"You are now a prisoner of the court."
There was no warmth in his tone, no acknowledgment of the intimacy they had just shared—only the pronouncement of a king passing judgment on one who had crossed him.
A fragment of me felt relief at his declaration. It signified he wouldn't harm or murder her immediately—not here, in this moment, anyway. Yet I understood what fate awaited his captives and recognized it offered little improvement over execution.
Her body went still, her chin lifting despite the dismissal. The violet of her eyes darkened, a storm gathering behind them, though no tears fell. Even completely void of clothing, she radiated a dignity that Arthur's coldness couldn't touch.
Arthur's hands found her shoulders with surprising gentleness, given the harshness of his words, his fingers wrapping around her bare arms as he drew her upward from the ground. For a moment, his touch lingered—perhaps longer than strictly necessary for a king handling a prisoner—before his gaze swept over her exposed form.
The realization of her vulnerability seemed to strike him suddenly, his eyes taking in the pale expanse of her skin, the way the moonlight played across her breasts. Something flickered across his features—was it concern? Protectiveness? Or merely the practical consideration that parading a naked woman through his halls would cause unwanted complications?
With sharp, efficient movements, he reached behind himself to the ground, where he had dropped his heavy crimson cloak. Without ceremony or explanation, he thrust the garment toward her, his jaw set in that familiar line of rigid control that brooked no argument or discussion. He seemed completely unconcerned with his own state of undress or the fact that his braies were so shredded it looked like he had been battling a wolf.
Once she wrapped herself in his cloak, he marched her away from the lake, no doubt to summon the guards who would take her to the dungeons.
All the while, I remained where I was, trying to catch my breath. My hand remained steady on my sword hilt, the familiar weight of it an anchor as conflicting loyalties warred within me. The desperate need to protect her had transformed into confusion.
Yes, I understood his reasons for ordering her arrest. Yes, I understood his reasons for putting her to an eventual trial. And I would even understand his reasons for putting her to death. It was everything he would have done to any spy, so why should she be any different? And why was my body revolting at the thought? Why was there anger surging within me when I imagined her alone in the dank and cold dungeon? Why was there anger over the realization that she would be a victim to the guards, who would obviously desire her, just as every man desired her?
Fuck, the guards.
The protective instinct that had nearly cost me everything had crystallized into something I still didn't understand. But I was resolved to beat down my own emotions to understand this situation for what it truly was. She was a spy sent by Merlin with intentions to undermine Arthur and Camelot. She would have to be put to death. It was as simple as that.
But she pulled Excalibur from the stone,I argued with myself.You saw it with your own eyes.
Yes, that much was true—or was it?
Was this just an example of the extent of her own magic? Was it due to Merlin's influence? Nimue's? Arthur didn't seem to believe that she had actually pulled the sword from the stone, and perhaps he was correct.
But if he wasn't, then putting her to death would be an act of sacrilege.
CHAPTER SIXTY
-ARTHUR-
Istood alone on the Cliffs of Camelot, overlooking the valley below, as the sounds of guards and footsteps faded into the night, swallowed by the mist and the dark.
The wind carved across the jagged stone beneath my boots, carrying with it the salt tang of distant seas and the earthy scent of rain-soaked earth far below. Ancient, weathered rock stretched endlessly in both directions, scarred by centuries of storms that had beaten these cliffs into their current forbidding majesty. The valley spread out like a tapestry woven in shadows and milky moonlight, dotted with the distant glow of hearth fires from villages that looked no larger than scattered stars from this height.
Mist clung to the lower slopes of the mountains that ringed Camelot's domain, their peaks lost in brooding clouds that promised another deluge before dawn. The castle itself rose behind me, its towers piercing the night sky like accusatory fingers, every window blazing with torchlight. Here, perched on the edge of my kingdom, only the quiet remained—and the unrelenting thud of my heartbeat.
Disgust coiled in my gut, hot and rising. This—this—was what she had reduced me to: a brute wanting nothing more than to claim her like some back-alley brawler. Arthur Pendragon, high king of Camelot, brought low by a sorceress in disguise.
I clenched my fists until my knuckles ached. How had I allowed this? How had two decades of discipline unraveled with a single truth? One glimpse of her—her—and I’d fractured. Not when she was a knight. Not when she was a spy. But when she was herself. When all her masks had fallen away and nothing remained but Guinevere—hair like liquid moonlight, eyes lit with fury, and a mouth that refused to beg.
Even when given no other options. Even when bared to me, when naked. Even when I'd taken every ounce of control from her, she'd stared back like a queen facing execution.
Refusing to name who had taken her virginity from her—refusing to give me that final piece, that last secret to tear apart and examine. Who was she protecting and why? Had one of the knights stolen her heart? One of the guards? I could not explain why that singular, defiant act of protection had undone me so completely, why it had shattered the last threads of my composure.
Maybe she knew—that if she told me his name, I would have killed him. Murdered him with my own hands. It wouldn't have mattered who he was. Only that he had taken something from me I could never get back. Her.
I was meant to be her first, her only. It was I who should have claimed her.
We will destroy this competitor who dares to plunder from us. This competitor who stole our treasure.
I couldn't understand why I felt this way. Was it just the dragon's influence? But no, I knew it was more than that. Perhaps because in the darkest corners of my mind, I'd dreamed of her being mine and mine alone from the very beginning?Because some primitive, possessive part of me—the part that had nothing to do with kings or crowns or the weight of a realm—had wanted to be the only man to show her the pleasure that could exist between a man and a woman?
She stirs the ancient hunger. Go to her,the dragon intoned—angry with me that I'd released her. If it were up to the beast, she would have been in my bed this very moment, full of my seed.
