Page 32 of Queen Takes Camelot: Gwen
Despite my reservations, my mouth watered. Her blood bloomed like the rarest moonflower that only graced Tír na nÓg’s sparkling shores.
She smelled the same. She smelled like Guinevere. If her blood tasted the same…
I didn’t have fangs. I was no vampire Blood.
I didn’t have a sword. I’d never been a knight of the Round Table.
I was Merlinus Caledonesis, called a wizard by mankind who feared my power. Legends said I was born demonic, my father a succubus who raped my human mother.
They were right.
Though my father had been dark fae, not the horned boogeyman the priests feared.
“There’s no use crying about all that we lost, including Guinevere. Because you’re alive, Merlin. I’m alive. Lancelot, Bors, and Mordred survived against all odds to reach me. We have a chance to end this once and for all, but I need you with me.” Her eyes flared, her words ringing with conviction.
I saw the beginning of her power revealing itself in the pearly nimbus spreading around her. The cold opal of starlight. The crazed power of the full moon. The bite of frozen snow. But the White Enchantress’ greatest power had always been the might of her love. She’d shone like a beacon from the top of Glastonbury Tor, illuminating the marshy moors for miles.
“I will bleed for you.” Low and intent, her voice vibrated with each word. “I will fight for you. I will love you with every fiber of my being. Because she saw this moment. She sent you here to wait forme. Whether you like it or not, I’m the future that Guinevere died for. She died to ensure I would stand here now, fighting to keep us all alive.”
A cloud of white butterflies swept past me to flutter around her head, forming a living crown.
Reluctantly, I stepped closer. Unable to resist the siren call of her blood. Desperate to feel even one moment of her love again.
She held her wounded hand out to me, dripping blood onto the ground that instantly turned into sparkling rubies. I didn’t need to glance at her alpha to know he was glaring at me, silently insisting I go to my knees before her.
But only Guinevere had ever held such respect in my heart.
“It’s alright,” Gwen whispered, whether to me or to her Blood, I wasn’t sure.
Darkness rose inside me, casting a shadow across her face. The butterflies huddled together, terrified in the presence of even a half-blood dark fae. I was an abomination in many ways, especially here. A thousand and more years of captivity in paradise had done little to tame the darkness in me.
It had only made me hunger for more. Pain. Terror. Blood.
At heart, I was a creature of nightmare. Not pretty flowers and butterflies. The perfect mask of civility that I’d honed over the centuries slipped, promising unending suffering.
I expected her to flinch and pull away. To duck behind Lancelot. To seek his protection and assurance.
Instead, Gwen smiled, her eyes hardening with a wicked glee that shocked what little of Merlin the man remained.
“Oh yes,” she whispered, smiling. “That’s exactly what I need to destroy Arthur once and for all.”
All my hesitation melted away as the dark creature crawled out of me. My heritage. My shame. The demonic half of me that only Guinevere had ever seen and accepted.
Until Gwen. She pressed her palm to my mouth lined with jagged shards of obsidian and allowed me to feast.
14
Mordred
My queen and Lance stepped through the shimmering curtain together with Bors just a step behind them. One moment, I felt Bors’ fierce determination driving him forward, his lungs burning as if already starved for oxygen. He fully expected to drown again as they passed through, yet he still went.
He’d go anywhere our queen led. He would face any fear. So would I.
The next moment, they were gone. The curtain dissolved to nothing. My bond thinned so suddenly that I couldn’t do anything but mentally scramble in desperation. I clung to Bors’ shoulder as long as I could, but he simply dissolved into thin air.
Gone. My queen was gone. I couldn’t feel her in my head at all.
The lake did not knowmyname and refused to allow me to pass. My worst fear. My nightmare.
