“Indeed,” Mordred replied, his gaze reaching for her of its own accord, like his eyes were no longer his own. Could a Druid bewitch a Fey? Unlikely, he knew. Besides, he felt no sticky web of a Druidic working, effective but rudimentary, always palpable on the skin. “You realize I have no further need of you, yes?”
“Oh,dopardon my ignorance,” Nyneve replied, though something like amusement slid onto her features. “I thought a chivalrous knight of Camelot would surely never let a wounded lady walk to her dwelling alone this late in the evening.”
He slowed to a halt, Awen standing beside him. Mordred took a deep breath, examining the mare’s breathing before he said anything. “You certainly made your way here alone quite safely, did you not?” he murmured, arching a brow at the maiden perched on the tack trunk.Histack trunk, though she had no way of knowing that.
“I fear the stablemaster escorted me,” she replied, her eyes gleaming wickedly.
“And I thought you would prefer to steal another horse than remain in my company,” Mordred shot back, unbolting the half-door to Awen’s stall. He had pulled her evening meal of grain and hay, but had no qualm with her drinking from her water trough. “You were quite eager to be rid of me this morning.”
He kept his gaze on the mare, unable to meet Nyneve’s eyes, not when thoughts of her waist beneath his gloved hands, her chest heaving into his, plagued his mind. Perhaps therewassome working here. Maybe even Fey in nature. How else could he explain this strange hunger for a mere mortal girl?
“And what makes you think that has changed?” Nyneve asked with near-glee as he closed Awen’s door. “But alas, do you see another proper escort for a noblewoman here?”
He turned just in time to see her gesture about the empty stable. Leaning onto the half-door, his arms folded beneath his chin, he considered her, letting his head cant to one side. There was little reason she would seek something such as this; perhaps she wished to start rumors about an attachment between the two of them? But certainly that would only harm her. There had to be areason, and though he should not care, Mordred badly wished to know. He told himself Guinevere would want him to find out. He told himself it had nothing to do with the peculiar way she made the beast inside him strain against its constraints.
“If you will have me,” he replied in a deep, grave tone, unfolding to his full height. Behind him, Awen seemed to havepassed the blockage, so he placed her hay back into her stall, giving the mare one more scratch behind her ears.
“Sir Mordred?” came a voice that was not Nyneve’s. He glanced over his shoulder to find that one of the overnight stableboys had arrived. “Cynan said you’d be here with Awen.”
“She is all right,” Mordred told the young lad, glad for a distraction from Nyneve’s thick braid and pouting mouth. “Do keep a close eye on her, would you? I need to escort Galen’s new apprentice back to the cottage.”
The stableboy nodded, noticing the maiden perched on the tack trunk for the first time. The lad of maybe sixteen years let out a little stutter and then bowed to Nyneve. “A pleasure to meet you, milady,” he managed, his face gone red in the lantern’s glow.
Nyneve returned his pleasantries, slipping down from the trunk and reaching for her crutch. She gathered up Galen’s supplies and then moved toward the stableyard, expecting Mordred to follow her like a well-trained hound. And he did, but only because the queen had specifically requested he watch Nyneve closely. And why should he refuse how easy the Druid girl was making it for him?
“Would my lady allow me to carry her effects?” Mordred asked dryly as he caught up to her, watching Nyneve struggle to balance the linen-wrapped bottles and her crutch.
“If you would be so kind,” she replied, looking up at him suspiciously, like she had not expected even this scrap of cursory politeness from him. Perhaps she saw him more clearly than he realized. Wordlessly, he took the herbs from her, careful not to brush her fingers with his.
They walked in silence beneath the moonlight, following the stone path that wrapped around the slope. He had expected more questions, more prying, but Nyneve was silent, like she’d already figured out what she wanted to know. Or perhaps she didnot even need to ask another question to pry whatever she was seeking out of him.
Which made Mordred uneasy. “The queen thought you would be seeking a marriage match, not wardship,” he said, hoping to push her off-balance. “And here you are, a physician’s apprentice. Interesting choice for a noblewoman from a respected family.”
Despite being half his size and only able to walk with a crutch, Nyneve slammed to a halt and then whirled on him with an impressive amount of animosity, her eyes bright with venom. “And is that all a woman can do, Sir Mordred?” she demanded, her voice carrying through the air. “Seek a marriage? Bend to the will of a man? Open her legs and push out heirs?”
He shifted his weight, turning to look down at her. “Is that what Isaid, Lady Nyneve?” he murmured. Her explosive response was unseemly in Camelot’s culture. Mordred savored it like a fine, rare wine. “I only meant you could live a life without midnight summonings to the stables.”
“Much better,” Nyneve grumbled a few heartbeats later, as though his response had caught her by surprise, “than midnight summonings from a brutish man.” With that, she turned back toward the path and began walking again.
“Fair enough,” Mordred replied, staying at her side, her shoulder nearly brushing his arm. “Rook must like you.”
She glanced up at him, brow furrowed in surprise and lovely lips parted, evidently startled by his statement, which amused him. She seemed so much younger like this, her eyes wide and shining in the moonlight. Much more fragile. “Did you train him?” Nyneve inquired, turning onto the narrower path that led to Galen’s cottage.
“Yes,” Mordred replied. “Rook and I have been together for a long time.” It was not technically a lie.
She glanced at him approvingly before looking straight ahead. “He is wonderfully sensitive,” Nyneve said, her voice thoughtful, losing its purposeful enunciation and biting edge. “Particularly for his size. An utter delight to be astride a creature like that.”
Fire exploded in his chest. Mordred bit down on his tongue, banishing the thoughts that crowded his addled mind: how much he might enjoy having her astridehim, how she might find he was quite like Rook in such regards.
But he was not a man in charge of his own fate. No. He was Fey. Made, not born. A weapon for his people against the coming age of humanity, a cold thing of dark power meant to hold the line. No matter the cost. Even if he chose such a pleasurable route of information-gathering, he had only met Nyneve this morning. And he already knew she was far too wily to invite him into her bed just yet.
Silence hung between them, save for the rustle of wind and the beginnings of summer’s insects. Shouts rang out in the distance, then the clang of metal. Likely the scouting party’s return. Mordred sighed. The knights would, no doubt, carry back the names of places that could—and in their opinionshould—be conquered, brought to heel under the man who would unite these lands.
He tried not to think about that, at least not now. He tried to just walk beside a beautiful, feral girl on a spring evening. He tried to feel all the things a natural-made creature should, a beast born of flesh and blood, not two goddesses’ endless rage and sharp teeth.
But they had already arrived at the physician’s cottage. Nyneve glanced at him as she trudged past the fence line, an expression he could not identify in her gaze. As she came to a halt at the cottage’s door, instinct slithered up Mordred’s spine and he slowed his pace. He was only a step away from the fenceline when he felt it: cold iron and the bite of rowan. Amusement flickered in his chest, and he fought to hide the smile.
Clever thing, this Nyneve Or’Afon. He stepped across the threshold. Her eyes widened for a moment in the moonlight, but she kept her expression neutral.
