CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO #3
My heart lightened at the sight of the owl perched in his usual spot. “Where have you been?” I asked, feeling silly because it wasn't as though Peep understood me.
With a sudden flick of his wings, Peep launched himself from the windowsill and glided into my room.
The movement was so unexpected, so unlike his usual habit of remaining outside on his perch, that I froze mid-step.
He settled gracefully on the wooden railing at the foot of my bed, his talons gripping the polished surface as though he were used to perching there.
His amber eyes fixed intently on me, just watching. Not preening his feathers, not shifting his weight, not looking away—simply watching with an awareness that felt almost human.
“You know, you’ve got terrible timing,” I said with a wry smile, sinking onto the bed beside him. “Of all nights, you choose to appear when I'm not in the best of moods."
"Hoot. Hoot."
“I’ve made a mess of things,” I admitted aloud, my voice dropping to barely a whisper. “You wouldn't know anything about tangled hearts and forbidden desires, though, would you?”
Peep ruffled his feathers, a gesture akin to shrugging off the complexities of human emotion. His nonchalance tugged a quiet laugh from me, offering a small reprieve in the storm of my thoughts.
If only it were so simple to shed confusion and constraint as easily as Peep adjusted his plumage.
“Arthur's relentless quest to find the woman at the lake is closing in,” I continued, feeling the weight of the confession. “And Lance... he’s different from what I expected.”
Peep shifted slightly, his eyes locked on mine.
“Perhaps I’m losing my edge,” I mused. “Merlin would say this mission requires detachment. Perhaps he's right."
Peep blinked slowly, seemingly in agreement. I stood again and walked to the window, looking out at the moon, which was obscured by a few clouds.
I closed my eyes. I felt the water in the air, the stones, my blood. It swirled toward me, cool and steady. Loyal.
I would master this. I had to. Whatever had transpired between Lance and me, I would let it go, never think of it again. Because I had to. Because he couldn't learn the truth. Because something between us couldn't happen.
Decision made, I spent the rest of the night crafting a strategy.
Distance. Detachment. Control.
Lance would become a tool—valuable, but nothing more. Arthur’s closest confidant, yes, but not mine. If I could maintain Lance's trust, I could extract information from him. I could redirect the connection between us. Use it to my advantage. To Merlin's advantage.
The kiss? It was nothing more than a mistake. A moment of weakness. It would not happen again. Never again.
Just before I was set to drop off to sleep, I recast the moment Lance and I had shared in the forest in colder light. It was nothing more than a lapse. An anomaly. It was forgotten.
My mission came first. It always had.
Desire was irrelevant.
-VAELEN-
The window stood open—always open now. Small mercies in this treacherous game.
I alighted on the sill, talons gripping stone worn smooth by centuries of Camelot's winters.
Inside, moonlight painted her in silver and shadow.
White hair thrown across the pillows pooled to the floor like spilled starlight.
Gods, she was a sight to see. And I was certainly a man who appreciated an attractive woman.
I flew into the room, shifting mid-flight as the familiar transformation seized hold of my bones.
Feathers dissolved into human flesh, hollow bones thickening, wings stretching and reshaping into muscled arms. The change rippled through me—neither painful nor pleasant, simply necessary.
My feet touched the cold stone floor with barely a whisper of sound, human once more and unclothed.
The vulnerability of nudity didn't concern me here, not in this sacred space between waking and dreams where I'd learned to walk unseen through years of careful practice.
The moonlight that had painted her in silver now revealed every detail of the chamber: the heavy tapestries clinging to the walls, the carved oak furniture, and the few personal touches that made this space uniquely hers.
My skin bore the chill of the night air streaming through the open window, but I felt none of it. All my attention focused on the figure in the bed, on the steady rhythm of her breathing that would guide me into the labyrinth of her sleeping mind.
Three strides brought me to her bedside. Her chest rose and fell in sleep's rhythm, lips slightly parted. Beautiful. Dangerous.
