CHAPTER SIXTEEN
-GUIN-
The cold came back the moment Arthur left.
It crept in under the door, curled across the stone floor, and settled into the space where the heat of whatever had just happened still clung to my skin. Corvin’s arm was around me, my back against his chest, both of us propped against the far wall like something wrung out and set aside to dry.
His heartbeat was steady beneath my ear. Mine wasn’t.
Neither of us spoke for a long time, both of us no doubt lost in our own thoughts.
Mine kept circling around Arthur and what had happened to him to force him to withdraw the way he had.
I was fairly sure the dragon had nearly taken him over and he’d had to escape in order to get it under control again.
I’d seen the steam starting on his breath, the way his eyes had turned red, and I’d watched as the scales started to rise through his skin.
Clearly, the dragon hadn’t been able to handle what had happened between Corvin and me.
So, why in the world had Arthur ordered it to happen? What did he gain by watching Corvin fuck me? I didn’t know and figured I’d simply file it away under “the king and his bizarre reasons for doing the things he did.”
And as to how my body had reacted when Arthur had slipped his fingers inside me?
It was a reaction I didn’t want to think about because the humiliation as well as the anger with myself was too much for me to handle.
What I hated even more than the king himself was this power he had over me.
It was as if something inside me recognized something inside him, and I was powerless to fight against it.
“This wasn’t how it was meant to happen,” Corvin said, interrupting the flow of unhappy thoughts inside my mind. His voice was low and rough. “Between us. This wasn’t—” He stopped. Exhaled through his nose. “I’m sorry, Guin.”
“Don’t be.”
“I should have fought him harder.”
“There was nothing either of us could have done.”
He didn’t answer right away. Instead, his hand moved slowly along my arm, not with want, just contact. The kind that steadies. He leaned down so he could kiss the top of my head, and then he rested his head against my hair.
“I could tell myself that,” he said finally. “It would be easier.”
“Then tell yourself that.”
“I can’t.” A pause. “Because it isn’t true.”
I waited.
“The truth is that I didn’t fight him as hard as I should have because I was selfish. Greedy. I wanted you... fuck, I wanted you so badly. I always have.”
The words came out measured, like he was weighing each one before he let it go.
“I’ve wanted you since—” He didn’t finish.
“And when Arthur gave the order, I told myself it was out of my hands. That I had no choice. But I did have a choice.”
A pause. “Yet, I didn’t make that choice. Not the right one, anyway.”
His arm tightened slightly. “And I’m ashamed of myself.”
The intensity of the light that was flooding Corvin’s cell was hard to take. It was blaring in a way that I had to shield my eyes against it. I had no idea how Corvin even handled it when he was made of darkness, of shadows. It must have been unbearable for him.
“Corvin.” I turned my head enough to look up at him. “However much you wanted me—” I held his gaze. “I wanted you just as badly. You didn’t take anything I wasn’t already willing to give you. What happened between us was something I wanted to happen. And I don’t regret any of it, not for a second.”
Something moved across his face then. It wasn’t quite relief, but maybe something close.
“That’s a generous thing to say.”
“It’s a true thing to say.”
He looked away from me, and his jaw was set.
I could see him turning the conversation over in his mind, filing it somewhere he’d return to alone, when there was no one to argue with him but himself.
I knew as much because that was what Corvin did.
Some men carried their guilt like a wound they kept picking open just to remind themselves they could still bleed.
His thumb traced a slow arc along my shoulder.
“Did I hurt you?” His voice dropped. “I lost myself. I wasn’t—” A muscle in his jaw ticked. “I need to know if I was too rough with you.”
“You weren’t.” Gods, the truth was that he was incredible, and if I could have had him again at this very moment, I would have. The need between us had just been building for so long, and to finally have him inside me, it was almost too unbelievable to be true.
“Guin—”
“—You weren’t too rough,” I said again, firmer this time. “Stop doing this to yourself.”
He breathed out slowly, long and controlled, the way a man exhales when he’s decided to accept something he doesn’t entirely believe.
Then he pulled away, and the loss of warmth was immediate and physical, a thing with weight to it.
He shifted to his feet with the quiet economy of someone who’d spent years moving in spaces where sound was a liability.
I stayed where I was for a moment and just watched him.
