"Merlin's daughter." The words tasted like bitter betrayal on my tongue. Worst still was that this realization—this truth—didn't change the way I felt toward her.
I had never experienced such consuming hunger for a woman, and I was convinced I would never want anyone as I wanted her. The need clawed at me from within, demanding satisfaction, demanding her surrender beneath my hands.Perhaps if I fucked her—claimed her body thoroughly, made her cry out my name until her voice was raw—this maddening desire would finally release its stranglehold on me?
The dragon stirred at the thought, sending waves of scorching heat through me.
Yes. We must take her. Make her ours. Let her feel our fire until she burns for us alone.
This was something deeper than simple desire. It was something far, far more.
So turn that desire into something that benefits you,I told myself as the possibilities began to spin inside my mind. If she truly was Merlin's blood, her value as a hostage was beyond calculation. The Twilight Sovereign had demonstrated repeatedly his willingness to sacrifice for his grand designs—but would he sacrifice his own child? This leverage might force concessions I'd never dared hope for.
Yet keeping her alive carried risks that made my strategist's mind recoil. Even confined in the deepest dungeon of Camelot, her existence threatened the foundation of everything I'd built over two decades of rule. If the sword had truly chosen her and it wasn't an example of her magic—if Excalibur had responded to her touch when it had rejected mine—this wasn't merely a problem. It was an existential threat to my kingdom, my legacy, and my identity as Logres' rightful ruler.
And she'd seen the dragon.
She couldn't be permitted to live.
Rage surged through me without warning—hot, consuming, a firestorm beneath my skin. In a single, furious motion, my arm swept across the massive oak desk, sending a storm of parchment into the air. Maps, letters, and intelligence reports—documents I'd studied relentlessly—scattered like frightened birds. Inkwells shattered against stone, black veins of liquid spreading across the floor like blood in the cracks of a battlefield.
The golden seal of the Pendragon—a dragon in mid-roar—rolled from the wreckage and came to rest against the hearth, its eye catching the firelight as though it watched me... and judged.
The violence of the outburst left silence in its wake.
I stood there, chest heaving, fists clenched at my sides. This type of raw, ungoverned fury was a luxury I hadn't permitted myself in years. A king could not afford such indulgence. Emotion, when visible, became leverage. Weakness invited whispers. And yet here I was, trembling from the aftershocks of my own fury, all because of a single woman—one I had allowed far too close.
This is what she does to you,I thought, staring at the wreckage I'd created.Even when she’s not here, she unravels you.
The realization landed like a blow.
This wasn’t just betrayal; it was exposure.
I crossed the room in slow, deliberate steps and stood before the great mirror that occupied the far wall. The man staring back at me wore the armor of a legend: the Golden King of Logres, hero of two wars, bearer of Caliburn. Regal. Commanding. The very image of control.
But beneath that polished exterior, I saw the truth. My eyes were bloodshot, rimmed with shadows. My jaw was clenched. My shoulders were tight with tension I could no longer disguise. A crack had formed in the armor—and through it, the real Arthur was seeping through. Not the king, but the man. Betrayed. Wounded. Obsessed.
"My father would have executed her immediately," I told my reflection, the words emerging as barely more than a whisper. "No hesitation, no public trial, just a quick end to the threat."
Would he have fucked her first? Most likely. Probably more than once. But then he would have seen to what needed to be done. And he would have done it—swiftly and without regret.
The thought brought me no comfort. Despite my occasional longing for Uther's decisive brutality, I'd spent my entire reign attempting to be a different kind of king—one who relied on law rather than arbitrary power, on justice rather than expedience.
I'd built Camelot's peace on the foundation of consistent rule, not the capricious whims that had characterized my father's bloody tenure. The people feared me, yes, but they also knew where they stood—a certainty that had never existed under Uther's unpredictable rage.
So, why had I told one of the guards to bring her to my chamber? What possible justification could I offer for this private audience that wouldn't undermine everything I'd established? The invisible crown weighed heavier on my brow as I paced across the stone floor.
At the sound of a tentative knock on my door, I froze mid-stride, my pulse quickening traitorously. Drawing a deep breath to steady myself, I crossed the room in three long strides and thrust the heavy oak door open with more force than necessary.
"The prisoner, Your Majesty," the guard announced, his eyes deliberately fixed on some distant point beyond us both, his stance rigid with barely concealed tension. He was afraid of me, just as they all were.
And for good reason.
She stood there in the doorway, still wrapped in my cloak. The heavy material, lined with ermine, emphasized the elegant curve of her throat rising from its depths, the proud, defiant set of her shoulders that refused to bow even in my presence. The cloak dwarfed her smaller frame, pooling around her feet on the cold stone floor, yet somehow she wore it with the bearing of a queen rather than a prisoner.
Her hair spilled over the fur-lined collar in waves that caught the amber light from the hearth, and those eyes met mine with an unwavering gaze that immediately stoked thedragon. There was something achingly beautiful about seeing her wrapped in my colors, in fabric that bore my scent, as if she already belonged to me in ways that defied explanation or reason.
Wrap her in our shadows.
I reached for her, my fingers encircling her arm. The heat of her skin blazed through the heavy material, sending an unwelcome jolt through me. I drew her into my chambers and, nodding to the guard, closed the heavy oak door behind us. The sound reverberated through the room like thunder, like fate itself marking the moment I cast aside all pretense of proper conduct.
