Page 23 of Queen Takes Camelot: Gwen
Raw. Violent. Rough. The way we both liked it.
When our queen wasn’t involved.
And that was the rub. When I was with Bors, I became a different person. One I often regretted later. I didn’t mind sharing that side of me with him, but Ididmind letting our queen see me like that.
Vicious, hard, out of control. I wasn’t a caring, protective alpha when I was with him. I was all beast. All dominance. And by goddess, he was going to pay dearly in sweat and pain before I was finished.
I didn’t want her to ever fear that I would come to her the same way. Or worse, that I preferred the violent side of myself that I would never share with her. I’d rather slit my throat than make her feel second choice.
“It’s not about choice.” She wrapped her arms around Bors’ head and pulled him against her. “It’s about love, and there’s no shortage of love in this room.”
“Then you misunderstand everything, my queen.” She flinched at the harsh edge in my voice, but I couldn’t help it. Looking at him, on his knees, broken and hurting and needing…
It stirred the beast inside me. The dark side that I tried so hard to keep buried and chained.
“It’s not about love. It’s about pain.”
She nodded, stroking her fingers over Bors’ skull. “You love him enough to give him the pain he needs.”
“The violence. The darkness.” I clenched my hands into fists, fighting the urge to grab him and sling him across the room.
Into our queen’s bed.
“It’s not a pretty sight, my queen. You haven’t…” My voice cracked on a rumbling growl. “Seen me. Like that.”
“I want to see all of you. I love you, Lance. As much as I love him. As much as you love him. I’m not afraid.”
But I am.I didn’t say it aloud, but I didn’t have to. She heard.
She reached up and pulled a pin out of her hair, letting the strands fall free. She didn’t wear her hair as long as Guinevere of old, but it took her a few minutes to unravel the braid to free her lustrous hair.
Something the famous knight would never have been privileged to witness.
His lady queen, letting down her hair. For bed.
When her lord husband, the king, awaited her.
“Mordred,” she called softly. “Would you carry me to bed?”
He leaped to his feet and swept her up into his arms. “At once, my queen.”
Striding into the adjacent room, he set her gently on the edge of her bed. Wordlessly, she lifted her arms over her head, inviting him to pull the sweater off. She lifted each foot, and he diligently untied her shoes and set them aside. Her jeans took more work.
Luscious work that had me sweating, unable to look away.
Bors fared even worse. Eyes wide and dark, he shot a pleading glance at me.:Help me. Before I do something foolish. Like throw myself at her feet and sob with relief that she’s still alive.:
Without answering, I slowly unsheathed my sword, letting steel sing in the silence. Relief washed away the tenseness in his face. This, we knew. Warfare. Sword in hand. The clang of steel. We’d sparred against each other in every lifetime, and he knew he could never beat me.
No one would best me with a sword. So it had been from the very beginning.
Though this wasn’t about him trying to beat me, or displaying our skills for our queen, though she would undoubtedly enjoy the show. Over the lifetimes of our curse, we’d taken swordplay to an entirely new level.
It was one thing to meet another skilled warrior in hand-to-hand combat with the intent of causing bodily injury or death. It was quite another level to defeat him with razor-sharp steel—without drawing a single drop of blood.
Without our queen, the closest we could ever get to the warriors we’d once been was with swords in hand. Centuries fell away. The modern world crumbled into dust. I had never served as a knight or ridden into battle on horseback, but when I held a sword, I was Lancelot du Lac.
And no one could defeat me.
