Gwenevere's Knights- The Complete Knights of Caerleon Trilogy

by Jesikah Sundin

  “Travel to the Otherworld as faerie bait?” Galahad sighed, blowing a loose strand of hair out of his face. “Of course, Your Majesty. Sounds like romping fun.”

  “Then it is settled. Galahad shall come with me. Lancelot, you are reappointed as my second-in-command. Percival and Fionna will assist in defending the keep and leading our men. Merlin, keep searching for cures or clues to Fionna’s condition.”

  Percival hoisted his glass. “To the next mad adventure that will likely get us all killed.”

  Lancelot laughed darkly. “I’ll drink to that.”

  THEY TALKED PLANS and strategy late into the night, as the dishes grew cold and the wine dwindled. Arthur was understandably hesitant to leave his keep with an imminent threat on the horizon; so, Lancelot forgave him his over-managing, his insistence of going twice over every piece of their defensive plans and fortifications.

  Vivien and Merlin spoke of the Otherworld and what Arthur and Galahad might expect there, as well as speculated on the mystery of Fionna’s condition. The night ended with many theories but no answers.

  Fionna had grown quieter and more introspective until she finally excused herself, pleading exhaustion.

  Indecision warred within Lancelot as Fionna’s lithe form disappeared into the dark shadows of the corridor. There was much he wanted to say to her. There was time, but . . . he didn’t want to wait. He needed to clear the air—now.

  Lancelot stood. “Excuse me as well,” he said, then strode after her. He didn’t want another day to pass without telling her how he felt.

  “Fionna,” he called after her.

  But she didn’t slow. If anything, she sped up.

  “Fionna!” He broke into a jog, catching up with her as she neared the hallway that led to her room in the North wing. He grabbed her arm and gently swung her around to face him. “Fi, speak to me.”

  Tears glittered on her white lashes and slipped down her cheeks.

  Alarmed, he towed her into a darkened servant’s hallway and away from prying eyes. “Why do you cry?”

  She pinched her face up, her eyes closed, fighting the tears. “I betrayed my father and sister to stay here in Caerleon. Aideen is married to a bastard, the foulest man I’ve ever known. Because of me.” She jabbed her thumb at her chest. “Because I forgot my duty and threw aside my honor to follow my heart. I acted like a foolish lass, one who put love over family. And now . . . that love was false!” Her voice cracked, and she clapped a hand over her mouth. “Every moment was false. Yer feelings, all of them, they were magic. A cruel faerie joke. Well the joke’s on me.”

  Lancelot took her face in his hands, wiping her tears with his thumbs. Even with her face red and puffy, her nose streaming, she was beautiful. The most beautiful and powerful woman he had ever known. “If it was all a cruel faerie joke, and you no longer wear the enchanted necklace, then why do I still love you?”

  She stepped out of his embrace and threw her shoulders back, head lifted high, her silver eyes rippling with anger. “Do not mock me.”

  “You think so little of me?”

  “Ye once asked to know my love and then ye pushed me away. My heart cannot bear another game, Lancelot du Lac. No more lies.”

  Lancelot advanced toward her in such a way that she had no choice but to back up against the stone wall. “The only lie I want to know with you is the fiery, passionate truth between our bodies. Our souls.”

  “Is this your cock speaking or yer heart?”

  “Both.”

  A furious laugh escaped her flushed lips. “Oh please, woo me more with your pretty words, prince.”

  The snappish reply was meant as an insult, but he glimpsed the challenge in her daggered gaze—a test. From the very first day, their every spark was born of weaponized words. Sparring wit and emotions and stubbornness. Her steel was his equal—in moments such as these and with real swords in hand.

  Placing his forearm on the stone wall by her face, he leaned in close and whispered, “What I feel for you is more real than the ground beneath my feet. Than the air I breathe.” Her breath pulsed hot on his lips, her breasts rising and falling in a seething tempo. With a devilish smile, he moved toward her ear and continued in moonlit whispers. “The love I feel for you was not born of magic. You were the only spark needed to kindle this blaze. And there is no man or magic who can tear it from me.”

