But love was for other people. Not for her. Not romantic love, anyway.
And to be loved by a man such as Mordred Le Fey? No, Artemis wasn’t that lucky. The curse would fade in its own time and when it did, where would she be?
“You don’t understand.”
“Explain it to me.” Still no emotion.
She looked up into his eyes and those beautiful pools were flat. Like they’d been replaced with paste jewels instead of the real thing.
“Curses break. Curses fade. And those that meddle in love—”
“You mean like what my mother did to Sir Bitchalot and his lady fair? She’s still paying for it.”
“As will Vivienne. The magick they wrought will turn to dust and whatever was built on top of it will crumble. Can’t you see that?”
“All I know is that curse or not, this is something I’ve never experienced before. It’s warm, Artemis. I’ve never been warm.”
“I’d say you were plenty warm when my brother was trying to light you on fire.” She tried to make light.
“That’s nothing compared to what burns in me. My whole life, I’ve been cold. Empty. My mother wasn’t unkind, and she loves me in her way. But I’ve never forgotten why I was born. Or what I was for. But I do with you.”
His confession crushed her. She didn’t speak.
He laughed, and while it was mirthless, it wasn’t cold. “You don’t feel the same, do you? Even after everything that happened between us. This is a first for me.” He nodded slowly. “It would figure the woman I love after all these years doesn’t love me back. I suppose it’s what I deserve.”
No, he didn’t deserve that at all. Artemis didn’t know how to tell him that without digging the hole deeper, so instead, she kissed him.
His lips were hard and unyielding under her gentle assault, but in moments, he was kissing her back, his hands roving her body and tearing at her toga.
He lay her down in the grass and took everything she offered.
22
GWEN
L ike any of the other times she’d had to speak to Arthur, Gwen debated not going. It took her a day to work up the courage. It was always a trial to face him.
In fact, she’d rather go back and face her accusers in Camelot a hundred times over than face Arthur and his goodness, his pain, and his enduring love for her.
It was even worse for her now that she accepted her actions were wrong. She had betrayed him. No matter what he’d done, or perceived wrongs, Gwen had made the choice to break her vows.
Facing him was her penance, and she could accept that. What she couldn’t accept was that he had to suffer for her mistakes.
He’d endured enough.
So with that, she found herself standing in front of the door to his castle with Aphrodite’s offer in hand.
He opened the door slowly. “I wondered if you were going to knock or stand there all day.”
His breath stank of good whiskey and there was the smell of another woman’s perfume on him.
She couldn’t be angry and she no longer had the right to be hurt. But she kept remembering his lips on hers, the way he told her he’d be anything for her, and then the pain in his eyes before he walked away.
This visit wasn’t about her anyway. It was about him.
“Can we talk, or do you have company?”
“Maybe we could talk with my company,” he drawled, and Gwen was under the distinct impression he’d just propositioned her for something crude.
She couldn’t stop now and if a proposition was the least of his insults, well, she could live with that. Gwen might even take him up on it next time he offered. Maybe that would knock her off the stupid pedestal he still had her on. She didn’t how or why he still thought so well of her, but she didn’t deserve it.
And neither did he. “This isn’t about them. This is about you.”
“Not you and me?” Arthur asked as if he were asking about the weather rather than something that had ripped his heart in half.
She shook her head no.
He swung the door wide and what she saw both fascinated and horrified her. It was fitting, she supposed, that Greeks were on the island. Even the gods had never seen debauchery like this. Even having been a married woman and living the long years she had, she blushed. It was almost as if Dionysus himself was on the island. She looked around for that jolly bastard. There were couples in every state of embrace and dishabille, sometimes more than a couple. Hell, who was she kidding? This was an all out orgy. All of the God of Plenty’s parties were like this one.
As usual, it was as if Arthur knew her thoughts. “No, Dionysus is not here. But he sent wine.” He motioned to a couple of casks on the table.
Suddenly all her bravado was gone. She was curious, she’d always wanted to know and sometimes, she’d had fantasies about taking part. In the dirtier ones, she got to have both Arthur and Lance. And when Lance really pissed her off, Arthur put Excalibur in a not so nice place.
“I can come back later.” But Gwen knew she’d never muster the courage, coward that she was. There was a part of her that wanted him to tell her to leave and then she’d be free of this. She could put it out of her head. She didn’t have to think about him doing these things, being part of all this hedonism.
After all, even if she told him Aphrodite could take his pain, what about his pleasure?
This was what his life had been for these many long years. He was a fucking tourist attraction. He chose to live this way. That wouldn’t change just because Aphrodite took his pain away. He wouldn’t do these things unless he liked them.
But then he did exactly what the rest of her wanted him to. “Oh, no. You’re here now. Come in, Gwen. Come see what it’s like to be me.”
“Spare me. You chose this,” she snarled. How dare he try to play on her guilt? Her prostrations sounded weak even in her own head.
