Because she was in love with him.
Shaken by the clarity of that realization, she pushed at his chest, her breaths coming in painful gasps. She wanted the blissful ignorance she’d been convinced would accompany the venom in his bite. She’d been counting on it to make her forget how desperately she needed to win the competition and free herself from a one-sided bond.
Lucan didn’t release her, taking another carnal draw from her neck. She cried out, plunged into a place where she couldn’t separate the pleasure from the pain threatening to consume her.
Maybe she’d still been in denial before, or maybe instead of driving him out, the Gauntlet had pushed Lucan even deeper into her heart. She wasn’t sure how she’d be able to sever their connection or how she’d ever survive it.
“Don’t cry,” Lucan mouthed against her wet cheeks.
Her shoulders shook uncontrollably, her body unable to take any more. The gods. The games. Lucan. She didn’t even care that he hauled her to him, caressing her back as the endless shudders ripped through her.
“Is that normal?” Kel asked.
“Shut up.” Lucan or the wraith—she wasn’t sure which of them answered and held her so carefully.
It didn’t matter. At the end of the day, they were two parts of the same whole. Like Briana was with the cat.
Exhausted from so much more than the tears that had finally escaped her stranglehold, she lifted her head, unable to meet Lucan’s gaze. “You should go.”
He cradled her jaw, forcing her to look at him. “I’m sorry if you felt that was betraying your mate. I never wanted—”
Unable to stand the thought of him regretting what had just happened, she shook her head cutting him off. “We need to get out of here.”
Nodding slowly, he grazed the marks on her neck. “I don’t know how long it will take to heal with the poison in your system.”
“I’ll be fine.” She couldn’t imagine telling a bigger lie.
His hand found hers, his fingers squeezing tight. He stood and the cold of the chamber rushed in to swallow her.
“If anything happens to her,” he warned Kel, the wraith as close to the surface as she’d heard without it taking over entirely. “I will end you.”
Half expecting an arrogant response to the threat, she stared in disbelief when Kel angled his head in a stiff nod.
With a quick glance in her direction, Lucan slipped into shadow and through the collapsed wall.
Kel lit another fire. “If you told him the truth it might destroy him.”
Briana didn’t move. “How long have you known?”
“Does it matter?”
It did if the others had also come to the same conclusion and planned to take advantage of it. “You don’t care about Lucan or Lancelot or whatever else you called him.”
“Ah, that little detail took you by surprise.”
That may have been putting it mildly, but the revelation had certainly made it a little easier to understand why he’d pushed her away the night of the festival. Had Gwen been the woman in his tent? “It doesn’t matter.”
Kel arched a brow. “He’s your mate.”
“Who shouldn’t know the truth, right?” Was she supposed to believe the dragon didn’t have his own reasons for wanting her to keep it a secret?
Kel stared at the fading firelight. “It’s far crueler knowing you can never be with the one you’re meant to, isn’t it?”
Cocking her head, she asked. “Who is she?”
The dragon feigned interest in his injury.
“Does she know she’s your mate?” Briana pressed.
He took his time answering. “No. And that’s the way it has to be.”
They lapsed into an uncomfortable silence—there would never be a comfortable one given that he’d been moments from snapping her neck at Tintagel.
“He never loved Gwen, you know. Lucan. Lancelot.” Kel closed his eyes. “Arthur was hammered when he came up with that nickname by the way. Or that’s how the story went.”
Shivering from the chill and blood loss, Briana gave up on trying to keep her eyes open. “Is that so?”
“You’d have to be wondering about their relationship by now.”
She thought about throwing Kel’s knife back at him. Hard. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Even if you can’t be with him, you should be able to take some small comfort in knowing his heart has never belonged to another.” There was bitterness in his voice, as though he didn’t have that luxury.
