"Did you?"
I nodded. “It was massive—bigger than any I’d ever seen. We cornered it in a glade. When it charged, I thought it would take my head clean off.”
"And what happened?" His tone was light with curiosity as he turned to look up at me. Those eyes—wide and innocent, yetsomehow knowing—fixed on mine in such a way that my chest tightened unexpectedly.
Gods, he was fucking beautiful.
I felt something.
Something I didn't want to feel.
Something I had no business feeling.
A stirring in my gut, a warmth that spread through my limbs, a pull toward this young knight. And it was a pull that defied all logic and reason. The sensation hit me like a punch to the gut, leaving me momentarily breathless.
Of course, I'd felt desire before—countless times, with countless women who threw themselves at Arthur's greatest knight. But this was different. I couldn't even say it was desire. It was nothing that strong. Admiration, perhaps? No, it wasn't as clean as simple admiration. Whatever it was, it was dangerous.
I cleared my throat roughly and immediately looked away, focusing my gaze on the twisted branches overhead where shadows danced in the filtered light. My voice came out rougher than intended when I finally answered.
"It leapt over me and mauled the knight behind me."
“Unfortunate for the knight behind you,” Lioran said and laughed—a soft sound that was the opposite of masculine. “It seems as if you survived by luck.”
“Luck and skill,” I corrected, still refusing to look at him. “But mostly luck.”
The silence grew between us once more. For exactly five steps.
“Another time, we hunted a griffin. We nearly lost half the party before we stopped acting like heroes and started working together.”
He laughed that peculiar sound that held no deep resonance once more. I turned to look at him then, searching hisexpression, trying, perhaps, to find the thing that unnerved me about him.
“You’re different from the others,” I said quietly.
He seemed taken aback. "Am I?"
I nodded. “Most knights try to impress me—boasting, showing off. You don’t.”
“Perhaps because I think there’s more to learn from listening than from speaking.”
I nodded slowly, considering him. “Wise words.”
The terrain shifted gradually beneath our boots, transforming from the soft, moss-covered earth we'd been traversing to increasingly treacherous rocky outcroppings that jutted from the forest floor like ancient bones. Each step required more careful placement as loose stones threatened to send us tumbling into the shadowy crevices between the weathered granite formations.
When I spotted a massive fallen oak blocking our path ahead—its trunk easily twice the width of a man and covered in a slick coating of emerald moss—I found myself turning back toward Lioran without conscious thought. The gesture came as naturally as breathing, my hand extending toward him as if he were some delicate lady who might struggle with such an obstacle rather than a knight who should have been perfectly capable of managing on his own.
Yet even as the foolishness of the action registered in my mind, I didn't pull my hand back. And strangely, he didn't reject my offer. Instead, his fingers brushed mine as he accepted my hand, and a sudden, entirely unexpected spark of sensation ran through me at the contact—sharp and electric. The feeling shot up my arm and settled somewhere deep in my chest, a strange and inexplicable warmth.
For a heartbeat, we lingered there in that frozen tableau—his hand warm and surprisingly soft in mine, our bodiesclose enough that I could catch the faint scent of leather and… lavender? I felt the calluses on his palm—evidence of years spent training with a blade. Yet something about the shape and size of his hand stopped me. It wasn't overtly feminine… but not masculine either. When he made no motion to release my hand, I immediately released his.
“These woods play tricks on the mind,” I said abruptly, facing forward once more as I tried to focus on the task ahead of us and not the small proportions of his hand. “Stay alert. The creatures aren’t the only danger here.”
Still, the sensation of his touch lingered longer than it should have. I tried to shake the feeling off, focusing on the hunt instead, but the memory clung like glue. I shook my head against it, feeling my hands beginning to clench as I fought the strange feelings.
My heart was thundering in my chest, though I couldn't say why. What was it about him that made me feel so… off-balance? Not just curious. Compelled.
“What troubles you, Sir Lancelot?”
“Nothing,” I replied too quickly, refusing to look at him.
