CHAPTER FIVE
-LANCE-
The torches burned low in the dungeon corridor, guttering in the draft that rolled up from the lower cells.
I’d stood at the top of these stairs three times in as many days and turned back each time. But not tonight. Tonight I would go to her because I had to.
My boots found each step without sound, even as the stone was slick with water. I kept my hand off the walls, which were also wet, because I didn’t want to touch anything that reminded me of her. And that was a foolish thought because every fucking thing reminded me of her...
She was awake.
I knew as much before I’d even rounded the corner. It was just an awareness I had of her, and an awareness I resented deeply.
She sat against the far wall of her cell with her knees drawn up to her chest, her white hair loose around her shoulders.
Even dirty, even attired in a prisoner’s uniform, she was just as fucking beautiful as she always had been.
And seeing her here... in the darkness and the cold, the miserable conditions...
No. You won’t allow yourself to pity her.
She was looking away from me, staring into the darkness as if she were having a conversation with it.
And suddenly I was reminded of the moment in the Great Hall and Arthur’s voice cutting through the crowd with that particular coldness he reserved for making examples of people.
I remembered her standing there, remembered the moment he’d stripped her of his cloak in the same way he’d attempted to strip her of her dignity.
But she hadn’t flinched. Not once.
That was what had undone me, if I was being honest with myself, which lately I tried not to be.
Any other person, man or woman, would have crumbled under the weight of that many eyes.
Under the calculated humiliation of it. Arthur had orchestrated the whole thing, and he’d done so in order to break her. To make her appear small.
But she’d refused.
She’d lifted her chin and met the gaze of every man in that hall. One by one. Like she was the one holding all the power, like she was the one choosing to stand there, in all her naked glory.
And they’d stared at her. Because of course they had. How could they not stare at the body of a woman that had been sent by the gods themselves? And I’d stared at her too, even if she might not have caught me. I’d looked because I hadn’t been able to help it. I was no better than the rest of them.
I’d stared at those round and heavy tits that had occupied the entirety of my palms so perfectly, as if they’d been made for my hands alone.
And I’d stared at the curve of her waist, the pale jut of her collarbone.
I’d stared at the way the torchlight moved across her skin like it was trying to get close to something warm.
I remembered what that skin felt like under my hands, what her mouth tasted like, what her cunt tasted like.
I remembered the feel of her stretching to take my girth.
I remembered the slick wetness of her passage, the way her quim tightened around me until it was all I could do to keep myself from releasing.
I remembered the specific sound she made when —
The anger came fast and hot, the way it always did when the memories got too specific, too close, too personal.
The anger wasn’t at her necessarily. At least, it was never cleanly at her.
No, it was more at myself for being exactly as weak as I’d always suspected I was underneath the armor, the reputation, and the thirty-five years of careful, disciplined performance.
I’d stood there in Arthur’s hall, staring at the woman who had completely and totally undone me. I’d stood there with my cock hard, my mind furious, and my heart utterly disgusted with itself.
And nothing had changed since.
As I stared at her now and watched how the torchlight caught the curve of her cheek and the pale column of her throat, my chest lurched.
From where I stood in the shadow of the corridor, she hadn’t noticed me, and I used that to my advantage as I watched her breathe and hated myself for every second of it. Hated the way my eyes traced the line of her jaw, and hated the way my body felt so drawn to her.
Something pressed against the inside of my ribs, but as soon as I felt it, I killed it. Smothered it before it could take shape, before it could name itself. And I replaced it with something sharper, something I knew how to use.
Anger. Raw and potent.
She’d made a fool of me. She’d lied to my face repeatedly. She’d used me, and she’d used my feelings for her against me. She’d turned me into something I’d sworn I would never be: weak. And for that? I did hate her.
My jaw tightened, and I pushed off the wall. My boots scraped against the stone floor as I stepped forward, crossing the threshold between shadow and torchlight. The moment the light caught me, she turned her head.
Her eyes immediately found mine, but she said nothing.
Neither did I. She just held my gaze the way a cornered animal locates a threat before it even fully registers what it’s seeing.
There was no flinching and no cowering. Just that violet, steady gaze locking onto me with the kind of stillness that had always unnerved me so much more than any drawn blade ever could.
“Lance.”