Both the pawn and the puppet master.
I gripped her wrist, flooding her mind with the command to remain under sleep's influence. Her pulse thrummed against my fingertips, steady and strong. My other hand pressed to her temple, and I slipped into the current of her dreams like stepping through a veil.
The throne room materialized around me—Arthur's domain rendered in dreamstuff and memory. Guinevere stood before the dais, chin lifted in the defiance I'd come to recognize, to crave.
Arthur descended toward her, each step deliberate.
"You came for my throne," he said, voice echoing off dream-stone walls.
"I want nothing from you." Her words carried heat, conviction. "Not your throne. Not your kingdom."
"Liar."
He reached her, caught her face between his hands, and kissed her with a possessiveness that sent dark satisfaction curling through her—I could feel her attraction toward him, the need he instilled within her.
She should have pushed him away. Instead, her hands fisted in his tunic, dragging him closer.
Their clothing dissolved the way dreams do—one moment dressed, the next bare skin on bare skin. Arthur bore her down, the throne room floor becoming silk sheets, stone becoming softness. He hovered above her, golden and crowned, and everything I despised.
Then he spread her thighs and pushed inside her.
In the waking world, she moaned.
The sound punched through me like a blade through armor.
I stood frozen beside her bed, hand still pressed to her temple, the other gripping her wrist. Her hips shifted beneath the linens.
Another soft sound escaped her parted lips.
She arched her back, moaning as her dream mind felt him entering her repeatedly.
This was not the first time I had invaded her dreams. Nor was it the second.
Actually, I wasn't certain what the number was.
All I did know was that I was supposed to be filling her mind with thoughts of the rebellion—how Arthur's tyranny choked the realm, how magic deserved freedom, how the old ways called for restoration, bla bla bla.
The rebellion had set its sights on Lioran as someone who could rally the North, someone who could serve as a mascot of sorts. And if he continued to excel in the Shadow Trials, that only cemented the rebellion's desire to see Lioran as the paragon of the rebellion.
Little did they know Lioran possessed a cunt instead of a cock.
Gods, the shock when I'd first slipped into her dreams and witnessed her shed that illusion like snakeskin.
A woman masquerading as a knight, playing at Arthur's games with ice magic and violet eyes that haunted me even in waking.
I should have reported it to the rebellion leaders immediately.
Should have brought this intelligence to them and watched them scramble to adjust their plans.
Instead, I kept Guinevere's secret locked behind my teeth.
Mine alone to know. Mine alone to savor.
As for my actual purpose here—convincing her subconscious to join our cause—well. Time enough for that. No need to rush. Yes, it was true that I'd visited her sleeping mind on many occasions now and hadn't breathed a single word about rebellion or resistance.
The truth was: it was far more interesting to simply sit back and watch her dreams stretching out before me.
In the dream, Arthur drove into her with renewed vigor, and she cried out, nails raking down his back.
She writhed beneath my hand, breath coming faster.
Heat crawled up my spine. What a gloriously randy creature she was.
The last dream I'd witnessed, Lancelot had bent her over a table in the war room, buried himself deep while she bit her own wrist to muffle her screams. Before that, some nameless knight I hadn't recognized, taking her against the stable wall.
Always Arthur's men. Always the enemy.
Perhaps someday she would dream about me—Peep, her owl.
Arthur's hand closed around her throat, not squeezing but possessing. "Say it," he commanded. "Tell me who you belong to."
"No one," she gasped. "I belong to—"
My gaze traveled down the line of her neck to her heavy breasts, which were thrust against the thin fabric of her shift, her nipples hard. My eyes traveled lower still—to her thighs—to the way she was spreading them, lifting her hips as if aching to be filled.
Well, goodness. How was I meant to pass up such a thing?
But Arthur was already fucking her in dreams I had invaded, and some primal part of me howled against it.
