Ever After (25 page)

“And so you think the relics Nimue created for Arthur in Make Believe were so powerful, their twins emerged here?” I guessed.

The king nodded. “Perhaps. I cannot say. All I know is that when I learned the helm was here, I was determined to have it again. You can imagine my surprise when I discovered that Guinevere had it in her possession.” His mouth lifted at one corner in a wistful smile. “She was quite astonished to see me when I visited her in London.”

“
You
are her patron,” I realized. “You're the one providing the house in Connecticut—and an ample allowance, from what I can tell.”

He nodded. “I offered more, but she refused. I would have her living in a palace with servants to tend to her every need. But she only accepted what she did as a favor to an old friend—which, I'm afraid, is all she considers me now.”

I lifted a brow at him, recalling the cognac and cigars Guinevere had offered me during my visit. She certainly hadn't seemed attached to anyone in particular at that time, but I understood now that her advances were more to get back at the king than out of any true interest in me.

“She's as beautiful as ever.” He grinned, a little sadly. “But she would not be wooed by me again. Her heart is no longer mine—she made that very clear.”

I had a feeling he had misread her resistance to his charms. The look on her face when I'd returned her pendant spoke volumes about the truth of her feelings. She was just as much in love with him as ever, but hurt had clearly ruled her actions upon seeing her lost love again.

The king sighed and waved away his own moroseness. “No matter. I've made my bed and must lie in it, as they say.”

I shook my head. “Sire—”

He held up a hand, silencing me. “We will speak no more of Guinevere.”

“But—”

“I beg you, Gideon,” he interrupted. “No more.” He held the helm out to me. “Please, take it. Give it to Arabella. And tell her ... Tell her it is from an uncle who loves her. And that I hope someday she will forgive me all my mistakes.”

I took the helm and tore a small rift in time, tucking the treasure away in my temporal cache to be reclaimed when I returned to Arabella. “I will, sire.”

“What remains then?” he asked.

“Only one,” I told him. “Excalibur.”

“W
ell, that is a prize, indeed.”

The king and I both turned toward the speaker, our magic instantly at the ready, prepared to unleash hell upon the intruder. To my astonishment, Mab and her ever-present toady, Reginald, stood in the doorway to the king's study. And gathered behind them were the king's guards. Even as we gaped at them, other guards shifted into the room, surrounding us.

“What is the meaning of this intrusion?” the king demanded, waving his hands absently to diffuse the magic he'd gathered.

Mab swept into the room, whipping the train of her evening gown behind her and sending up a cloud of glittering gold fairy dust that those around us greedily inhaled.

“We had quite a spectacle outside—a lovely diversion to allow this Unseelie filth back into our home,” Mab drawled, her golden eyes trained menacingly on me. She then turned to the king and gave him her pretty pout. “I was concerned for your safety, my love.”

When she took another step forward, I stepped in front of my king, putting myself between them. My magic popped and sizzled, bolts of silver sparking in warning. “That's close enough, my lady.”

Mab chuckled, not intimidated in the least. “You think to threaten
me
, you insignificant fool! I could snap your neck with a flick of my wrist.”

I met and held her gaze, no longer willing to back down—not when my king was at risk. “You could try.”

“He's hardly worth the trouble, my lady,” Reginald sneered. “Allow me to do the honors.”

Mab smiled. “In good time.” She then turned her attention to her husband. “I fear your servant has worked a spell upon you, my love. I thought we were in agreement about his being unwelcome in our home.”

The king peered down his nose at her, the heat of his rising anger singeing my back. “We agreed upon nothing. And I guarantee that I am under no spell ... not any longer. But I fear it is
you
who have been deceived, my queen.”

A single golden brow arched. “Indeed? By whom, pray tell?”

“By the one calling himself Reginald Mann,” I ground out. “He is not who you think.”

She gasped in feigned alarm, a hand dramatically fluttering to her breast. “You mean ... He's not really a devoted and faithful servant who never questions my orders and performs every duty with unyielding loyalty?”

Reginald rushed forward and rescued my lady's hand and brought it to his lips, pressing a kiss to her fingertips. “Never doubt me, my queen,” he murmured against her skin.

She smiled, her cheeks blushing prettily. “What do I care if his name is Reginald Mann or”—she turned a hard gaze on me—“Sir Guy of Gisbourne?”

“You knew?” the king roared, his voice thunderous in the confines of the room. “You knew I had a score to settle with Gisbourne and you brought him into our house under false pretenses? Let him insinuate himself into every matter of our family, our business, for the past three years, knowing damned well that I'd put his head on a pike if I knew who he was?”

