“No,” he repeated firmly. “I’m not letting you go through this again.”
“He doesn’t want you, while he has me. He wants to hand you over to The Lady. You must run, Galahad. He won’t touch you.”
“That’s what I’m counting on,” Galahad said and I frowned, not understanding. A grinding noise began and the door opened once more, long before we were ready... Before I was ready.
The guard signalled for me to stand while another guard held his sword out, ready for us to fight.
“Holt,” Galahad said. His voice was fierce and his eyes hard. “Do you love me? Do you trust me?” he asked.
“Of course I do,” I said really confused now and fighting the panic for his sake.
He moved with surprising speed and pain bloomed in my neck. Hot liquid spilled down my chest. I tried to draw in a sharp breath but the liquid spilled down my throat, filling my lungs. The guards shouted.
“I will not let him have you again,” Galahad stated when the guards rushed into the cell. “And I do love you.”
He lifted the small blade, reversed it and plunged it into his chest, over his heart. The knife vanished into his body. His eyes widened. Mine clouded and I couldn’t see him clearly. He folded onto my legs and I tangled my fingers into his hair, the world slowly going black.
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
Panic. It was dark. Something touched me. I didn’t want to be touched. I never wanted to be touched again.
“Holt, it’s alright, it’s alright, it’s me. Wake up. Come on, open your eyes. You are safe, I promise.”
My eyes opened and I found myself pushing against Galahad du Lac. Sunlight burned my skin and blurred my vision. I pushed against the ground to scoot away from the nagging hands. It was hot, very hot golden sand.
“Where?” I asked.
Galahad held his hands outward in a gesture designed to pacify me. “Calm, Holt. We are safe, we are in the desert.”
That was safe? I didn’t think that was safe. I didn’t feel safe. My memories told me I’d never feel safe again. I shuddered. My memories.
“What happened?” I asked. I glanced at his face but found myself unable to meet his eyes.
“We won,” he said.
“I don’t feel like I won.” My voice was rough and my lips dry, we’d been in the sun a long time.
“You won. Your bravery saved us, Holt.” He didn’t sound right; a tremor ran through his words making them strained. I tried to look at him but still couldn’t meet his eyes.
“Explain,” I said. I was dressed in strange clothes and the memory of those last moments rushed back. My fingers scrambled at my neck, I felt a new scar, long and thin. Galahad reached for my searching fingers and caught them before I realised he’d moved. I tried to escape.
“Calm down, Holt. It’s alright, we are alone and I am no threat. You know that. Calm down and I’ll explain,” he said.
I made some inarticulate noises, frantic to escape his grasp.
“Look at me, man,” he finally snapped.
My eyes followed the instruction before my mind caught up. I stared into his dark eyes and quite suddenly felt anchored. They smiled and the world grew a little safer. “That’s good, Holt. Just breathe slowly and the panic will go,” Galahad said. “You have lovely eyes, the palest blue sometimes, other times they are so bright and intense, others stormy and dark grey. Right now they are soft and pale and confused. But I’m here and I’m safe, which means you are safe. I’m never going to allow anyone to hurt you again. Never again, Holt.”
His words were a balm. His tone a kind tonic. His hands a gentle reminder of kindness. My heartbeat slowed, my breathing relaxed and I began to let go of the anxiety.
He smiled at me again and nodded. “How do you feel?”
“Better,” I said.
“Good, now I can explain. The Lady wants me alive, she needs me to live, so by killing myself I set her against the Mer King. He suddenly had two dead bodies to explain, not one.”
I shuddered at the mention of our captor’s name and Galahad’s fingers tightened on mine in reassurance. “He doesn’t want her as an enemy, few do, so he had no choice but to revive me and in the process he brought you back. He was sensible enough to know that we are close and I wouldn’t allow myself to live without you. When I came round I made him take us to a portal. I carried you myself so they didn’t touch you again. We came through that last night.” He pointed behind him. “I was weak and tired. I needed to sleep, I just didn’t realise I’d sleep so long.”
