Fool,I whispered.Trust is weakness. She proved it.
The irony cut deeper than any physical wound could have. I'd prided myself on being everything Uther was not—approachable where he was distant, compassionate where he was ruthless, trusting where he was paranoid.
And now here I am.
“Betrayed,” I muttered to the empty room. And by someone who had infiltrated my inner circle—just as Father always warned.
The irony was exquisite and cruel. For years, I'd dismissed Uther’s paranoia as the delusion of a man rotted by power and the dragonmark. I'd pitied him—the king who had ruled from a fortress of suspicion, unable to exist without fear. And yet now, staring down my own ruin, I couldn’t ignore the bitter possibility: perhaps Uther hadn’t been wrong. Perhaps I'd been the fool all along.
I turned from the window.
Make her yield to us.
My fingers clenched around the edge of the writing table.
Then the memory struck—sudden, visceral. Her beneath me, that hair spread against the dark earth, eyes half-lidded and glazed, mouth parted—not in practiced deception, but in raw, unguarded desire. In that moment, she hadn't been a would-be queen plotting my downfall, not a weapon forged by Merlin's hand, not even a spy weaving lies. She'd simply beenher—the woman who had somehow slipped past every defense I'd spent years constructing.
The memory burned through me—blazing hot. She'd arched beneath me like she belonged there, like the earth itself had been carved specifically to cradle our joining. Her fingers had dug into my shoulders not with calculated seduction but with desperateneed. The soft sounds that had escaped her lips—breathless gasps, quiet moans… they were undoing me now, memory by memory.
She sparks the oldest hunger. Feed it.
Gods help me, I wanted her still. Even knowing what she was, what she'd done, what she represented—the betrayal, the lies, the very real threat to everything I'd built—my body still burned for her in a way that should have frightened me. Instead, it only fed the rage and desire warring in my chest, creating a volatile mixture that threatened to consume what remained of my rational mind.
I clenched my fists against the unwelcome intrusion, disgusted by my own weakness. Even now, knowing her true purpose, all my treacherous body could remember was the feel of wetness, her tightness, the surprising strength in her slender frame, the way she'd matched me passion for passion without the usual deference I received from others.
My desire for her hadn't decreased at all. If anything, it had increased.
Was this an example of her witchcraft at play? I had to assume that was undeniably the reason. Because she was a witch, a magic user, the spawn of Merlin sent to destroy me.
I brought my fingers to my nose, breathing in the scent of her once again. The cream of her arousal lingered there—sweet and musky, something uniquely hers—coating my skin like the most intoxicating perfume. It seemed every other second I kept returning to it, drawn by some savage compulsion I couldn't fight, inhaling the scent of her wetness as my cock grew hard once again.
We burn for her.
I found myself fighting the urge to actually do it—to draw my fingers into my mouth and savor what remained of her. The thought sent blood rushing to my cock, making it strain againstmy braies. Even now, even knowing what she was, my body responded to her like a man dying of thirst responds to water.
It was maddening. Humiliating. I was feared across the realm, yet here I stood like some lovesick boy, drunk on the scent of a woman who had betrayed him. The rational part of my mind screamed that this obsession was dangerous, that she had likely used magic to ensnare me so completely. But the rest of me—the part ruled by desire and the dragon's ancient hunger—didn't care about reason or caution.
She is the treasure. Guard her. Claim her. Hoard her. Always.
What a magnificent fool I was. Every gasp, every touch, every whispered word between us had likely been calculated to lower my guard, to bind me to her through desire while she gathered intelligence for Merlin. Was she laughing about it now, amused by how easily the fearsome King Arthur could be manipulated by a beautiful face and body? The thought sent a surge of rage through me so powerful I nearly struck the wall beside me.
She is your greatest threat,I thought.
The strategic implications crystallized in my mind with cold clarity. If word spread that she had drawn the sword—the ultimate symbol of my legitimate rule—rebellions would ignite across Logres like wildfire. Lords who already chafed under my restrictions on magic would rally to her banner.
What was more—she'd seen the dragon within me. More damning than any political ramification was the intimate knowledge she now possessed of my most guarded secret. She'd witnessed firsthand the ancient beast's attempt to break free from the chains of my will. It had been the boldest the creature had ever been, surfacing with such violent hunger that I'd barely managed to wrestle it back into submission. Even then,my victory had been incomplete, leaving traces of its presence written across my transformed flesh.
She'd watched my skin take on the draconic scales, seen the way my eyes shifted from human blue to the red of the beast, felt the scorching heat of my breath as it changed from mortal air to smoke. The memory of her wide-eyed stare burned in my mind—not with fear as I might have expected, but with something that looked disturbingly like fascination. Perhaps even hunger of her own.
She hungered for us just as we hunger for her. Light to dark. Water to fire.
It was undeniably true. I'd witnessed the irrefutable proof written across her features—the way her pupils dilated with unmistakable want. There had been no mistaking the hunger that darkened her gaze as she'd taken in my transformed state, the way her lips had parted slightly as though she couldn't quite catch her breath. And her body had responded—her cunt soaking wet. She had told me to fuck her. She'd wanted me to.
The desire in her gaze had been raw, unguarded—a mirror to the ravenous need that clawed at me from within. She hadn't recoiled from the dragon's emergence as any sensible woman would have. Instead, she'd stared with something that bordered on fascination, as though she recognized something in that ancient fire that called to her own hidden depths.
She is ours. We are hers.
No,I thought back.She is Merlin's.