“How do you know,” she finally asked, “that Lucan didn’t love Gwen?” She could pretend she didn’t want to know, but she’d spent more than enough time avoiding the truth already. She wanted to know how much of the rumors surrounding Lancelot, Guinevere and Arthur were true.
“Lucan cared for her deeply, but like you do for your brothers.” The barest hint of respect echoed behind the words. “And although it dishonored both their families, he broke his betrothal to Gwen, freeing her to be with Arthur.”
“Arthur was already king. Wouldn’t her family have been in favor of that?”
Kel shrugged. “He was still considered the rebel king then. Half of Avalon loved and followed him, while the other half expected him to align with Morgana. Before Excalibur, Arthur wasn’t exactly known for doing the right thing.”
Tried and a little feverish from the thorns, she tried to get more comfortable. “You have an awful lot to say about the people you betrayed.”
As expected, Kel didn’t take the bait.
Greedy fingers of exhaustion plucked at her, but weak or not, she couldn’t let herself fall asleep. Kel hadn’t made a secret of wanting to see her torn apart, and she’d rather not make herself an easy target.
Rising on shaking legs, she made it high enough to sit on the chunk of stone nearby, then finally stood. The small flame near Kel’s feet cast dancing shadows on the wall.
“This wasn’t here before, was it?” She would have noticed the mural very different from the one Vaughn had foolishly touched.
Kel followed her gaze. “A lot of things weren’t here before.”
Too preoccupied with studying the mural, she didn’t read into Kel’s statement. Careful not to touch the hieroglyphics, she took in the image of the sun with human-like qualities and the nine people below it. Three groups of three. One woman and two men.
The gods?
Three symbols—Rhiannon’s, the Gauntlet’s and one she didn’t recognize—were lined up beneath each threesome. Below that were depictions of battles between the nine. The first Campaigns?
In the last one, a woman with Rhiannon’s mark fought a man bearing the symbol of the Gauntlet on his chest. She’d buried a sword in his chest.
Blinking to clear her foggy vision, she inched a little closer. “That looks like…Excalibur?” She turned toward Kel. “Could there have three swords, three Excaliburs?” She scanned the images, trying to figure out what she was missing.
Kel dragged himself to his feet but thankfully didn’t get too close to her. “No.” He pointed to the one in the man’s hand in the last image she kept returning to. “That isn’t Excalibur, but I’ve seen it before.” He met her gaze. “Mordred used it to kill Arthur.”
The collapsed wall behind them shook, and she would have brushed up against the mural if Kel didn’t steady her.
“It’s time to go.” Lucan took solid form in front of them. “I don’t know how long we’ll have before the whole chamber collapses.”
Something burst through the wall, opening a passageway, and Briana braced herself to fight off more vines. Instead the vegetation twisted up the walls, crisscrossing over the ceiling to hold the roof up.
“The Fae,” Lucan explained, reading the confusion on her face. He swept her up, into his arms and rushed into the newly formed tunnel. The ceiling and walls were still shaking when they emerged on the other side, Kel right on their heels.
“What happened to Graegor?”
Lucan no
dded to where another section of the chamber had collapsed and the man’s legs peeked out from under the debris.
“And the others?”
“Gone,” the Fae answered, falling into step next to them.
She rested her head on Lucan’s shoulder. She struggled to keep her eyes open, barely catching Lucan thrusting something at the Fae.
The scroll?
“Lucan, don’t.” Her voice was gone, the words little more than a squeak that sucked the last of her strength. There was something she wanted to tell him, but the fuzzy details slipped away. Her head lolled forward and she seemed to drop in and out of consciousness until they reached the entrance to the catacombs. Through slitted lashes she watched Bran unravel the scroll, and then darkness snatched her away.
Lucan knew the second Briana lost consciousness, her arm slipping off his shoulder.
“Briana?”
He never should have taken her blood. He could have found another way instead of drinking from her, his thirst sated in a way he’d never felt before, and at a cost he wasn’t prepared to pay.
