Page 95 of To Charm a Dark Prince

They had made love. And oh man, her legs weresore.Mordred hadn’t gone easy on her. And it had been incredible. But the weight of what she had to do next might crush her.

Swallowing down her guilt, she dug through his dressers, careful not to make too much noise. She finally found what she was looking for—a little leather pouch that looked identical to the one Maewenn had given her. Fetching her own bag out of her boot, she opened up Mordred’s and inspected it. Both bags had a powder that was closer to the consistency of sugar than flour. And both were a slight, faint blue. It had to be the same stuff. Dumping most of his bag into hers, she cinched her bag back up and tucked it into the toe of her boot before returning his to his drawer.

She slipped back into the sheets with him. He murmured as she did, wrapping an arm around her and pulling her tight to his side. He felt like a wall of a man. Nuzzling in close, she tucked her head against his neck and shut her eyes.

Despite her whirling thoughts, she fell asleep in his arms.

And knew that, after the next day, she would never get the chance to do it again.

* * *

Mordred woke up with a beautiful woman asleep in his arms. Her fiery hair was pooled on the pillow in tendrils of red, yellow, and even some deep bluish purple. Her back was to him, her body nestled so wonderfully against his. Warm. Impossibly so.Fire elemental.He wondered if he hadn’t dreamt the moment—her sneaking into his room unannounced, kissing him. Asking him to love her.

And oh, he loved her.

He did not know what inspired her to do it, but he certainly would not complain. He was certain she would likely be sore this morning, though he had not done even a quarter of the things he wished to do to her. But all that would follow in time. Best to wade into the deep waters—not simply throw her in and hope she did not drown.

His body tightened at the idea of it. And he found he could not help but let his hands roam her body, squeezing her breasts, her arse, whatever he could reach. When she moaned, her eyes fluttering open, she began to speak his name when he swallowed it in a kiss.

He pressed up onto his elbow, hooking her leg over his hip, and he filled her once more with a sudden stroke, loving how she writhed and squirmed when he took her. To the morning light, he loved her the way he wished he had the discipline to the night before—patient. Not gentle—butslow.Feeling every inch of her as she took every inch of him.

She was like a volcano around him. He could not take it for long—the bliss of her was too much. He brought them both to a peak of ecstasy together as she cried out against his lips.

When they could both breathe again, she had an arm thrown over her eyes, her chest still heaving with exertion.

“Breakfast?” she asked.

He grunted in reply, lying flat on his back.

She climbed out of bed, a little wobbly—which he took great pride in—and got dressed. She slipped on her boots. “I’ll be back with muffins. Might take me a while.”

He grunted again.

Chuckling, she left the room.

And he lay there with a distinctly sated smile on his face. Perhaps the future would not be so bad for them, after all.

* * *

Gwen went to work, but there was a fun fact that she learned pretty quickly—a fun and frustrating fact.

Baking soda and baking powder did not exist in the medieval era. Or colonial. Or whenever the last time people from Avalon had been allowed to travel and crib people’s inventions.

It took one more batch after that before she finally got the trick of it without normal ingredients. Her final batch—one of the muffins loaded with the sleeping powder—lookedalmostnormal. The texture was still a tiny bit off, but to someone who had never had a muffin before, they’d be fine.

Putting the finished ones into a basket, she made sure to put the one for Mordred in a special place. That said, she kept glancing at it nervously, wanting to make sure she didn’t lose track of it. That’s all she needed—having someone eat the wrong one and either her or one of the knights winding up face-planted on the carpet.

Her stomach was twisting in knots. She didn’t want to do this. She didn’t want tohaveto do it. They had just had sex—twice—and it was clear there was something blooming between them.

And besides, there were so many ways her terrible plan could go wrong. And so many ways it probably would. But she kept replaying the sight of Lancelot as he was being sucked into the Crystal over and over in her head, and it gave her the nerve to keep going.

Once everything was ready to go, she headed up to find Mordred. He was sitting in a different one of his studies at a desk, poring over papers and tapping the feathery end of a quill pen against his temple.

The lighting cut sharp angles across his features. She was once more struck by how damn handsome he was. Sure, foreboding andevil-looking, but…alluring all the same. Plucking up the special muffin from the basket—making triple sure it was the right one—she placed it down on the desk next to him. “They’re best when they’re fresh.”

His smile was one that told her he didn’t get gifts very often. It only served to twist the knife deeper in her side. She was preparing speeches in her head for when he said he wasn’t hungry, or didn’t like blueberries, or any of the other possible ways it could go wrong.

He picked it up and studied it thoughtfully. “I see the reason for the oddly shaped pan now.”

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