Chapter 20 #2
“And how difficult would it be to convince this court to be rid of its bastard child prophesied to bring about the End of Days?” Nyneve asked, tracing one finger down the edge of her dagger.
His heart slammed against his sternum. “Especially with Merlin’s return.
Surely Arthur will soon be restored, able to bear heirs not so marred by the words of the would-be kingdom’s most powerful sorcerer. ”
He stalked closer to her, coming to a halt right beside her, one hand braced on the table, the other gripping the back of her chair. She should look afraid, Mordred thought, or perhaps even alarmed. Nyneve Or’Afon displayed neither emotion. If anything, she looked . . .
Delighted. Amused. A dog on a bone, deliriously happy to find it did not break under the first crush of teeth.
“And you have no other home to return to,” Nyneve added, her mouth twisting. “How many places might welcome a creature like you, I wonder?”
He leaned closer, desperate to know whether he might be welcome between her legs, in her mouth, beneath the thin fabric of her chemise, if his tongue might find a home in the damp, hot place between her full, lovely thighs. Desperately, Mordred buried those thoughts deep within his chest.
Instead, he cocked his head at her. “Perhaps,” he replied, drawing the word out long, “we might be of more use to each other alive, Lady Nyneve.”
She sat back, surprise filling her expression. “A truce?” she asked. “How boring.”
“You are a Druid sorceress,” Mordred said, his mind churning. “I am a faerie-bound knight. We both belong to the Old World, do we not? The very thing that this resurgence of the Christian faith seeks to destroy?”
Nyneve drew in a harsh breath, examining his face, as if looking for deceit. Then, to his shock, Lady Nyneve Or’Afon leaned forward and pouted. “But I have so enjoyed trying to kill you,” she murmured, eyes falling to his mouth.
His hand seemed to lift from the back of her chair of its own accord, fingers sliding around her jaw.
“I know,” he replied, trying not to lose himself in the gooseflesh that scattered across her neck.
Gods, he could not wait until Morgana helped him break this enchantment.
Until then . . . “Imagine it, though. We would be near unstoppable together.”
She leaned into his touch like a starved cat. “I’d have much more time if I was not constantly trying to figure out how to be rid of you,” she admitted in a rough, hitched voice.
“Oh, Nyneve,” Mordred murmured, the pad of his thumb stroking her jawline. “I certainly do not wish for you to stop entirely. I only ask what we might gain if we seek our interests together.”
“Then let us make another bargain,” she said, a tremor running through her body.
“There is no need,” he replied, because if she was the one suggesting it, she likely already had the upper hand. “I am fool enough to take you at your word.”
“Well,” Nyneve whispered, leaning closer, her mouth just a breath from brushing his. “I’ve always loved stupid men.”
In truth, Mordred Pendragon, keeper of the Cynosbythrae, child of the gods, last of the Tuatha de Danann, would be an absolute fool for this woman if that was what she wished. Desire spread like wildfire through his body, lighting everything aflame until all he knew was unending heat.
“If you give me an opening,” he whispered as her hands moved to grip the front of his tunic, the steel of her dagger pressed into his chest, “I will destroy you, Nyneve Or’Afon.”
She laughed ferociously against his lips, mad as the Northmen rotting on the southern hill. “Do you promise?”
Instead of words, Mordred kissed her, savoring the hitched sigh that left her mouth.
She pushed up to stand, grappling the front of his tunic as she pulled their bodies closer together.
Nyneve Or’Afon tasted like the flowers that sprang from killing fields.
He drank her in, hands moving to her waist. Sliding her tongue into his mouth, Nyneve hooked a leg around his thigh, sweeping one arm out to clear a section of the table.
Understanding swept through him, and Mordred lifted her onto the hand-hewn dining table in the queen’s private chambers.
She moaned into his mouth when he drew her thighs around his hips, the sound of her response nearly undoing him entirely.
Mordred no longer knew who was seducing whom, which of them was luring the other into a trap. Nor did he care.
She snatched up one of his hands with her much smaller one, shoving it roughly beneath her chemise.
His fingertips met the plushness of her full thigh, soft skin covered in golden down that shimmered in the firelight when he drew the garment up around her waist. When Nyneve said his name in a breathless little cry, Mordred felt something deep within him shatter.
Her hands left his tunic, one trailing down the front of his aketon, the other gathering up a fistful of his hair.
Careless and out of his mind, he pressed her into him, one palm flat on her back, the other sliding down one sleeve of her chemise.
Her breasts heaved into his chest. Every last bit of him throbbed mercilessly for this bold, inconvenient, and utterly impossible sorceress, and he found he did not care what the consequences were.
“You drive me mad,” Mordred admitted against her jaw, his mouth trailing down her neck.
“Unfortunately, you do much the same to me,” Nyneve replied in a strained tone so unlike the way she usually spoke. To underscore her words, she rolled her hips into his.
Mordred’s vision went white. He pulled the neckline of her chemise down further, worshiping the curve of her breasts with his kiss.
“Be good, won’t you?” Nyneve murmured, tangling her fingers deeper in his hair. “Stop interfering.”
He drew away, frustration curling in the back of his throat even as the pounding of his blood demanded that he give the sorceress whatever she damn well asked for.
“What?” Mordred asked. His hands stilled on her chemise.
“Stop interfering with my position at court,” Nyneve said, louder now, looking up at him. The fire blazed in her eyes, bright as a funeral pyre. He was but ash in her flame.
“Did we not just agree to a truce?” he asked pointedly.
She rolled her eyes and pouted, but it was a mask, none of that desperate hunger he had seen before. The fingers splayed on the front of his chest trailed down to the hard evidence of his desire. Despite himself, Mordred groaned, bringing his forehead to hers.
“Do not think you can kiss me silly,” Nyneve whispered in his ear, teeth grazing his skin. “Make a formal bargain with me. I’ll even fuck you right here in the queen’s chambers. On this very table, if you wish.”
At that, he broke away from her, breathing heavily.
His light tunic and padded aketon were suddenly far too much clothing in the stifling chambers, every stitch of his garments pressing painfully against his skin.
It would be so easy to give her what she wanted.
A few words, a single Thread of magic. But this was a war, not a battle, and he had felt her fingers slip into the pocket of his aketon.
He doubted she even expected him to agree; it was just one step in whatever she was planning.
“What is this?” he demanded with a scoff, gesturing to Nyneve on the table, her mouth swollen from the intensity of their exchange, shift nearly exposing her heavy breasts, a dangerous gleam in her eyes.
She shrugged one shoulder to her ear, the sleeve of her chemise tumbling down her arm, the fabric peeling farther away from her breast.
Mordred swallowed, steadying himself. Then he crossed his arms and took several steps away from her.
“I thought you liked bargains. Exchanges. A jewel for a jewel,” came Nyneve’s voice, calm now.
He took a deep, long breath. When Mordred turned, he knew the cold, unaffected mask he wore so well was back in place. “I prefer my pleasure freely given,” he replied, glowering down at her.
“Suit yourself,” Nyneve said, voice edged in anger, not so calm now. She slid off the table and began to pull up her chemise. He could not help but notice how badly her hands shook.
“You are accustomed to weak men,” Mordred warned, prowling a few steps closer to her as she stood and retrieved her kirtle from the hearth. “You will find I am not one.”
But he was still standing there in the room he could leave at any time, he knew. And Nyneve knew it too, because when she stepped into her kirtle, as easily as if she were dressing in her own chambers, she raised her chin to look at him.
“We’ll see, won’t we?”
If only she knew he was, in fact, not even a man at all.