But he turned on her like an abused animal turns on its tormentor. “Spare you? You?” He pushed her against the wall and their mouths collided. He obviously meant to punish her, but his kisses were never a penance. He broke the kiss, his breathing heavy and ragged. “Always you, Gwen. It’s always about you.”
And it was. Whether she made it about herself, or he did. It was always about her. His pain. His suffering. Even his pleasure. He did these things because of his her.
“I’m sorry.”
“I am utterly sick of sorry,” he hissed against her mouth. “I’m sick of being sorry I can’t be everything you want.” His fingers tightened around her arms. “And I’m sick of hearing you say that you’re sorry. From the first time you turned me out of our marriage bed, to when you confessed your infidelity, to when you broke me. And all I got was sorry. Fuck your sorry, Guinevere.”
As odd as it was, his rage soothed her. She’d been waiting for it for so long. This was what she understood, this she could process, and this could atone for.
“No, don’t fuck sorry. Fuck me, instead.”
This time she was the aggressor and she knew all the power was hers. She didn’t need to be stronger than he was, she didn’t need to slam him against the wall the way he’d done to her. All she had to do was rise up on her tiptoes, her lips like butterfly wings brushing against his.
That was it. Because in a way, it broke him. That softness was a hammer that shattered him. Gwen knew that, but she didn’t wield her weapon without mercy.
Who would’ve thought she could go from angsting about the size of her ass in her yoga pants to this confident, powerful creature?
Maybe that’s what she’d been looking for in Lance. To feel beautiful, to feel powerful. Arthur told her she was beautiful, but he never made her feel like she was anything more than the spoils of war. Something to be kept in the treasure room. She’d never known how much he loved her.
She’d been too worried about herself to let him love her. But now it was so obvious in the way he kissed her, his hands gentle even after his display of violence.
H
e yanked her hard against him as if to punish her for daring to touch his pain. And she liked it. This wasn’t Arthur the Statesman, the politician, or even the tourist attraction.
This was Arthur the Warlord—Arthur, the Once and Future King.
Gwen melted into him, but she wasn’t without her own fire. She clawed at his shoulders, her tongue dueling for dominance against his. He moaned into her mouth, evidence of his arousal hard against her belly.
“Does Her Highness really want to be fucked against the wall like some common wench?”
She was so hot and wet for him, and it had been so long, Gwen didn’t care. “However His Highness wants to give it to me.”
He growled against her ear, the rumble starting low in his chest and seeming to emanate from deep in his bones.
Arthur broke away from her and bellowed into the hall, “Get out.”
The revelers seemed to think he was kidding.
“I said, Get. Out.” His voice thundered through the structure like some edict from God himself.
“Arthur, we can just go upstairs,” she whispered.
“Oh no. You wanted here against the wall and that’s where I’m giving it to you. But I’m done sharing any part of you. Do you understand?”
“Yes.” Her knees were weak and she held onto him for support, his strong hands circled her waist.
Upon seeing who was in his arms, the revelers all made their exit, taking Dionysus’s gift of wine with them.
“Where were we?”
Gwen found herself giddy and giggling. “Um, I think you were going to swive me against the wall like a camp follower.”
“That I was.” His voice was low and deep, his gaze focused on her mouth.
He dipped his head, kissing her hard. None of that gentle reverence like before. None of that fear that she’d break. She wasn’t a damsel in distress any longer.
Well, not any kind of distress she didn’t want. Gwen was most certainly distressed by the ache between her thighs, the longing, the raw need. It cut her like a razor.
His mouth was so hard and demanding, and those deliciously strong and callused hands slid from her waist to under her dress. He gripped both thighs and hoisted her up against the wall.
She locked her ankles around his hips and pushed her hands up under his shirt, palms tracing a familiar topography of healed wounds, scars from the whip, and the final one where Mordred pierced his side with a killing blow.
Even though she was so wet for him, even though she wanted him with every fiber of her being, she couldn’t shut off her brain. She couldn’t stop thinking about all the things she’d done wrong and all the chances lost to them.
It had been Vivienne and Morgan who’d brought him to Avalon, to the Summer Land where he would live forever.
And it had been in Morgan’s arms where he’d found comfort, his cheek upon her breast, and her hands upon his brow when the wound fever was on him.
Finally, Gwen was able to just be grateful that he hadn’t had to face the dark alone. Finally, she was able to admit that despite everything, she still loved Arthur Pendragon.
Lance had been a girlhood obsession. He’d been a dream forced to live the real and that had crushed them both. Even though she’d been married to Arthur, Lance had been her first love, and all the angst and longing that went along with it.
It had been everything that many women dreamt of now. He was her Champion, he fought her battles, professed his undying devotion, wrote poetry that compared her to the sun and moon, and defended her with his life. It had been perfect. Until they’d tried to make it something more. Lancelot was a fantasy, and Arthur was reality.
But he was kind of a fantasy too.
He was everything Lancelot was, but more. He never betrayed anyone to get what he wanted.
And he was the forever love.
Gwen would always love Lance for who and what he’d been, for their time together, she could look at that now and while she still regretted the pain they caused each other, she didn’t regret loving him.
