Chapter 1
Chapter One
When I signed up for the annual challenge thrown by my college’s elite fraternity, Camelot Court, I expected it to be my ticket to financial relief.
I’d get in, get out, and walk away with the prize money.
All I had to do was spend one month belonging to a Knight.
They called it The Quest.
Paired with the King’s broody best friend, sequestered from the other Maidens, and dressed up like a doll for parties, I judged them based on what I saw and how they treated me.
I received a lukewarm welcome at best.
But my first impression that they were just a bunch of spoiled rich guys getting off on calling themselves Knights, play-acting with a round table, and holding a medieval tournament couldn’t have been farther from the truth.
And now, my heart belonged to three of them.
Two Knights—both college juniors like me—and one King, a senior carrying an invisible weight on his shoulders. Alone.
Landon Scott, the King’s right-hand man and best friend, was loyal, steadfast, and haunted by guilt. Over the first three weeks, he broke down my walls and showed me my limits.
My White Knight with a dark, forgotten past surprised me in more ways than one and reminded me how to trust myself.
Max Dread, Landon’s biggest rival, presented himself as the villain. The bad guy. The asshole. But when fate paired us together in the Honor Challenge, he spent six days showing me how much hid beneath his carefully constructed exterior.
My Dark Knight with a soft side—he pushed me to honor my voice and speak my truth.
Finally, Kingston D’Arthur, the elusive and charming King of Camelot Court, kept so many secrets I didn’t know what to make of him, and he repeated You’ll See like the words had been programmed into his internal voice box to play on a loop.
With his cards held so close to his chest, I struggled to have faith in the promise of answers.
But when he opened up during the Courage Challenge and shed light on his childhood, I did see his truth. How growing up as the D’Arthur heir, living with abuse, and worrying over his every move had shaped him.
How it prompted his brave, quiet fight to give everyone at Camelot Court a chance to love without limits.
And how he hid secrets from everyone, even his most loyal and trusted Knight.
His best friend, whom he’d loved all his life.
Every move Kingston made was to outmaneuver his father, Drake D’Arthur, the reigning King of the larger Camelot Society, and to beat him in what I’d thought had been just an antiquated, barbaric, and downright medieval conquest.
The more I learned, the more I saw it was a crusade for power and control. With antiquated traditions, especially where women were concerned.
The Camelot Society viewed its Maidens as pawns. It forced them to play silly games—a series of vague challenges, clearly designed by a man—and tested their worth to keep them in line. A tradition they followed without question.
Until I showed up.
I had plenty to say on the subject of sitting still and looking pretty. But despite my modern views, I still wanted to win.
Even if the prizes were as vague as the competition itself.
One prize turned out to be Kingston’s hand, an arranged marriage he wanted out of, but wouldn’t escape if his father had anything to do with it, and I suspected another prize would burn down the patriarchy. So, I’d vowed to fight with him, stand by his side, and get us all to the end.
Less than an hour ago, I’d received the good news: I’d made it through the Courage Challenge in good standing.
But now, every shred of bravery left my body.
My pulse pounded in my ears, and a scream tore from my throat. Terror laced through my piercing cry as it echoed in the room, and Kingston stepped in front of me.
Our time together had been full of secrets and surprises.
But we hadn’t expected this.
Kingston stood between me and an intruder who had just burst into his bedroom. Seconds after I’d pieced together one of many secrets about Camelot Court. We’d been watched on cameras, believing we were one step ahead.
Now, believing his father had returned to Pendragon to make us pay, we assumed our luck had run out.
With one hand reaching for me on the bed behind him, Kingston pinned me to his back. He held me there out of sight as he faced the threat head-on.
My heart thundered in my chest.
Then a cold, cruel laugh shattered the illusion of peace we’d wrapped around ourselves.
“Well, well, well…I finally get to meet The King’s Maiden.”
I tightened my grip on Kingston’s arm while he faced down the monster who’d finally shown his face in the dark. But something nagged at the back of my brain. His voice…
“Our very own Guinevere…foolish enough to think she could simply waltz in and destroy Camelot Court.”
The bedroom door swung on its hinges and slammed shut, trapping us inside the room.
“Let’s have a little chat about that, shall we?”
I wasn’t the best at keeping my head down and my mouth shut—two rather glowing attributes that had made my time at Camelot Court interesting, to say the least—but I’d accepted that I’d need to take Kingston’s lead at times.
So, despite my suspicions, I stayed put.
His grip on my arm loosened slightly, but he didn’t release me. “What—? Morty, what in god’s name—?”
My brow furrowed. “Wait, who—? Who the hell is Morty?”
Poking my head around Kingston’s body, I searched for the intruder he’d dubbed Morty.
As soon as I laid eyes on his silhouette in the darkness, lit only by the moonlight streaming in through the window, my mouth dropped open in surprise.
“What the—?”
Head spinning, my grip slipped from Kingston’s arm. I scrambled backward on the bed, heels digging into the comforter to put some space between me and the looming figure that screamed Max Dread in my head.
Because it wasn’t him. I was certain of it.
But the similarities…
Once I released his arm, Kingston turned his back on the intruder and faced me. “Quinn, it’s not what you’re thinking.”
I gaped at him and the six-foot-three doppelg?nger skulking closer to the bed, unsure how he knew what I was thinking when I hadn’t the foggiest idea.
“It’s not Max, Quinn.”
I hissed back, “I figured that much, Kingston.”
The figure stepped farther into the room, and the light of the moon from the open window streaked across his features, adding illumination to the dim lighting.
It brought one thing into plain sight.
“You’re bald!”
He huffed a laugh, and a shudder ran through me. “And you’re observant.”
As I scrutinized his face, he turned his back to us.
“I see why you picked her, Kingston. None of the other Camelot Court girls could’ve spotted that distinction.” He reached above the door and ran his fingers along the frame, then smirked over his shoulder at me. “Or perhaps, they just never cared enough, as long as a Dread was in their beds.”
I narrowed my gaze on his eyes.
“Hey, I know you!” The dark brown hue and shape of his eyes struck me as familiar. Racking my brain, I pinpointed the memory. “You kicked me out of that creepy bedroom!”
“Ah.” He clicked his tongue and stepped beside Kingston, clapping him on the shoulder. “It’ll be her cleverness, then. God, mate, you’re so predictable.”
My head swiveled between them.
Kingston shirked Morty’s grip and stepped toward me. Morty clasped his hands behind his back and rocked on the balls of his feet like he hadn’t a care in the world.
“Quinn, this is Morty Dread.” Kingston shot him a glare over his shoulder before taking my hands. “Max’s brother.”
“Wait.” Morty scoffed, like the introduction irritated him, which made no sense to me. “He gets to drop the family name and I don’t? That’s bullshit, Kingston.”
And I couldn’t help it.
Maybe it was hysteria, finally catching up to me in the midst of a total what the fuck moment.
Maybe I’d completely lost my mind.
But the way he said it removed any doubt that he was Max Dread’s brother.
So, I did the only thing I could.
I laughed.