fangs into her skin.
Her hand shot up to catch his nape, holding him to her as they moved in frantic unison. The taste of her was like nothing he’d known before, so much darker, sweeter, layered with tangled nuances that he could spend forever unraveling, drowning in.
Like his feelings for her.
Satisfied after only a few hard pulls of her blood, he rocked back, pumping hard and fast into her. Her cries of pleasure intensified, and he could feel her clenching tighter around him.
Slipping a hand between her thighs, he only brushed her drenched folds, circled her clit, and she shot over the edge. Through the shudders that wracked her body, he continued to thrust inside her, burying his face in the curve of her neck as his own release plowed into him.
They collapsed onto the mattress afterward. She didn’t complain that he laid half on top of her, linking their fingers as tightly as the bond growing between them.
Barely more than a handful of hours together and they’d been separated again.
Briana’s feline half hovered close to the surface, stalking the edges of her mind, wanting to track Lucan. Doing her best to ignore the instinct riding her hard, she took in the detail work on the walls surrounding them.
It felt like only minutes ago she’d been wrapped up in Lucan’s arms, half drugged from the pleasure he’d wrung from her body until neither one of them could move. Now she found herself in a dim-lit corridor that worried her far more than the catacombs had.
“This is some kind of joke, right?” the enchantress demanded, looking away from the dead-end wall they faced. “They sent us to Camelot? Why not just drop us over the wall in the courtyard and let the vines rip us apart?”
Apparently the enchantress was still annoyed that she hadn’t decrypted the code in the last round that led to her own mother, the Lady of the Lake. She’d been grumbling about it nonstop while Briana continued to wonder what vow the Lady of the Lake had referred to before leaving the chains behind.
Discovering they were in Camelot should have been enough to shut the enchantress up. Instead, it just gave her something else to talk about.
“Maybe it’s another illusion,” Seva added. The enchantress was the only one who’d been transported to the same vicinity as Briana for their current challenge.
“I don’t think so.” Maeve and Aren had more than enough time on their hands to think up new ways to test them without repeating ch
allenges. There wasn’t a doubt in Briana’s mind that the gods had dumped them into the heart of Morgana’s territory.
Once a shining beacon of Avalon’s potential, Camelot was now the poster child for greed, treachery and every homicidal tendency that went against the ideals Arthur had died fighting for.
She couldn’t help but wonder how Lucan was handling being back here. It certainly couldn’t be any worse than watching Arthur slip away all over again, even it hadn’t been real.
“What do you think Treasach’s Moon is?”
Briana shrugged. “Could be an exhibitionist for all I know.” Maeve and Aren had been deliberately tight-lipped about what exactly they were looking for in the fourth round of the competition. The conversation had lasted less than a minute in the courtyard, before they’d been dropped into Morgana’s backyard, and the only clue had been that they’d know Treasach’s Moon when they saw it.
Whatever that meant.
Preferring that the enchantress go her own way, Briana turned down the closest corridor to search on her own. When the enchantress didn’t immediately follow, Briana hoped the other immortal had gotten the message.
As she rounded the next corner, movement behind Briana set the cat off, and she pivoted, blocking the narrow blade the enchantress tried to bury in her stomach.
Catching the enchantress’s wrist, Briana shoved her backward, beating her forearm against the wall until she dropped the weapon. If she’d been even a second slower to turn around, Seva would have gutted her on the spot.
Crying out, the enchantress reached out with her nails to rake Briana’s face. Blood pooled beneath Seva’s nails, the minor scratch pissing Briana off more than anything. She slammed her fist into the other immortal’s face.
The enchantress crumpled to the ground, her gaze remarkably vacant. “What are you doing?”
“What am I doing?”
Seva blinked up at her, and Briana realized someone had been pulling the enchantress’s strings.
Briana glanced around, half expecting to see the culprit lurking in the shadows. They appeared to be alone. For now. She had no intention of waiting around to see if someone else came hunting for her. Twice now, she’d been targeted, erasing any doubts the first attack had been purely coincidental.
Leaving the enchantress still sprawled on the stone floor, Briana stepped over her. She didn’t get far before footsteps echoed in the corridor ahead of her. There were too many scents—dampness, blood, matted fur and unwashed bodies—to pick through to better identify whoever approached.
Briana flattened herself against the wall, slipping the dagger from the sheath strapped to her calf.
Vaughn rounded the corner, arching a brow when he saw the weapon in her hand. “When I used to joke about you playing for the other team, this isn’t quite what I meant.”
Sighing, she lowered the blade. “I’m a little jumpy.” She didn’t bother to mention what had happened with the enchantress. It would lead to more questions than either of them had time to get into.
“I’d say you’re entitled seeing as you’re mated to a wraith.”
Given Nessa’s comment about Briana being a walking blood bank right before Maeve and Aren had sent them here, it shouldn’t surprise her to know that Elena had filled Vaughn in on what the Lady of the Lake had said.
She couldn’t say the same about the barely veiled disgust in Vaughn’s voice. He’d never been one of Lucan’s biggest fans, but neither had he seemed that strongly bothered by him, as long as he didn’t have a sword at his throat.
They walked in silence, and thinking about what Lucan had said at the start of the Gauntlet about her own friends turning on her if the stakes were high enough, she questioned the wisdom of putting either her or Vaughn in that position with only two challenges left to go.
