And yet—something about her, disarmingly innocent, left me doubting everything.
I could recognize that Excalibur had yielded to her as if she were its rightful master—after it had rejected me without mercy for so many years.
But at the moment, it didn't seem to matter.
All that did matter was this: the feel of her, the question in her eyes, the disappointment in her expression, the flush of her cheeks.
"I am… a man accustomed to taking what he wants," I said, trying to make her understand how difficult this was for me.
"And what—"
"—you know exactly what I want."
Even now, with the depth of night closing in, I felt her pull—a wild, untamed force that stirred something inside me—connection.
I would have her,I decided.Right here and right now.
Make her ours.
I would figure out what to do about Excalibur later.
I reached forward, pushing my hand between her legs once more. Her breath caught, but she never shifted her gaze—just continued to watch me. I held that gaze.
"What are you—" she started, an expression of fear overtaking her features.
"You are now mine."
"Sire—"
At the exact moment my fingers found her moist heat, the earth beneath us convulsed with violent force. The tremor wasno gentle quake—it seized the ground and thrashed it, rattling through my bones and jarring my teeth until my jaw ached. The sudden, feral power of it shocked me into releasing her immediately, my hand jerking back as if burned.
I whipped around, instincts screaming danger, just in time to witness the lake behind us erupting into chaos. The previously mirror-still surface exploded upward in a geyser of crystalline water that caught the moonlight like scattered diamonds. The sound was deafening—a roar that seemed to come from the depths of the earth itself, echoing off the surrounding trees and reverberating through the night air.
Waves rippled out in perfect rings, unnaturally uniform, as if summoned.
"What the bloody hell—" The surface churned with sentience.
Magic. Ancient. Dangerous.
But this wasn't Nimue's magic. I knew the truth of that deep within me.
Regardless, the air shifted, charged and humming. A power older than Logres was waking—and I had no control over it.
I turned to the girl, eyes narrowed.
"Are you doing this?"
She shook her head hard, white hair whipping across her face just as another tremor rocked the lakebed. The shockwave knocked her off balance—she stumbled back, gasped, and fell into the churning water with a splash that cut through the charged air.
I immediately reached for her but then tensed as I watched her surface, sputtering. Relief burned through me—unexpected, unwelcome. I clenched my fists, furious at myself for caring for someone who was a threat to everything I held dear.
Her soaked gown clung tightly to every curve, the thin fabric molded against her body like a second skin. Those eyes werewide with genuine terror that made something twist painfully in my chest. Her hair was plastered to her cheeks in wet tendrils, droplets falling from the ends as she pushed herself up in water that now glowed with unnatural ripples, each movement sending phosphorescent waves across the surface.
Suspicion came fast and hard, cutting through any misplaced concern I might have felt. This timing was too perfect, too convenient to be mere chance.
The lake erupting wasn't coincidence—it couldn't be. Not when I’d been on the verge of claiming her mouth, of pulling her against me and losing myself in whatever dangerous game she was playing. I was fairly certain she was the spark that had ignited this display of power. The lake had reacted to her presence, to her emotions, not to mine. Despite my bloodline's ancient connection to these waters, they had chosen to answer her call instead.
The churning water around her wasn't just nature gone wild—it was a distraction. A defense mechanism as old as magic itself.
