Chapter 11 #2
She gritted her teeth and looked at the blood again, which seemed to have dried.
Making a decision, Nyneve rolled the parchment up loosely, grabbed a cloak off the nearby peg, and then, quiet as a mouse, slipped out the front door of the cottage.
She glanced both ways, but Camelot’s winding pathways were empty.
So she stole into the night, dragging herself to the wooded pleasure park where nobles strolled arm-in-arm during the day.
There, in a small copse of birch trees, perched a falcon.
“Caedmon,” she called as loudly as she dared, stepping over a low stone wall to avoid the torchlight of the main path. Though the binding’s fury had quieted, her entire body still ached from the punishment. Even her throat felt sore.
In the moonshadow of the birch trees, the falcon stepped from its perch—and in its place stood a wiry young man with curly hair, naked as the day he was born. “Nyneve,” he greeted in a whisper.
“Can you make it back before dawn?” she asked, offering him the cloak before glancing over her shoulder. “I’ve discovered something. The Elders need to know immediately.”
Caedmon’s face paled in the moonlight as he settled the cloak around his shoulders. “Are you safe?” the shapechanger asked, his gaze searching her face—which was probably haggard—and then the darkness at her back.
Nyneve might’ve been touched by his concern if she weren’t well aware he was reporting on her to the Elders the same way she was reporting on Arthur’s court. “I’m fine,” she said hurriedly, hoping he wouldn’t notice her distress. “It’s just important.”
“I can fly back tonight,” Caedmon said. “Do not worry. It’ll reach the Elders, I promise.”
Nyneve considered it for a moment: Caedmon bursting into the sacred grove, one of the Elders untying her message from his leg.
She wondered if they would be surprised, or perhaps even impressed, or if they’d just do their best to remain as stoic as possible.
She wondered if the highest council of Druids might soften toward her, just a little, when they read the parchment and saw that she was trying to atone.
“Nyneve?” came Caedmon’s voice, a little louder than she would’ve liked.
“Sorry,” she said, dragging her mind back to the present moment. “Sorry, I’m quite tired. Here, I’ll tie the message on whenever you’re ready.”
Caedmon nodded, pulling the cloak back off his shoulders and handing it to Nyneve.
Before the nighttime chill could lay claim to his flesh, Caedmon changed from man to falcon in just a few heartbeats.
Once he was perched on a sturdy branch, Nyneve pulled twine from her apron and affixed the message to his leg.
“Safe travels,” she whispered as the shapechanger took off into flight, the pale, speckled feathers of his belly the only light in the black of the wood. She watched the falcon until he disappeared, and then she turned and trudged back to the cottage.
Even once she changed into her bedclothes and snuggled up tightly into her linens, Nyneve couldn’t sleep.
Despite the exhaustion, despite the fear, despite the way her body desperately craved rest, her mind relentlessly forged onward in its journeys.
She wasn’t exactly surprised when it took her back to the clearing with that knight’s mouth on hers, her entire body thrumming with a twisted kind of desire—strong and wild enough that she unleashed the binding on herself just to prove she could and would hurt him.
Nyneve squeezed her eyes shut and told herself to stop thinking about the past and about Sir Mordred Pendragon, but her heart galloped into her throat as the sweet, smoky sensation of his kiss barreled back into her mind, ending abruptly with a vivid image of Uccu’s son’s ruined body at her feet.
Nyneve rolled over with a huff. She wanted dark, dreamless sleep. She wanted to never see Mordred Pendragon again. She wanted to wake up in the middle of the night to his dagger at her throat, his long, hard frame against hers.
She wanted to see if maybe he was a monster, too.
Sunlight streamed through the window, dappling Nyneve’s bed linens.
She sat up with a groan, rubbing her bleary eyes.
The red tint of dawn still clung to the light, so she hoped she’d managed to wake ahead of Galen.
She was supposed to harvest more chamomile before their rounds today—normally a task she enjoyed, but after the previous night, a few more hours of sleep would’ve been much preferred.
With a tired yawn, she sat on the edge of her bed to lace up her boots.
The bargain kiss she’d shared with Mordred haunted her dreams and now seemed to slink into her waking hours, her belly still warm and tight with all that want.
If she were back home, she would take the knight by the hand and have her way with him.
She’d always been like that, her interest hard and fast and all at once, and then utterly spent by the morning.
Pity she could not just get Mordred Pendragon out of her head the way she’d done with everyone else who’d posed a distraction to her ambition.