Lucan didn’t release her, taking another carnal draw from her neck. She cried out, plunged into a place where she couldn’t separate the pleasure from the pain threatening to consume her.
Maybe she’d still been in denial before, or maybe instead of driving him out, the Gauntlet had pushed Lucan even deeper into her heart. She wasn’t sure how she’d be able to sever their connection or how she’d ever survive it.
“Don’t cry,” Lucan mouthed against her wet cheeks.
Her shoulders shook uncontrollably, her body unable to take any more. The gods. The games. Lucan. She didn’t even care that he hauled her to him, caressing her back as the endless shudders ripped through her.
“Is that normal?” Kel asked.
“Shut up.” Lucan or the wraith—she wasn’t sure which of them answered and held her so carefully.
It didn’t matter. At the end of the day, they were two parts of the same whole. Like Briana was with the cat.
Exhausted from so much more than the tears that had finally escaped her stranglehold, she lifted her head, unable to meet Lucan’s gaze. “You should go.”
He cradled her jaw, forcing her to look at him. “I’m sorry if you felt that was betraying your mate. I never wanted—”
Unable to stand the thought of him regretting what had just happened, she shook her head cutting him off. “We need to get out of here.”
Nodding slowly, he grazed the marks on her neck. “I don’t know how long it will take to heal with the poison in your system.”
“I’ll be fine.” She couldn’t imagine telling a bigger lie.
His hand found hers, his fingers squeezing tight. He stood and the cold of the chamber rushed in to swallow her.
“If anything happens to her,” he warned Kel, the wraith as close to the surface as she’d heard without it taking over entirely. “I will end you.”
Half expecting an arrogant response to the threat, she stared in disbelief when Kel angled his head in a stiff nod.
With a quick glance in her direction, Lucan slipped into shadow and through the collapsed wall.
Kel lit another fire. “If you told him the truth it might destroy him.”
Briana didn’t move. “How long have you known?”
“Does it matter?”
It did if the others had also come to the same conclusion and planned to take advantage of it. “You don’t care about Lucan or Lancelot or whatever else you called him.”
“Ah, that little detail took you by surprise.”
That may have been putting it mildly, but the revelation had certainly made it a little easier to understand why he’d pushed her away the night of the festival. Had Gwen been the woman in his tent? “It doesn’t matter.”
Kel arched a brow. “He’s your mate.”
“Who shouldn’t know the truth, right?” Was she supposed to believe the dragon didn’t have his own reasons for wanting her to keep it a secret?
Kel stared at the fading firelight. “It’s far crueler knowing you can never be with the one you’re meant to, isn’t it?”
Cocking her head, she asked. “Who is she?”
The dragon feigned interest in his injury.
“Does she know she’s your mate?” Briana pressed.
He took his time answering. “No. And that’s the way it has to be.”
They lapsed into an uncomfortable silence—there would never be a comfortable one given that he’d been moments from snapping her neck at Tintagel.
“He never loved Gwen, you know. Lucan. Lancelot.” Kel closed his eyes. “Arthur was hammered when he came up with that nickname by the way. Or that’s how the story went.”
Shivering from the chill and blood loss, Briana gave up on trying to keep her eyes open. “Is that so?”
“You’d have to be wondering about their relationship by now.”
She thought about throwing Kel’s knife back at him. Hard. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Even if you can’t be with him, you should be able to take some small comfort in knowing his heart has never belonged to another.” There was bitterness in his voice, as though he didn’t have that luxury.
“How do you know,” she finally asked, “that Lucan didn’t love Gwen?” She could pretend she didn’t want to know, but she’d spent more than enough time avoiding the truth already. She wanted to know how much of the rumors surrounding Lancelot, Guinevere and Arthur were true.
“Lucan cared for her deeply, but like you do for your brothers.” The barest hint of respect echoed behind the words. “And although it dishonored both their families, he broke his betrothal to Gwen, freeing her to be with Arthur.”
“Arthur was already king. Wouldn’t her family have been in favor of that?”
Kel shrugged. “He was still considered the rebel king then. Half of Avalon loved and followed him, while the other half expected him to align with Morgana. Before Excalibur, Arthur wasn’t exactly known for doing the right thing.”
Tried and a little feverish from the thorns, she tried to get more comfortable. “You have an awful lot to say about the people you betrayed.”
As expected, Kel didn’t take the bait.
Greedy fingers of exhaustion plucked at her, but weak or not, she couldn’t let herself fall asleep. Kel hadn’t made a secret of wanting to see her torn apart, and she’d rather not make herself an easy target.
Rising on shaking legs, she made it high enough to sit on the chunk of stone nearby, then finally stood. The small flame near Kel’s feet cast dancing shadows on the wall.
“This wasn’t here before, was it?” She would have noticed the mural very different from the one Vaughn had foolishly touched.
Kel followed her gaze. “A lot of things weren’t here before.”
Too preoccupied with studying the mural, she didn’t read into Kel’s statement. Careful not to touch the hieroglyphics, she took in the image of the sun with human-like qualities and the nine people below it. Three groups of three. One woman and two men.
The gods?
Three symbols—Rhiannon’s, the Gauntlet’s and one she didn’t recognize—were lined up beneath each threesome. Below that were depictions of battles between the nine. The first Campaigns?
In the last one, a woman with Rhiannon’s mark fought a man bearing the symbol of the Gauntlet on his chest. She’d buried a sword in his chest.
Blinking to clear her foggy vision, she inched a little closer. “That looks like…Excalibur?” She turned toward Kel. “Could there have three swords, three Excaliburs?” She scanned the images, trying to figure out what she was missing.
Kel dragged himself to his feet but thankfully didn’t get too close to her. “No.” He pointed to the one in the man’s hand in the last image she kept returning to. “That isn’t Excalibur, but I’ve seen it before.” He met her gaze. “Mordred used it to kill Arthur.”
The collapsed wall behind them shook, and she would have brushed up against the mural if Kel didn’t steady her.
“It’s time to go.” Lucan took solid form in front of them. “I don’t know how long we’ll have before the whole chamber collapses.”
Something burst through the wall, opening a passageway, and Briana braced herself to fight off more vines. Instead the vegetation twisted up the walls, crisscrossing over the ceiling to hold the roof up.
“The Fae,” Lucan explained, reading the confusion on her face. He swept her up, into his arms and rushed into the newly formed tunnel. The ceiling and walls were still shaking when they emerged on the other side, Kel right on their heels.
“What happened to Graegor?”
