The King’s Maiden (Camelot Court #1)

Chapter Thirty-Three

QUINN

I had no idea what time it was when I came to, but Landon had brought me back to the room and put me to bed again. I woke up dressed in a pair of silk pajamas with the covers pulled up around me. My hands ran over my body, checking for sore spots on my breasts and inner thighs. For the most part, everything felt normal.

But when I sat up and found Landon watching me from the chaise, the end of our night came flooding back to me.

“How—” My voice croaked and my throat throbbed. I stared wide-eyed at Landon as he eased off the chaise and came to sit next to me. “What?—”

Another croak.

The glass of water Landon handed me eased the ache in my throat tremendously, but the lingering soreness triggered me. When I rubbed at my neck to stretch out the tender muscles, it reminded me so much of what I had to do after the accident. It jolted me back to a year ago.

Landon eyed my neck carefully, his hand twitching at his side like it wanted to reach out.

Shoving it in his pocket, he stepped back from the bed. “The soreness should be gone by tomorrow. I put some medicine by the bed that should help with any inflammation.”

He shifted his feet, and his other hand scratched behind his ear.

My eyes narrowed on him. “You’re nervous.”

His hand froze. “No, I’m not.”

I pointed at his ear while his hand slid down to his other pocket. “Yes, you are. That’s your tell. We’ve been living in the same room for almost three weeks, Landon. I’m not blind.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I rolled my eyes and climbed off the bed. “You scratch behind your ear. Just like I tug at my scar. I’m not trying to make you uncomfortable by pointing it out. I just don’t understand what you’re anxious about.”

He frowned, but since I stood my ground, he caved first. “I didn’t think you’d bruise.”

“What?”

My hand shot up to my neck, and I raced over to the bathroom to see for myself. Sure enough, my skin had very faint but lingering bruises on it, and if I craned my neck to examine them in the mirror, I could almost make out the shape of fingerprints.

“What the hell, Landon?”

My brain only recognized the bruising—it didn’t care that they were different. It didn’t matter that Landon had barely left a mark. It only remembered the last time I woke up to find my neck stained with bluish-purple marks.

It only mattered that the next thing I discovered was that my dad had died, and as soon as the words left the doctor’s mouth, everything that happened as I hung upside down and got those marks on my neck came flooding back to me.

And that I’d relived my dad dying in front of me over, and over, and over again until the nurse sedated me.

My brain only knew I couldn’t breathe without him back then.

And I couldn’t—I still fucking couldn’t—breathe without him now.

“My bag,” I coughed out the words, pushing the air through a straw for how tight my airway had constricted. “I need my bag.”

Landon stepped out of the bathroom doorway as quickly as he could. I rushed past him, searching the room. Hunting under the chaise. Under the covers on the bed.

But I couldn’t find it anywhere.

“Quinn,” Landon said calmly, following me to the closet. He grabbed my wrist as I searched blindly for the light switch. “Quinn, this is a panic attack.”

I wheezed, yanking my arm out of his grip. When I wheezed again, he pressed his eyes shut. His features drew in tightly while my mouth and eyes gaped at him. I pointed to my neck, clutching at my throat.

He opened his eyes and took my face in his hands. “Take a breath, Maiden.” His voice reverted to the harsher boom from the Round Tableau, shouting a demand that I had to obey. “Breathe, Quinn!”

I gasped.

The noose around my neck unwound. The memory of the seatbelt faded. And the inky black haze obscuring my vision cleared to a dark amber ray of light. I collapsed forward, resting my head on his chest.

“That’s it.” He rubbed circles over my back. “You’re alright.”

“I need my?—”

“You don’t.” His arms tightened around me. “Quinn, this isn’t asthma. What you’re feeling right now…It’s trauma. You’re having panic attacks where you feel like you can’t breathe. And your inhaler makes you feel safe, but you don’t need it for this.”

My head shot up when he mentioned my asthma, and I barely took in what he said.

“How did you?—”

I didn’t know why I was surprised. Landon always knew. He saw everything I didn’t want him to see. I thought through every time I’d used my inhaler over the last month—the times I was scared or anxious, but I couldn’t figure out which one had given it away.

Was it that first night in the Round Tableau room? Or the bathroom at the party? Or one of the times he pushed me and tested my limits…

“Were you…” Realization struck me like the crack of a whip. “Were you purposefully trying to trigger me last night?”

