His eyes, while squinted with concentration, were filled with humor as he gripped my hips and pulled the half-inflated knot back out with some difficulty.
My hand moved faster and it wasn’t long before I felt the first shocks of an orgasm. I sucked in a breath, chasing the sensation as Arthur uttered a curse against the skin of my neck and pushed his knot inside of me. Instinctually, I knew it was the last time before he was locked inside for good.
With one last small thrust, the knot seemed to double in size. It brushed against a part of me that I never knew existed—a sensitive place just inside of my pussy. It triggered the same sensation that the dance of my fingers were currently creating on the bundle of nerves at my clit.
It was electrifying and my body stiffened underneath Arthur as I felt him spill inside of me. Then he let out a growl that made the more animalistic side of my brain purr with satisfaction.
Amongst the warm, buzzing haze of my orgasm, I felt a sharp sensation on the side of my neck and then nothing.
Chapter Eleven
“Come now Gawain, give us one more!” Agravaine hooted loudly in my direction, clearly drunk as he waved his mug of spirits through the air. The ale promptly sloshed all over his neighbor who also seemed too drunk to care.
I ignored my brother’s calls and slipped out of the large double doors from the great hall into the blissfully quiet corridor beyond.
The evening had drawn on long after the royal couple retired for the evening and the people who remained were too far to make it back to their own chambers for the evening and would likely end up either sleeping at their tables or passed out in the halls.
Lancelot and Bedivere also had gone off on their own almost as soon as Arthur had left, but I remained behind, unable to freemyself from the constant song requests and raucous laughter that still rang in my ears.
The desire to please those around me had always been an unfortunate drawback of my upbringing. Even now I felt the sharp teeth of guilt in my chest for ignoring Agravaine’s words though I knew the man would be far too drunk to remember anything in the morning.
I needed some time to myself to sit on everything that I had learned over the last week. My thoughts were a tangle in my mind as I tried to parse through the shifting emotions I had felt all day as I watched my king get married to a beautiful omega… who somehow was supposed to become my own as well.
Such a thought was preposterous and I needed time to ruminate over it.
And yet, as my luck would have it, nothing ever seemed to go the way I desired it to.
“Oh my, Gawain, is that you?” the simperingly familiar voice of my stepmother reached my ears, making my back stiffen as I eyed the door that would lead out to the castle grounds and the blissful solitude I so craved. Could I pretend as if I had not heard her? Likely not.
“Your majesty,” I said with a surrendering sigh, turning to find not only my stepmother, but also my father standing together at the end of the hallway. “I greet the king and queen of Lothian.”
It was a formal address, but I knew that they both preferred it that way—especially when it came to me.
Queen Morgana, despite being Arthur’s half-sister, looked nothing like the King of Camelot. Her hair was long and dark, looking more like inky midnight than actual hair. Also unlike Arthur’s broad, strong features, Morgana’s were sharp and pointed as if they could cut someone at a moment’s notice. I had been sliced more than once by one of those looks when I didsomething that did not suit the mold she had placed me within at a very young age.
Then there were her eyes that were unlike any shade that a normal person could have: a pale shade of lavender that seemed to glow with an unearthly light. It was like Merlin’s green-eyed gaze, but unlike the wizard her eyes always sent a shiver of discomfort through me.
Truthfully, the only similarity Morgana and Arthurdidshare was a father who both of them barely knew or cared for. Uther Pendragon had been famously cruel and one would be hard pressed to find someone who missed the man.
Fifteen years ago, after the death of my mother—his second wife—my father had searched for a third queen despite already having four sons to succeed him.
I was only a young lad when he had brought in Morgana who, at the time, was only a few years older than me. She was even younger than my eldest brother Agravaine, something I was sure that he had never forgiven our father for.
Once she had given birth to Mordred, my esteem in my father’s eyes fell even more.
Agravaine, Gaheris, and Gareth were the sons of his beloved first wife. His heir, his spare, and even a third son to cement his legacy. Mordred was his youngest and had a mother alive to show him favor.
But myself? I had nothing. I was the son of a second wife, no claim to any throne and oft forgotten.
Unless, of course, it suited someone’s needs.
“I was searching all over for you today,” Morgana said as she practically floated across the cobblestones to me while my father stayed back, looking bored as he examined a painting on the wall.
He looked older than the last I had seen him five years ago and his previously muscled body had thinned out, becoming almostfrail. Never could I have imagined that the man who had spent most of his life feeling disappointed in me would one day shrivel up so completely as if he were some kind of dried fruit.
Deep down, I knew it had to do with his wife. It was a terribly kept secret that the queen of Lothian was a sorceress—but as the land had flourished under her heavy, magical hand so many turned a blind eye to her many…eccentricities.
I waited for her to speak, knowing that I had been visible to any who sought me out throughout the day. There were many chances for her to talk to me inside of the great hall as well, but as always, Morgana waited to get me on my own in order to make whatever request she had of me.
