Then the baying of hunting dogs shattered the hush of the clearing. The knight lunged toward her, testing her resolve, but the Druid girl held firm, thankful for the rock at her back that helped her stay upright.
A large, gloved hand slid around her forearm as she looked up into the knight’s face, a snarl creeping onto her own expression. She didn’t know what she was expecting, or perhaps she hadn’t been expecting anything at all. But somehow, what she found still managed to surprise her.
Sunlight dappled his ivory skin, deep-set eyes, slightly aquiline nose, sharp jaw, and long neck. Their gazes met, and again, the world slowed to half-pace. Every instinct in the girl’s body told her to press the advantage, to draw blood from that lovely skin, to bring her knee to his groin, to slip out of his grasp—to doanythingat all but freeze like an inexperienced whelp.
“At long last,” the knight breathed, his voice low and dark, like heather on the hills or dusk over the lake. “I have been waiting for you.”
His words carried no sense, none at all—and yet the Druid girl’s throat crumpled beneath the sudden weight of her loneliness. Her mind spun as the ancient, nameless ache she’d known all her life pulsed wildly in her marrow. Before she could even begin gathering her wits, something peculiar happened.
A distant lute’s low, mournful notes slunk into the clearing. The girl barely reacted, but the hunting party’s music stole the attention of the knight-errant, who tipped his head back like a bloodhound. She couldn’t fathom why the long, looping notes would halt a man who cared for only blood and glory.
It didn’t matter, the Druid girl reminded herself. She took advantage of his distraction, shoving him back with all her might, using the momentum to break his hold and scramble up the rock. Later, the girl wouldn’t be able to explain precisely how she did it, exhausted and in pain, but she flung herself intothe saddle and gathered up the destrier’s reins before the knight could reach for her again.
Relief and victory flooded every inch of her body as the horse responded to her request to leap into a powerful, ground-devouring gallop. She pressed herself low to its neck, only turning for the briefest of moments to glance back into the clearing.
The knight watched her go, not attempting to run after the strange girl who had stolen his horse. Instead, he just gazed at her, one ink-dark eyebrow raised, an odd quirk to his sculpted mouth, as if he were moreamusedthan anything else that she had held a knife to his throat and absconded with his destrier.
The Druid girl let a wild, hoarse laugh tear from her throat. But the sound cut short as the sun caught the shimmering surface of an object resting on the far side of the rock, gone unseen in her desperate scramble.
A shield, after all—so the man in the meadow was no knight-errant. She had only had a split second to look before the terrain demanded her attention, growing rougher with trees and ditches and brush to navigate.
But there was little mistaking the crest on his shield: a blood-red dragon rampant, proud and vicious across a white background.
“Fuck,” the Druid girl muttered into the destrier’s mane.
All the ways her Fate branched out like the limbs of a wide and mighty oak, with possibilities as endless as the acorns that covered the ground, and yet she had stolen a horse not from some unknown knight-errant but from a powerful, dangerous man.
A godsdamned knight of King Arthur’s bloody Round Table.
Chapter Two
The Druid girl urged the destrier forward, an antidote to the panic beating its fists against her sternum. What was done was done; she’d find an angle to press, a gap in the wall to slip between. Just like she always did.
Through the lush woods the war horse galloped, moving with startling agility, responding to the slightest shift of her weight, the lightest press of her leg. As the old-growth forest faded into grassy meadows and shrubs, she slowed, risking a glance over her shoulder.
She found only the dark sweep of black-green, the King’s Wood reaching shadowy fingers over the surrounding meadows. A chill skittered down her spine, but at least there were no mounted knights pursuing her, no red and white flags rippling in the cool, early spring air.
“Easy,” the Druid girl murmured, slowing the courser. It responded so instantly that she lost her balance, pitching forward and pinching with her knees to catch herself. In response, the horse tossed its head, its black ears pinned against its skull.
“My apologies,” she murmured, patting its muscled neck. “I am not accustomed to a horse as fine as you.” She stroked itsshining coat, thinking about its excellent training, and her mind drew her back to the knight in the clearing. He had been waiting for her, he’d said. Impossible, she knew. And still, something low in her belly fluttered, an ache unfurling from deep within her bones.
She gritted her teeth against such thoughts, happy to find her praise appeased the destrier as it moved into a lofty trot, its ears pricked forward again. The Druid girl loosened the reins, giving the horse its head and praying it knew its way home in a way she certainly never had.
When the destrier took her onto a winding, tree-hemmed path, her blood jumped back into a quick, sharp thrum. There was a reason she’d stuck to forests and farmlands in her journey, not the Roman roads—a woman traveling alone was never safe in these lands, no matter the false promises Arthur Pendragon had made time and time again, speaking of chivalry and codes and decency.
Gathering up the reins, the Druid girl checked in both directions and found she was still alone. A relieved exhale escaped her mouth as she leaned forward, adjusting her skirts into a more proper drape, preparing for the moment she was seen—by knights, by guards, by townsfolk. She’d play the little damsel. It would work. It always did.
The stolen horse trotted down the path, coming around a tight curve that crested a hill. At the top, the southern lands spilled out beneath her: forests to fens and marshes, then farmlands and more hills, tall grasses glimmering with morning dew. Small homesteads stood in the distance, smoke trailing lazily from chimneys. The sun broke through the clouds, and she raised one hand to shade her eyes, reining the destrier to a halt. And there it was, seated on the far horizon like a king upon his throne.
Camelot.
The city rested on a large hill, casting a heavy shadow onto the lands gathered at its feet. The castle speared the highest point of the slope, reminding her of a sword in its scabbard, only the hilt visible. Its stony face swallowed up the bright sunlight. A maze of walls circled the city, low and crumbling around the castle, growing taller and taller toward the citadel’s edges.
The Druid girl swallowed, pushing away an auburn curl the breeze tugged free of her braid. Camelot’s ancient keep might be a sight to behold, she thought, if she were seeking entrance to its court for any other reason. If the man who reigned at its center did not possess the power to threaten the lives of anyone who didn’t share his vision of a united Isle.
Unconsciously, the girl slipped her hand beneath the collar of her linen blouse, reaching for the seal that hung from a chain around her neck. Despite the flush of her skin, the metal was cool to her fingertips. She traced the worn ridges that formed the imprint of a rushing river, three rocks clustered to one side, a gull flying in the top corner. The seal of the Or’Afon family, once trusted advisors to Uther Pendragon.
Her flesh prickled hot with the weight of everything. Panic overtook the Druid girl all at once, quick as a storm surge. She closed her legs around the destrier, urging it forward. The horse leapt into a gallop with glee. Good—she did not want to meander along the road to her destiny, trapped in memories and questions that would never be answered.