I glanced behind him and saw the portal, a rough series of pale stones poking from the sand. We were about ten feet from the outside. He really hadn’t managed to move us far.
“Do we know where we are in the desert? Are we going to be found by the Salamander?” I asked.
“I’m not sure. I didn’t want you to wake on your own, so I haven’t moved,” he said. “But I think I can hear the sea and I can certainly smell something.”
I sniffed hard. I couldn’t smell anything but I also hadn’t tried to stand yet, so I wasn’t sure anything worked right now. “If we find the sea, we might find the Echo,” I said. I knew I should ask questions about how he’d managed to convince the Mer King to release us but I lacked the courage. I didn’t want to consider anything else but the present and our place in it. All that mattered was the moment in which we existed.
Galahad nodded, having clearly thought the same thing about the Echo. “Then we can decide how best to proceed once we’ve found the ship.”
“Nothing changes,” I said. “We need to keep you safe and this is the best place for that, but we need to land somewhere we have supplies. The ship would have been damaged in the storm, of that I’m certain.” I also wanted my sword and I wanted new clothes. I wanted a week in a bathhouse and I never wanted anyone to touch me ever again.
“Holt, it’s alright...” Galahad said, his voice once more coaxing and calm. “Don’t worry, we are safe.”
“I’m fine,” I said, pulling at the loose laces on my clothes. He caught my hands again.
“No, my friend. You aren’t fine but you will be, ease up on the panic,” he said.
I looked into his face and once more his own calmness settled me. I nodded. “You’re right, it’s panic.”
“I know I’m right, you’re talking too quickly,” he said, amused by my transparency.
His humour helped. “Get me out of this sand and back to our boat,” I said.
Galahad rose and he hauled me upright, though remained careful of us touching too much. We had no packs, no water and if we were wrong about the sea, we’d be dead within days, but he remained focused and calm, as if my fragile state meant he had to protect me. It was his turn to be the grown-up. I looked into his face and realised I’d not noticed how sore his scars looked because of the sun burn. The side of his face must be in agony but not a murmur of complaint. He merely helped when I stumbled in the soft sand and offered a companionable silence.
We climbed the dunes for some time, the heat beating down on our heads making me wish he’d left me there in the sand to cook to death, when we finally made it to the top of one particularly large hill.
A grin spread over Galahad’s face. “Well, I’ll be damned. It’s the Echo and the sea. The gods favour us, Holt.”
I stared at the ship, still a league away, and considered his statement. “I’m not sure the gods give a fuck to be honest but at least we aren’t going to die of thirst. She’s broken though, the storm’s done some serious damage, look at the rigging.” I pointed to the broken mast on the forecastle.
“But she’s here,” Galahad said, clapping me on the back.
“Yes,” I said and didn’t feel the same exhilaration he clearly sensed.
Galahad looked at me. “No one ever has to know, Holt.”
I glanced at him. “No? Well, I’m sure it’ll go away then,” I said. He visibly flinched at my harsh sentiment. I instantly regretted hurting him. I’d chosen to
be the victim to protect him and that would burn his honourable conscience almost as much as it burned mine to have been raped.
I took a deep breath. “If you will help me keep the secret then we should manage,” I said. “The worst part of it all is how it would make my father feel to have raised a son so weak to have let it happen in the first place. I am King of Camelot and I allowed this to happen...” the words spilled out and pain sucked the strength from my limbs, coalescing in my chest and exploding outward. A harsh and guttural cry escaped my control and I collapsed into the hot sand.
“No! No, Holt. This is not your fault. This doesn’t make you weak. This is nothing to do with being King and everything to do with being a man and you are not a weak man,” Galahad cried out. He pulled me into his body and held me close. I didn’t have the strength or the wit to fight, I just wanted to be held and I wanted to cry.
He rocked me. He stroked my head. He rubbed my back. He held me safe. And I grieved.
