10. Will
Chapter ten
Will
Say cheese!
W hen it really seemed like Arthur was back in control, I turned to the others, tilting my head toward the door. “Hey, do you think we can have a moment alone?”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Otto said, not unkindly as he eyed the curls of red energy running up and down Arthur’s arms. We’d all seen how quickly his curse had taken control, so I understood his concern. I knew just how much damage Arthur could wreak when the monster within took the reins.
He wasn’t stable, if just now and last night were anything to go off of. In fact, my neck still bore the weight of Arthur’s grip.
Nothing some healing tonics wouldn’t help with, though. I just needed to ask Otto or Dorothy to make another batch since we’d used all the healing tonics we’d brought on Arthur last night.
“I’m sure,” I said, sounding much more sure of myself than I actually was. Then softer so Arthur couldn’t hear, “Trust me?”
Otto nodded slowly, almost unwillingly.
Dorothy, the saint she was, tugged on my dad’s hand, urging his reluctant self out the door. He dug his heels in, wanting to stick around.
Was he reluctant to leave because he feared for my safety, though? No.
Because as Dorothy shooed him away, he muttered excuses to stay, questions he forgot to ask Arthur. Like, did she think Arthur would sign his forehead? What about a shirt? Also, hypothetically speaking, how much did she think someone could get by selling a shirt signed by a mythological hero?
Otto helped Nana stand from the rocking chair, and she scowled at Arthur, pointing her cane at the king. “Fine, I’ll go too. But you listen to me, boy, I don’t care if you’re royalty or not. I’m not afraid to give you another good smack if you hurt my favorite grandson.”
Otto just sighed.
Arthur touched the back of his head with a slight frown. “Understood.”
Scooping Gerry up from his seat, Otto ushered Nana out of the room. And with one last concerned peek at me, he shut the door.
The silence after they’d left threatened to overwhelm me.
Fidgeting with my hands, I peered at Arthur from the corner of my eye. He was studying the lamp by the side of the bed, his expression curious. Arthur’s fingers hovered over the lightbulb, and the bulb flickered and hissed, reacting to the nearness of Arthur’s curse. His brows drew low, but his eyes widened in fascination. “Is this magic?”
“No,” I said, pointing to the filament inside the bulb. “Electricity travels from a power source and up through that wire inside the lightbulb.”
He frowned. “You trap lightning in glass bottles? But you don’t consider that to be magic?”
“It’s not lightning,” I started to protest, then stopped. Because I didn’t think this was the most pressing matter to be discussing right now. “You know what. It’s not important. But it’s not magic.”
“If you say so,” he said, sounding like he didn’t believe me.
“You didn’t see lightbulbs in any of those visions?”
Shaking his head. “I don’t believe so. It’s... hard to explain. But I was only given clipped pieces of their lives. Brief scenes Fate deemed important for me to see. So I picked up on the changes in language over time, but the settings were always...” He seemed to struggle with what he wanted to say. “They weren’t clear.”
And I understood that. In all the visions of him, the background was always dulled and blurred.
Slowly, as to not startle him, I moved to sit by his side again on the bed. He didn’t startle at my closeness, but he did still. And slowly, he turned to look at me.
I wished he wouldn’t. There was something about having the full weight of his intense gaze on me that left me squirming. Something, it seemed, he noticed, and he cocked his head, scrutinizing me closer.
“Um, do you have any questions for me?” I asked, feeling absolutely ridiculous. But I didn’t know what I was doing. I just knew I needed to break this silence and hopefully get him to stop staring at me like that.
“Why are you helping me?”
And I... That wasn’t the question I’d been expecting.
“What do you mean?”
He ran his fingers through his hair, grunting when they caught on some tangles. “What made you decide to rescue me? To take this all on?”
I knew what I could have said. That I wanted to be part of something big. That I’d had a taste of the agony he was in and wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if I left him to suffer. That I’d been dreaming of him for so long and needed to meet him.
Instead, I settled on something simple. “It was the right thing to do.”
He watched me carefully again, and I fought back the urge to squirm beneath his complete focus. But then he nodded, swallowing thickly. “Where do we go from here? Have you figured out where any of the Treasures might be?”
