“How else do you explain it?”
The cool, indulgent tone left her shaking her head. “You know it was more than that.” She’d seen the way he’d looked at her, felt the tenderness as much as the hunger when he’d touched her.
The rain came down harder, pelting her skin. She blinked through wet lashes, willing him to say something—anything that would stop the ache in her chest from cracking her wide open.
“What do you want from me, Briana?” Impatience flared in his eyes.
Hurt and anger boiled inside her, sweeping away the longing she’d clung so hard to. She raised her chin. “The truth.”
“The truth is that I’m nothing more than the pawn of a goddess and neither one of us can ever forget that.”
“No.” She took a step toward him, sliding her hands up to frame his face. “It doesn’t have to be like that. We can find a way—”
“Don’t be stupid. There is no way and even if there was…” He let out a breath, then pulled her hands away from him. “Whatever you thought you felt, it was nothing more than a spell.”
“No.”
“Yes,” he snapped.
She shook her head, the sting of tears burning behind her eyes. “I know you want to be with me.”
He let go of her hands. “Like I wanted to be with you back then?”
At the festival centuries ago…when he’d broken her heart.
Flinching, she stumbled away from him. “This is different.” It had to be.
His gaze softened and eyes that had held such heat and desire reflected only pity now. “Not for me.”
Briana retreated beyond his reach, every step threatening to break her. “Then I guess you were right.” She forced the words out, forced herself to believe them. “You’re not the knight I remember.”
“I was never the knight you remember.” He turned his back on her.
His name rose to her lips, but she pressed them together until they burned. She didn’t wait for him to reach the door before she turned away. He didn’t try to stop her when she walked away from him this time, and she didn’t expect him to.
He’d made his choice.
The compulsion pounded through Lucan’s brain until he wasn’t sure if it was the wraith’s need or his own.
He glanced back at the empty alley, his gut twisting hard. He shouldn’t have let her walk away like that, shouldn’t have…
“If you need to hit something, I can go find Tristan.”
He glanced over his shoulder where Mac stood just inside the door. Lucan faced the wall again, bracing his hands on the wet brick, wishing the sight of his bloodied knuckles could make up for what he’d just done to Briana.
He cleared his throat. “How long have you been standing there?”
“Long enough.” The door shut quietly as Mac joined him in the alley.
Lucan didn’t bother asking where the wolf had left his shirt. Half the Pendragon’s crowd was probably in the same boat. His own shirt was ripped, a stark reminder of what happened between he and Briana. He closed his bleeding hand, welcoming the bite of pain.
“If it makes you feel better, whatever you’re thinking about yourself, Briana is probably being much more creative.”
He shot his friend a dark look.
“You could always go after her.”
“And say what? Sorry some bitch goddess turned me into monster that could just as soon kill you as kiss you?”
“Actually,” Mac began, sinking onto a crate and resting his head against the wall. “I was gonna suggest ‘sorry that some enchantresses fucked with everybody’s head tonight’.”
Lucan blew out a breath.
“But your story is much more interesting.” He leaned forward resting his elbows on his knees. “I wasn’t so far off the mark earlier, was I?”
“Does it matter? Like you said, an enchantress fucked with everybody’s head tonight.”
Mac nodded. “Maybe not everybody’s.”
Lucan flexed his good hand, thinking about punching the wall again. Briana had been affected by the spell, same as everyone else. He’d watched the change come over her inside the bar. Maybe for a minute there the past and present had blurred the lines beyond the enchantress’s magic, but that was all.
“Spell or not,” Mac added, as if reading his mind, “what else could you tell her? That you’d move heaven and earth to find a way to be with her?” Mac shook his head. “That would give her nothing but false hope and put her at risk.”
Lucan said nothing.
“Rhiannon would just as soon compel you to kill Briana if she thought it would hurt you.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” he snapped.
Knowing that was the only thing that held him in check when she’d walked away. He didn’t deserve her. He knew that. But when he was with her, when he held her close enough she felt almost a part of him, he could almost convince himself that someday he’d earn the right to claim her as his own.
“Once the spell fully wears off…” Mac trailed off, frowning. He glanced at the door, and Lucan wasn’t sure they were still talking about him and Briana anymore. “Do you know what I loved best about Arthur?”
The change in subject had him watching Mac carefully. “That you could drink him under the table?”
Mac laughed. “That he persevered. First with his childhood and that bitch of a half-sister, proving to everyone, even himself, that he was a force to be reckoned with. Then with wielding Excalibur and uniting everyone, winning Gwen.” He gave Lucan a rueful smile. “And going to war with Mordred. It didn’t matter what it was, he always found a way.”
“Arthur’s gone.”
“For now,” Mac said quietly, “but what he taught us, what he believed in, stuck, for better or worse.”
“You just said—” Lucan cut in, knowing what Mac was getting at.
“I know what I said. I know that Briana staying far away from you is best for her. I didn’t say that it was best for you.”
Lucan couldn’t bring himself to argue the point, letting silence fall between them.
Mac let out a breath and nodded to his hand. “What’s up with that?”
Lucan stared at the cuts still oozing blood and frowned. They should have begun healing already. He touched his stomach, reminded of how long the wound from the Fae warrior had taken to heal.
He ripped off a section of his shirt to wrap around his hand.
“Where are you going?”
Not until Mac spoke did Lucan realize he’d started down the alley. “I have to make sure she gets home okay.” He couldn’t stay here and pretend that the hurt in her eyes when he’d insisted he didn’t feel the same wasn’t already haunting him.
Mac stood and walked toward the door. “I’ll be here when you’re done.”
Briana clenched her fists until her claws bit into her palms. Despite the cold rain, the few tears that managed to escape scalded her cheeks. Soaked, and shivering from everything but the rain, she forced herself to keep walking, embracing the anger over the hurt—anything to keep from feeling like she was broken inside.
In the back of her mind she knew there was something else she needed to think about, something important, but it was impossible to concentrate on anything other than replaying the scene with Lucan in her head.