Thinking of parting ways with him in favor of finding Lucan, she paused at the next place the corridor branched off. Camelot’s subterranean levels were almost as confusing as the catacombs.
“Don’t go that way,” Vaughn cautioned, pointing to the stairs that disappeared to the level below.
Briana hesitated. “How do you know what’s down there?”
He shrugged. “Stole a few things from the weapons room down that way. A heavily guarded weapon’s room.”
Somehow she knew his “few things” was probably an understatement. “How did you get past the guards?” If he’d liberated anything from Morgana’s armies this deep inside Camelot, he must have had help.
“A goddess may have been involved.”
Briana stopped. “Rhiannon?” Since when had she taken an interest in the rebellion? She couldn’t imagine Vaughn risking his neck for anything else.
Nodding, her friend paused before choosing the corridor that went left. “Any excuse to make trouble for Morgana.”
Not for the first time Briana wondered why Rhiannon, far more powerful than Morgana, hadn’t taken care of the power-hungry sorceress herself. What was Morgana holding over the goddess’s head?
The corridor slanted downward, the lighting dimming as they moved into what she could only assume was one of Camelot’s dungeons. She’d heard the original dungeon had been expanded to satisfy Morgana’s desire to imprison and torture anyone who still admitted loyalty to Arthur.
The first row of cells they passed sat empty, but the further into the area they moved, the more cells showed signs of humans and immortals huddling in the farthest corners.
“Where are all the guards?” She lowered her voice as much as possible.
“Waiting to jump out and yell surprise?” Vaughn ventured.
This was one of the few times she didn’t quite appreciate her friend’s sense of humor. Increasingly wary, she half expected some of the more coherent prisoners to raise the alarm, bringing half of Morgana’s army down on their heads.
The enchantress hadn’t been that far off the mark with her earlier comment. The vines would be far more merciful than the sorceress who’d encouraged her son to kill her own brother.
Vaughn frowned. “The population’s grown since I was here last.” Something in his tone warned her that he wasn’t talking about the time he’d raided the place for weapons.
Briana kept her attention fixed straight ahead, trying to ignore the pull to free those of her race she could hear growling in their cells. The odds of an unplanned jail break having any chance of success was slim to none when she didn’t even know the way out. “Is this where she keeps them?”
“Anyone affiliated with the rebellion, yeah,” Vaughn finished.
It crossed her mind to ask if his imprisonment had anything to do with his nightmare the other day, but her attention fell to the shadow on the floor to her right. The crescent vanished as someone’s body blocked the candlelight—the only cell to have any—projecting the shape on the floor.
Vaughn walked ahead a few steps before noticing she’d stopped. “What is it?”
Red eyes gleamed from inside the cell. A Korrigan.
She edged closer, careful to keep from making direct eye contact as the candle was extinguished. Something moved in the cell.
Two hands gripped the bars inches from Briana’s face, and she found herself staring at Lucan.
“What are you doing—” The question died on her lips when she noticed the cell door was slightly ajar and he wasn’t alone inside with the Korrigan. Nessa stood just past Lucan’s shoulder, her face as blank as Lucan’s.
They’d been entranced.
Chapter Fourteen
The roar of Briana’s blood pounding through her veins nearly deafened her. She thought they’d been sent to retrieve some kind of moon-shaped mystical object or relic, not a person.
“Kill her,” the Korrigan hissed at Lucan, stepping from the protection of the shadows to reveal the crescent-shaped glyph on the immortal’s left cheek.
Apparently they’d found Treasach’s Moon—and she wanted them dead.
Lucan frowned, his knuckles turning white where he gripped t
he bars. “No.”
“Do it,” the Korrigan snarled, edging toward the door. She gestured to Nessa. “No one follows me.”
Not good.
Vaughn grabbed Briana’s arm. “We need to go.”
On instinct she jerked free of his hold. “Lucan—”
“We can’t help him if we’re in pieces. Even if he can’t kill us yet, he can make it hurt like hell.”
The cell rattled as Lucan shook the bars, looking ready to tear right through them. Black pooled in his eyes. “Run,” he snapped. “Now. Can’t…fight…it.”
Pushing past Vaughn, she locked her fingers over Lucan’s. “You have to try. Do you know when I fell in love with you? Hey,” she cupped his cheek, forcing him to meet her gaze, knowing it was too late. She was losing him. “It was the moment you took my hand, after the lake, when you didn’t laugh at me for wanting to join the Guard.”
“Briana,” the pained growl bordered on feral.
“That’s the moment you stole my heart.” He needed to know that, needed something to hold onto as he spiraled into a place she knew she couldn’t reach him.
“Back away from the door.” Each word became less human sounding.
Helplessness radiated through her, and she forced herself to retreat. “It’s okay. I’m going to be okay.” She needed him to believe that. Both of them needed to believe that.
The cell door flew off its hinges, coming close enough Briana felt the breeze of it just missing her and Vaughn’s head. Nessa stepped into the corridor, her sword drawn. She made no move to attack them.
Briana couldn’t say the same about the wraith. He launched himself out of the cell, his murderous gaze locked on her. By accident or intentionally, Vaughn ended up between them. The few seconds it took the wraith to throw Vaughn away from him, allowed the Korrigan to burst past them and vanish around the corner.
Primal Temptation Page 24