“Of
course
I did!” she hissed. “I've always known who he was!”

“Seize that man,” the king ordered, gesturing toward Reginald.

The guards sprang forward to obey, but Mab held up her hand, staying them. “You'll do no such thing!” Mab's smile this time was rather sinister as she eyed the man next to her, the lust and greed pouring off of her making my stomach turn until I was forced to choke down my rising bile. “This man is under my protection.”

And suddenly, I realized I'd been an idiot. When I'd come upon Reginald in the hallway a few nights prior, I'd assumed that he'd been out with Ivy and had insinuated himself into her bed. How wrong I'd been. He'd been coming in separately from his lover so as not to raise suspicion, that part was true enough. But that lover hadn't been the king's daughter. And the queen's next words confirmed it.

“You
dare
defy me to stand with some opportunistic, sycophantic bootlicker that you've only known for a few years?” the king raged.

“Reginald was my lover back in Make Believe while you were off
bedding
that royal whore Guinevere!” Mab spat, advancing on her husband. “And when I discovered where your pretty little half-Tale niece was living, I sent him to put her in her place once and for all, ruin any chances she had of ever being recognized as an equal, but—incomprehensibly—she was resistant to his charms. But it mattered not. Everything worked out perfectly in the end.”

The king's fury was at war with his disbelief that the woman he'd been married to for centuries upon centuries could stoop to such depths. “You traitorous bitch.”

I glanced at Reginald, his smirk more than I could bear. Without thinking, I charged him, fully prepared to knock that fucking smile from his face and rip out his heart for good measure. But before I reached him, a powerful blow sent white-hot pain through my back and knocked me from my feet, sending me slamming into the king's bookshelves.

“Remove that filth from my house,” Mab sneered, jerking her chin toward me.

“Mab,” the king thundered, “I will not be ruled in this! I have given you leave to do as you wish, to amuse yourself as you would. But Gideon will always be welcome here.” At this he stepped forward to meet her, the power of his magic bringing a blue glow to his skin. “And I
will
accept all of my children into this family. Including the ones you have hidden from me.”

Mab flinched ever so slightly at the accusation, but she lifted her chin a notch in defiance. “I have no idea what you mean.”

“Do you not?” the king ground out through clenched teeth. “You tell me you had nothing to do with my children being held captive by the Agency?”

Her answering smile was tight and dripping with falsehood even before she said ever so sweetly, “Of course not. How can you think me guilty of such a thing?” When the king narrowed his eyes at her, Mab came toward him, her steps cautious. “Really, my darling, must we always argue so? Let us put all of this ...
ugliness
behind us, shall we? There's no need to even recall this little spat today. . . .”

“Your honeyed words will not persuade me of your innocence, Mab,” the king told her, his tone icy. “Nor will it ensure that you and I have a future together.”

Her pretty mouth lifted at one corner as her fingertips lightly caressed the king's chest, sending up a tiny cloud of her fairy dust, threatening to enshroud my king and no doubt make him forget everything that had just occurred. I lunged to my feet and sent out a blast of my magic that scattered her dust, disintegrating it before it could infect the king and bring him back under her spell.

The king shook his head, trying to free his mind of what little of Mab's fairy dust had made its way into his system, but he was clearly disoriented. “What the hell ... ?”

Mab turned her furious, now-glowing gaze on me, enraged at my interference. Without thinking, I released a silver lightning bolt, nailing her in the chest. She flew through the air with a sharp cry, slamming into the guards at the door.

The queen was immediately on her feet again. A bolt of her magic flashed from her fingertips, accompanied by a roar of rage that ripped from her throat. I instinctively brought up my arms, shielding myself with my magic, but the impact still knocked me from my feet. The guards were upon me in an instant, clamping shackles around my wrists before I could react.

Mab charged toward me, her face twisted in hatred and rage. A massive lightning bolt of magic rent the air with a deafening crack of power. Defenseless to block the deathblow this time, I braced myself.

And in that moment, I felt no terror, no anger. Just sorrow. And guilt. It seemed I was about to fail my darling lass yet again. But this time
I
was the one headed for a fall.

“No!”

I didn't at first realize what had happened. There was no impact, no pain. For a moment, I thought perhaps death had taken me so quickly that it hadn't yet sunk in. But then the truth hit me and brought me to my knees more surely than if Mab's magic had actually struck me. The guards' hold on me was all that kept me on my feet.

“Oh, my God,” I heard Mab breathe. “What have I done?”

“Go,” Reginald told her gently. “I'll take care of this.”