He smoothed her tangled hair back from her face, her body fragile looking in the ripped and stained shirt that didn’t even reach her knees.
Briana had a mate.
His mind continued to reel from that revelation. It explained why she’d wanted to keep her distance after the last of the enchantress’s spell had worn off.
The walls inside the entrance continued to rumble, but no longer threatened to cave in.
“What does it say?” Kel demanded, leaning against the outside wall. His limp and the pain creasing the dragon’s face in tight lines, kept him from lunging past Lucan to snatch the scroll from the Fae’s hand.
Refusing to trust Kel not to hurt Briana in the time it would take to reach the entrance, he’d sacrificed a win in favor of making a bargain. Lucan had promised the scroll to Bran if he freed Briana, half hoping the tunnel wouldn’t hold long enough for Kel to escape as well. The dragon needed more than a few minutes to face the consequences of what he’d done to Arthur—to all of them—when he’d deserted them.
He could almost hear Briana’s diplomatic voice in his head, insisting more than one man’s decisions had been responsible for what happened at Camlann. With her lying broken and so still in his arms, he didn’t care about anything but making things right between them—and getting her back to her mate.
Like he’d been stabbed by a dozen spears, he clenched his jaw at the thought of her with anyone else. He’d made his peace with it centuries ago—when he’d been promised to Gwen—or so he thought.
For the first time, the violent need to lash out was his own and not the wraith’s.
Bran frowned at the opened scroll. “It’s a map.” His eyes widened.
A burst of light exploded from the entrance to the catacombs, and Lucan turned, shielding Briana. When he lifted his head, they stood in the courtyard. The scroll had disappeared from the Fae’s hand.
Briana moaned in his arms, finally stirring, though she didn’t open her eyes.
“What did you do to her?” Covered in dirt and blood, Vaughn stalked toward them.
The wraith snarled, something reflecting in his eyes that gave the wolf pause.
“She’s down a few pints of O-Neg. Get over it.” Kel limped away.
Elena crouched on the ground next to Nessa. She glanced at Vaughn. “Give me a hand with her.”
He pointed to the jagged tear along his shoulder blade. “Your huntress friend tried to decapitate me. You’re on your own, sweetheart.”
If looks could decapitate, Elena’s would have ripped Vaughn’s head from his shoulders. The Fae helped her with Nessa, the huntress’s eyes opening before Lucan carried Briana past them and inside.
Upstairs, he laid her on the bed then set about cleaning her up. Once that was finished and he made sure her wounds were closing on their own, he wrapped her in a robe and tucked her in bed.
Leaving her wasn’t an option. Listening for her, he cleaned himself up, wrapped himself in a towel and stretched out on the bed next to her, watching her sleep. Every once in a while her brow creased, and he would run his fingers along her cheek, unable to resist.
She wouldn’t like that, and neither would the mate who’d somehow earned the right—through fate, biological compatibility, attraction, whatever—to call Briana his.
But it wasn’t her mate who watched over her now, determined to protect her, even if it was for someone else.
He rolled on to his back, staring at the ceiling. How was it that centuries of accepting the life Rhiannon had cursed him with could be so easily undone by the woman next to him?
Although Briana’s blood had given him the strength to take his phantom shape and speed up the sluggish healing of his wounds, Lucan knew he needed rest as much as she did. The next challenge could be days away or only hours and they both needed to be ready for it.
Edging as close as he could without disturbing her, he closed his eyes and welcomed sleep.
He dreamed of Briana.
Laughing and running through the grass ahead of him, she coaxed him to follow, always staying one step ahead of him. Every time he thought she was within reach, she danced away, slipping through his fingers over and over.
Until she didn’t.
It didn’t matter that he couldn’t remember if he’d caught her or she’d caught him. She was there now, in his arms, her body soft and warm and fitting against him in all the right places.
All the hard-for-her places that cranked his temperature from warm to blistering, and every inch was burning for her.