“We only have guesses right now,” I admitted, thinking back to the prophecy. “It sounds as if we need to search the places from your stories.”
Arthur looked a little stressed at this news though. “So we’re no closer to finding the Grail than we were when I was entombed?”
“I’m sorry—”
“I don’t want your apologies. I just”—he tugged at his scalp and stood, pacing in front of me—“it’s just hard to hear. That I’ve been waiting all this time, and we’re still no closer to finding it than when I was turned to stone.”
“I get it. It’s really frustrating,” I said earnestly, fighting the urge to go to him. To touch him. “Your feelings are completely valid.”
He huffed a laugh, moving around the room like an antsy animal in a cage. All I could do was sit and watch him carefully as his curse coated his skin, the energy shooting red sparks all around him. “How could you understand? Do you know what it was like? Frozen in place, forced to watch the world move on without me? To be stuck waiting for someone, anyone, to come and save me like I was promised?” He paused before me, extending his arms to his sides. “To be stuck in so much indescribable pain but unable to end it?”
I swallowed down my guilt, reminding myself that I hadn’t known. And even the brief glimpse into his pain wasn’t enough to comprehend what he went through. “No, Arthur. I can’t begin to imagine what that was like. I just meant I get you’re angry, and I don’t blame you for it. I think anyone would be furious in your position.” I rubbed my hands over my upper arms. “And I know it might not make a difference, but I didn’t know you were real until just a few days ago.”
The red winked out at that, his anger deflating. “Forgive me. I shouldn’t have taken my anger out on you.”
I shrugged. “I can take it. Can’t change what you had to go through, but I can do my best to finish what the others couldn’t.”
Pulling out my phone, I watched his eyes widen as I unlocked the screen. “What is that?”
“It’s a phone. Never saw these either?”
He shook his head, staring in awe as I pulled up my photos. “No, like I said, your ancestors were hermits. They mainly lived simple lives in isolation.”
I patted the space next to me on the bed, urging Arthur to sit beside me so we could look at the phone together. He did so hesitantly, eyeing the electronic with wary curiosity. “Well, this is a phone. It can send instant messages to someone else with a phone. It can also access tons of data online, so it’s incredibly handy if I need to look something up.”
Arthur gave me a blank stare, apparently not really understanding. “Everything is stored inside this tiny thing?”
“No, it’s...” I trailed off, trying to think of the simplest way to explain it. “Just think of it as a communication device. I can call or text someone on it.”
He still looked confused but nodded anyway.
“It can also take photos and videos.” I pulled up the camera app and leaned in closer to Arthur. “Say cheese!”
“Cheese?” he asked me, confused.
I hurriedly took a picture, and at the sound of the camera, he glanced back at the phone. His mouth gaped in surprise at seeing his image reflected back at him, and I smirked as I snapped a few pictures.
“These are photos?” he asked in wonder as I pulled up the pictures I’d taken of us.
“Yep. Pretty neat, right?”
“Magic,” he murmured, taking the phone from me and swiping through my photos before I could stop him. Fascination filled his expression as he swiped through picture after picture, barely stopping to look at each one before moving to the next like he needed to see everything he could as fast as possible.
I was content to let him look until I heard the telltale sound of fap , fap , fap , and it took me a moment to comprehend what was happening before my heart stopped dead. An embarrassingly loud moan rasped from the phone speaker, and Arthur’s already wide eyes opened bigger as he watched the video.
Because he’d found a recent video I’d taken of myself. In it, I’d stripped down to nothing but my underwear slung low around my hips, and was attempting to give the camera a saucy look as my hand stroked my shaft beneath the fabric of my boxer briefs.
I’d sent it to a guy I’d been messaging on a hookup app, but he’d left me on read.
It wasn’t exactly a confidence boost.
Arthur’s breath hitched as the video played, and I wondered if it was possible to die of mortification as I dove forward and snagged the phone from his frozen hands.
Something I could have sworn was a growl bubbled up from his throat as I took the phone away, and for a moment, red licked up his skin, zapping me with his nearness. But just as quickly, it was gone.