  A disbelieving sob escaped Fionna, and her body tensed against more tears. She fisted the front of his tunic, her red-rimmed eyes locked onto his lips. “Ye wish for passion-filled lies?”

  “Only if those lies seal the truth of us, princess.”

  A single tear rolled across her mouth as a raging heat billowed between their bodies.

  “Show me.”

  Lancelot smirked. “Is this your cock speaking or your heart?”

  “Both.”

  A soft laugh escaped him as he pulled her mouth to his.

  HIS MOUTH COLLIDED with mine, his fury begging me to meet his ferocity. Darkness had always danced between us. And I welcomed his grief as I fought my own. Lancelot was a flinted passion, a Winter Solstice’s bonfire—cold when distanced yet breathtakingly hot when close. Unlike Galahad’s honeyed sensuality, Arthur’s tender romance, and Percival’s laughing kisses, the man who pressed me to a stone wall in a dark, rarely-used hallway was seductive wickedness and hidden moonlight. In a word: dangerous.

  His lips left mine to explore my neck as his hand slid up the silk skirt of my gown. Calloused fingertips caressed my thigh, moving higher and higher. Determined. Then a single teasing finger paced a line between my sex and my slit when he discovered that I wasn’t wearing any undergarments.

  I couldn’t breathe, my chest gasping for air at the fire of his touch.

  “You want pretty words?” Lancelot murmured into the skin of my neck.

  Gripping the back of my thigh, he yanked my leg up and around his waist, while his other hand pushed the neckline of my bodice down my arm until my breast sprang free. Rippling folds of my plum-hued silken skirt fell toward my stomach and exposed me further.

  “I will claim your body first.” He rocked his hip into me and I shuddered. The lightning strike of his bulging cock against my throbbing sex thundered through my core. My breast bounced with the rolling movement and he lowered his head, flicking his tongue against my nipple. “Gods woman, you taste sweet . . .” His murmured words trailed away as he took my breast into his mouth.

  I stifled a sharp cry of pleasure as his teeth nibbled on me, his tongue roughly sucking my pebbled tip before releasing my breast to the night’s chill.

  He dragged his lips back to mine, whispering, “I want your anger,” before seizing my mouth once more in a bruising kiss.

  Heady, I pushed him back and leveled a glare. “My body isn’t enough for ye? Goddess above, ye arrogant, infuriating boar.”

  The side of Lancelot’s mouth tipped up. Still holding my thigh around his waist, he stroked my exposed skin with his hardening cock. Continuing to do so even as he began unlacing his breeches.

  “I want all of you, Fionnabhair Allán,” he said, and then I felt the crown of his smooth skin sliding across my swollen sex. “Your pain.” The fingers of his free hand snaked up my torso to my breast and pinched my nipple. Molten iron pooled between my legs as his cock teased my body into submission simultaneously, sliding back and forth, back and forth.

  I moaned, clawing at the front of his tunic, unable to contain the aching pang of pleasure. Furious and ecstatic that he could play my body as expertly as a bard plucks the strings of his harp.

  “Your grief,” he whispered next, softly kissing my jaw, my cheek, and each eyelid.

  His tongue swirled patterns down my throat, as if he were writing his name on my skin. The very thought stoked the bonfire in my pulse and sparked embers flew into my veins.

  “And I want your passion.”

  Lancelot bit down where my neck and collarbone met as he thrust his cock into me—deep, hard. I sucked in a s
harp, ragged breath. Gods above, he felt incredible. And he didn't move, allowing me to feel the thick size of him as he stretched and filled me. Starlit waves of pleasure rushed between my legs, intense and leaving me breathless. An orgasm was building. But I wasn't ready yet, wanting more. Needing more.

  Heat flared where his teeth gripped my skin, a feral pain that ignited a wildness in me. A soft whimper escaped my lips. This is how the fae claimed their lovers, I had heard once. A thought that left me wanting to become animal, to crave every forbidden carnal delight. To furiously take his body as he raged into mine.

  And rage he did.

  Grabbing my other leg, he hoisted me up––his shaft still buried to the hilt inside me––and then he pressed me harder against the stones digging into my back. I was now completely at his mercy, my legs dangling in the crook of his arms and spread wide for his taking. His hips crashed into mine.

