CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
-ARTHUR-
I gazed toward the lake where the moon was almost as white as her hair.
That haunting silver-white hair…
Guinevere.
As I watched, the moon's glow solidified from mere reflection into something more substantial—the form of a woman. First came the outline—slender yet powerful—then more details emerged: the curve of her shoulders, the proud tilt of her chin, the grace that no mortal woman should possess.
The apparition stood on the water's surface as though the lake were solid ground beneath her feet, ripples spreading outward from where she touched the dark mirror of the water.
I found myself holding my breath, my body tensed as though preparing for battle, though something deeper than fear kept me rooted to the shore. I could not tear my gaze away from this luminous figure who seemed born from moonlight itself.
I watched her approach the sword where it was stuck within the stone, glorious in her nudity. My feet carried me forward as she reached for what was mine alone.
"You shouldn't be here," I called out, my voice echoing across the water. "You're touching something you have no business touching."
She turned, violet eyes meeting mine without fear at the exact moment that she laid her hands on the hilt of the sword and pulled it free from the stone. The sword—Excalibur—gleamed in her grip as though it belonged there, as though my years of kingship meant nothing.
"I am meant to be queen of Logres and Camelot." Her voice was like water flowing over stone—gentle yet unyielding. "The Lady of the Lake foretold as much."
"You are mistaken." I reached for the sword—my sword, the symbol of my divine right to rule. "Return what isn't yours."
But when my fingers brushed against hers, time seemed to slow, and a desire more powerful than any I'd known took root within me.
I pulled her into my arms, reason abandoned as my lips found hers. The sword fell forgotten from her hands as she wrapped her arms around me, fingers digging into my shoulders with surprising strength, as though she too had been waiting for this moment.
I lowered her gently to the shore, the soft grass becoming our bed as moonlight painted her skin like polished marble. Her body gleamed in the silvery light, each curve and hollow transformed into something divine.
Pushing her legs apart with reverent hands that trembled despite my usual iron control, I worshipped her with my mouth, drowning in the sweetness of her cunt as she gasped.
The sound of my name on her lips—not "King" or "Your Majesty," but simply "Arthur"—undid something within me, and I lifted up, centering my cock at her opening.
I slammed into her without any hesitation, and she gasped beneath me.
Then I began to rut her—each thrust coming harder, faster, shoving into her with everything I had.
Her fingers tangled in my hair, alternately gentle and demanding as waves of pleasure coursed through her.
With each tremor that passed through her body, I felt the boundaries between king and servant, between man and woman, between duty and desire dissolving into meaninglessness.
"Who are you?" I whispered to her. "What spell have you cast on me that I can't break?"
The question lingered unanswered in the darkness. Was she Merlin's agent, sent to undermine me? A sorceress working her own designs? Or something I dared not contemplate—a true claimant to what I had built?
"You forget your place, little kingling."
When I looked down at her, my entire body recoiled violently, a strangled cry of horror lodged deep in my throat.
Where moments ago had lain the beauty, now sprawled Blodeuwyn, the withered crone from the forest.
Her skin hung in loose, papery folds from her skeletal frame, spotted with the dark bruises and mottled patterns of extreme age. The supple flesh that had pressed against mine transformed into something ancient and corrupted, as though time itself had accelerated around her alone.
Her laughter—a hideous, bone-chilling cackle that scraped against my ears—echoed across the still surface of the lake, bouncing back from the surrounding trees and multiplying until it seemed to come from everywhere at once.
"Surprised, pretty lordling?" she wheezed, her voice no longer musical but cracked and ancient. Those thighs I’d worshipped with my mouth now appeared as withered tree limbs, skin hanging loose from brittle bone. "Did you think power comes without a price?"
I scrambled backward, spitting frantically to rid my mouth of the taste that had turned from honeyed sweetness to something putrid and rotten. My stomach heaved as I wiped my tongue against my sleeve, desperate to remove all traces of her.
The hag propped herself up on bony elbows, making no attempt to cover her sagging, desiccated flesh.
Her breasts hung like empty pouches against her ribcage, and her belly folded in wrinkled creases.
Yet her eyes—those remained unchanged, violet and piercing, holding knowledge that seemed to stretch across centuries.
