He drained the rest of his goblet, for mortal brews had little to no impact on him, and watched Arthur and Guinevere dance. A complicated relationship in every possible way. Guinevere had always been adamant the king be kept unaware that herromantic interests extended only to women. Mordred had found no reason to deny her request.
But as they glided across the floor, Arthur’s hand on Guinevere’s waist, her dark eyes looking up at him with what might be genuine admiration, he found it hard to imagine Arthur did not already know. There was little that escaped a Pendragon’s notice, particularly one as cunning as the Bear.
Movement stirred to his left, and the faerie knight glanced over, finding a nobleman heading straight toward him, daughters in tow. He scowled. He had little patience for such things tonight. Mordred pushed off the wall, unfolding to his full height, and scanned the nearby feast-goers, seeking any possible escape.
To his deep irritation, just a few steps away, at the edge of the dancing couples, stood the physician Galen with his apprentice. She wore the same gown she had on the jousting field, though she had since sponged dust from the hem. Her long curls were plaited and wound around her head like a crown, a few escaped ringlets dangling prettily around her face. His scowl deepened.
Mordred set his jaw, glancing between the approaching nobleman and Nyneve Or’Afon. With a sigh, he stepped toward the maiden.
“Lady Nyneve,” he said, offering a courtly bow. He made no effort to sweeten his tone, the words hard as granite, barbed with derision. “I do believe your token gave me the luck I needed for my match on the tilt earlier. Would you do me the honor of a dance, and perhaps bring even more luck my way?”
Mordred had approached many maidens for a dance in his life. Usually for information. Occasionally for appearances. Sometimes for pleasure. But his heart had never thrummed in the hollow of his throat like this before. And certainly, no maiden had ever turned to face him with the expression Nyneve had on her face: eyes narrowed suspiciously, her rosebud mouthslightly parted, one brow arched, her features dripping with disdain. The beast curled beneath his breastbone flexed its claws.
“Sir Mordred,” Nyneve replied, the syllables drawn out. Could she bewitch him with nothing more than his own name? Impossible, he told himself. “I fear I am presently engaged in conversation with Galen about a complicated case.”
For a moment, his mind went utterly blank. He was unaccustomed to being refused. Without waiting for him to reply, Nyneve turned away, dismissing him. Of all things, heat uncurled low in his belly.
“Oh, Nyneve, don’t be silly,” Galen said to his apprentice. “Go dance, if you wish.” The physician looked over his shoulder, meeting Mordred’s gaze. “Though perhaps you might seek a tamer partner.”
Mordred’s mouth moved with amusement. “Good evening to you, too, Galen,” he replied. He begrudgingly liked the physician, who had put him back together quite a few times after Arthur or Guinevere had sent him out on very questionable errands. But Galen had never asked questions, just set bones and closed wounds.
Nyneve’s gaze dipped back toward Mordred, her eyes glinting in the candlelight like the edge of a knife. “Fine,” she sighed as if there were no greater crucible, gathering up her skirts. “Onedance, Sir Knight.”
He tilted his head to the side, deeply curious about this maiden. Dangerously curious, if he was honest. The kind of curiosity that could distract him from what he was here to do and the impossibly narrow path he walked every day.
“One dance,” he agreed in a low murmur, holding out his hand. Nyneve settled her much smaller palm into his. A current rippled through him, like a pebble thrown into a perfectly still pond. He set his jaw and led her out of the crowd.
When he slipped his hand around her waist, she blushed, which should not have pleased him as much as it did.
“How are you finding Camelot?” he asked, fighting for focus. For control. For purpose. And yet Mordred still found himself utterly unmoored by the maiden in his arms.
She smelled of deep summer meadows and poisonous petals, but with a richness to it all, like damp soil after a good, hard rain. Lady Nyneve Or’Afonfitagainst him, a sword in its custom-made scabbard. Holding her felt the same as riding Rook into the fray of battle: terrifying, chaotic, dangerous, and intoxicatingly perfect.
“I rather enjoy the citadel,” Nyneve replied, peering up at him, a predator watching its prey from the shadowed tree line.
Mordred’s feet moved of their own accord in the dance, the movements long beaten into him. Mortal dances were regimented, each step dictated. They created good enough music, in his opinion, but then confined it to a series of specified movements. As if each partner were not a different beast, as if each strum of the lute or pluck of the harp string were one and the same.
“You have been a boon to Galen,” Mordred said, because it was true, and because he could not think about the ways he wanted his turn about the floor with this strange, feral maiden to break the confines of courtly dance. “It is hardly a wardship given your skills in healing. Camelot is lucky to have you.”
Something in her expression shifted, gone raw and open. “Has Galen spoken of my skill?”
“Yes,” Mordred replied, resisting the urge to draw her closer against him. “At length, in fact. Many have requested apprenticeships. Until you, he has not yet kept anyone for more than a few days.”
It was true, but apparently Galen had not told the girl, because for a moment, a dazzling smile broke the measured,even expression on her face. “Seems inefficient,” she sniffed a moment later, having recovered herself, “and reckless, even, to leave such an important role to chance.”
Mordred shrugged, taking a deep breath and regretting it, his senses overrun by summer meadows and river stone. “Camelot has many skilled healers and midwives, as you know,” he replied. “Though Galen will be a great loss to this citadel one day, that does not mean we would be left without caretakers.”
“I suppose none thought that his apprentice could be a woman,” Nyneve said, her gaze trailing back to meet his. He liked the way she tilted her chin up so defiantly, as if she were offended at his height and felt owed a thorough apology.
“No, unfortunately,” Mordred agreed, pulling her into the dance’s tight turn as the music swelled. The maiden knew her steps, too, though they were less polished and practiced than his. “Queen Guinevere has spent many years fighting for more equity between the sexes. You arrived at the right time with the right talents.”
Her eyes narrowed as she watched him carefully, but he knew she would find nothing in his stone-cold expression. “And what aboutyou, Sir Mordred?” she asked with a smile that was little more than bared teeth. “Surely you never expected for there to be a place in Camelot for you.”
He returned the wolfish smile, opening his fingers against the curve of her waist. She flushed again. It was no maidenly pinking at the suggestion of any man’s touch. Whatever tide he was fighting against, she appeared to be caught in it as well, trying to swim through the nameless current to the safety of shore.
“Certainly not,” Mordred replied with a laugh. “My aunt, Morgana de Bois of Tintagel, pushed quite hard for it, but the crown’s difficulty with producing an heir cemented my place here.” Surprise glimmered on her features for the barestof moments before she controlled her expression. “Oh, yes. A bastard son weighed down by a prophecy isstilla son, Lady Nyneve. Still proof the king is not impotent.”
His courtly education told him a man was not meant to speak to an unwed maiden in such ways. But he was no mortal man, and she was clearly much more than a simple maiden fresh to court. She kept her aura closed down tightly, just as he did. And yet he could still feel her power crackling beneath her skin like a thunderstorm on the horizon.