  I groaned, angering when I felt the hard length of him slide away, leaving me bare and empty. My hands loosened their grip on his tunic to clutch the soft, black curls around his head. Our eyes met, mouths parted in heaving breaths as his muscled, unyielding body crashed into mine again and again, filling me and leaving me, his hips grinding into mine with each thrust.

  “Tell me you want me,” he whispered between stirred breaths.

  Those words pierced my heart as I understood. This was the dark pain he protected. The love he sought and feared to never know.

  “I want ye.”

  His breath caught as his eyes fluttered closed. “Say it again.”

  “I want ye, Lancelot du Lac.”

  “Again,” he breathed.

  “I want ye all my days,” I whispered before touching my mouth to his in a sweet, gentle kiss.

  With our lips connected and his cock still buried inside me, Lancelot pulled away from the wall and carried me a few steps toward the stairs, where he softly laid my body down across the steps. He knelt on the stones, straddling my hips. Moonlight from a nearby latticed window dusted him in silvers and blues. My Winter Prince, all fire and ice. Breathtakingly gorgeous, with frosted blue eyes peering at me through curling black strands that fell over his flushed cheeks and swollen lips. Reaching behind his back, he pulled his tunic over his head and then flung the garment to the side.

  Fingers of light caressed his muscled chest and torso, and I drank in the sight of him. He was tall and lean and well-built, with veins roping around his forearms and ink dancing across his skin in swirls and ancient patterns. The length of his cock glistened from our passion. Jealous of the moon’s intimate knowledge of this man’s body, I reached up and brushed my fingertips along the tattoos. “What do they mean?” I asked.

  “Runes,” Lancelot whispered back. “Ones that mark me as a faerie prince of the Túatha dé Danann.”

  “Ye are, truly?” My gaze locked with his. “I always thought ‘faerie’ was in jest or to mark yer upbringing.”

  “I am a prince of two realms, mortal and immortal, though not one of power or consequence in either. Any I have is only by the good favor of others.” He angled his head away, as if in shame.

  I cupped his cheek and drew him to me until our lips touched. “Ye have power over me, Lance. And . . .” I swallowed back the rising emotion. “And I not only love ye, I choose ye.”

  A tear slipped down his cheek and he hoarsely whispered, “I promise you, Fi . . . I promise to never intentionally hurt you again or push you away. I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry.”

  “Claim my heart, Lancelot. I am yers.”

  “And Arthur’s?”

  I smiled. “Aye, I’m Arthur’s and Galahad’s and Percival’s. Just as yer heart also belongs to Percival.”

  He bit his bottom lip, a look both shy and sensual. “You don’t mind my affection for Percival?”

  “No, ye belong to each other too. But this moment is ours, only ye and me.” The energy between us surged again, and another tear rolled down Lancelot’s cheek. My hand traveled down his jaw and neck to his chest, over his pounding heart. “I want ye.”

  His eyes closed once more as he shuddered under the weighted truth of my confession.

  “You’ve claimed my body,” I said, running my hands across the beautiful, olive-toned skin of his chest. “Now lie with my heart.”

  And there, on the stairs, we joined once more. This time every moment slow, each touch to savor the beauty and wonder of the other, each whisper shared as though our souls entwined intimately too. This man made me so mad—both in fury and in adoration for him. But most of all, he humbled me. For I knew his heart wasn’t a gift he gave easily or often, if ever until now. Nor did I doubt him: his love wasn't born of magic but freely given.

  Delirious with pleasure and utterly drunk on his kisses, I yielded completely to him as I whispered over and over, “I want ye.”

  GALAHAD WASN’T EAGER to reenter the Otherworld. But he was a knight, and a knight went where his king commanded.

  His sleep had been fitful the night before, filled with images of faerie maidens with sharp ears and even sharper teeth. Through his dreams they tormented him, stabbing Arthur, twisting into Fionna’s lithe form and back again, taunting him and his peasant origins, laughing at his mortal attempts to fight back.

  Finally, he rose before dawn, stumbling toward the stable yard to pound at a straw man until sweat coated his entire body and the sun had risen. Until his dreams grew hazy and his body sore.

