“I have you.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not,” she whispered. “Breathe.”
Suddenly, he understood the incredible temptation that followed all dragons and why it had been so easy for many to go to the dark and draw his order’s attention. It didn’t excuse their wanton slaughter, but he understood it.
“Pelleas?”
“An ice sculpture for your garden, if you like.”
He sought out the other knight, his gaze falling on a figure encased in ice. No, not encased, but frozen solid. The victory proved bittersweet. He didn’t feel any triumph, only bone-deep exhaustion.
“Nim, would you—”
“Of course.” The pieces of his lost clothing all reassembled upon his nude form as if it had never happened, but the shirt remained unfastened. Her gaze dropped to his bleeding chest wound. It was no better as a human than it had been as a dragon. He took the summoned bandages she offered without complaint.
“One moment.” Nimue slipped out her phone and dialed.
“What are you going to do?” He frowned. “Are you calling the cops?”
“No. Don’t be absurd. I’ve erected a magical curtain around this entire swathe of the neighborhood to avoid police arriving on the scene. I’m calling in a favor from a friend.” Her concerned gaze traveled down to the charred remains of Pelleas, then the frost burned corpse of Bedivere several yards away. Neither resembled a person anymore; their features contorted worse in death than they had been in their mockery of life as Titan puppets.
“Hello? Hilda? I need that favor. Yes. I’ll send you my location. Come prepared with your jewels.”
Afterward, she slipped the phone away into an extradimensional pocket space and craned her neck to survey Arthur’s injuries. The minor wounds showed rapid signs of clotting already, but the worst gash across his chest appeared bone-deep.
The worry in her bright eyes told him it wasn’t good, but the adrenaline pounding through his veins masked the pain.
“It occurs to me that these souls are still bound to Merlin, and because they are bound to Merlin, only he can sever the magical tether anchoring them to his soul,” Nimue explained as she pricked her finger with a bone-handled knife. While he watched, she crouched down and drew a symbol on the sidewalk.
Arthur looked away when it was complete. It made his head hurt.
“As I can’t reach him at the moment, wherever he has gone, I have no choice but to request help from a friend well-versed in the art.”
Dread thumped the middle of Arthur’s chest. “Don’t tell me it’s—”
Black vapor and grey smoke poured from the sigil. It widened and grew in size as the head and shoulders of a middle-aged woman emerged.
“Remember how I said wizard magic differs from fae magic? The same goes for witch’s magic, and if we wait too long, we’ll miss the window to do this.”
Understanding of what was to occur chilled Arthur to the bones. It wasn’t long ago that such a spell had contained his spirit, imprisoning him for over a century. It was a fate he wouldn’t wish on his worst enemy, even Pelleas and Bedivere.
“It won’t last,” Nimue assured him, her words a gentle breath against his ear. “Only so long as it takes for Merlin to end their immortality. They’ll never return to this world.”
He didn’t question it, even when Hilda completed her spell over the two corpses and passed Nimue two jewels that pulsed with hatred.
They met at the wizard’s tower to decide the next great meeting place of their allies. Since Merlin toiled over one of his ancient books, they chose not to interrupt him and waited until the wizard sighed and pushed it away.
“By the Gods, what happened to you?”
“Bedivere and Pelleas happened,” Arthur said.
Nimue crossed the room and placed both gemstones in Merlin’s wrinkled hand. He turned them over in his palm a few times with a faraway look in his wizened eyes as if seeing through them to the monstrous souls within.
“Well done, Arthur and Nimue. These two have been slippery enough to elude us for years. No longer.”
“A friend of mine did the blood curse. You can thank Hilda.”
“Ah, yes, do pass on my—”
“With a date.”
Merlin’s brows drew together and became a single ivory unibrow above his piercing blue eyes. “Beg pardon?”
“You heard me, old man. When this is all over, she expects you to wine and dine her. I can’t think of a better way to celebrate foiling the end of the world as we know it.”
