Queen's Heart: An Arthurian Paranormal Romance (Arthurian Hearts Book 2) (26 page)

What pleasure had it already incited in Yseult?

Des blinked and ran a hand across his brow, awake and aware now.

“Why have you exiled yourself here with us in Morois Wood?” I asked, struggling to keep my voice calm. He lifted his hand to better see me. “When your kin came, with Yseult safe, why didn’t you run off with them? Why follow us here?”

“You know why. You’ve always known why. I’ve made no secret of my love for Yseult.”

“But you’ve kept secrets enough, haven’t you? Secrets only Yseult knew. Secrets only for a lover’s ear.”

Des levered himself to his elbow and the tunic slid low along his hips. “What are you accusing us of? Infidelity?” He snorted.

“You two have never—?”

“Between you and Mark, when has there been time?” Yseult asked, clearly exasperated at the turn the night had taken.

But Jealousy had me full in her grip now.

“The hours I was occupied with Tintagel’s affairs. When I’ve gone off hunting here. What more time do you need? You’ve proved yourself unfaithful to your husband. Why should I believe you’re faithful to me?”

“Do you hear yourself? You speak as though I’m a harlot who flits from man to man.”

“And yet
he
is here. Swearing his love for you.”

“Swearing too,” Des broke in, “that we’ve not lain together in Tintagel nor since coming here. You believe one but not the other?”

“I believed you a man, and you’re not. I believed you a friend, and you’re not.”

“I am cursed to be a man twenty-three hours of the day. And I have never stopped being your friend. Do I think of you two together in the moonlight? Yes. Do I dream of being with her, pleasuring in her so freely as you? Yes. I covet her with all that is in my cursed heart. Day after wretched day. Night after lonely night. The unbearable pain of being so close eclipsed only by the excruciating pain of being apart. And even though my heart breaks each day to know she loves you more, and even though I am driven mad to know she lays with you, I remain your friend.”

Impossible
. “How can you?”

“How can I hold you to blame for her choices, for the spell that ensnares you both? How can I blame her for the song her heart sings? How—?”

He broke off, suddenly gasping—whether for words, for breath, for pain, I couldn’t tell. Until his face collapsed in sorrow and he groaned.

Yseult’s hand flew to his cheek, exasperation toward me forgotten completely in her concern for him. “What is it, Des?” she asked gently.

“Brinn. I blamed Brinn for exactly that. Blamed her for being spelled to the mortal world, blamed her for the song her heart sang, blamed her for abandoning me to follow that song. Blamed her that I loved her so much I would fight for her, die for her, yet she could not love me so in return. How could I have done that to her? To me?”

He took a shuddering breath and faced me, those inhuman eyes of his full of all-too human pain—heartpain, soulpain. “You are me as I was then,” he said to me in wonderment and empathy. “Consumed beyond sense by jealousy. You are your uncle, only too ready to burn away your pain. Truth for you is only that which you find in your shattered heart, whether the rest of the world holds it true or not.”

Under the sympathy in Yseult’s eyes, he cringed.

But whatever self inhabited me now had no sympathy.

“What would
you
do?” Yseult asked of me. “How would you feel if the woman you loved did not return the affection? How would you deal with the torment? Des has only done honor to us both. Would you—could you—have been so gracious?”

“No man—nor beast—” I thundered, “could have been as gracious as me. I allowed you to lay with my uncle only for the sake of peace. And only because I knew you loved him not. That you lay with him out of duty alone, and for every night you lay with
him
you would lay with
me
for six.”

“Allow?” Yseult rose up and in a fit of pique snatched the tunic from off of Des and threw it back at me. “I am no chattel to possess. I am not pawn to your knight to move as you please. I am queen. The game is mine to win or lose.”

“You are wrong,
Your Grace
. The game is God’s to decide.”

“And how will God choose between you? A knight pure in heart but not in deed spelled by witchery to love me, or a knight pure in deed but not in heart cursed by Fate to win me?”

“By challenge. Trial by combat.” A demon had spoken those absurd words, surely not me. And surely not of a knight lying naked and wounded on the same cold cave floor where I’d professed my love to him more than once and where Yseult and I worshiped each other in the night.

There was genuine fright in Yseult’s eyes, but her chin was locked in determination. “If you go through with such a fight, I swear by God’s beard I’ll return to Mark and demand trial of him myself.”

I ignored her threat, even knowing she was stubborn enough to follow through.
This
was between Des and me.

“You’ve betrayed our friendship,” I told him.

“Less so than you’ve betrayed your kin and king,” he shot back. “Fate has driven us here, nor is she done with us yet. But if you press this foolish drama, I will fight. And I’ll not hold back.”

To commiserate together in our cups and attribute all our woes to Fate seemed the better course of action here.

To all but the demon within me.

“To trial,” I said.

Such foolish temper! Were I not bound to them both by love and circumstance, I would have ordered them away, separately, till their anger cooled and they could think like friends again.

“I will not watch either of you die for misplaced honor,” I said instead. “Only heartbreak has come of our love, and only heartbreak do I see in our future.”

Like with Casandra’s prophecies, they seemed to hear me not and heed me less. Why is it when battledrums thrum in men’s blood they become as different men?

Only a challenge to their honor now would they hear, so I tried another tack, asking Tris, “You would challenge a knight you yourself wounded to combat. Where does your honor hide?”

