through the dampness, pressing inside her in a slow thrust.
Briana moaned softly, arching back and taking him deeper.
Rising up, he barely gave her time to come awake before gripping her hips and pulling her to her knees. He took his shaft in his hand, fit himself against her snug opening, rubbing back and forth, and then plunged inside her.
Briana’s head fell back, her claws raking the sheets as she cried out.
The sound of total abandon prompted him to withdraw and sink back into her. And then he couldn’t stop moving, couldn’t stop pushing every inch deep into her core. He hissed out every breath, the silky walls squeezing him tight, so fucking tight.
“Briana,” he growled, pounding faster.
Her hips moved perfectly with him, rocking back to meet each frantic thrust. He slid his hands around her ribs, cupping her breasts. She arched her back, and he followed the graceful line down to where he could watch himself sliding in and out of her.
Almost hypnotized by the sight of her taking him deep, he closed his eyes, the same savage appetite as before surfacing in searing waves.
Taking a handful of her hair, he exposed her neck, and before he could talk himself out of what he wanted, what he
Her hand shot up to catch his nape, holding him to her as they moved in frantic unison. The taste of her was like nothing he’d known before, so much darker, sweeter, layered with tangled nuances that he could spend forever unraveling, drowning in.
Like his feelings for her.
Satisfied after only a few hard pulls of her blood, he rocked back, pumping hard and fast into her. Her cries of pleasure intensified, and he could feel her clenching tighter around him.
Slipping a hand between her thighs, he only brushed her drenched folds, circled her clit, and she shot over the edge. Through the shudders that wracked her body, he continued to thrust inside her, burying his face in the curve of her neck as his own release plowed into him.
They collapsed onto the mattress afterward. She didn’t complain that he laid half on top of her, linking their fingers as tightly as the bond growing between them.
Barely more than a handful of hours together and they’d been separated again.
Briana’s feline half hovered close to the surface, stalking the edges of her mind, wanting to track Lucan. Doing her best to ignore the instinct riding her hard, she took in the detail work on the walls surrounding them.
It felt like only minutes ago she’d been wrapped up in Lucan’s arms, half drugged from the pleasure he’d wrung from her body until neither one of them could move. Now she found herself in a dim-lit corridor that worried her far more than the catacombs had.
“This is some kind of joke, right?” the enchantress demanded, looking away from the dead-end wall they faced. “They sent us to Camelot? Why not just drop us over the wall in the courtyard and let the vines rip us apart?”
Apparently the enchantress was still annoyed that she hadn’t decrypted the code in the last round that led to her own mother, the Lady of the Lake. She’d been grumbling about it nonstop while Briana continued to wonder what vow the Lady of the Lake had referred to before leaving the chains behind.
Discovering they were in Camelot should have been enough to shut the enchantress up. Instead, it just gave her something else to talk about.
“Maybe it’s another illusion,” Seva added. The enchantress was the only one who’d been transported to the same vicinity as Briana for their current challenge.
“I don’t think so.” Maeve and Aren had more than enough time on their hands to think up new ways to test them without repeating challenges. There wasn’t a doubt in Briana’s mind that the gods had dumped them into the heart of Morgana’s territory.
Once a shining beacon of Avalon’s potential, Camelot was now the poster child for greed, treachery and every homicidal tendency that went against the ideals Arthur had died fighting for.
She couldn’t help but wonder how Lucan was handling being back here. It certainly couldn’t be any worse than watching Arthur slip away all over again, even it hadn’t been real.
“What do you think Treasach’s Moon is?”
Briana shrugged. “Could be an exhibitionist for all I know.” Maeve and Aren had been deliberately tight- lipped about what exactly they were looking for in the fourth round of the competition. The conversation had lasted less than a minute in the courtyard, before they’d been dropped into Morgana’s backyard, and the only clue had been that they’d know Treasach’s Moon when they saw it.
Whatever that meant.
Preferring that the enchantress go her own way, Briana turned down the closest corridor to search on her own. When the enchantress didn’t immediately follow, Briana hoped the other immortal had gotten the message.
As she rounded the next corner, movement behind Briana set the cat off, and she pivoted, blocking the narrow blade the enchantress tried to bury in her stomach.
Catching the enchantress’s wrist, Briana shoved her backward, beating her forearm against the wall until she dropped the weapon. If she’d been even a second slower to turn around, Seva would have gutted her on the spot.
Crying out, the enchantress reached out with her nails to rake Briana’s face. Blood pooled beneath Seva’s nails, the minor scratch pissing Briana off more than anything. She slammed her fist into the other immortal’s face.
The enchantress crumpled to the ground, her gaze remarkably vacant. “What are you doing?”
“What am
Seva blinked up at her, and Briana realized someone had been pulling the enchantress’s strings.
Briana glanced around, half expecting to see the culprit lurking in the shadows. They appeared to be alone. For now. She had no intention of waiting around to see if someone else came hunting for her. Twice now, she’d been targeted, erasing any doubts the first attack had been purely coincidental.
Leaving the enchantress still sprawled on the stone floor, Briana stepped over her. She didn’t get far before footsteps echoed in the corridor ahead of her. There were too many scents—dampness, blood, matted fur and unwashed bodies—to pick through to better identify whoever approached.
Briana flattened herself against the wall, slipping the dagger from the sheath strapped to her calf.
Vaughn rounded the corner, arching a brow when he saw the weapon in her hand. “When I used to joke about you playing for the other team, this isn’t quite what I meant.”
Sighing, she lowered the blade. “I’m a little jumpy.” She didn’t bother to mention what had happened with the enchantress. It would lead to more questions than either of them had time to get into.
“I’d say you’re entitled seeing as you’re mated to a wraith.”
Given Nessa’s comment about Briana being a walking blood bank right before Maeve and Aren had sent them here, it shouldn’t surprise her to know that Elena had filled Vaughn in on what the Lady of the Lake had said.
She couldn’t say the same about the barely veiled disgust in Vaughn’s voice. He’d never been one of Lucan’s biggest fans, but neither had he seemed that strongly bothered by him, as long as he didn’t have a sword at his throat.
They walked in silence, and thinking about what Lucan had said at the start of the Gauntlet about her own friends turning on her if the stakes were high enough, she questioned the wisdom of putting either her or Vaughn in that position with only two challenges left to go.
Thinking of parting ways with him in favor of finding Lucan, she paused at the next place the corridor branched off. Camelot’s subterranean levels were almost as confusing as the catacombs.
“Don’t go that way,” Vaughn cautioned, pointing to the stairs that disappeared to the level below.
Briana hesitated. “How do you know what’s down there?”
He shrugged. “Stole a few things from the weapons room down that way. A heavily guarded weapon’s