“Blast.”
Thirteen
The sheer number of participants required them to relocate the war table to Nimue’s suite above the Violet Hour. The decision to use her home wasn’t made lightly, but one of the vampire leaders had pointed out one simple fact deduced from Arthur’s telling of future events: the future proved that Merlin’s magic couldn’t conceal them all indefinitely. With the amount of power confined in one room, they couldn’t chance discovery by the enemy. No other place offered the same safety.
Arthur had been in bed for much of the day, forced there by an alliance of Astrid, Nimue, Lancelot, and Galahad. Even Ares, when he eventually arrived, sat beside him and chuckled. “Gotta take time to recover if you want to come back even more badass than before, kid. It’s part of being a warrior. I’m sure future-me told you that.”
“You did.”
Unable to argue with so much wisdom, Arthur sucked it up and allowed Nimue to baby him, only to fall into a deep sleep for much of the afternoon until Galahad retrieved him from bed.
The last of their guests had arrived.
Now, Arthur slid his gaze over the assortment of grim faces, each person a powerful ally to their war effort. From Ian MacArthur, who had the military in his back pocket, to Hyperion and Styx, who had sworn to walk against their brothers again, they had advantages that didn’t exist in Arthur’s future. Where had they been in the future?
Probably dead. It occurred to him that the vengeful Cronus would have hunted them down.
A quiet blonde vampire sat representative beside a buoyant and bubbly witch from Texas, contrasting beings of pale and darker skin. Their body language said they knew each other.
“First, I want to thank all of you for pledging your aid to our cause,” Arthur said. “Know that we appreciate it one hundred percent. Is this everyone, Merlin?”
“All who have agreed to join us thus far with the exception of Warren. He notified me that his arrival will be delayed by two days.”
“Ah. Alright. Since everyone else is here, we can begin with the plan. Cronus is the most powerful of them all. If we target him with the first siege, he’ll call the others to his side,” Arthur said.
“Yeah. Then we’re fucked,” a burly werewolf said, the guy large enough that he looked capable of playing fetch with oak trees. “I thought you said we only have a chance if we tackle them one at a time.”
“We do. Without him to lead them, the rest will all fall into place. That’s why we need to take him down first before they arrive. They’ll be so disorganized by his death that the rest should fall into place.”
As far as Arthur could tell, they had already altered the future from its most dismal outcome. What he knew of the history of the second Titanomachy was that Detroit, Chicago, then St. Louis had fallen in the first of a string of brutal assaults by Gaia, while Pazuzu carved a swath of destruction down the western coast. Once he completed decimating the Pacific region, he traveled west to Asia and left Cronus and Gaia to destroy every major city in the Americas.
The rest of the world, according to Astrid, had watched in fear as Earth’s superpowers fell within a matter of two days.
“It’s a good plan,” Ian agreed, nodding. “Solid logic behind it. We’ve been preparing for a massive attack of this nature for a long while, even training our men to engage magical beings, as well as dragons.” When Ares glanced at Ian and raised his dark brows, the old man shrugge
d. “Never know when one of your kind might get a wild scale up his ass.”
Ares tipped his head in respect.
Soft laughter and a few chuckles filled the room, at last obliterating the awkward air that had stagnated in the foyer since their arrival.
Arthur gave them all a rundown of the remaining steps in his plan, and over time, he watched skeptical expressions transition to admiration and even respect.
“We will do what we can to help you. I’m uncertain that we’ll be of much use against Pazuzu,” the blonde vampire said, “but we will try.”
Several dragons aimed sympathetic glances her way.
Pazuzu had been their progenitor, a revelation Arthur hadn’t connected in his future. The knowledge was the missing link he’d overlooked time after time as feral vampires cut through their resistance camps and assaulted them in the dead of night.
“Do what you can. When we get word that he’s enroute, just quit the field. Put as much distance between yourselves and him as you can, and we’ll cover the rest.”