“I would challenge him now, yes!” Tris thundered at me. Then he scowled at Des with his pierced thigh. “But I will give him a fortnight to heal.”

“It was flint not steal that pricked me,” Des replied. ”It’ll need no more than a week.”

“A ten-day then,” I compromised firmly, taking what opportunity of time I could to heal the greater rift between the two of them. “And Des will remain here where I can care for him. He came to ill protecting me.”

Mad as Tris might be, debt and honor still held meaning. Reluctantly, he agreed, and Des moved into the shelter of the cave with us, eating with us, sleeping with us. Wearing only the short tunic Tris insisted on, which concealed little from my sight.

When he shifted the next evening, I was there for the hound, to calm it and keep it quiet and confined. Tris sat by as well, grumbling when Des stripped the tunic from his shoulders right before he changed. Otherwise, Tris watched the miracle in studied silence, not even protesting when I stroked its silken ears and patted its shoulder. Not even when I moved to its flank to examine the arrow wound in this current form.

“Des’ hound is as beautiful as he, wouldn’t you say?” I asked Tris.

“How long have you known?”

“Since my sabbatical, right before the wedding. He confided to me then.”

“Why?”

“Pardon?”

“Why did he confide such a secret, and why then?”

Did I blush? My flesh was prone to that betrayal, and Tris’ stare seemed to sharpen.

“We meditated together and confessed much during those days.” In other circumstances, to the Tris I knew before, I would have confessed then to him about the cave and Des. I didn’t even have to close my eyes to remember Des’ gentle hands, our urgent needs and the skill he had at pleasuring me.

Those memories held no shame, only delight. The Tris before would have joyed for us, for that small time of happiness I’d found.

This Tris would turn that joy to pain, to hurt us with it, to hurt himself.

It was secrets that would bring us ruin. But it was also secrets that would keep us safe.

“Did you also confess yourselves to God and abbot?”

“God already knew, and we needed no further conduit to His ears.”

I had determined early on to give Tris only truth.

Just, perhaps, not the whole truth.

Like the stories we told of Brangien’s death out of love for her honor and her name.

“Do you love him?” Tris asked.

“Of course.” I didn’t hesitate in my answer. “As you do.” I couldn’t identify the peculiar expression that twisted his face, part in pain, part in sorrow, part in—?

“You think I love him still?”

“That he lives is proof you do.” I saw his thoughts go elsewhere briefly and the rage that had become his second self mellowed. “Yes, I suppose I still do,” he whispered into the unguarded dark. Then the anger and jealousy settled over him like a storm and he was closed to me once more.

All the while the hound watched us, his emerald eyes unchanging when he became Des again and Tris handed him his tunic.

The second evening, too, my hound remained in the cave. My wound, as I’d foreseen, was healing quickly under Yseult’s care along with something of the fae that still remained within me.

What madness had come over Tris I couldn’t fathom. Nothing of the softness I’d found endearing remained in him. Rage and jealousy and maybe something more visceral had tempered him into cold steel, hard now and unflinching in his regard for me.

On the third evening, my hound trotted carefully from the cave with only the slightest limp, leaving Yseult and Tris alone within. It didn’t go far, though, turning to spy from a hollow in the grotto.

Flamelight illuminated them both, accenting the radiant beauty of each. They embraced in haste, parting only long enough to drop their clothes. Distance cheated me of the passion in their eyes and their soft moans and sighs, but that Tris was risen in worship and Yseult ready to receive him was abundantly clear. They came together as two hands in prayer before sinking slowly to their knees. Soon, Tris rose again, and Yseult praised him with her tongue until he pressed her down and he praised her with his.

She arched her back, and I knew well what cry would come with that. Tris covered her then and, hypnotized, I watched the frantic rise and fall of him until he collapsed atop her while she writhed yet beneath.

Why I tormented myself so, I could not say. Only that the compulsion to watch, to know, to slice my heart was greater than even the unendurable pain it brought.

And so for the next three nights I watched—and healed.

~ ~ ~

“Go. Hunt,” Yseult insisted to Tris when our stores ran low on the seventh day since he’d wounded me, rendering me unable to run and hunt for us, though I was gaining better strength of that leg daily.

“I will not leave you two here alone.”

“Then your jealousy will see us starve,” Yseult shot back.

On the morning of the eighth day, Tris, goaded as much by shame as by the rumble in his gut, crept from the cave with Failnaught and a fistful of arrows, thinking both Yseult and I slept too deep to hear him leave.

I, in turn, crept to Yseult’s side. She had already stirred awake.

I lay beside her, simply wanting acknowledgement and the comfort of her familiar scent.

She didn’t protest. “I can’t love you,” she said. “Not enough.”

I had told Brangien the same. The lesson she’d taught from that was still fresh.

“You are a healer,” I said. “Heal me again. One last try to lift the curse. And when it’s done, I’ll return to Father and pack and leave you and Tris to your love and life.”

Her sad eyes may have been fixed on mine but they were looking into my soul. “Do you really think you could leave… after?”

“I know it’s only impossible for me to leave now.”

“What is it you truly want?”

“Truly? To bask freely in your sweet body. To bathe in your tears. For you to give me your heart just long enough to lift this curse. I’d pray for the change to be swift—and that it would erase all memory of these last few months with you.”