He turned himself away from me, as if he were suddenly ashamed of his nudity.
Although his tight ass was a beautiful sight all on its own, as was the broad expanse of his muscled back, I would have preferred to see the front of him, to study that cock that had ravaged me in the best way possible.
Gods, he was so large! And thick! That was the thing that kept playing through my mind: how he’d entered me and the shock of feeling his length and girth. Now I wanted nothing more than to see him in his erect nudity, to take that cock into my mouth and cherish it.
But now wasn’t the time. Not when he was obviously berating himself over what had happened.
The light of the cell moved across his back, catching the definition of muscle beneath skin as he reached for his tunic, which was on the ground.
It spotlighted not only the ridge of his spine but the breadth of his shoulders.
A scar ran diagonally from his left shoulder blade to somewhere below his ribs.
It was old, pale, and had healed long ago, and I suddenly wanted to know the story behind it as much as a parched man wants water.
My eyes traced the line of him without permission. He was the kind of beautiful that was entirely unselfconscious, built not for admiration but for function, and somehow that made him even more stunning.
And then, before I could stop it, I thought of Lance’s body.
The comparison arrived uninvited and unwelcome, the way those things always do.
I thought of Lance’s broad and strong frame, how big he was, the blacksmith’s geometry of him, that scar along his jaw that caught the light like a seam of silver.
The way he’d looked at me before he knew what I was, before I’d ruined everything.
My chest pulled tight.
I reached for my own scattered clothing and pulled the braies up my legs, moving through the feeling the way you move through cold water. Quickly. Without stopping.
I’d always wanted Corvin. But I still wanted Lance. And Arthur? I didn’t know what to think of Arthur.
All of those things were true, and they sat inside me at the same time, side by side by side, neither one canceling the other out.
All I did know was that I loved Corvin, and I always had.
And more recently, I’d learned to love Lance.
Was it possible to love two men at the same time?
I supposed it was. Perhaps the heart wasn’t built like a room with only one door.
But love wasn’t the point.
The point was that Lance would never look at me the way he had before.
Whatever we’d been, whatever fragile, complicated thing had existed in the margins of deception and proximity, I’d burned it down.
And even though I believed my mission was justified, the sacrifice had been whatever had blossomed between the two of us.
He’d told me I was dead to him, and he’d meant it. And he’d keep on meaning it.
I tied the laces of my tunic without even realizing I’d picked it up and dropped it over my head.
Wanting Lance was dangerous. And it was useless.
It was a wound that now needed to heal over, if that was even possible.
But when I looked at Corvin as he turned to face me, a feeling of warmth overcame me.
And whatever love had existed between Lance and me, whatever love that was now dead (at least on his end), I felt like I could put it where it needed to be.
Because whatever I had with Corvin was its own beautiful dream.
Well, for as long as it lasted with us both imprisoned and under Arthur’s thumbs.
“Guin?” I looked up at Corvin and realized he was now dressed once more. “I’m sorry for... how this went. For what it’s worth.”
I smiled up at him. “How about we make a deal? That when we’re both freed from this miserable place, we’ll find the first tavern out of town, and you can make it up to me with your face between my legs for at least two days straight?”
There was an expression of shock in his eyes, no doubt at my choice of words, but that shock was quickly replaced by a deep chuckle, which then died on his lips, probably once he grabbed onto the fact that there was no getting out of here.
He was just about to respond when the door at the end of the corridor opened, and a guard filled the frame.
He was short, stocky, and expressionless.
The King’s red and gold caught the torchlight as he made his way down the walkway until he reached Corvin’s cell.
Very soon, another guard walked through the far door, probably to ensure Corvin didn’t try to fight the first one.
The guard didn’t look at me as he unlocked the door and opened it.
“You.” He pointed at me. “You’re to be returned to your own cell.”
Corvin didn’t move immediately. He turned to look at me first, just for a second, his beautiful amber eyes steady and unreadable.
He gave me a small and sad smile, which was really just an upturn of his lips.
I had a feeling I was giving him the exact same expression as I nodded at the guard and walked towards the door.
-ARTHUR-
The Round Table had been my idea.
Equal seats. An equal voice. A king who would listen instead of simply ruling from his seat. Once, I’d believed in that. But that’s what young men do before the rest of life convinces them of the hefty price of belief.