Page 18 of Queen Takes Camelot: Gwen
However, I hated feeling like a squatter. While I’d added my blood to the protective circle around the building, it was only to affirm my relationship with the primary queen. It washercircle. Her nest.
It would never bemyCamelot.
“It doesn’t matter.” Lance’s eyes flashed with fierce pride that surprised me, even as it brought tears to my eyes. “Nothing matters but you. You survived. You called us. You’ve taken Blood for the first time in centuries. You even escaped Arthur—”
“For the time being,” I broke in. “You know he’ll be back.”
“Yes. He will. He can’t resist the call of Camelot, either.”
“He can’t resistyourcall,” Mordred whispered, tucking my shoulder back beneath his chin. “Especially now that you’ve called your power. You’ve taken Camelot, my queen. The power is yours. The White Enchantress lives again. When has that happened in the last thousand years?”
I blew out a slow breath, my mind whirling. They were right. I didn’t think Guinevere’s line had been able to embrace her power in several generations. Certainly, never as fully as the original queen of Camelot. Arthur’s jealous curse and Elaine’s desperate plots to steal Lance away from me always destroyed Camelot before it could ever rise.
Before I could take my power.
Silvery white power ebbed and flowed inside me. A captured star shining in my heart.
Lance placed his palm over my heart. “This is Camelot, my queen. What the Once and Future King covets most of all.”
My face hardened. The soft, shining light inside me crystalized into a diamond’s cutting edge. “Then this time, he’ll be the Once andDeadKing.”
8
Gwen
It felt incredible to be free of Elaine Shalott. After over three hundred years, she had no blood hold on me. My mind and power were my own.
Lance was mine. I’d called him and two others of my Blood despite the wretched oath she’d made me swear as a thirteen-year-old girl.
She’d failed… but the war between Houses Camelot and Shalott was far from over. She still guarded the entrance to the legendary island, Avalon—where my cantankerous wizard had been imprisoned for well over a thousand years.
Some stories claimed that a mortally wounded King Arthur had been carried away from the battlefield by three women in a boat to heal and rest on Avalon. One day, he’d return and save the world when it needed him again.
Disgust curled my upper lip at the thought. Arthur had certainly returned, over and over and over. Never to save the world, but to destroy Guinevere’s ancient and powerful house. Only my aunt and I still carried a bit of Queen Guinevere’s blood. If I failed to break his curse this time, I didn’t think a trace of her would ever be reborn to try again. Arthur—and ultimately Elaine—would win.
Merlin would be trapped for all time. Lance and the rest of my Blood would never have the peace for which their souls had fought for generations. Not if their queen was dead and lost forever.
I had to find a way to stop Arthur once and for all. Which meant I had to free Merlin.
Even if that meant knocking on Elaine’s back door.
The legends varied about Avalon’s location, but Glastonbury Tor had long been associated with the mystical isle. Centuries ago, the ancient hill had been surrounded by marshes, making it a popular guess for the island’s location. The tor was important, but only because of the Chalice Well.
When my aunt had agreed to swear allegiance to Shalott in exchange for my life, Elaine had taken me to the well to formalize the sibling exchange of blood. Then she’d gleefully told me that we stood by the portal to Avalon—but I would never be allowed to use it. I was never allowed to call any of my own Blood, but especially Merlin would be lost to me.
Forever.
Deliberate torture, even though I was only a child. So close, but so far away.
The Chalice Well was a public site, but she’d laid a special blood circle around it to alert her if I came anywhere near it. I’d felt that warning’s energy lifting my hair and crackling along my skin. She’d know immediately if I stepped foot anywhere near the beautiful garden surrounding the well.
We’d danced back and forth in this grim battle for far too long for her not to know every possible step I might take. So I had to surprise her. Somehow.
If the Chalice Well was off limits…
Maybe there was another way to reach Avalon. Though when I asked my knights, my beloved alpha frowned doubtfully. “I’ve never heard of any other location or site associated with Avalon that carries the same power as Glastonbury Tor, my queen.”
My three Blood might have been reborn knights of the Round Table, but they’d fully embraced the modern age in which we now lived. Mordred had taken over a small room just off my bedchamber and installed several computers and monitors. I didn’t even know when he’d had time to find all the equipment, let alone set it up, but none of it had been there when I’d taken Lance and Kevin through the heart tree in the basement to Shara Isador’s nest. We’d only been gone an hour at most to formalize Kevin’s oath as Shara’s second consiliarius.
