“If you need to hit something, I can go find Tristan.”
He glanced over his shoulder where Mac stood just inside the door. Lucan faced the wall again, bracing his hands on the wet brick, wishing the sight of his bloodied knuckles could make up for what he’d just done to Briana.
He cleared his throat. “How long have you been standing there?”
“Long enough.” The door shut quietly as Mac joined him in the alley.
Lucan didn’t bother asking where the wolf had left his shirt. Half the Pendragon’s crowd was probably in the same boat. His own shirt was ripped, a stark reminder of what happened between he and Briana. He closed his bleeding hand, welcoming the bite of pain.
“If it makes you feel better, whatever you’re thinking about yourself, Briana is probably being much more creative.”
He shot his friend a dark look.
“You could always go after her.”
“And say what? Sorry some bitch goddess turned me into monster that could just as soon kill you as kiss you?”
“Actually,” Mac began, sinking onto a crate and resting his head against the wall. “I was gonna suggest ‘sorry that some enchantresses fucked with everybody’s head tonight’.”
Lucan blew out a breath.
“But your story is much more interesting.” He leaned forward resting his elbows on his knees. “I wasn’t so far off the mark earlier, was I?”
“Does it matter? Like you said, an enchantress fucked with everybody’s head tonight.”
Mac nodded. “Maybe not everybody’s.”
Lucan flexed his good hand, thinking about punching the wall again. Briana had been affected by the spell, same as everyone else. He’d watched the change come over her inside the bar. Maybe for a minute there the past and present had blurred the lines beyond the enchantress’s magic, but that was all.
“Spell or not,” Mac added, as if reading his mind, “what else could you tell her? That you’d move heaven and earth to find a way to be with her?” Mac shook his head. “That would give her nothing but false hope and put her at risk.”
Lucan said nothing.
“Rhiannon would just as soon compel you to kill Briana if she thought it would hurt you.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” he snapped.
Knowing that was the only thing that held him in check when she’d walked away. He didn’t deserve her. He knew that. But when he was with her, when he held her close enough she felt almost a part of him, he could almost convince himself that someday he’d earn the right to claim her as his own.
“Once the spell fully wears off…” Mac trailed off, frowning. He glanced at the door, and Lucan wasn’t sure they were still talking about him and Briana anymore. “Do you know what I loved best about Arthur?”
The change in subject had him watching Mac carefully. “That you could drink him under the table?”
Mac laughed. “That he persevered. First with his childhood and that bitch of a half-sister, proving to everyone, even himself, that he was a force to be reckoned with. Then with wielding Excalibur and uniting everyone, winning Gwen.” He gave Lucan a rueful smile. “And going to war with Mordred. It didn’t matter what it was, he always found a way.”
“Arthur’s gone.”
“For now,” Mac said quietly, “but what he taught us, what he believed in, stuck, for better or worse.”
“You just said—” Lucan cut in, knowing what Mac was getting at.
“I know what I said. I know that Briana staying far away from you is best for her. I didn’t say that it was best for you.”
Lucan couldn’t bring himself to argue the point, letting silence fall between them.
Mac let out a breath and nodded to his hand. “What’s up with that?”
Lucan stared at the cuts still oozing blood and frowned. They should have begun healing already. He touched his stomach, reminded of how long the wound from the Fae warrior had taken to heal.
He ripped off a section of his shirt to wrap around his hand.
“Where are you going?”
Not until Mac spoke did Lucan realize he’d started down the alley. “I have to make sure she gets home okay.” He couldn’t stay here and pretend that the hurt in her eyes when he’d insisted he didn’t feel the same wasn’t already haunting him.
Mac stood and walked toward the door. “I’ll be here when you’re done.”
Briana clenched her fists until her claws bit into her palms. Despite the cold rain, the few tears that managed to escape scalded her cheeks. Soaked, and shivering from everything but the rain, she forced herself to keep walking, embracing the anger over the hurt—anything to keep from feeling like she was broken inside.
In the back of her mind she knew there was something else she needed to think about, something important, but it was impossible to concentrate on anything other than replaying the scene with Lucan in her head.
The rain didn’t ease until she was a few blocks away from Pendragon’s. She could have used her phone to call for a ride, but that would mean facing questions she couldn’t answer. Preferring to be alone, she stuck with trudging through the rain, fighting the cat’s instinct to return to Lucan’s side.
Gargoyles became one of the Forgotten, those forever locked in their animal form, for less than being shunned by a mate. Would that happen to her? Would her animal side eventually become so unstable that she’d ignore her humanity altogether? Would the cat gradually coax her into hiding away from the rest of the world, until she forgot everything but sheer animal instinct? Or worse, pose such a risk to others that she’d need to be put down?
A flicker of movement ahead snagged her attention, and she ground to a halt on the sidewalk. A dot of green blinked like a drunken firefly, weaving through the dark toward her.
The cat growled, having had its fill of magic for one night. A dozen feet away the dot stopped, hovering mid-air. Maybe it was harmless—
“Briana!”
Lucan? She didn’t turn at the sound of his voice. Like a missile locked on target, the dot shot toward her. The burst of green slammed into her chest, knocking her off her feet.
She braced herself, anticipating a collision with the unforgiving sidewalk—and bounced on a soft mattress instead.
Heart pounding, she rolled off the bed and dropped into a crouch, her claws raking the stone floor beneath her.
Gone was the dark rainy neighborhood she knew as well as any program code she built from the ground up. No closed store fronts, parked cars or dim street lights barely holding the night at bay.
She didn’t recognize the sparsely furnished room she crouched in, her gaze skimming over the stone walls, aged wardrobe and marble vanity tucked in one corner.
If this was in any way her brothers’ idea of a joke, one of them—possibly all three—was going to lose a few entrails. It would be poor timing on their part, and she couldn’t imagine that after hearing Lucan was her mate that they’d be up for playing games.
Wary, she stood—and immediately winced. She carefully tugged at her damp cargo pants until she exposed the brand on her hip.
What the hell?
The symbol inked into her skin in black and red mirrored the cross-like Fae glyph she’d been unable to identify. Except now she knew it wasn’t Fae in origin at all.
It was the symbol of the Gauntlet.
She shook her head, struggling to recall what bits and pieces she knew of the millennia-old competition. One hadn’t even taken place in her lifetime. She studied the glyph closely.
Emma could be wrong. The sorceress had been drinking after all. The symbol might not have anything at all to do with the Gauntlet, immortal games that always signaled the start of the next Campaign.
It made sense though. With some talking about Avalon being on the cusp of another Campaign, the next Gauntlet couldn’t be far away. The deadly competition always marked the start of a war that left only casualties and no clear victor. Campaigns simply ended when the warring gods grew bored of fighting.