Chapter Nineteen
QUINN
T wo days had passed since my introduction to Camelot Court, and in a lot of ways, The Quest was a dream.
Reading books in Landon’s room all day without a care in the world? A delivery service bringing meals to his door? And a pantry of junk food at my disposal in the kitchen?
A girl could get used to that kind of lifestyle.
Another girl. Not me, of course.
Because despite living that dream, I spent most of the time on edge. Torn between waiting for Landon to pounce and wanting him to do it, I figured it was only a matter of time before he subjected me to another round of sexually frustrating torture.
Opting to sleep on the chaise, I developed a crick in my neck. I diligently counted my sleep shirts in case he decided to burn one. And I barked my safe words at him anytime he came near me.
But so far, he’d left his taunt hanging between us.
He had other ways of torturing me, I’d quickly realized.
“You’ve got the Maiden Luncheon in an hour,” he reminded me before turning back to his book.
I groaned, sinking into the chaise and pulling the blanket over my head. Forcing a cough, I sniffled loudly and moaned a little. “I’m sick.”
While the Maiden Luncheon could be a more fruitful opportunity to learn more about The Quest—since Landon thought thirty days of testing your honor had been a sufficient explanation—I’d been dreading it. He had informed me with a little too much satisfaction that the dress code didn’t include my shapeless, baggy excuse for jeans.
Then, he pulled a dress out of the closet.
I wasn’t sure why lunch with the girls meant I needed to dress like an over-priced escort, but he’d been quick to tell me it was non-negotiable when he saw the look on my face.
He didn’t buy my fake sick routine either. “Come here.”
Flinging off the blanket, I did my best to seem weak and sickly as I slugged over to him. “It might be the flu. It’s that time of year.”
“It’s the middle of summer.”
I faked another cough. “The bugs must be getting stronger.”
He gave me an exasperated look and beckoned me closer. When I made it in front of him, stretching the five feet of distance into a marathon of dramatics, he thwacked my forehead with the back of his fingers. Not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to let me know he didn’t buy my bullshit.
“You’re not warm.”
“Neither are you,” I muttered.
He cleared his throat, keeping his expression neutral, but for a second, I swore the corner of his mouth twitched.
“What if I go and get them all sick?”
“That would be a concern…” His hand brushed the hair back from my forehead. “If you were actually sick and not just being a child.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Fine, but I’m wearing my clothes.”
“Great.” He turned back to the desk, making me think for a minute he was letting me have my way. But as soon as I turned around, he cleared up any illusions I had about his ability to compromise. “Since that dress falls under the category of your clothes and adheres to the dress code for the Maiden Luncheon, it should work perfectly.”
I whirled back around to protest, but he pointed at the dress without turning his head.
“Go on, Maiden. That’s an order.”
Eyeing the red dress, I stomped back over to the chaise and sat down with a huff. “You see how ridiculous this is, right? Dressing me like a sex doll for a tea party with the other girls.”
“It’s expected.”
“Doesn’t mean it’s not ridiculous.”
He shrugged before scribbling something else in his book. I glared at his back and the dress hanging on the back of the door. Grumbling to myself, I stalked into the bathroom, yanking the offensive garment off the hanger as I went.
Accepting my fate begrudgingly wasn’t my style when the option to throw a little tantrum was on the table. Too bad my warden didn’t care about my display of displeasure. He didn’t even glance up from his desk.
What the hell he was doing over there, I had no idea.
But I didn’t have long to think about it, since hair and makeup were a part of the dress code for this shindig. Landon had already warned me about being late to a second event with the other Maidens. He’d also grumbled under his breath—something about punishment and not being that kind of Knight.
If he meant for me to hear that, it had the opposite of what I assumed his desired response would be. With renewed incentive to disobey his rules rather than to follow them, I had to tell my traitorous pussy to calm the fuck down. I still had no intention of giving in to him.
I locked myself in the bathroom as quickly as possible so I couldn’t purposefully get myself into trouble.
And so I could take the edge off myself.
An hour later, I was primped, polished, and—most importantly for Landon—punctual.