There, in sight of the Echo, I lost control and wept like a mewling pup. We sat on the top of the sand dune for a long time while my grief over everything I’d lost in the last year burned through me. The brutal rape was just the last straw on an old and broken camel’s back that snapped his spine forever. I felt so damned fragile I was surprised I didn’t melt under the sun’s glare. My skin seemed bruised wherever I was touched by hand or cloth and my mind flinched from all thoughts, unable to find a chink of light among the darkness of swirling memories.
Twilight began to swallow the heat of the day, the sky turning from intense blue to darkening purple.
I now lay with my head in Galahad’s lap, curled up like a hedgehog, while he patiently ran his fingers through my tangle of blonde hair. I’d been calmer and quieter for some time.
“I think we need to move,” he said.
“I like it here,” I croaked, looking at the sea. I’d always loved it, always enjoyed my time on her waves. I’d been robbed of that freedom as well. Would I ever feel free again? My throat began to close in a new wave of panic and grief.
“Come on, Holt. The others will be frantic about us. We have to go to the Echo. We owe it to my sisters. To your people. Our responsibilities don’t change even if we do.” He sounded so fucking practical.
“I don’t want to go back,” I said, despite my raging thirst.
“We have to, Holt. I have to and you have to come with me.”
“No I don’t.”
“Yes, love. You have to come with me because I can’t do this alone. I can’t face The Lady or the throne of Albion without you. I have to be with you, Holt.”
“You don’t want me,” I said, the dull ache of his rejection, because I loved him and he wanted women, burning hot suddenly.
He managed to bend far enough to plant a kiss on my hair. “When we reach the Echo I plan on asking for them to arrange for a tub of water to be filled. I will undress you, wash you cleaner than a mother licking her calf and then I will hold you in my arms until you sleep. I will protect you, Loholt Pendragon. I will protect you as you have protected me.”
I wished he’d say he loved me as I loved him but I guessed that illusion was over. One brief flash of harmony in my life and now...
“Come on then,” I said, pushing myself off the sand. “Let’s not disappoint the family.”
I rose on weak and shaking legs. We half slid, half tumbled into the flat sand near the sea’s edge and began to walk toward the Echo.
CHAPTER THIRTY
The hue and cry that went up when we were finally spotted drew everyone onto the deck and I saw the golden head of my little sister practically throw herself into the dory to reach the shore. By the time we drew even to the Echo the dory had beached and Nim raced toward me, tripping over in the sand and crying out in frustration it was taking so long. Her small body hit mine with all the strength of a runaway carriage hitting a tree, knocking me back slightly. Her arms were around my neck and her legs wrapped around my thighs.
“Brother,” she whispered brokenly. “My brother.” She hugged me so tightly I feared for my neck all over again.
“I’m fine, Nim. I’m here. We are both here.” I stroked her back and her hair, hoping to calm her.
“Come, sister, give him some space,” Galahad said. “We’ve been in one hell of a fight.” He lifted her from my arms and I found Morgan replacing her sister but with a little more restraint. I managed to hug her in return and to be honest it felt good to smell their clean hair and feel their soft bodies. They were clear of the taint that marred me.
Words cascaded around me but I found Galahad’s strong arm encircling my shoulders and his voice weaving a story Torvec would have been proud to produce for a paying audience. We were hustled into the dory and rowed to the Echo in no time. We were given water, wine and food. Apparently, we’d been missing for almost four days and Captain Raven had anchored in this bay hoping the winds and tide would wash at least one body ashore. When he saw me standing on his deck he’d almost wept with relief and just kept repeating to himself that he’d not been responsible for the death of the King of Camelot. I wasn’t entirely sure it wasn’t because he worried about my sister’s vengeance when she found out or relief that I lived for my own sake. Lance did weep when he saw me and hugged me for so long I had to gently convince him to let me go, but it made me realise I was Camelot’s faltering heart.
Not necessarily a blessing.
They’d limped into the harbour and set about repairs while small parties combed the shores after every tide looking for us. We’d been the only ones washed overboard during the storm and it calmed almost as soon as we were lost. The entire time Galahad placed himself between me and those who sought to question me directly or touch me for too long. His dark eyes tracked every movement I made and the instant he felt I needed rescuing from the attention he was there, my shield and protector.