  He then bathed and changed into a fresh tunic, letting his damp hair fall about his shoulders to dry. He was to meet Arthur, Merlin, and Vivien in Arthur’s study, where the Lady of the Lake would open a portal. The familiar corridors of the keep comforted his troubled thoughts, as did motion. Moving always helped calm his agitation.

  Before turning down another hallway, he crossed paths with Fionna. “My lady,” he nodded to her. She looked like she had known little sleep as well—purpled shadows smudged the fair skin under her eyes. But her eyes, though worried, were strangely bright and alert. “Here to see us off?”

  “I don’t like this plan,” she said, grabbing his hand and pulling him to a stop.

  “What’s to like?” Galahad turned to her. “But we must. For Caerleon.”

  “I know.” She gnawed the inside of her lip in that adorable way of hers. “Promise ye will be careful. Don’t do anything gallant.”

  “I can make no such promises. They don’t call me gallant Galahad for nothing.”

  Fionna snorted. “No one calls ye that.” A smile hinted at the corner of her lips. “Yer nickname is chipmunk.”

  “Then I have little to concern myself with other than gathering for the winter. Perhaps I can find an acorn here?” He pulled her into his arms, burying his nose into the crook of her neck, kissing the soft skin there. “Or here?” He nosed up to her ear as she squirmed in his arms.

  “Galahad!” she gasped, shrieking in laughter.

  Someone cleared their throat and they flew apart, Fionna’s face going as red as a huckleberry in spring.

  Vivien and Merlin stood nearby—Merlin amused and Vivien with a mischievous and oddly curious glint in her dark blue gaze.

  “They are a spirited bunch,” Vivien remarked.

  “You have no idea, Lady,” Merlin replied.

  “Are we ready?” Arthur strode down the hall between them and then ushered them into his study. He seemed full of nervous energy as well.

  “We are, Little Dragon King,” Vivien said.

  Galahad nodded, pushing his hair back from his face and straightening his tunic. Play time was over.

  Fionna watched from the corner, her arms twisted before her. “Arthur . . .” she hurried forward and pulled him into an embrace. He buried his face in her hair, just as Galahad had done moments before. “Be careful,” she whispered.

  Galahad observed the feelings within him, studying them with careful scrutiny. There was a hint of jealousy there, but it was fading. His king was a good man who deserved Fionna’s love. Arthur’s affection
s for her were clearly genuine and ran deep. Just as his own did. In his own way, Galahad was . . . happy for Arthur and Fionna. Just as he was happy when he was with her. There was an unease there too. But that was understandable. Arthur had declared that Fionna would make her choice, which they would all respect, but kings weren’t known for sharing. Would Arthur someday claim Fionna as his and his only?

  He shook off the thought. His worries about Fionna would have to wait. He needed all his wits about him for where he and Arthur were heading.

  Vivien stood before the fireplace, waving a hand, whispering words he couldn’t hear, and no doubt would not understand, even if he could. The air before her appeared to shimmer, and smoke billowed from the nothingness before them, forming a sort of door.

  “You have the key?” Merlin asked.

  Arthur patted the pouch dangling from his belt. “We will be able to return. I am taking the adder stone too, just in case something is not as it seems.”

  “Wise. The door will only respond to you alone. When you’re back through, Merlin has the means to banish the portal.” Vivien cocked her head and grinned until her canines showed. “Good luck Little Dragon King. I hope you find what you seek.”

  “Thank you for your wisdom and aid, My Lady,” Arthur said with an incline of his head. “Come Galahad. Let us plunge once more into the unknown.”

  Stepping through the door was like stepping into a dream. They exited into a dark forest glen illuminated by faerie light. Tall trees soared above them, blocking out the sky, if there even was one to see. What stars adorned the midnight tapestry of the Otherworld’s sky? He knew not. Glowing purple fireflies winked in the air and lush flowers bloomed all around them, dripping nectar that glowed with magic.

  “We stay together,” Arthur said, stepping over one of the many vines that climbed around them like living things.

  They followed the path of light as it joined with a tinkling river. A fish jumped in the water beside them, brilliant in shades of magenta and silver. Its brethren seemed to glow within the water, giving off more preternatural light.