Page 16 of Queen Takes Camelot: Gwen
“Shhh,” I whispered, cradling his head against my throat.
“You need,” he panted, “to take them too.”
I lifted my right hand toward the side of the bed, and immediately Bors wrapped his fingers around mine and came onto the mattress with us. “I will. But you don’t have to move far.”
Effortlessly, Bors helped me shift Lance off to my opposite side. Close enough to still cuddle against me but giving me room to pull Bors down into my arms too. I took a moment to study the tattoos inked across his upper body. Swords, shields, roses, and skulls wove an intricate design across his chest. Above his heart, he’d inkedmy queen.
I loved that he hadn’t tattooedGuinevereon his chest, since that wasn’tmyname, but he’d still marked himself as belonging to me.
Leaning up, I pressed my lips to those words.
“I left room to have your name inked below it as soon as you called me.”
I breathed his scent, lightly rubbing my lips back and forth against his skin. Crushed spruce needles, as if a large animal had silently passed in a dark, primordial forest. Since he transformed into a giant stag, that made perfect sense. “I love it. I bet you ride a motorcycle too.”
He smiled against my temple. “Naturally. There aren’t any warhorses in this day and age, so a Harley is the next best thing.”
I tipped my head back so I could see his face. I trailed my fingers over the long scar on his forehead. Funny how he always ended up with that scar through the ages, though the cause was different each lifetime. “A motorcycle accident?”
Lance had recovered enough to snort. “Hardly. It was a bar fight in Dublin if I remember correctly, though we were both pretty drunk.”
For Aima to be drunk enough that he couldn’t remember exactly where it’d been... “Did you put away an entire keg?”
“Nearly,” Bors replied. “But it wasn’t humans we got into a fight with. Some ofherBlood were there, looking for Lance. They tried to take him.”
“Idiots,” he muttered. “We had to kill them. They wouldn’t leave empty handed.”
“After that, we decided to stick to the uninhabited places in the world until you could call us.”
“We also stayed apart as long as possible,” Lance added. “It was safer that way. We figured we’d double our chances that at least one of us could get to you.”
Oh, goddess. The thought of them each living alone for all these centuries…
Granted, I’d been alone too, but Lance and Bors had always been lovers. They could have at least had each other for company until I was able to call them. Blinking back fresh tears, I slid my hand up around Bors’ nape and pulled him down closer. “So we have a lot of lost time to make up for, don’t we?”
He made a low, welcoming growl of approval as I sank my fangs into his throat. His blood filled my mouth, and the first swallow carried a punch to my gut like potent, aged wine. Deep and dark and still like that ancient forest, magical and untouched by humanity. The kind of place where the Wild Hunt still roamed at night.
His stag filled my mind, an ancient, proud white deer standing on a craggy mountain, as big as a moose, with huge, sweeping antlers like thick trees. He turned his magnificent head toward me and slowly started to bow.
No. He should never bow to me. None of my knights should ever bow, not when they sacrificed everything to keep me alive. I couldn’t tell him through the bond yet, since he hadn’t had my blood, but he knew me well enough to know without the words.
“I will always bow to you, my queen. I’ll go down on my knees every single day and praise our goddesses that you lived another day to grace this cruel world with your presence.”
Lance shifted away from me, leaving my side cold for a second. But then Mordred slid in beside me, pressing me tighter to Bors.
Two magnificent men holding me. A third man who loved me enough to step aside and make space for the others that I loved, without making a single demand on me. Arthur had never been able to make room for others around us.
“Don’t think of him,” Mordred whispered, stroking my arm soothingly. I hadn’t realized I’d tensed up until I relaxed between them. He didn’t need a blood bond with me to know the only person I’d ever tense up about was the king who believed he had the sole, rightful claim on my heart.
I wanted to block out those memories that weren’t even mine. I wanted to imprint my Blood on every inch of my body. Only they would ever touch me. Only they would ever feel my pleasure and my love.
Only them. Forever.
I hooked my thigh over Bors’ hips, opening myself to him as I wriggled closer. He reached between us and adjusted himself so I could take him inside me. So good, to have my knights pressed tightly against me, front and back. But I wanted Mordred inside me too.
I didn’t have to tell them. They knew me inside and out, even though we’d only just met face to face. No matter how many times we’d lived and died, one truth always remained.
This. My knights. Giving me their blood, their bodies, their love.
