by Mia West
“Not now, you aren’t.” Bed slid off him and onto the grass. He stretched, then held up his thumb. “Now you’re bound to me fast, by blood and truth, so no leaving me.” He closed his eyes and grinned. “Again.”
Arthur wanted to punch him again, but he’d deserved that dig. “So we’re going to camp here on the path?”
Bed shrugged. “No one else needs it tonight. We’ll be off again early.”
Arthur rolled toward him. “What happened? How did you get away?”
Bed opened his eyes and gave him a drowsy smile. “I escaped.”
“You didn’t.”
Bedwyr laughed. “No, but you could have hesitated a fraction longer before denying it.”
Arthur nudged him. “Well?”
Dark eyes caught his. Bed’s chest rose and fell on a long breath. “My father released me.”
“What? Why?”
“So we could make something of ourselves.”
“Just like that?”
“Not only of ourselves,” Bed said. “Of this thing between us.”
“Our bond?”
He nodded. “He doesn’t know it’s formal, but he knows it’s important.” Bed studied his face. “He asked me what you were to me.”
“What…” Arthur cleared his throat. “What did you say?”
“That I’d tell you before I told him.”
Arthur stared at him, not daring to believe it.
Except that Bed never lied.
“I meant it,” Bedwyr said quietly. “All of it.”
A good thing because Arthur had locked the words away in his mind, to hear over and over, in case Bed wasn’t inclined to repeat them. Maybe Arthur would suggest they do that—repeat the oath—every year on this night. Maybe Bed would agree to something like that. At any rate, Arthur would enjoy trying to convince him.
“Your mother sends her love, by the way.”
Warmth flashed through his middle. “How?”
“It’s a bit of a tale.” Bedwyr smoothed his palm over Arthur’s hair. “But a good one.” He yawned again. “I’ll tell you at first light.”
“Promise?”
“That and more.”
Bed drew him into a kiss, light and sweet, tinged with weary relief. It was probably meant to be an ending—of a long day and a longer night. Of weeks of tension in his family, of months of struggle to bring Bedwyr back to fighting form, and of years before that, when all their want was inside them, unanswered.
So, a good ending, and a true one.
But as Bed held him there, nipping softly until quiet laughter warmed their lips, it didn’t feel like an ending.
It felt like a beginning. The beginning.
Of everything.
Epilogue
When the two men put out their bedrolls for the night, Elain left her lookout’s position and slipped back deeper into the forest.
Moonlight dappled the little clearing, illuminating Gwen’s hair in splashes of silver.
Gwen lowered her hands from her ears. “Have they finished?”
“Yes.”
She stood and brushed grass from her skirts. “I’m ready, then.”
“They’ve camped.”
Gwen stopped, her face falling. “Oh.”
Elain smiled and stepped close. “Why are you disappointed?”
“I wanted to follow the moon.”
Elain tucked that silvery hair behind one of Gwen’s ears. “The moon wants to follow you as well.” She kissed Gwen’s temple. “It’s an utter fool for you.”
Gwen’s hands came to rest on her hips. “Elain—”
She stopped the rest with fingertips on Gwen’s lips. It would pain her not to feel those lips on her skin tonight. They had waited, but their wait wasn’t over. “We can’t give ourselves away,” she said softly.
“I’ll be quiet,” Gwen whispered.
Elain gave her a wicked grin. “Not if I do it right.”
Gwen’s eyes grew wide.
“Come. We need to sleep. They’ll be off at dawn.”
They bedded down in a soft, mossy hollow. Gwen curled against her in their wool cocoon and fell to sleep, her breath warming and chilling Elain’s chin.
Elain lay awake for a long time, dagger in hand. When Uthyr discovered his daughter gone, and the hired whore missing as well, he would send a party after them. She lay in the dark, Gwen’s warm weight a comfort and an obligation as Elain listened for the footfalls she’d expected to hear behind them all night. They didn’t come, though, and eventually fatigue crept over her.
But not before she wondered if anyone, in history or tales, had ever done anything as foolish for the one they loved as she had this night. There would be a reckoning, and it would be hers to meet.
She tightened her grip on her dagger.
She would be ready.
End of Book 2
~ ~ ~
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About Mia
Mia West strikes rough heroes against each other until they spark. She writes historical romance, with occasional forays into paranormal and contemporary. When not writing, Mia loves to read, hike, and travel. Super powers include parallel parking and map reading. She takes her wine red, her whisky rye, and her brownie from the middle of the pan.
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