He deposited me outside the formal dining room on the first floor, letting me know he’d be back to get me when it finished. I didn’t protest him leading me around like a guide dog, only because I still couldn’t tell my ass from my elbow as far as the layout of the house was concerned.
Staring around the prim and properly decorated space as I took my seat, it did not make me feel better to see that everyone else at the table was dressed in the same skimpy outfits. But it did help that most of the girls shared my displeasure over it.
“I was taking a sip of water when he showed me the dress,” one of the Maidens shared with the group, lifting her glass to her lips. “I spit it out on his shoes.”
A collective gasp sounded around the table, from everyone but me.
Her reaction sounded perfectly reasonable from where I was sitting. “If I’d had something in my mouth at the time, I would’ve spit it out, too.” I raised my glass to her. “Can’t say it would’ve been an accident, either.”
This shocked everyone even more.
I looked around at the other girls, confused by their reactions. They stared back at me like I was crazy.
“What? You can’t tell me any of you were excited to be dressed up like this.”
Most of them shook their heads, but a few wouldn’t meet my eyes. They glanced around at each other, clearly uncomfortable. No one would say what was on their minds, though.
But, of course, Vivian didn’t have that problem.
“I knew you looked like a little freak.” She snorted and whispered something to the Maiden beside her.
My brows drew in as my annoyance flared. “What the hell are you talking about?”
She ignored my question, pursing her lips as she assessed me. “No, it’s not that you’re a freak by nature…”
Her icy blue gaze ran up and down my body and she tapped her chin, smiling when the most vile response she could think of came to her.
“It’s the dead daddy issues. Isn’t it?”
My hands cracked against the marble table, and I pushed back from my seat. I was over this whole charade before I’d even left Landon’s room. I sure as fuck wasn’t going to stick around when Vivian was running her mouth before lunch had been served.
I threw my napkin down on my empty seat. “Well, ladies, this has been a barrel of laughs. Can’t wait to do it again, but now, I’m done.”
Eyes widened around the table before more whispers followed. Brushing that aside, I smiled my sweetest smile at Vivian. “Hey, V, do me a favor and give Max my best.”
I added a wink for good measure, enjoying the way her mouth pinched tighter despite her efforts to appear nonplussed. It didn’t shock me in the least when she refused to let me have the last word, pulling out the oldest trick in the slut-shaming handbook—the coughed slur.
“Whore.”
Rolling my eyes, I adjusted the hem of my dress. “Real original, sweetie.”
She glared, and as much as I wanted to rile her up by not letting any future insults get to me, getting the fuck out of there sounded even more satisfying.
I turned to leave the room.
But Elaine tugged on my arm, whispering urgently, “Sit down, Quinn.”
I shot daggers at where she gripped me, but the panic on her face gave me pause. “I want to leave, Elaine. I’m sure you all will be fine without me.”
Raising my eyebrows at her hand, I waited for her to release me. She only tugged harder.
“If you leave—if anyone leaves—we’ll all get in trouble.” Her eyes shot to Vivian and back to mine. “Please, just ignore her. Sit and talk with me, so we can get through this.”
Despite my better judgment, and the overwhelming number of red flags her statement raised, I sat back down. She calmed down, letting out a rush of breath and waiting until I tucked my chair back under the table to let my arm go.
The skin on my arm had five perfect half-moon indents from her nails.
“What the hell is going on?” I asked her quietly. “I feel like I’m missing something huge here, and it would be great if you could fill in the blanks.”
Her eyes shifted around the room. “Didn’t Landon tell you the rules?”
“No, or I wouldn’t be asking,” I snapped. But I reined myself back in when she grimaced. “Sorry, I’m just confused and on edge. Can you please tell me what’s going on? Landon told me basically nothing. He just ordered me to undress him.”
Elaine’s features tightened. “Yeah, it’s supposed to push us past the awkward getting to know each other part…I wish they gave it a little more time.”
“Wait, what? But you seemed so gung-ho about it when we met that first night.”
She blushed. “Yeah, when I thought?—”
“Oh.” I sat back in my chair, putting distance between us.
When she thought she was spending the night with Landon, her longtime crush, she’d wanted to rush to the good part. Instead, I ended up in his bed. She ended up with a Knight she wasn’t expecting.