By the time full dark took possession of the sky we were in Raven’s cabin. “Where are the wolves?” Galahad asked.
“Gone to find you. They all shifted and said they’d roam about the shore until they picked up some sign. Valla has taken your disappearance hard, she blames herself, I’m sure they’ll return soon though and you can set her mind at ease.”
I wasn’t certain Galahad needed the added weight of someone else’s grief as well as mine but he nodded, ready to be the adult once more.
“Well, right now we need to wash the sand from our hot bodies and we need to sleep,” he said. I didn’t say anything, merely wondered if I could sleep with the dark haze interrupting my view of the world.
Raven nodded a great deal and the orders were given. It would be salt water but we’d have the bath Galahad promised. The tub should be on deck but he insisted it be brought into Raven’s large cabin and he helped with the buckets, taking the blame for wanting to bathe in private.
When he closed the door on the last bucket of water he sighed in relief. “I don’t know how you manage to be so cheerful all the time,” he said. “I’m exhausted from dealing with them all.”
“You get used to it,” I said. “It certainly makes you value solitude.”
He grunted and removed his shirt before pausing. “Do you want to be alone now?” he asked.
I glanced at him, finding it hard to meet his eyes again. “No. I don’t want to be alone.”
He finished removing his shirt and yanked his boots off. He then approached me slowly. “Do you want some help?” he asked.
I hadn’t moved. I plucked at my robe. “I feel horrid,” I admitted.
He gently ran his hands over my shoulders and down my arms. “Let me help.”
I nodded, my shoulders slumped in defeat and Galahad took over. He undressed me with all the care a parent shows a sleepy child just before bedtime. He removed the robe and made no comment at the bruises and other wounds the healing from the Mer King hadn’t touched, he sat me on a chair and took off my boots, brushing sand from them, and then his fingers reached for the laces on the
loose fitting hose I’d been given while unconscious.
They were trembling. I stopped them. “It’s alright, I can manage this bit.” I felt his eyes trying to read my face but I sat in shadows from the few lamps we burned at night and I knew he couldn’t see me clearly if I didn’t look at him.
He gave up and moved back. “Drink?” he asked, so his back faced the room and therefore me. I took my cue. I rose and stripped off my dirty robe, slipping into the cold bath instantly.
He brought me a brandy and sat on the floor, his back to the small tub. “I think we did well,” he said. “No one has second guessed our story.”
“You did well,” I said. “Thank you.” My words were so lifeless and I wasn’t convinced Raven didn’t realise something had changed. He watched me far too closely and he understood me better than any of the others, knowing far more about my desire to escape kingship than my family guessed.
“Do you want me to help?” Galahad asked.
I wanted desperately to be touched by someone who loved me, who wanted to protect me and keep me safe. I couldn’t reply so he looked at me and decided for me. He twisted onto his knees and reached for the soap. For the longest time he lathered each limb, rubbed it with a rough cloth and rinsed it slowly. He didn’t spare the bruises, scrubbing everything, then he did the same for my back, my neck, my chest. We were silent the whole time. I finally took the soap and cloth from him, washing my own genitals. He washed my hair and my face, finally raising a laugh when he managed to flick soap into his own eyes and I helped him wash it out with clean water in the buckets around us.
When he could focus again he smiled at me and I continued to rub nonexistent soap from his face. “How are the scars?” I asked. They felt rough and smooth at the same time.
“Sore but I hardly remember them happening now,” he said.
“Well, that’s good.” My hands dropped from his face. A small sound of loss escaped him and he gripped them, replacing them on his cheek and jaw. “Galahad... Don’t... I love you. I can suffer losing you now if we stop but if you walk away from me again after tonight, I’ll shatter.” I spoke such words of truth and with so much heartfelt pain, his eyes glittered with tears.
The Pendragon Legacy: Sons Of Camelot Book One Page 20