“More than anything.” Lancelot ran a hand through his tussled curls. “But . . . how do I know if she really is an enchantress? She insists that she has no magical ability.”
“That is odd.” Vivien frowned, her dark blue eyes sparkling with mischief. “Well, there is only one way to know for sure.”
“Which is?”
“I shall have to meet her.”
I WAS IN ZEPHYR’S stall, explaining my absence to her very accusing black eyes, when I felt a pair of strong arms encircle my waist.
I whirled, a dagger in hand, the sharp point laid deliberately along the interloper’s jugular.
Galahad quirked a brow. “If you can’t tell my touch from that of a foe, then I didn’t leave enough of an impression.” His words ended in a laugh, a deep rumble in his barreled chest.
I snorted as I lowered my dagger, flipping the small blade in my hand before sheathing it at my side. “Didn’t anyone ever tell ye not to sneak up on a woman?”
“Yes, but where’s the fun in that?” he asked, his broad hands re-circling my waist and tugging me to his hard, chiseled body.
I knew I should scold him, or ask him about his ride through the villages, but his wild, blond hair was down, tumbling about his shoulders, and his eyes were fixed on my mouth. The urge to taste him simmered hot within me, smothering all higher thought. I rose on my tiptoes and claimed his mouth with mine, melting into his warmth as his arms pressed me even closer to him, one hand roving up to tangle in my hair, the other roaming down to grip my arse.
The Grail quest’s final days were a blur. Had it really been since Betws-y-Coed that we kissed like this? The night he and Percival and I—the thought of our shared intimacy sent a curl of heat through me. I shuddered at the memory. With a knowing smile, Galahad’s mouth angled against mine expertly, his tongue darting playfully between my lips. Goddess above, he tasted divinely of honey and adventure and sex. I reached up to grab his head and pull him closer when a huge, velvet head butted against my back.
I pulled back and looked over my shoulder, shooting Zephyr a dark look. “Do ye mind?” I asked, to which Zephyr gave a whinny and a stamp of her hoof in reply.
Galahad chuckled. “Seems I’m not the only one starved for a little attention.” He reached out and scratched Zephyr’s forehead. Zephyr shook her head in delight and I resisted the urge to roll my eyes.
“Ye do have a way with the lasses,” I muttered dryly. Reluctantly, I extricated myself from Galahad’s embrace.
“Is that jealousy I hear?” Galahad grinned, and it was like the whole stall brightened. He rested his hands on my hips and placed a kiss on the tip of my nose. “Once we trounce O’Lynn and these faeries, we’ll have all the time in the world for me to demonstrate how you have nothing to fear. There’s no woman for me but you.”
I opened my mouth to reply and the words stalled on my tongue. I couldn’t say the same, could I? Guilt reared its ugly head. An unwelcomed and far too frequent a visitor as of late. True, Galahad hadn’t appeared to object to sharing my affections in the past, but our feelings were all so hopelessly tangled. Could I really think that my love for these four men wouldn’t end in broken hearts and a broken fellowship? As Lancelot shared? I quieted the ache in my chest. We needed to focus on the task before us. So, I seized the distraction eagerly.
“How was yer visit to the villages?” I asked.
A shadow fell across Galahad’s handsome face, dimming the light his earlier smile had cast around the stable. As though the sun had suddenly set.
“The people are unhappy. They speak out against their king.” He folded his arms across his chest. “I don’t think we have much time.”
“Rebellion?” I asked in rising horror. “At such a time? Don’t they realize Arthur is their only hope against Morgana and the Uí Tuírtri?”
“I fear logic and reason are not the going currency in such a time. Fear seems the champion today.”
I huffed in frustration. “Have ye told Arthur?”
Galahad nodded.
“Where is he?” I asked. “I should go to him . . .” I trailed off. I didn’t know what I could do, only that Arthur had to be suffering, and I wanted to be at his side.
“He’s inspecting the fortifications,” Galahad said.
I hesitated.
“Go,” Galahad encouraged. “If anyone can help Arthur right now, it’s you.”
I smiled at him, grateful for his understanding.
“Zephyr and I will keep each other company,” he said, patting my mare once again.
