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Lancelot returned the hug again, this time resting his cheek on the top of her head. “I do not know what will come of all this. But you are a kind, righteous, and honorable young woman. Thank you. From the bottom of my soul,thank you.”
She squeezed him tighter. “He blew it up, you know. Not me.”
“But you were the catalyst. And for that, I owe you my undying fealty. I will protect you, Lady Gwendolyn Wright.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.” She smiled up at him but couldn’t put much weight behind her words.
“Let’s.” He smiled back. It was his stomach’s turn to remind them that dinner was waiting for them. He chuckled. “Come, before I faint from starvation.”
Shaking her head at his melodrama, she followed him inside. She didn’t know what was waiting for them. She was certain it wasn’t going to be a smooth ride.
But at least, for now, she could sit down and have hamburgers and fries with a pack of friends.
Well, a pack of friends, and one crotchety demon.
Life certainly got interesting, didn’t it?
ELEVEN
Dinner had been exactly as uncomfortable as Gwen would have expected, sitting down with a wackjob wizard, a literal fairy, a knight bent on revenge, and a demon in cat form who very clearly despised everyone else at the table but was super into the hamburgers. The sound of an angry cat eating was always one of the funniest things for Gwen, but she tried not to provoke the demon any more than was necessary.
After the incredibly awkward dinner of stilted conversations, she was relieved that she would be sleeping indoors on an actual bed. She liked camping as much as a human possibly could, but there was a point where the joke ran thin. And besides, she’d be back on the road sleeping under the stars the following night.
Because it was clear that wherever the answer to her dilemma was, it wasn’t here. Eod curled up by her feet and let out the telltale heavy sigh of a dog settling in for the night. Scratching him between the ears, she lay down and shut her eyes.
In order to split up her and Grinn, they would need to destroy Caliburn—something Mordred had to give upwillingly.Not only did that seem impossible, she didn’t even know if she wanted it to happen in the first place.
Destroying Caliburn seemed like a big fucking deal. And her being attached to Grinn and having his power was the only thing keeping him from unleashing another bloody rampage. Maybe she was supposed to stay like this—tethered to the asshole “cat” for the rest of her life.
But that raised a whole new level of complications. Namely, she knew Grinn wasn’t going to put up with it. And while he couldn’t set shit on fire, it was clear there was a whole mess of other ways he could cause problems.
Hugging the pillow to herself, she wished she had someone she could talk to. Really talk to. Zoe seemed nice and all, but Gwen wasn’t sure she’d have any advice past a patient smile and a gentle pat on the head.
No, she needed somebody who wouldgetit. Lancelot certainly wasn’t it. Doc was too insane to keep on track with a conversation for longer than a minute or two. Besides, he had pointed out the fundamental issue that she didn’t know what she wanted.
And damn it all, she didn’t.
She didn’t want to split from Grinn and start a war, but she didn’t want to stay tethered to him. She wanted to be with Mordred, but she disagreed with how he wanted to rule the world. She wanted to go home, but she wanted to stay.
I hate everything about all of this.
With her own heavy sigh, she clutched the pillow and tried her best to fall asleep. After an hour of her mind spinning in circles, she finally nodded off.
And promptly found herself standing ankle-deep in mud. The sound of clashing metal and the shouts of men surrounded her. She froze, trying to understand what she was looking at.
It was a battle. The field around her had been turned into a mud pit by the boots of a thousand men. Bodies were strewn everywhere—some dead, some dying. Weapons were abandoned where they had fallen.
The sound of cries for violence and cries for mercy filled the air. She had seen all the movies—she’d watched enough documentaries about medieval warfare. But they did a poor job of showing what it would be like to stand in the middle of it.
The soldiers who were still standing looked exhausted, trudging through the muck that was equal parts dirt and blood, swinging their weapons with all the energy they had left. She watched as a man in full armor and a dark gray cape knocked another man to his knees before ramming the point of his sword into the gap in the man’s breastplate and helm. The man screamed, then slumped to the ground lifelessly as the first soldier ripped his sword back out from his victim.
Gwen fought the urge to be sick. The soldier in the gray cape walked away from his dead foe, clearly exhausted but stalwart. He stopped a few feet away from her, seemingly not noticing her, and pulled his helm off to push his hair from his face.
It was Mordred.
She blinked, staring. It washumanMordred. His hair was long and blond, soaked with sweat and covered in dirt. He had a blotch of an angry bruise forming along the side of his throat and his jaw where he must have been hit hard by someone or something. His eyes were a deep green.
For one moment, he looked sotired.As if for all the world he wished he could stop. There, with the backdrop of violence and war, was a man who was weary beyond all words. But he took a breath, placed the helm back over his head, and turning, began to wade through the mud to find his next foe.