“Excellent plan. We’ll help in that regard and create teleportation circles for the vampires. While it is unfortunate that the fae will not join us,” the young witch said, “My witches will do what they can to provide magical support. We’ll be crafting talismans around the clock.”
“I appreciate it.”
“No problem. We all live on this planet. I already had a word with Warren, and I told Atticus he’s a damned fool. Just tell me by this evening where you need my sisters, and we’ll be here in force.”
“Now then, before we carry this on any further, let me show all of you to your rooms. There’s plenty of space to spare throughout my home, as you may have noticed….” Nimue’s voice trailed off as she led their many guests on a tour of her residence.
The moment they were gone, Arthur leaned against a table and placed one hand on his chest. The injury still burned.
“Hey!” Galahad suddenly came into view in front of him. “You okay?”
Arthur jerked upright and blinked until his bleary vision cleared. “I’m fine.”
The look on the other knight’s face revealed only doubt. “It’s okay to admit that you need help. Are you sure you’re down to confront them so soon?” Unmistakable concern laced every word from Galahad’s mouth. He placed his hands on Arthur’s shoulders and gazed at him. He’d never get used to thinking of him as Dad. “I know how much you wanna stop this, kid, but if you’re not at one hundred percent—”
“I’m good, Dad. Honest.”
“All right. Anyway, while you were down, this letter arrived for you.”
Speak the truth to your own heart at the end.
Arthur squinted at the note and reread its single message. Its sender left no signature or indication of their identity. Before he could turn to ask Galahad about who had delivered it, it disintegrated into bits of dust.
Fourteen
To no one’s surprise, less than four days after his near-death experience, Arthur planned to initiate the siege against the Titans.
“You need to heal,” Nimue insisted from the threshold of his bedchamber. She’d brought her standard kit of healing ointments and fresh bandages in a basket.
“I’m grand. I had the past three days to heal. Did you forget that I’m a dragon now?”
Nimue rolled her eyes and shut the door behind her. Whatever he saw in her expression provoked a low bark of a laugh from Arthur, however.
“Would it ease your mind if I showed you?” he finally asked.
She pursed her lips and set down the basket of healing tinctures and salves. “As a matter of fact, yes, it would. Strip.”
“As my lady commands.”
Despite rolling his eyes, Arthur shrugged out of his shirt. True to his word, Nimue found no hint of an injury. Even the greatest of fae would have had a half-mended wound. Bewildered, she touched his chest with one hand and flattened her palm above where the near-fatal gash belonged.
The old Arthur—the knight of many lifetimes and dozens of incarnations—would have perished that eve.
“You’re truly unharmed.”
Before Nimue could drop her hand, his strong fingers spread over the back of her smaller digits. The size disparity warred with her prior memories of a smaller man. “I told you I am. Don’t you trust me?”
She did. And she didn’t. For years, Nimue had wanted to trust him with every ounce of her being, and for each of those years, the ghost of his single mistake had haunted her.
I need to let it go.
All those centuries ago, the Arthur she knew then wasn’t the Arthur she knew now. He’d had lifetimes of experience to mold and shape him into someone she not only respected but knew deep down in her heart, she’d come to love as well.
“I do. But I saw you fall. I saw the blood, and I….” Her voice broke despite her effort to maintain control. The loss of control over her emotions pissed her off, but if Arthur noticed, he had the wisdom to say nothing. Nimue’s stubborn streak kept her eyes squarely focused on his chest and the bronze expanse of perfect skin stretched over muscles men dedicated their lives to building in the gym.
“I’m tougher to kill than ever, Nim. I give you my word that it won’t be that easy to get rid of me. I came back with a mission, and I mean to complete it. Thank you for seeing this through and giving us the edge we needed. We could have never done it without you. Your magic brought us this success, and I can never thank you enough for your sacrifice. Thank you.”
Shock whipped her gaze to his face.