“No moping in my absence,” I replied, my smile twisting wider.
“No promises.” Galahad smushed his face next to Zephyr’s and then angled a long, mopey frown and big, puppy dog eyes my way.
I shook my head with a laugh as I hurried out of the stable.
I found Arthur walking the walls of the keep, speaking quietly with soldiers and tradesmen alike. I watched him for a few moments from the shadow of the wall. I think he was trying to convince every inhabitant of Caerleon individually of his worth as king. My heart softened at the sight. Sometimes I worried—could a man in Arthur’s position care so deeply and so genuinely? Surely the cruelties of this world would break him by now. My fists tightened at my side. That’s what we knights were for. I would not let this world destroy the man he was, while I still had breath in my body to stop it. I would protect him and his kingdom.
I felt the wrongness first—the faint lift of hairs on the back of my neck. An awareness that I couldn’t account for. My hand flew to my sword and the newly sharpened blade was out of its sheath before I even knew why.
But then I saw the reason. A smoky whiteness, filtered by slanting afternoon light, billowed up from the earth like steam rising from a great cauldron.
Magic.
My first instinct was Arthur. In just four paces, I was between him and the strange growing cloud, the mist pouring into the space where only air and grass and sunshine should be.
“What?” I heard Arthur pounding down the stairs behind me from the wall, the ring of Excalibur’s steel. My eyes stayed fixed on that unnatural mist. “Stay back,” I called, throwing my arm out.
A figure stepped through. Tall, wearing a tunic of blue . . . with dark hair . . .
My mouth fell open. “Lancelot?” My sword drooped in my hand, my pulse still not sure if he were real or an apparition. His hair was tousled, and he wore a look of contrition on his face that was as unfamiliar to me as the mist that had delivered him.
Arthur stepped up beside me, sheathing his sword. “I take it you found your foster mother,” Arthur said. His voice was hard—wary. I knew Arthur regretted what had passed between him and Lancelot when they last spoke, but the pride of men and kings especially was a funny thing.
The thought fled my mind as another stepped through the mist. A faerie female, tall and willowy as a reed. She was like a black alder tree in winter, her dark hair was the rich hue of bark, her pale skin milky as new-fallen snow. Long dark lashes fringed eyes wide and granite gray-blue as Lancelot’s, though I knew they were not related. For this had to be Vivien, his foster mother. Lady of the Lake. She was a legend brought to life.
Arthur gave a slight bow. “Welcome to Caerleon, My Lady,” he said. “To what do we owe this pleasure?”
The Otherworld evaporated behind the two mist-born wayfarers.
“Lancelot shared your unfortunate predicament with me,” she said, gliding nearer, moving with preternatural grace.
“Are you here to assist?” Arthur asked, a hopeful ring to his question.
She blinked, then cocked her head, her fangs bared as she seemed to examine the mortal standing before her. “I’m afraid there is little I can do that the Grail did not, Little Dragon King. But . . .” Her gaze flicked to me, pinning me where I stood. “When Lancelot told me how Morgana spoke of a Gwenevere, I had to see this mythological creature for myself.”
She approached me and, without asking, placed ice-cold fin
gertips on either side of my face, then closed her eyes. I froze in shock, standing stock still as a shiver passed through me from my toes upward to my head, leaving a tingling in its wake. I tried to quiet my thundering pulse, to shake the feeling that I was being weighed and judged by this female, that she was turning me inside out. Did she find me wanting?
Her eyes snapped back open and she withdrew her hands.
“Well?” Lancelot asked.
Vivien cocked her head at me—similar to how she had with Arthur—as if I were a five-fold knot her ancient faerie mind couldn’t untangle. “She appears mortal. Yet . . . there is something. Something magical that lies deep, a power that is more than human. Waiting.”
“Is she the Gwenevere?” Lancelot asked. “Can you tell?”
I opened my mouth to object to being discussed as if I wasn’t right before them, but Vivien spoke first. “There is only one way to tell. Ask her parents.”
“What do ye mean?” I asked, finding my voice.
“A Gwenevere is a great enchantress, yes. But she is more than that. She is the daughter of the goddess Danu, conceived when she lays with a mortal king on Beltane. Is your father a king?”