“Why didn’t you just tell him that? Wouldn’t he have understood if you wanted to wait?”
Her eyes widened like I’d just told her to run naked around the room.
“What are you talking about? I mean, I know you missed the Maiden Introduction, but you know what we signed up for, Quinn. We have to do what they say. Give them what they want. When they want it. I thought you wanted to win this. Now, it sounds like you’re purposefully doing things to get yourself eliminated. Or worse—punished.”
I had to quiet the part of my brain saying she needed to rethink her priorities. But only because I was starting to think the punishment I envisioned when Landon let that slip out was not the same as what some of the girls experienced. Before I could respond to Elaine, though, a server approached the table carrying a large tray of plates.
Another followed, and as they started setting the plates down in front of us, my response died on my tongue. As I waited for the servers to leave the room, I thought over the way everyone had been reacting—like they were scared of the way their Knights would respond if they spoke up for themselves.
Once it was just the Maidens in the room, Elaine cut up a small piece of her chicken and took a bite. I stared at my plate, wondering how the hell any of them could eat if that was what they were worried about. But I didn’t understand why they thought they couldn’t speak up for themselves, too.
While Landon had been clear that The Quest came with certain expectations, he hadn’t threatened to punish me or pushed me toward sex once.
“Is that what happened when she spat on her Knight’s shoes by accident?” I kept my voice low so only she could hear me. “Did he punish her for that?”
Elaine swallowed and nodded her head.
“Why didn’t she use her safe words?”
Elaine shrugged. “Maybe she did. But most of us realize that’s part of this whole thing. Do what they want, take the punishment if we disobey them. From what the girls have said, the Knights make it worth their while if it comes to that.” She chewed on her bottom lip. “Plus, we don’t really want them thinking we’re weak. Or they might not vouch for us to go to Pendragon.”
“They’d really say you shouldn’t keep going if…What? You don’t blow them every time they demand it?”
Elaine took another small bite of food, nodding and eating like this all made perfect sense. “They can tell Kingston if they don’t think we have what it takes and we can be eliminated before we get to that part.”
“Do we get a chance to defend ourselves at least?”
“Yeah, but it sort of marks you as an easy target if your Knight doesn’t vouch for you.”
“Oh.” I stared down at my plate of food, feeling uncomfortable as fuck. “You guys see how fucked up all of that is, right?”
Again, she shrugged. “It’s tradition.”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t make it right.”
But her response wasn’t what I expected. “You’re not like us, Quinn. You’re not from our world. Most of us have grown up knowing about The Quest. I get it can be a little jarring from the outside, but honestly, the whole punishment thing, it rarely comes down to anything serious. You’ve seen the guys. So, your Knight wants some head to start the day? Why fight it when you know he’s going to make you come right after?”
I understood her logic. But she sank her talons in my arm to keep me from leaving the table. “If it’s not that bad, why can’t I go back to the room?”
“Because no one shirks an order from the King. Not even his Maiden.”
My eyebrows rose. “Why did you say it like that?”
I still didn’t know what the hell that meant—me being here for the King— but she obviously resented the title.
Elaine set her fork and knife on the table and wiped her mouth with her napkin. “Some of these traditions, like the selection process, this luncheon and the party next week, they’ve been a part of The Quest for generations. It’s one thing to be punished for my own actions, but it’s a different story to be punished for yours. You don’t have to agree with the traditions to go along with them for everyone else’s sake.”
Maybe in her world that was how it worked.
But I’d been taught different lessons growing up, and I thanked my lucky stars I had grown up with parents who taught me to keep my head strong and let my inner voice guide me, rather than the expectations of others.
Maybe that made me an outsider to everyone else at Camelot Court. Maybe that meant I was different from Elaine and the other Maidens.
That didn’t bother me one bit.
But why hadn’t Landon hadn’t treated me like the other Knights treated their Maidens?
So far, he’d left the option for more up to me. Without any additional pressure of being pushed before I was ready. Or fear over being punished.
Maybe he was more chivalrous than controlling. Maybe he was different, too.
And if that was the case…
I was in more trouble than I’d originally thought.