He said nothing.

And that told me everything.

“How could you?—”

“You’re my Maiden, Quinn. And I told you last night I needed to test your limits and make sure you trusted me with them.”

He released me, stepping back and crossing his arms over his chest. The way he looked down at me made me see red.

“And I learned that you don’t.”

My voice rose, the pitch intensifying with my anger. “You put bruises on my neck to see if I trusted you? Do you realize how insane that sounds?” I shouted at him, but he didn’t react. “You think because you didn’t mean to hurt me that makes it okay?”

“I did it because it was necessary, Quinn. And from what I recall, you weren’t hurt last night. Scared, maybe. But not hurt or you would’ve used your safe words. You and I both know you’d have no issue using those if you needed them.”

I glared at him. And while I couldn’t argue his point, I didn’t confirm it for him, either.

“And the point is, you got through it.” He tossed something toward me, throwing it underhand so I could react and catch it. “And you didn’t need that to do it.”

Holding the tiny canister in my hand, I shook my head in complete and utter disbelief. He had no idea what he was talking about. No idea how much I’d gone through since the accident. The doctor appointments, the prescriptions, the bills, and the fucking pharmacy?—

The pharmacy.

I don’t know why I hadn’t realized it sooner. There I’d been hiding my asthma from him. Assuming because he never mentioned that day once The Quest began, he must not have remembered it as acutely as I did. Or he hadn’t been paying attention to my back-and-forth with the pharmacist.

The assumptions I’d made when I first met him, before I knew him, seemed foolish now.

Because of course, he had noticed. Of course, he remembered.

“You’ve known since that day in the pharmacy.”

“No, Quinn.” He scoffed and shook his head, disappointment in his voice that didn’t feel solely directed at me.

He hadn’t known. He’d missed it, and that didn’t happen often. Maybe ever. So, it had to be what bothered him most

I’d been able to hide it from him.

I wrapped the tiny canister in my fist. “Then, when?”

“Yesterday. Or really, the night before. When you couldn’t breathe and fell asleep clutching that in your hand. If not then, maybe I would’ve put it together if I asked you to expand on the scar you never told me about but just let slip out.”

I shut my eyes, cursing my stupidity.

“I’m sorry if you’re hurt today. If you feel like I kept something important from you.” His gaze darted to my neck before he quickly looked away. “But I guess that makes two of us.”

For a second, I considered if he could be right. But I quickly brushed that aside because he had no idea what he was talking about. No right to be angry. No rights to me.

“Oh, fuck you, Landon Scott. You think I owed you that information? Things you can use against me!” I laughed harshly, the force of it making my throat ache. “And you’re mad that I didn’t tell you?”

“Yes, I’m mad you didn’t tell me!” he shouted. “But what’s worse is that you think I wanted to know so I could use it against you. I could’ve hurt you, Quinn! I could’ve pushed too far without knowing that limit existed. Don’t you get that?”

Staring at him and hearing the sincerity in his words, my resolve wavered. But I didn’t let it crumble. I straightened my spine, lifting my chin and reinforcing my anger.

He took in my reaction, and his tough exterior cracked. But the difference between us was that he let it happen. He let me see the emotion driving his reaction.

And it wasn’t anger.

“Quinn, I’m supposed to trust you. But how do I do that knowing you don’t trust me?”

“Just because I’m your Maiden for The Quest doesn’t mean I owe you every little detail about myself!”

I couldn’t take it. The emotion cracking his voice, the pained expression on his face—they threatened to break down my walls. The look in his eyes could level me completely.

It was too much. Too fast. And I couldn’t breathe.

So instead of answering his question, I shoved him, ready to leave his room and end this whole thing before I fell too far.

But before I could get away, he snatched me by the wrist. He whipped my body into his, spinning me around and pinning me against him.

“You. Belong. To. Me.”

My heart pounded.

With his chest to my back, he grabbed my hips, digging into my flesh as he turned our bodies away from the door. His breath, hot and panting in my ear, fueled my outrage. His words, possessive and demanding, spurred my indignation.

But his touch commanded a different reaction. One my mind bowed to willingly.

And my heart caved to all too eagerly.

Furious as I was, my body responded to him instinctively. Instead of struggling to get out of his grip, I sank into him. Instead of glaring up at him to tell him off, I dropped my head back against his chest.

And instead of running, I stayed.

“You signed up for The Quest.”

