Wanted to claim what the sword had chosen.
Take her,the dragon said.Fuck her. Hoard her.
Make her understand who rules this kingdom.
"Who are you?" I gave her a hard shake that made her head snap back. Her teeth clicked together audibly.
"No one, Your Majesty. Just a scullery maid."
Just a scullery maid—but one who had managed the unthinkable.
My attention returned to the rise and fall of her breasts beneath the thin fabric of her dress, drawing my attention to their fullness. They would fit so easily in my palms.
My skin burned with familiar hunger.
Her heartbeat—wild and erratic—matched the sudden thundering of my own. My fingers twitched as I imagined how easily I could tear the fabric from her and push her down to the ground.
Take what I wanted from her.
She looked away, her gaze resting on the lake.
"Look at me," I demanded.
Those violet eyes, which had been wide with fear only seconds before, came to rest on mine… and then narrowed. Anger suddenly seemed to burst within them, defiance. She refused to fully submit even as she trembled in my grasp. No mere scullery maid had ever looked at me with such complicated emotion—terror mixed with hatred, fear combined with rebellion.
Our fire rises for her. Let her feel it.
"You have the audacity to—"
"—I want nothing to do with your sword." Her chest rose in quick, shallow breaths. Those eyes continued to burn into me.
"And yet you pulled it from the stone." I paused. "You have put me in an impossible situation."
She is yours,the dragon whispered.And we take what is ours.
"Please, sire." Though her words were submissive, there was still that fire in her eyes.
My fingers flexed involuntarily against her shoulders, the softness of her flesh yielding beneath my calloused hands.
"How did you pull Excalibur?" My voice dropped lower, rougher.
When she didn't respond, I shook her once more. "Answer me."
"I don't know! I swear it!" She trembled, those magnificent breasts bouncing with each desperate denial. "Please, I never meant—"
The wind stirred through the trees, echoing the raw pull between us. She fit against me too well.
Fuck her. Or kill her. Both would solve something.
Blood thundered in my ears as I fought against the idea of taking the life from such a stunning creature. Truly, I had never seen a woman who could rival her beauty. And that fire within her… it seemed to call to the fire within me.
Wrap her in our shadows.
The urge to bend her over right here, to thrust myself inside her and claim what the sword had chosen, was almost stifling. To make her understand that I was her king and she was nothing. To hear my name torn from those perfect lips as I rutted her into submission.
The violence of my own desire shocked me.
I was Arthur Pendragon, not some common beast. Yet something about this girl made me want to be exactly that—to own her, to show her she was powerless against me.