That one word nearly upended me, but I pushed against the onslaught of emotion, pushed against the tidal wave that wanted to scream at her, that wanted to understand how and why she’d done what she had, that wanted to rip her clothes off and bury myself as deeply inside her as I could.
Yes, I wanted to fuck my hate into her and use her beautiful body just as thoroughly as she’d used me.
I let the silence between us stretch because she needed to feel the weight of it first.
“Thomas Wren,” I finally said.
Her expression didn’t change.
“Thirty-one years old. Two daughters. One was four, and one was seven.” I kept my voice level. “He used to carry a drawing the older child made for him. He kept it tucked inside his gauntlet.” I paused. “He showed it to me once, and he was as proud as a man with a crown.”
She said nothing.
“Brynn Colm.” I moved closer to the bars. “He sang constantly. Every battle hymn he knew, and he knew every single fucking word.” Something moved in my chest, but I pressed through it.
“Aldric Pane.”
The torchlight threw shadows across her face. She was very still and so fucking small inside the enormous darkness surrounding her.
“Eighteen years old.” My voice dropped without my permission.
“He’d been with us only six months. Hadn’t even grown a proper beard yet.”
I felt my jaw grow even tighter. “He used to blush when the men told ribald jokes. And then he’d laugh just because he wanted them to like him.” I stopped. “They did like him.”
I watched her throat move.
“I don’t underst—”
“—I’m not finished.”
Her eyes held mine. The violet of them was darker in the low light. Almost black.
“There was a fourth man,” I continued. “Edwyn Cole. But, unlike the others, he didn’t die at Eldenvale. He hid in the tree line while the water took his brothers. And he watched the whole thing from thirty yards away. Later he told me he couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe because he was so frightened.
All he could do was watch, so that’s exactly what he did.”
I turned away from her then and took a deep breath. I needed a moment, but I wasn’t willing to give her the satisfaction of seeing me in need.
“He came back to Camelot on foot,” I continued when I’d regained control of myself.
“It took him a week to return. When he arrived, he couldn’t speak. He just stood at the gates shaking.”
The torchlight on the stone wall blurred slightly.
I steadied myself. “After that, he woke screaming every night for six months. The healers tried everything they knew. Mordred gave him tincture after tincture. Nothing worked.”
I wrapped my fingers around two of the bars that separated us.
“Arthur discharged him with full pension, which was the kindest thing, given what was left of him.”
She’d drawn her knees tighter to her chest.
“The night before Edwyn left Camelot,” I continued, “I sat beside his bed. He was asleep. Or something like sleep: whatever it is when a man’s body shuts down because it can’t hold what his mind keeps showing him.”
The words came out flat, stripped. “I made an oath then, over his sleeping body, in that quiet room. I made him a promise. Not only to Edwyn, but it was a promise to Thomas, to Brynn, and to Aldric. A promise that I’d find whoever had done this to them and I’d make that person pay.”
The silence between us was suddenly enormous.
“And I found her,” I continued.
Her chin came up just slightly, settling into that stubborn angle I’d kissed a dozen times.
“She was the same woman I gave my fucking heart to.”
The words tasted like copper, and it was all I could do not to spit the taste out.
“The woman who looked me in the eye every fucking day and lied to me. Who let me believe—” I stopped.
Started again. “Who let me believe she was someone worth believing in.”
“Lance—”
“—don’t.”
She closed her mouth.
My knuckles were white against the iron of the bars.
“Thomas’s daughters no longer have a father. Brynn’s voice is gone, and Aldric never grew that beard.” I looked at her. Really looked at her. “And Edwyn Cole is somewhere in Logres, jumping at shadows. He will be until the day he dies.”
She met my gaze and didn’t look away. That was the worst of it. She never looked away.
“Whatever those men were to you, they killed my parents.”
The words hit the air between us and stayed there. She stared at me, and there was a mix of emotions playing through those incredible eyes. Understanding, yes, but also sorrow and rebellion.
“They murdered my mother and my father right in front of me.”
“Your father is Merlin, and your fucking mother is the Lady of the Lake.”
She stood up and approached the bars, and I almost wanted to push away from them. I just... it was so fucking difficult to be so close to her.
“I found out the truth of my parentage, no doubt near to the same time you did.”