He undid the buttons on my silk pajama top, returning his hand to the column of my throat as soon as he bared my breasts. I leaned back farther, exposing my neck. His hand rested beneath my collarbone before he slowly dragged it down my body.

“Quinn, you chose to be a Maiden, knowing it meant you’d belong to a Knight.”

Kneading my breast. Rolling my nipple between his thumb and finger. And slowly sliding down my belly, he dipped into my waistband and tugged off my shorts.

“Now, you belong to me.”

He brushed his lips along my neck, leaving a trail of hot, wet kisses over my skin to soothe any lingering hurt. But the only part of me that ached was the part longing for him.

Desire coiled low in my belly.

Bringing one hand up to my chest, Landon pressed against the swell of my breasts. Holding me tightly. Clutching me to him as he walked us toward the bed. He pressed a kiss below my ear, releasing a low growl that made my whole body shudder.

“That means you’re mine. All of you.”

A part of me wanted to fire back at him, put my foot down that, even though I’d signed up for The Quest, no one owned me.

But the words died on my tongue when he tore my panties clean off.

“Your body is mine.”

He cupped me between my legs and circled his palm over my clit. His fingers thrust inside me, stretching deep. Coming out slick with my desire.

“Your pleasure.”

He brought his fingers up, dragging them across my lower lip before he put them in his mouth and sucked them clean.

His hand circled my throat, squeezing lightly. “And your pain.”

I whimpered, tensing at the thought of him cutting off my air supply. My breathing grew tighter, and panic flared again.

“All of your pain is mine, Quinn.”

His grip loosened and his hand fell back to my chest, the other splaying across my stomach. Trapping me against him, he leaned my body into his.

“But if you don’t give it to me, I can’t do anything to take it away.”

My lungs expanded as he arched my back. And confusion filled me when he drew in a deep breath. Then, another.

And another.

Until I matched each steady inhale and slow exhale of his with one of my own. He held me against his chest, and instead of stealing my breath, he simply breathed with me, syncing my respirations with his.

The tightness in my airway eased. My lungs expanded and filled with one rush of oxygen after the next. And all my earlier panic faded away.

Tears pricked my eyes.

The way he held me, the way he helped me calm down and catch my breath—no one had ever done something like that for me before. No one had ever forced me to slow down once the adrenaline spiked.

No one had ever seen how deeply I struggled and fought to breathe.

An emotion I couldn’t bring myself to name lodged in my throat as he kissed a path down my neck. Teasing over my sensitive skin. Sucking greedily before coming back up.

I sagged against him, lost to anything but the feel of his lips on my body. Relaxed by the beat of his heart against my back. Soothed by his touch. And suddenly, deeply aroused by his cock hardening against my ass.

I moaned, rolling my hips against him.

A murmur of satisfaction brushed the shell of my ear. “Do you get it now, Maiden?”

“Yes.”

“You’re mine.”

“Yes,” I panted against him.

“Tell me.”

“I’m yours.”

His arms tightened around me, and the soft flutter of eyelashes brushed my cheek as his eyes fell closed. Spinning me around, he pressed his forehead to mine, leaving barely the space for a breath between us.

And then, he sealed his lips to mine.

My eyes widened, shock overpowering me as he broke his biggest rule. But I kissed him back eagerly. Desperately. My arms wrapped around his neck as his tongue swept in and quickly battled mine for dominance.

I submitted to him.

Opening my mouth, I gave him what he wanted. I let him consume me. My whole body drowned in the taste and feel of his lips against mine. And a moan broke free from my chest.

He quickly pulled back. Panting hard, he stared at me like a man half-starved. Out of his mind with desire.

“Fuck it,” he breathed, breaking his rule again. He yanked me to him, seizing my lips in another explosive kiss. Plunging his tongue into the depths of my mouth. Guiding my body backwards toward the bed.

My legs hit the mattress, and he eased me back, drawing in a shaky breath as I sank down onto the bed.

He followed me onto the bed, laying his body over me. Cupping my face in his hands, he stared at me with a war in his eyes—one I couldn’t fight for him.

Until he finally decided to let this— let us— win.

“You’re mine, Quinn.”

“Yes,” I whispered. “And you?—”

He kissed my lips gently, tenderly. Lovingly. Stroking my face, my hair. Running his hands over my body. He touched me as if he would never get enough.

As if right then, for the first time, he’d never stop.

“I’m yours.”