“Aye,” I whispered, my throat a pile of dry, brittle leaves. Daughter of the goddess Danu? My mouth fell open, again, and my eyes widened.
“And your birthday?” Vivien asked, heaving a dramatic sigh. She fluttered a look of longsuffering patience at Lancelot. When I continued to gape at her, she huffed, “Well, when is it, so-called White Enchantress?”
“Fe-February third . . .” I trailed off, doing the math in my head. Nine months after the new spring. Everything in me wanted to look at Arthur, to see if he figured the math out as well. But I didn’t. Instead, I continued to stare at the Lady of the Lake in fear and in wonderment.
Vivien lifted a single eyebrow. “I cannot account for your appearance. Though you are pretty-ish for a mortal, I suppose.”
“How can we know for sure?” Lancelot asked.
“If she is pretty-ish?” Vivien asked with a girlish, baiting smile, and cool, glittering mischief twinkling in her unnatural eyes. “What say you, Sir Knight?”
Lancelot groaned. “No faerie tricks. You know of what I ask, mother. Is she the Gwenevere?”
I glared at him, my idiotic fish-gape quickly turning into a scowl. Why did the fool man need to know so badly if I was a bloody Gwenevere? Was this still about the third curse? I had no compulsion to sleep with him right now, that’s for damn certain. Did any other thing ever cross the man’s irritatingly obsessed mind?
“Like I said, dearest Lancelot du Lac.” Vivien punctuated each word. “Ask her parents.” Then she shifted toward me. “Your father.”
I swallowed thickly. “My father is held captive by my clann’s enemy.” This faerie was the second individual today to proclaim my father as the one who held the answers I sought. I longed to see him again, to talk to him, to storm into that bastard O’Lynn’s camp and fight my way to him. To take my family and leave only a path of destruction in my wake.
“A shame,” Vivien replied with an elegant shrug of her slender shoulder. Then, as if bored with the conversation, she slid a glance my way and said, “Danu would be the only one who could tell you for certain, then. Too bad she hasn’t been seen in twenty years.”
“What?” Arthur exploded. “I thought she held court in the Otherworld?”
Vivien shook her head, then lifted a hand to fuss with a loose curl. “It’s not common knowledge among mortals.” She hissed the last word with sizzling disgust over our kind. “But a regent presides over her court. In her absence, obviously.”
The earth goddess was missing? The earth goddess . . . and possibly . . . my mother?
It was madness.
This was all madness.
Life made sense before Caerleon. Now it was all curses and faerie relics and magic beasts and mists that transported people.
Madness.
PERCIVAL STRODE THROUGH the hallway, his mind racing with the events of the past weeks. They had found the Blessed Grail. Part of him had never thought they would do it, even as fevered as Arthur was about finding this relic . . . and as hopeful as he had been when Fionna joined them. Percival still had doubted. Until signs from the Grail Maiden began to appear, he thought that the legend of the Grail—the legend of the Fisher King—was just one more cruel twist of fate in the long line of tragedies shadowing the noble lines of Pendragon and Caer Benic. But they had found it. And now he was free.
True, the Grail Maiden had bid him return to Caer Benic and take up his place as the Fisher King. And perhaps one day he would. When he wasn’t needed here. But, for now, he was needed. And he was wanted. And gods, did he want.
Images of Fionna filled his mind and tightened his breeches. Her features, delicate and soft as a feather—so incongruous with the skill of her blade—combined with the fire in her eyes. Compelling yet kind. Hard and soft—yielding as butter in his hands yet strong as stone when she faced monsters the likes of which he had never seen. Fionna was the most powerful woman he had ever known. She would strip his chastity from him with a power and gentleness that was all her—and the thought exhilarated and terrified him in turns. He wanted to please her. To make her moan the way she had for Galahad—
“Fionna!” he said as she ran full into him.
“Percival,” she said at the same time, stumbling back. Her hand pressed to her breast as she breathed out. “My mind was elsewhere, my apologies.”
“The fault was mine, dove,” Percival said, studying her. Her silver eyes darted about, her breathing was shallow. “Is everything all right, lass?”
