He thankfully didn’t ask her if she was talking about the Lancelot thing or Gwen or something else altogether. She wasn’t even sure what she was talking about herself, her mind overloaded with too much information in too short a time.
His expression tightened, and he swallowed, his eyes glassy. “He’s gone, isn’t he?”
Knowing he was talking about Arthur, she nodded. “He’s been gone a long time.”
He wet his lips, nodding, and she continued to run her fingers across his forehead. If reliving the loss of his best friend had been even half as hard on him as their earlier flashback, she knew how much he was hurting.
“I wish I had known him better.”
“He was…” Lucan trailed off hunting for the right word.
“Trouble,” Kel finished, his voice nearly as rough as Lucan’s. The dragon leaned his head back, his gaze pensive. “The very best kind.”
The words seemed to wear down some of the tension between the two men, the effect likely temporary given their history. She’d thought she understood Lucan’s hate for the dragon who had betrayed his king, but discovering how close he’d been to Arthur changed everything.
Given the wraith’s predisposition for violence, she suspected the dragon would have been dead by now if not for the gods’ rule against killing each other until the final round of the competition.
Lucan shifted next to her. “What happened?”
Kel answered for her, far chattier than he’d been so far. “That magic-abusing bitch triggered a cave- in.”
“Elena? I thought maybe the Fae did something.” He tried to sit up.
“You need more blood first.” She held his shoulders in place to keep him from rising. It should have been a challenge on a good day and altogether impossible as weak as she was now. The fact that Lucan didn’t even resist her meant he was worse off than she thought.
He touched his fingers to his lips. “Yours?” When she nodded, he shook his head. “But you’re not…stone. The venom in my fangs should have triggered the change.” He shook his head, disbelieving. “You have control of your shift?”
Her heart-rate spiked, the words she’d been holding onto for a while now, trapped somewhere between her lungs and her throat.
“Her mate isn’t here to kick your ass for drinking from her if that’s what you’re worried about,” Kel put in.
Like Briana, Lucan’s head turned in the dragon’s direction. His body, already cool, hardened like ice.
“Hey.” She palmed his freezing cheek, angling his face back toward her, not willing to lose him to the wraith. “You need more.”
“No.”
“Yes. I’m too weak to dig us out, but my blood will give you enough strength to pass through the wall.”
“And then what?” he challenged, and she knew he was just looking for an excuse not to drink from her.
“You’ll find a way to get me out.”
Kel grunted, but as far as she was concerned the dragon was on his own.
Lucan didn’t look convinced so she added, “You promised Tristan you’d keep me safe, right?”
His eyes narrowed, then widened, taking her in. “You’re naked.”
“Usually happens to all of us once or twice a day.”
“Put this on.” Gritting his teeth, he struggled to work his shirt over his head. “A little help,” he prompted when he only got it halfway off before collapsing against the ground, winded.
“Stubborn ass,” she muttered, skimming her fingers over his shoulders and along his arms until she had the shirt in her hands. She fingered the hole where the spear had pierced him. “Kind of pointless.”
Lucan gritted his teeth. “On. Now.”
Smiling at the commanding tone, she dragged it on. “The blood is already helping, isn’t it?”
He didn’t answer, his silence admitting enough.
“Here,” she looped her arms around him, helping him up and resting him against a nearby chunk of the column that could have crushed either of them when this part of the chamber had collapsed.
Arms burning from the strain, her eyes slid shut, and she allowed herself to lean into him. Just for a moment, she promised herself, and then she could pretend she didn’t want to stay right there.
His arm slid around her back. “You need your strength, kitten.”
The nickname had her grinning despite their situation, and she lifted her head. A lopsided smile she hadn’t seen in a long time lifted the corner of his mouth.
“Sometime this millennia would be good,” Kel growled.
Conscious of the dragon’s bored gaze, Briana straightened and held out her hand.
Lucan nodded to her neck. “It would be faster that way.”
“Okay.” By some miracle her voice didn’t betray the flutter of nerves in her belly as she slid closer. She bumped up against him, and he groaned. “Sorry.” Careful of his injuries, she started to move back.
His hand clamped down on her wrist. “Stay.” Eyes reflecting the faint flicker of Kel’s fire, he brushed her hair back from her face, exposing her throat. “You’re sure about this?”
Kel sighed. “Just to be clear, I’m not volunteering if she backs out.”
Neither of them paid him any attention.
“Will it hurt?” she whispered, though she was fairly certain she knew the answer. The redhead in the parking lot certainly hadn’t complained, and Briana had been ready to tear her apart for even that much.
His thumb slowly circled beneath her jaw. “Never.”
Lucan curled his fingers around her nape, gentle and coaxing and making her forget where they were and why she’d been nervous. Nothing about this was like that night in the forest. Not her, and certainly not the former knight fighting something so much darker than animal instinct.
And yet she trusted him. Completely. Maybe more now than back then.
His breath licked along her skin, triggering a shiver she couldn’t tamp down. Everything came to a standstill, neither of them moving, though every cell in her body
Tipping forward a fraction brought her in full contact with his mouth. The grip on her nape tightened, but instead of panicking, all of the tension holding her stiff against him evaporated, and she melted into him.
What started out as a necessity had become absolutely essential, a gift she felt compelled to offer, to demand he accept.
And then he did.
The pressure of his lips, the lazy slide of his tongue, masked the piercing of his fangs as he bit down.
Breath held, all the anger, uncertainty and fear she’d been drowning in for days collided with a hot wall of devastating pleasure that crashed over her.
Sweet Avalon.
Briana slid her hands into his hair, tugging just hard enough to match each silken pull of his mouth at her neck. Not even in her wildest fantasies had she believed this would feel so right, his arms around her, his face tucked against her throat.
Liquid heat tunneled through her veins, leaving her trembling, her body caught on the edge of sheer want. In the back of her mind she kept waiting for the venom in his fangs to overrun her system and leave her bonelessly compliant.
That’s how it was supposed to work, wasn’t it? She wasn’t supposed to crave his hands on her, wasn’t supposed to imagine his mouth sliding so much lower. Her thighs contracted as though his tongue had parted the slick folds, and she squirmed in place, thinking long and hard about crawling into his lap.
“Lucan,” she hissed, torn between begging him to end this and demanding he never, ever stop.
All of it was too much. Too intimate. Too vulnerable. Too terrifying.
Because she was in love with him.
Shaken by the clarity of that realization, she pushed at his chest, her breaths coming in painful gasps. She wanted the blissful ignorance she’d been convinced would accompany the venom in his bite. She’d been counting on it to make her forget how desperately she needed to win the competition and free herself from a one-sided bond.