She gestured toward the sword that lay between us on the grass.
"The sword reveals what truly is, what must be.
Your time wanes." She seemed to draw strength from my growing desperation.
"Already the dragon grows stronger; your power fades.
Soon another will sit upon your throne while you fade into legend. "
"I am Arthur!" I roared, my voice echoing across the water. "Chosen by the sword, rightful king of Logres!"
"Was," she corrected, her cackle building to a shriek that sent night birds flapping from nearby trees. "You were chosen. You were rightful. But the sword has made another choice, and no amount of denial will change its mind."
Before I could respond, agony unlike anything I’d ever known tore through my chest. Not the sharp pain of battle wounds or the dull ache of old injuries—this was something alive, forcing its way out from the cage I’d built around it.
No. Not now. Not here.
Fire erupted along every nerve as my bones shattered and reformed, each crack echoing through my skull like thunder. My spine curved and lengthened, vertebrae multiplying with sickening pain that drove me to my knees. I gasped for air, but my lungs burned with furnace heat.
My skin rippled as scales emerged like jewels breaking through the surface, each one a piece of armor spreading across flesh that no longer felt like my own. Gold and crimson covered my arms as my hands twisted, fingers fusing and extending into talons that dug furrows into the earth.
Fight it! I thought with ferocity. You're the king. You control the dragon—
But the thought dissolved as my vision fractured. Colors I'd never seen before blazed across my sight—heat signatures of every living thing, the pulse of magic in stone and water, patterns of power invisible to mortal eyes.
"Yessss," Blodeuwyn crooned, her voice transformed into something melodious despite her decrepit form. She rose to her feet with newfound grace, arms outstretched toward the monstrosity I was becoming. "Come forth, beautiful one. Take your rightful place beside me."
Wings—great leathery expanses—tore from my back, opening between elongating bones. My jaw cracked, shifting into something that could breathe the fire of destruction. When I tried to speak, to beg her to stop whatever she'd done, only a roar emerged—ancient and terrible.
I am Arthur. I am the king. I am—
YOU ARE DRAGON, the dragon's consciousness thundered through what remained of my mind.
I sat bolt upright, covered in a cold sheen of sweat.
It took several ragged breaths to remember where I was: my bedchamber at Camelot, cocooned in the trappings of power.
The pendants of my victories loomed from tapestry-covered walls.
My crown glinted on its velvet perch like a patient vulture.
Oak furniture, all carved with the Pendragon crest, watched me in silence.
I scanned the room, every shadow a threat. I half-expected the hag to leap from the shadows—cackling, condemning, her prophecy of my ruin dancing on her bloodstained tongue. But no ghost emerged. Just silence. Just the moonlight sifting through stained glass like judgment itself.
Another fucking dream about the white-haired woman.
Guinevere.
It was always her. Her hair like spun moonlight, her voice soaked in certainty. She said she was foretold. She said Excalibur was meant for her. She said I was fading.
Worst of all, I believed her.
Even awake, I felt the weight of the sword’s rejection. My hand—once strong enough to rally a kingdom—curled into a fist. I flexed my fingers. No blood. Only the hard-earned calluses of kingship and war.
But no claws and no scales either. No dragon. Not yet, anyway. But perhaps it was just a matter of time before the beast and I became one and the same.
I crossed the cold stone floor to the window. I pushed it open. I let the night air slice through the sweat still clinging to my skin.
The wind carried roses from the garden below—delicate and vicious. Their scent reminded me of her. Not just her hair or voice, but the heated, forbidden softness of her skin.
My jaw clenched.
This obsession wasn’t just weakness. It was danger.
I gripped the stone sill until my knuckles blanched.
Below, the guards moved like phantoms, torches flickering in rhythm with their slow patrol.
Loyal men, most of them. Loyal through gold, or fear, or some twisted echo of faith.
Beyond them, the Whispering Wilds loomed—dense and black, the border between my rule and the wild truths I couldn't command.
I looked up.
The stars offered no comfort tonight. I found myself searching them anyway, like a child desperate for signs.
I had outlawed divination long ago—banished the astrologers, silenced the seers. And yet, in my private moments, I still yearned for prophecy.
Certainty. Control. Something the dragon had stolen from me.
I turned from the window.