He dragged her to the ground, pulling her down on top of him. Her hands slid into his hair, her mouth taking his. Teasing and light, the kiss scrambled his thoughts, offering him only a hint of the wild heat set to consume him.
He ran his hands up her hips, his hand spanning her lower back, drawing her closer still. Her soft whimper raced across his lips, and he turned to the slender column of her throat, nipping gently.
“More,” she breathed, and he licked across the pulse point thumping beneath his tongue.
Pressure built in his chest, increasingly uncomfortable, but he ignored it, rolling her beneath him. Pain hissed through him, and forced his eyes open.
Briana lay beneath him on the bed they’d fallen asleep in, watching him. The heat he’d imagined, that he swore continued to fire in every cell in his body, rolled off Briana, her skin feverish.
She was still fighting the poison from the thorns, or the venom from his bite.
Her nails raked the back of his neck. “Don’t. Don’t let me go.” She shook her head. “I need you. I’ve always needed you.” She cupped his cheek, her thumb sweeping softly.
The words slipped past every guard in place to keep her from getting a tighter hold on his heart.
He shook his head. “This isn’t you.” One look at her eyes, unfocused and sleepy, and he knew it was the fever talking.
“This is me. And you. It’s always been us.”
She coaxed him back, and he let it happen. Let his eyes slide shut, lowered his forehead to hers, breathing deep and letting her fill his senses.
“You see me. You don’t always say it, but I can read it in your eyes. My brothers love me, my friends support me, my clients respect me, but you…you see me. All the little pieces that make up the whole. You.” She opened her mouth over his. “I’ve been waiting so long,” she whispered across his lips, “for you. For my mate.”
His body went cold, the wraith so quiet Lucan felt alone in his own skin for the first time in decades. “Briana?”
“Mmmm,” sleepy and sexy, she opened her eyes.
“Who am I?”
“Mine.” The most incredible smile curved her lips, and it hurt more than he could stand because she thought he was someone else. The one she was truly meant to be with.
And he wanted it to be him. Wanted to believe he had a chance, the same way he’d believed, for just a moment, that mayb
e there really was a way to bring Arthur back. If he could win the games, he could save his friend and earn his freedom at the same time.
He hadn’t wanted to think about being free of Rhiannon, but at every turn he was constantly reminded how incredible it could be between him and Briana. After she’d put her faith in him, trusted that he wouldn’t hurt her in the catacombs, he could imagine fighting everyone, even Rhiannon herself, for a chance to be with Briana.
And she’d already chosen another.
The wraith snarled in frustrated denial, leaving the man and monster in perfect agreement.
He knew he should be happy for her. She deserved someone who could protect her, laugh with her, love her. And that would never be him. That didn’t stop him from wanting to be the same selfish bastard he’d been centuries ago, wanting one more night as though it wouldn’t matter.
But it would.
Rolling away from her before he could talk himself into pretending he hadn’t heard her, that she wasn’t burning up with a fever he’d caused, he sat up. He hadn’t fed from a gargoyle long enough to know how their bodies handled the venom beyond going to stone.
“Stop.”
“You can’t leave.” She grabbed his wrist.
“You need to rest.”
“Not without you.” The raw emotion in her voice stopped him from standing.
“Briana,” he began, too tired to fall back on old arguments to convince either of them why he needed to leave.
“I’ll sleep if you stay.” She tugged, and as stupid as it was, he let himself lay back down next to her.
Her eyes were already closing, her breathing evening out after she curled into him. He’d stay just another minute, make sure she was sound asleep and then he’d finish this competition, one way or another.
Briana stretched and turned into the warmth next to her. The cat pressed against her mind, purring softly. Content.
She opened her eyes, stretching again, unable to remember the last time she’d slept so well. Noticing Lucan sleeping next to her, she then recognized the room, but couldn’t remember how they’d gotten back. They’d been in the catacombs, then on the battlefield, and then…
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