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Mordred took a step toward her.
Gwen did the only sensible thing.
She turned and ran for her life.
The hallways were twisted and warped, and seemed to make no sense in their pattern or layout as she ran as fast as she could. She took a wrong turn, however, and wound up standing in a version of Mordred’s study—the one with the huge metal table that had the map of Avalon etched into its surface.
There was only one way in or out, and she had just barreled through it. Jumping out the window was probably aterribleidea. Turning to head back to the hallway and try again, she almost tripped over her own feet.
He was standing there in the jamb, nearly taking up the whole of the door. He was once more walking toward her, clearly not in any hurry. It demonstrated exactly how little her running had mattered.
“I—um—Mordred—I—” She put up her hands in front of her, pathetically trying to slow him down. “I—I—” She wanted to say she could explain. But she couldn’t. There was nothing to tell him. She had lied to him and betrayed him.
The words died on her tongue.
And she doubted this nightmare version of Mordred cared. He was just a product of her guilty mind. She kept retreating from him as he stalked toward her. “I—I’m sorry, I really am, I—I didn’t—” She squeaked as she backed into the table. She glanced down at it to see what she had hit and, in that moment, he closed the distance between them.
He didn’t say a word.
A clawed gauntlet snapped around her throat, pressing her down to the table, firmly and without any room for argument. He didn’t slam her down—it wasn’t violent—but there was nothing she could do to stop him. She quickly found herself on her back on the table, his massive form looming over her as he kept one hand around her throat and the other, with those wicked and sharp talons, pressed to the table next to her head. He wasn’t hurting her. But she knew there wasn’t any point in struggling.
His face was lost in the darkness of his hood as he leaned down over her. She was shivering. Both from fear, and…from something else, entirely.
God above, she had problems.
Because the sight of him over her did confusing and terrible things to her.
“Mordred, I…” She didn’t know what to say.
He lowered his head down closer to hers, strands of his iron-gray hair brushing against her cheek. His breath was hot as it washed against her, his voice little more than a low rumble near her ear. “Run and hide, Gwendolyn. Run and stay hidden for as long as you can. Because when I find you, I will never let you escape.”
All the air rushed out of her lungs at his words. And she didn’t know when she’d get the chance to fill them again as he crashed his lips against hers in a fiery, needy, demanding kiss that she was certain was trying to suck the soul out of her body.
One of her hands was twisted in the fabric of his cloak. The other was pressed to the side of his throat, feeling the race of his pulse beneath her hand. She wasn’t trying to push him away. God help her, she was trying to pull him closer.
He broke the kiss, leaving her breathless, as he trailed his lips to her ear once more.
“You belong to me.”
With those words from him, her dream shattered. It was still dark, and now she was covered in a cold sweat.
Stupid dreams. Stupid goddamn dreams. Gwen rolled onto her side, and fell back into a restless, but at least dreamless, sleep. It’d be time to get on the road soon, and she’d need as much sleep as she could get.
Dawn came and they set about packing up their camp without much fuss or conversation. It was easy to be distracted by the tasks at hand, let alone all the beautiful colors and wonderful sights of Avalon.
And she also had a new game. It was called “Annoy the Shit Out of Merlin.” It was a really easy game, to be fair. But it was super fun all the same. Today, it was by singing as she rode atop the mare—who she had named Sunshine, whichalsoannoyed Merlin.
She knew she didn’t have a bad singing voice. And she was just amusing herself as they spent yet another day walking along the dirt road through the woods. “How far are we from the sorcerer?”
“Another day or two,” the old man replied. “Thankfully.”
Old. To be fair, he didn’t look that old. Maybe in his late forties? But late forties, sailor-style, that was to say he looked far more weathered than his years. Besides, he said he was as old as humanity anyway. Old still counted.
Gwen shook her head. It was weird to think that in just a few days, she probably wouldn’t have fire powers anymore. She had barely started getting used to them. Evenenjoyingthem a little. She still hadn’t even answered the question of whether or not she wanted to go home.
She pictured a life, living in the keep with Mordred, playing with the dogs and raising new puppies as the years went by. They could have been happy together. They could have had a life—hundreds of years, maybe—spent in each other’s company. It was a fantasy. A fairytale.
But nothing was ever that easy, was it?