I fought back through the haze of grief and disbelief and threw off the guards with a cry of sorrow as I dropped down beside my king. “Sire,” I cried, grasping fistfuls of his shirt in my hands and giving him a shake. “Sire, can you hear me?”

To my immense relief, his eyelids fluttered. “Gideon,” he whispered, his voice little more than a dry rasp. “You're safe.”

I nodded, blinking away the sudden blur in my eyes. “Yes, I'm safe, sire. Thanks to you.”

The king's hand patted blindly until he found mine. He grasped it to the point of pain. “Take care of them,” he pleaded. “Take care of my family.”

“I will,” I vowed. “Always.”

He offered me a weak smile. “You were wrong, you know,” he said.

The guards had recovered from being thrown off me and made to take hold of me again, but I shook free, determined not to leave my king. “Wrong about what, sire?”

His grin grew. “I've never once been sorry to know you.” And then his eyes fluttered shut.

Before I could fully register what had just occurred, the guards were dragging me to my feet and toward the door. Too stunned to put up a fight, I let them lead me away. My mind raced as I replayed the scene in the king's study—from the various details of our conversation to Mab and Reginald's intrusion and the battle between the king and queen. My throat grew tight when I realized that once more the king had saved me, had intervened because he saw something of value in me.

And I'd be damned if I was going to betray that faith by giving up now.

I kept my head down but lifted my eyes, taking in my captors at a glance. Four guards. And Reginald Mann. My gaze then flicked to my shackles. They were enchanted with the queen's own magic, too powerful for me to break. But the moment the guards released me, they'd be lucky if I broke only their arms.

The dungeon in the king's mansion was as dank and dismal as any dungeon I'd ever seen in Make Believe. It was built into the home mostly for show, a visible deterrent to any among the king's staff who would consider betraying him. But apparently the promise of such a punishment was not nearly as effective as it'd once been.

There'd been a time when every one of the guards now holding me captive would've laid down his life to protect the king or his family. Their lack of loyalty made me sick, physically ill. I suppressed a groan as my stomach rolled in disgust. I didn't give a shit if they'd been under Mab's spell the entire time they plotted to ruin my king. If they'd been truly loyal, they would've sooner died than give in to her treacherous magic. And now they would most likely die for it.

“Put him in that one,” Reginald drawled, casually waving toward one of the cells. The guards shoved me inside and slammed the cell door. There was little more than a few bars keeping me from wrapping my hands around Reginald's throat and crushing his windpipe, but it was enough. I could feel the enchantments emanating from the steel and knew that they would prevent the use of my magic.

Reginald sauntered toward my prison, his ever present smirk draped across his lips. “Well, well, well. Whoever would've thought you'd end up here?” he taunted. “Gideon Montrose, the celebrated warrior of old, the king's ever faithful servant and loyal bodyguard.”

“Fuck off, Reginald,” I spat. “Or should I call you Gisbourne?”

He shrugged. “Makes no difference to me. The queen has her own name for me when she's fucking me—that's the only one that truly matters. She's a sweet piece of ass, don't you think?” He sucked in a sharp breath and shivered with pleasure. “I can hit that all night long.”

“You'll burn for this,” I assured him. “You may have fooled the queen into thinking that you care for her, deceived her into going along with your plans—”

Reginald's laughter cut me off. “
Deceived
her?” he repeated. “You've got it all wrong. None of this was
my
plan. I'm just along for the ride, if you'll pardon the pun. And now that the king is out of the way, she and I will do quite nicely together. The fairy dust business is going to have quite the boom now that I'm in control. The Ordinaries are going to be
clamoring
for a little taste of Vitamin D.”

I had to work to keep the concern out of my voice when I said, “Fairy dust doesn't affect them the same way it does us. It's dangerous for an Ordinary.”

Reginald shrugged. “What the fuck do I care? Soon there will be only
one
drug lord in the Here and Now. Those two-bit thugs who fancy themselves gangsters will be lining up to kiss my ass to get a piece of the action. And if there are a few Ordinaries who can't handle it ... well, it'll just thin the herd.”

“And all this was worth raping a young woman, killing her family, betraying those who trusted you—and God knows what else?” I said evenly, my gaze deadly.

Reginald shrugged. “Your hands aren't without stain, Gideon,” he reminded me. “And what the hell were you getting from the king in return for the sins you've committed? Okay, yeah, so you fucked his daughter—and, as it turns out, his niece. Hey, gotta give you credit—at least you're keepin' it in the family. But we all know how those relationships turned out. I suppose you might've actually had a chance with that little bitch from Sherwood, but I guess you'll never know, will you? What with her
fading
and all.”

“What the hell do you know about it?” I snarled.