He never thanked her. If he did, the words were hollow lipservice uttered to appease her and lacking humility and grace. The Arthur of the past, Nimue realized, had been an asshole of the greatest magnitude.
The man before her now was the king she’d always wanted him to be, and each heartfelt word resonated within her chest.
The moment his lips lowered to hers, all inhibition flew out the door, and she didn’t have a chance in hell of holding back the tsunami of emotion welling from the depths of her soul.
Nothing mattered more than getting off every scrap of his clothes. She fought with his belt with eager fingers driven to clumsiness by her desire. Contrasting her, Arthur’s hands moved with unhurried grace as he loosened the silk ribbon binding her dress bodice down her spine.
Too impatient for him to take his time, Nimue directed her magic into the garment and initiated a total disintegration of the silk that began at her shoulders and ended at her toes. Inch by inch, it disintegrated into a hundred rose petals and gilded leaves, filling the small room with the smell of dried flowers and autumn.
Then, she was as bare as her Arthur, and neither of them could keep their hands off the other. Arthur reacquainted himself with her body while she explored every carved muscular plane, rigid dip, and valley. His hands swept up and down her narrow waist before at last cupping her breasts. She leaned into his touch and ran her fingers over the girthy underside of his cock. In all his bodies, he’d never been so large, the length of him intimidating to behold. Despite that, her body yearned for every inch.
Arthur always knew precisely how to touch her, what she craved, and what she needed most, never failing to satisfy her throughout the centuries of trysts together. It pleased her.
Nimue thought he would guide her to the bed, but his massive hands curled around her thighs and hoisted her back to the wall. His cock slid between her folds, seesawing back and forth through arousal and heat. Then the tip nudged her clit, and she arched her spine against the wall, moaning.
“I can’t decide what I want to do first.” His hips moved again, a fluid motion rolling so smoothly it should have been illegal that the stroke wasn’t inside her body. She clenched air and made an involuntary sound in her throat.
“First?”
His laughing breath warmed her cheek. “If I want to taste you or remind you who owns this pussy.”
The noble King Arthur of the past never spoke to her that way, yet she found ever
y lewd phrase delighted her more than the last.
“Do I get a say? Maybe I have a preference,” she teased, sliding her arm around his shoulders and cradling one hand to the back of his head.
“And maybe I have a sudden thirst to satiate.”
“And what thir—”
Faster than her mind could comprehend, Arthur lowered her and knelt between her ankles. Then he pushed one leg over his shoulder and angled his face up against her bare pussy. The first lick sent her spiraling out of control and set the rhythm for what followed, her holding tight handfuls of his short hair and riding his face. Her aching clit demanded more, which he readily gave, devouring her in deft tongue flicks and teasing the swollen bud from its hood.
It took every ounce of her control not to lash him with magical shackles to the bed so she could give both of them what they wanted, bouncing on his dick until they were both sore and too useless to do anything else.
“I always wondered why you tasted of summer berries,” Arthur muttered against her mound. His breath ghosted her skin, and she ached with the need for his lips to return to her clit. Over and over, he brought her to the brink of orgasm, always denying her whenever she reached the pinnacle.
He had to need her as much as she needed him. His cock angled directly upward, so thick and hard it blushed red.
“For the love of the moon, Arthur, fuck me.”
“In time,” was his only response. He seemed to delight in the torture, in savoring every minute and winding her up to the breaking point. Leaning back, he teased and petted with two fingers gliding effortlessly against her slick skin. “I thought the fae were ever-patient.”
“Go to hell.”
His lips closed around her clit, and in two flicks, he sent her spiraling out of control. Nimue lost the next few moments. She bucked wildly out of control and thought she’d slide down to the floor, but one of his hands on her belly initially kept her anchored in place. She writhed with each orgasmic convulsion.
King of Avalon: a Dragon Shifter Paranormal Romance (Rise of the Elder Gods Book 2) Page 13
