Something almost like amusement moved through me at that. Well, perhaps not quite amusement since there was a hefty serving of irritation just underneath it.
“You’ll not let me harm her?” I repeated, a smile cresting my lips. “And how precisely do you intend to stop me? From in there?”
He said nothing.
“You know,” I continued, “I wasn’t certain of your feelings toward her at first. I thought perhaps you playing the role of hero was simply your misplaced loyalty to Merlin. Then I wondered if it might be politics or ideology. That’s what I considered, anyway.” I paused. “But now I realize I was completely wrong.” I moved closer to the bars. “It had nothing to do with Merlin and everything to do with her.” I watched his face. “Didn’t it?”
He looked at me. Not away. That was always his tell; he held eye contact when he was furious and dropped it when he wasn’t. Right now his eyes didn’t move at all.
“You love her,” I said.
He must die for his insolence! Only we can love our mate!
“That’s none of your—”
“—it changes things.” I let that sit for a moment, let it fill the space between us. “It changes quite a lot, actually.”
“Arthur.” There was something new in his voice now, a warning stripped of all its armor. “I’m telling you right now that if you harm one hair on her head, I will have yours.”
The words landed the way he intended them to. He still knew how to aim a blow. He’d taught me the same, back when we were young, stupid, and believed we were building something that would last.
I looked at him for a long moment, at the man I’d made my closest knight. The man who’d sat at my table, sworn his life to me, and bled at my side. The man who’d then walked away to hand my secrets to my enemies.
The man who, apparently, had fallen in love with a woman who was now in my dungeon.
“You’ll havemyhead?”
“Yes.”
“Hmm.” I clasped my hands behind my back as the rage began to eat me from the inside out. “Perhaps I should bring her down here. Right here. Press her up against these bars.” I watched his face go still. “Force myself inside her, and you can watch.”
“Arthur—”
“—yes, you can watch while she learns exactly what it means to belong to me. And when she’s finished coming apart on my cock and calling out my name, you can carry those images with you. Every single day for the rest of your life, albeit what remains of it.” I kept my voice even, conversational. “You can think about her shrieks of pleasure every second you have remaining.”
He crossed the cell in two strides and wrapped his hands around the bars.
“You’re a monster,” he said. Quiet. Certain.
“You knew that when you left.”
“The man I knew would never—”
“—the man you knew doesn’t exist any longer.” I held his gaze. “You helped kill him when you walked out of Camelot and handed yourself to Merlin. So whatever you thought I was, whatever mercy you’re expecting from me, you buried it, and you have only yourself to thank.”
His knuckles were white against the iron.
“She has nothing to do with this fight between us,” he said. “This fight that’s been going on for a very long time.”
“She has everything to do with it,” I answered stepping away from the bars. “That’s rather the point.”
The flame on the torch hissed and spat as somewhere beneath us was the sound of dripping water.
“I’ll kill you.”
“So you’ve said... more than once. You’ve grown rather... predictable in your old age.”
I turned and walked toward the stairs, and my boots were loud on the wet stone.