My free hand moved before conscious thought could intervene.
I pushed back the hem of her shift, revealing pale legs.
Then I pushed it even higher—to her thighs.
And higher still, until I could see the thatch of white hair on her mound.
My mouth began to salivate, needing to taste her more than anything.
Instead, my fingers found the warmth of her cunt.
I ran my index finger down her slit, and it came back glistening. She was wet.
For him. For Arthur, even in sleep.
Ugh. Quite disappointing, really.
But, never mind. The thought should have stopped me because Arthur was quite the odious man. Instead, it drove me forward. My fingers traced the slick heat of her, and she arched into my touch, still lost in dreams where another man claimed what I had no right to want.
I plunged back into her dreaming mind, desperate to see what was now driving her thoughts.
Arthur moved inside her, each thrust claiming deeper territory. His eyes locked on hers—gold catching violet in the strange light of dream logic. No tenderness. Only conquest.
"You're mine," he growled. "Every breath. Every secret. Mine."
Her body betrayed her, arching to meet him. But her eyes—those magnificent eyes—held something else. Resistance. Fury. A refusal to surrender completely even as pleasure threatened to drown her.
I withdrew from her mind, and in the waking world, I pushed two fingers inside her slick heat.
She gasped, hips rolling to meet the intrusion.
The linens twisted around her legs as she moved, seeking more, coaxing me deeper.
Her inner walls clenched around my fingers, hot and tight and perfect.
Gods, I wanted to slam my cock into that tight wetness.
"Please," she whispered, still caught between dream and waking. Still seeing Arthur's face while my hand worked between her thighs.
The word shattered something in me.
I leaned down, capturing her mouth with mine while my fingers curled inside her. I had to remind myself she was still a maiden, lest I get too carried away and rip through that delicate line of flesh deep inside her.
Yes, I'd learned as much in another of her dreams—when the man I didn't recognize had plunged inside her and ripped her virginal wall down. She'd orgasmed quite thunderously that time. But back to the present, she opened for me, tongue meeting mine with a hunger that had nothing to do with dreams.
My thumb found the swollen bud above my fingers and circled it. She moaned into my mouth, the sound vibrating through me. Her hips lifted, grinding against my hand. I pumped my fingers inside her faster, deeper, matching the rhythm I'd witnessed in her dream, being careful not to go too high.
"That's it," I breathed against her lips. "Take what you need, my dirty little dove."
Her body went rigid. Inner muscles clamped down on my fingers as she came undone, orgasm rolling through her in waves I could feel pulsing around my knuckles. She cried out—wordless and raw—back arching off the mattress as pleasure claimed her completely.
Move. Now.
The thought cut through the haze of lust polluting my mind. Her sleeping mind was already stirring, consciousness rising toward the surface like a swimmer breaking for air. If she woke and found me here, standing above her without a stitch of clothing on—
As much as I didn't want to, I pulled my fingers from her tightness and stumbled back from the bed. The transformation seized me before I'd fully stepped away, bones compressing, skin erupting into feathers. The change hurt this time, rushed and graceless.
Wings beat air where arms had been. I launched myself toward the windowsill, talons scraping stone as I landed hard.
Below me, she shifted beneath the linens. Her breathing changed, deepening, steadying. Returning to normal sleep patterns.
I'd come so close to discovery.
Inform her dreams, the rebellion leaders had instructed. Turn her mind toward our cause. Make her question Arthur's narrative.
Instead, I'd buried my fingers inside her tight cunt while she moaned another man's name.
Ah, well, what was the rush?
My talons gripped the sill tighter as I watched her settle back into undisturbed sleep, white hair fanned across pillows, lips still parted from the kiss I'd stolen.
I'd tasted her now. Felt her come apart beneath my touch—all that had done was make me want her in real life—when she would call my name as she bucked beneath me instead of the rotten king's.
How could I ever retreat back into shadows after that?