“Who is this?” her half-brother demanded.
“This,” she bit back, “is his daughter, Camelee.”
“Oh,” he said looking her over. “Yes, I can see the resemblance to Guinevere.”
He said something after that, but Camelee didn’t hear anything else. She resembled her mother. People often remarked that she resembled Genevra.
She felt ill and buried her nose in Hild’s sweet, messy bun.
Could it be? Could Genevra be Guinevere? Wasn’t the name Genevra Italian for…her mother…Guinevere?
Should she tell Arthur? She wanted to. In fact, it almost dropped right out of her mouth. But did she want to face Genevra as her mother right now? She had just found her father—and it was King-freaking-Arthur! Wasn’t that enough for one day? For a lifetime? Would the king let her barter? Information about his beloved queen in exchange for Wolf to be brought here?
“Visions?” Sebastian asked, watching her.
“What? No,” she replied, shaking her head. “Something you said—”
The air went silver again, and Camelee realized Viviane hadn’t been there for the last few seconds. She returned now with another dark-haired beauty. This one, a woman in her early twenties. She was dressed in a bunch of skirts and a tight little bodice type of top with a square cut neckline. Fifteenth century maybe? She was about six months pregnant.
“Dad!” She ran down the hall and into the king’s arms, where she remained weeping and clinging to him.
“Kestrel, my baby,” Camelee heard her father say softly into hisotherdaughter’s neck. His baby. The way they reacted to each other made Camelee wonder how well they knew each other. Was Kestrel not sent away, as she had been?
“Elia—I mean Viviane told me everything,” Kestrel told him. “It’s all so crazy! You’re King Arthur! Elia suspected it.” She turned to gleam at Viviane and then back at her father. “Why did you keep it from me?”
“Everything will be made clear to you shorty, my love.”
His love.
Camelee swallowed back something that burned like hellfire. She blinked away and caught Sebastian, aka Mordred, staring at her. She almost broke out into a sweat and looked away.
“Sebastian, Camelee, this is Kestrel, my daughter with my earthly wife, Cynthia.” He turned to Kestrel and motioned the other way around. “Sebastian, my eldest son with Morgan, and Camelee, daughter with my beloved Guinevere.”
Kestrel stared at her like a baby bird with huge eyes just waiting to be eaten by her predator. She smiled at Camelee. How did she do it? Was she so confident in her father’s love that she wasn’t threatened by the daughter born of his beloved?
“Okay, so, Dad,” Kestrel said. “What’s going on, because I have to tell you, I’m not feeling one hundred percent my best right now.”
Instinctively, and for some reason, Camelee thought of Genevra. She put aside her jealousy and hurried to Kestrel’s side and helped her into a chair.
“I know this is hard to accept and understand—”
Kestrel’s lagoon-colored eyes opened larger, set on her father. “What do you mean hard to accept? What is hard to accept?” She spun around and stared at Camelee and Sebastian. “What?”
“You cannot return home at present because Morgan is once again on the loose. She will come after you with complete disregard for Nicholas or anyone else you love to get to me. If you are not there with him, she will not be able to find when or where he is. You are a danger to him. Do you understand?” The king looked at all of them. “You are dangers to those you love because of my blood flowing in you. I am sorry.”
Kestrel covered her mouth with her hands and cried out. Camelee stepped back. He’d tried to tell her, but she hadn’t heard.
“I don’t know what you mean, I can’t go back. Dad! I’m married and I’m having his child. I have to go back! You’re responsible for my going back to him in the first place! I never wrote to you about this before, but I was transported right onto the battlefield, in the middle of the War of the Roses! Right in the middle of flying, bloody swords, Dad! I had a hard time. I don’t care about Morgan! Let us worry about her!”
“Let us finally have our lives,” Camelee added.
“Agreed,” Sebastian said.
“Son, you know what Morgan is capable of. How do you expect your sisters to fight her?”
While father and son spoke, Camelee stared at Kestrel in her chair. She looked to be in shock.
“There now,” Camelee heard herself say. A sister. She had a sister. Her traitorous heart melted within her. “We will find a solution to this.”
