Guinevere arrived, just as I’d ordered, but instead of the guards at either side of her, she walked into the training yard with Tristan at her side like a shadow she’d collected somewhere. The sight of them together did something ugly to my chest, something I didn’t care to fully consider. And strangely, once again, the dragon was completely silent.
Tristan peeled away from her at the gate and then disappeared around a bend of trees until it was just Guinevere and me.
She’d been given proper training clothes, as our bouts in the yard were becoming commonplace now. As such, I wasn’t surprised to see her in a linen tunic that was belted at the waist, with loose braies tucked into her boots below. The outfit was both simple and functional, the kind of thing any youngknight might wear on a cool morning to train. There was nothing remarkable about it, except for the wind that kept catching the hem of her tunic and lifting it up, exposing her taut stomach underneath.
We must take her, for she is ours.
I turned away from her and drove my sword into the practice post, and the wood splintered. The impact traveled up my forearms, but I welcomed it.
“Arthur,” she said, calling me by my first name no matter how many fucking times I’d corrected her.
“Pick up a sword,” I growled in response.
She crossed to the rack without argument, but I didn’t watch her go. I was sick to death of watching her in general. Instead, I heard the scrape of steel, and when she returned, I realized she’d chosen the short blade she’d favored when she’d been Lioran. It was lighter, faster, and more suited to her reach. She’d learned the yard as much as she’d learned her own limits.
I hated that she had.
We circled one another, and she moved well, even now, even after everything Galahad had done to her. Of course, I’d seen the bruises three days ago when she’d appeared in the yard: purple-yellow stains along her ribs and her upper arms. And when Lance had looked at them, he’d lost his mind entirely, something I was still processing, truth be told. Processing because part of me understood it: I hadn’t been able to look at the pain and cruelty she’d obviously suffered without something in me going very, very still. And, of course, the dragon had responded with the absolute desire for blood, something I’d had a very difficult time controlling.
And yet... yet, I was also processing the truth of the fact, which was: why did Lance and I care? She was my prisoner and my enemy. She was a spy, and she’d come here to undermine my rule. Just based on those things alone, Lance and I should havelaughed at the evidence of Galahad’s abuse. And yet... yet, we hadn’t.
Ours.
I pressed forward, and she parried. The impact rattled up her arm, but she absorbed it, stepped back, and reset her feet. There was a gap in her defense at the left shoulder that I was beginning to expect because she led with her right and forgot to protect the other side.
I didn’t exploit it, though. Not yet, anyway.
The wind moved through the yard, and her tunic lifted at the hem just as it had done a few minutes ago. There was another flash of pale skin above the waistband of her braies, revealing the flat plane of her stomach as well as the curve of her side. It was gone in a second, less than a second really, but that didn’t seem to matter.
A burst of desire began driving through me, up from my cock, which was already straining against the leather of my braies.
We must mate her.
I pressed forward harder than I meant to, and she stumbled back two steps, found her footing, and drove her blade up in a deflection that was pure instinct, no training in it at all.
“You’re dropping your left,” I growled.
“I know.”
“Fix it.”
“I’m trying.”
The dragon wasn’t quiet any longer. I wasn’t sure if it was owing to that flash of skin we’d both just witnessed, but it was now a slow and steady heat that had nothing to do with exertion. I recognized it, and I hated recognizing it.
I came at her from the right. She adjusted, caught my blade on a diagonal, turned her wrist, and created distance. She wasgetting better. What was more, her footwork was improving: she was beginning to anticipate rather than react.
It would have been easier if she’d been terrible at this.
“I want an update on Corvin,” she said.
“You are my prisoner, and therefore you have no room to want... anything.”
The name further incited me, and I drove at her again, faster this time. She backpedaled hard, and her back foot caught a rut in the dirt that caused her to go down on one knee. Her sword arm shot out for balance, and the tunic rode up entirely on that side, exposing her ribs, the indent of her waist, and the tuck of skin above the bone of her hip.
The dragon surged.
Closer. She is ours, yet we have never known her the way we should.