She had for a long time.
But her passion, and the love of her woman’s heart, it belonged to Arthur.
“Did you change your mind?” he whispered against her ear.
Gwen realized she’d been lost in her thoughts. Even with her cleft so ready for him, the wild need pulsing through her whole body, it was her stupid heart that captained the ship.
“No,” she answered. “I want this more than anything, Arthur.”
“Anything? More than gelato?”
She laughed again, but tears gathered behind her eyes, damn them. “More than gelato.”
Because this would be the last time. She wanted Arthur to be free of her. Free of his pain. And Aphrodite could do that.
He wouldn’t want her anymore. Or if he did, it would be the last time it would be like this: about love.
She’d made herself right with it because finally, she could fix everything.
But this one time, she’d take this memory for herself.
He pressed his forehead down to hers. “I don’t know how to do this.”
Gwen found herself giggling again. “I think you know how to do it very well. Women from all dimensions come to Avalon to… come.” Her giggle merged into a nervous titter.
“No, I didn’t care about them. You know I still love you. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“I’m no maiden, Arthur.” She tittered again and hated the sound. “Well, maybe I am. It’s been more than a century since I’ve had sex with anyone but myself.”
He groaned. “That’s a scene I’d like to see.”
Heat flared. “You can have anything you want.”
“What I want, Gwen, what I really want, is for you to be doing this because you want me. Me, not just someone because Lance is gone.”
His words were daggers, but she understood why he’d flung them. It was a reasonable assumption to think she just didn’t want to be alone. “Lance was gone a long time before he actually moved out. Does that make sense?”
He looked away from her, but yet his dick was still hard and he still held her up against the wall with no effort. She tried not to squirm against him, but then decided to let her body do as it wanted. He needed to feel her desire.
“I can feel how much you want me, can’t you feel the same? How hot I am? How soaked my panties are?”
She licked her lips before continuing. “If I just wanted someone, there are any number of men on this island who’d fuck me in a second. And if I was just being perverse, Mordred is one of them. But no, Arthur. It’s you between my thighs, and you I want there.”
“Here, against the wall?”
“Anywhere.”
“I’ve fucked any number of women against this wall. Let me take you to bed.” He exhaled heavily. “Our bed.”
Gwen thought that his reverence, his tenderness would be—she didn’t know how to describe it. That there wouldn’t be this fire. But she was wrong. It burned just as hot whether he was pulling her hair or speaking of gentler things.
“Yes.”
He carried her up the stairs, the same as he had when the original castle had been built in Camelot. She hid her face in his neck, inhaled the scent of him. Loved the feel of his flexed muscles under her hand.
And suddenly, she was nervous. All of that I am Badass and Powerful Hear Me Roar gumption was gone. She could only think of all the women he’d been with. All of them with perfect bodies. With bigger breasts, smaller hips, and tighter asses.
Gwen reminded herself that she was the only one he’d ever had in this bed. She was the one he chose and he knew what her body looked like and he kept feeding her gelato anyway.
“After all these years, Gwen, are you afraid?” His voice was kind, gentle, the same as it had been on their wedding night. Goddess, but she loved this man so much it was an ache in her chest.
As usual, he knew what she was feeling. “Only that when you unwrap me, I won’t be the present you thought I was.”
“Gwen, if you were in Lance’s body, I’d still want this with you.”
“That’s kind of sexy.” She smiled into his neck, remembering her pegging fantasy. “What about if I was Percivale?”
“Even then.”
“What about if I was Medusa?”
“I might have to put a bag over your head so I don’t die, but yeah. Even then.”
She sobered. “What if I was Aphrodite?” This was how she could start the conversation.
“No more talking.” He kicked open the door and lay her on the bed. His fingers made quick work of her dress and she was naked before she had a chance to argue.
She was sure her blush covered her entire body. Gwen felt like a virgin again.
“You’re as beautiful as I remember.”
“You’re right. No more talking.” She’d screw it up if there was. Gwen pulled him down to her and the weight of his body was as familiar to her as it was foreign. It was a strange sensation for everything to feel new and old at the same time.
No, not old. Old implied it was something passé, something well-used, and while she recognized she’d experienced it before, it was new. Because she wanted him to touch her, wanted to drown in him.
When she’s first come to Arthur, she’d been a trembling and angry virgin. She didn’t appreciate everything he had to offer her. They could’ve been happy.
Regret, shame, and longing filled her.
But she’d decided not to think about those things. Right now was for this moment, not all the things that had come before.
“It hurts to look at you, Gwen. You’re so beautiful.” He whispered against her skin.
She tilted her lips up to his, because while it may have hurt to look at her, it hurt her to hear it. “Make love to me, Arthur.”
“Forever.” He kissed her throat. “Always.”
23
MORGAN
O n the walk back from the resort, Morgan knew something had changed.
Shit, who was she kidding? Everything had changed.
Her power grew by leaps and bounds, she had knowledge and access to things she’d never had before. Things only the Lady of the Lake should have.
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