Then he chose Merlin, chose the other side of a war I was still fighting.
The betrayal of it had settled into something quieter over the years. It was no longer rage, just a low persistent ache I’d learned to work around. We were enemies now by every practical definition, even if the word still felt wrong in my mouth when I applied it to him.
Yet now here he was, ready to kill every last one of us forher.
For Merlin’s daughter. For the woman I’d found wound around him in a tavern room at dawn, with the same expression in her eyes that she’d had the last time we’d shared a bed.
That thought nearly undid me.
Regardless, I had to face the facts. And the facts were that Guinevere wasn’t just Corvin’s mission. This wasn’t just about Merlin ordering him to return to Camelot and free his daughter. No, she was something else to Corvin entirely.
The question I couldn’t put down was whether the same was true in reverse. Whether she’d looked at Corvin the way she’d once looked at me: with those eyes that made you believe something that wasn’t real. Whether she’d taken what she needed from him the same way she’d taken the same from me.
“She’s a whore, Corvin,” Arthur repeated, and my jaw tightened. “And what do we do to whores?” Then he looked at her. “We fuck them.”
At that, I felt my whole stomach drop. Was he going to force himself on her, right here? Insist that the rest of his men do the same? It was then that I realized I’d taken an unconscious step forward, until she was right in front of me, maybe a few inches separating us.
Whatever she was or wasn’t to me, however much I recognized that she was my enemy, I wouldn’t allow him to harm her. It wasn’t about the fact that it washer; it was about the fact that if he did this, he’d never forgive himself. Because forcing himself on a woman who couldn’t defend herself wasn’t the kingly thing to do. And it certainly wasn’t the way of Camelot. As the king’s First Knight, I wouldn’t allow it, whether I suffered for that decision or not.
“Arthur.” Corvin’s voice came out flat; it was the tone he used when he was working very hard not to shout. He pulled against Agravaine’s grip, but the latter held on with both hands, jaw set, watching the scene unfold with absolute interest. Tristan had Corvin by the other arm, but his expression had gone tight and unreadable long before this.
“What of the vows you swore?” Corvin continued. “What of the knights’ code?” Corvin’s voice cracked, just slightly. “You don’t harm women. You swore it. Every man in this room swore it.”
One step forward. That was all I managed before Arthur’s eyes found mine and halted me cold. I almost stopped breathing.
It wasn’t the dragon. His eyes were still his own blue, still human, and somehow that made it worse. Because what lived in them now wasn’t power. It was a challenge: cold and aimed directly at me like the tip of a blade pressed against the hollow of a throat.
Move against me,those eyes said.Move against me and see what happens.
And then I understood what he was doing. Not to her, but to me. To all of us. This was Arthur reminding every man in this room exactly who held the crown, exactly what the cost of defiance looked like, and exactly where the line between loyalty and treason was drawn.
His expression shifted. Not much, but it was just enough. Something in the set of his mouth went hard and deliberate. He became a king who’d already decided the outcome of a battle before anyone else understood one had begun.
Cross the line,his eyes said.Cross it and I will know who truly holds your allegiance.
Years of sworn loyalty sat in my chest. Years of blood, sacrifice and standing at his right hand through everything Camelot had asked of us. I thought of the scars littering my body, of the battles where I’d taken blades that had been meant for him. I thought of the moment I’d decided Arthur Pendragon was worth dying for.
My throat worked, but I didn’t take a step back. I just stood there, already promising myself that if he tried anything, I would stop him. Because I had to stop him. I couldn’t live with myself if I allowed him to… do anything to her.
But I hoped it wouldn’t come down to that, because if it did, I would be essentially denouncing my king in front of his men, in front of Corvin, in front of her, and every consequence that followed would land not just on me but on everyone in this room.
“Would you like to know something, Corvin?” Arthur continued.
“The only thing I’d like is for you to act like the fucking king you are,” he answered.
“I will tell you something of interest,” Arthur started and then looked down at her. “I’ve never fucked her.”
“Arthur,” Corvin started, clearly believing that such might change as he watched.
“It’s true,” Arthur insisted. “Though I’ve fucking wanted to more times than I can say. But I haven’t. And do you know why?”
“I don’t care why,” Corvin answered.
“Because she wants me to fuck her,” Arthur responded. He still hadn’t looked back at Corvin. His attention dropped to her again. There was something slow and deliberate in the way he studied her, the way a man surveys something he already owns. “And where’s the pleasure in that? A cunt that offers itself freely holds no interest for me. Too easy. Too willing.” He finally looked up at Corvin then and smiled. “No. What I want is the chase. The hunt. That’s where the thrill lives.” He took a breath and looked down at her. “And there’s no thrill here, nothing worth taking.”
And then she did something that surprised me. I daresay it surprised all of us. She started to laugh. And she was still laughing when she pulled away from me and turned to face him.
“That,” she said, still laughing, her voice carrying the same sharp, dangerous amusement Arthur had used against Corvin moments before, “is a bold lie.” She tilted her head, and something in her expression shifted; it settled into something harder and more deliberate. “The only reason you haven’t fucked me is that someone got there before you could. That’s what this is. That’s all it’s ever been. You can’t stomach the fact that I chose another man. Chose him over you.”