“Aye.” She shook her head, closing her eyes. “No. I don’t know. Lancelot is back.”
“Well that’s good,” Percival said with a whoop.
“Indeed,” Fionna agreed. “He brought Vivien. Arthur invited her to dinner.”
“Vivien.” Percival’s elation dimmed, and he peered over his shoulder. “Is it just me,” he whispered, “or have ye had enough of faeries for a spell?”
She let out a hard laugh. “Nay, not just ye. She brings riddles. I don’t know. I need to change and put on something more suitable for evening’s feast.”
“I’ll walk ye,” Percival said, falling into step beside her. “Did Lancelot get any answers about the third curse?”
Fionna shrugged. “He didn’t say. Vivien just put her hands all over me to discern if I was ‘the Gwenevere.’” Fionna made marks in the air with her fingers. “I’m starting to hate the word.”
“I know the feeling,” Percival agreed. “Being the “Fisher King’s son,’ ‘heir to the Grail’ isnae any more fun.”
She looked at him softly. “I don’t think I realized how hard it was on ye.”
“Och, we’ll get this sorted, ye’ll see,” Percival said.
“How can ye be so optimistic?” she asked.
Percival tucked strands of hair behind his ear and shrugged. “I dinnae ken. The feeling is just more pleasant than the alternative.”
“That simple?”
“Not everything has to be complicated.” They had reached Fionna’s door, and she turned to face him.
“Tell that to the possible mortal/immortal daughter of a goddess, who or may or may not be a Gwenevere, yet very certainly screwed up the Grail’s healing of Caerleon.”
Percival fought a smile. “That is a mouthful. I think I’ll just stick to ‘dove.’”
Fionna grinned at him, giving a playful roll of her eyes. “What would I do without ye?”
Percival took her hands in his and kissed the backs of each one. “Ye shall never have to know, fair Lady.” He dropped his hands but didn’t let hers go. Even her hands were so Fionna—pale and slender and soft on the backs, yet with hard callouses covering her palms. His thumbs traced two circles on the backs of them. “Fionna—” he began, finding himself suddenly tripping over each sound and syllable in just her name.
“I must dress for
dinner,” she said, pulling back her hands, clearly impatient. “What do you need?”
He cleared his throat, banging a fist softly against her doorframe. Out with it, Percival! “My vow—” he murmured, silently cursing his stupid tongue.
“I’m not sure I heard you?” Fionna asked.
He looked up then, meeting her eyes. If he wanted her, he needed to claim her. No longer a boy. He was a man. He was the Fisher King. Percival cleared his tightened throat again. “We have found the Grail, ye ken? I am now released of my vow. And the thought of my newfound freedom, it burns within me, lass.”
Fionna’s mouth opened in a little O as she realized what he meant. Then she closed her eyes, letting out a little sigh. “Percival, my head is in knots over everything that has happened right now. The curses, and Vivien, and my sister.”
“Of course.” Percival swallowed thickly, fighting his disappointment. “I didn’t mean to come off as insensitive, or meant this very moment . . . I just . . .” his face heated.
He didn’t know what he had been thinking. Coming here, asking her like a hound begging for a treat, then allowing his needs to have a voice after he knew she was upset. Sometimes he wanted to hide in a hole over his own awkward ignorance.
“Percy,” she began, almost as though a big sister rather than a lover. He stilled. Did she only see him as a friend, then? The other men were handsome and virile and strong. But he? Was he only good for cheering up his friends? Fionna reached for him, but he stepped back. “It’s not a no. It’s just . . . not now.”
He nodded stiffly at the tone of her voice. He wasn’t a wee bairn, nor did he need her sympathy. Had he misread what they had shared in Betws-y-Coed? These past weeks? No, she cared for him. He was sure of it. Though, perhaps Fionna still saw him as a lad. A little brother to laugh with. Her tone certainly suggested so. But he wasn’t that boy anymore. He had earned the adder stone and pleasured a witch of Byzantium and claimed the Blessed Grail for himself. He was capable, a man among men. But he just needed to prove it to her.
Gwenevere's Knights- The Complete Knights of Caerleon Trilogy Page 43