Clearing my throat, I quickly exited out of the video, but not before the unmistakable sound of me orgasming rang through the room.
“Sorry,” I muttered, avoiding Arthur’s gaze like a plague and blushing from head to toe as I navigated to one of my photo albums to pull up the one of my artwork. This time when I showed Arthur the phone, I kept it tightly gripped in my hands. No need to embarrass myself further. “These are some of the places where the Treasures should be.”
Arthur was slow to respond, and when I dared a look his way, he was already watching me. The blacks of his pupils swallowed up the green of his irises, and little arcs of red dashed across his eyes. But there was something different about it this time. He didn’t look... angry, exactly. His freckled cheeks were slightly flushed, and his pulse was visible and quick in his throat. Each subsequent breath of his came out harsher than his last. His fingers flexed almost imperceptibly in his lap before clenching so tightly his knuckles paled. But his expression still didn’t seem mad.
After several moments, he looked away from me and back to the phone. He squinted at the picture I’d taken of one of my canvases, since we’d decided against bringing them all the way here. It just hadn’t made sense when we could easily take pictures of them and not have to drag them all around.
The painting Arthur studied showed a dark, dimly lit tunnel. Roots sprouted from between the rocky walls. But at the end of the tunnel sat a massive cauldron. Its black surface gleamed despite the limited amount of light, giving it an almost ethereal appearance.
“ Pair Dyrnwch Gawr ,” Arthur murmured, reaching toward the screen before hesitating. His eyes glanced my way briefly, but he quickly looked away, his ears pinkening.
I pretended I didn’t notice. “Yes, the Cauldron of Dyrnwch the Giant. Do you recognize where it is?”
Arthur shook his head, lips turned down regretfully. “I don’t. Forgive me.”
I shrugged, not letting my disappointment show. “Hey, it’s all right. It was a long shot anyway.”
After swiping through the rest of the paintings, it became clear Arthur didn’t recognize any of those locations either.
“You’re disappointed,” Arthur said, studying my face as I pocketed my phone.
I just shrugged again. “I’m disappointed, yeah. But not with you. Like I said, I knew there was a small chance you’d recognize the locations.” Sighing, I sent him a little smile. “Looks like we’ll have to go about this the hard way then.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. We already compiled a list of possible places associated with your past to search. We’ll be fine.” I studied his dejected expression, the way he brushed dirty locks behind his ears and sat up straighter. I nodded my chin toward the bathroom. “Do you want to shower?”
Arthur cocked his head at me. “What is that?”
I grinned, standing. I waved for him to follow me. “Oh my gosh. I can’t believe I get to show this to you. You’re going to love it.”
Arthur followed me into the small bathroom, his expression curious as he watched me reach into the shower. And when I twisted the knob to start the spray, Arthur’s mouth gaped in wonder.
Hesitantly, he reached out, his eyes widening. “It’s warm.”
“Yep.” I gestured to the bottles lined up along a small alcove. “This is a 3-in-1 shampoo, conditioner, and body wash. Sorry, I bought it before I knew I was rich,” I said as if that explained everything, and Arthur’s face wrinkled in confusion. “You can use it to wash your hair and body.”
Arthur gave me a small nod.
Stepping back, I gestured to the towels hanging on the towel rack. “I’ll get you some clean clothes, but feel free to use the towels to dry yourself off when you’re done. My dad made breakfast earlier, so I can bring you some food when I get you something to wear.”
Since there were only two bathrooms, and six people currently staying in this residence at the same time, Nana had moved her toiletries into my bathroom. That wouldn’t be a big deal if she didn’t have like 20 different medicine and vitamin bottles set out across the entire bathroom counter. Several of her pajama robes were dangling from a hook on the back of the door, and the slippers my dad had bought her for last Christmas were stashed in the small bathroom as well.
“I’ll be back in a little bit,” I said, slipping back out of the bathroom. “Let me know if you need anything, okay?”
Arthur didn’t respond, his mouth pursed as he studied the shower valve. So with one last look, I closed the door between us.