Morgana huffed out a breath. “You’re becoming a little inconvenient, kitty-cat. I have no doubt he’d choose you, but would he keep you?” Eyes narrowing a fraction, she studied Lucan’s face. “I cannot imagine what the gargoyle sees in you, knight, but it pays to be selfish sometimes. Selfless acts are overrated.”
Lucan gave no indication he knew what the sorceress was talking about.
Briana stayed next to Lucan as the sorceress nodded to Aren, and whatever the god did transferred the chain from Lucan’s hand to hers. “Better. Now my other item,” she prompted.
Aren vanished, reappearing a moment later with a chalice in his hand.
“No!” Lucan lunged forward, too late to prevent Aren from handing it to Morgana.
With the chalice in hand and Constantine on his knees next to her, Morgana gave Briana a little wave, and all three of them disappeared.
“How in the fuck did she do that?” Elena asked, though Briana didn’t have a clue when either the fledgling sorceress or Vaughn had joined them. Nessa and the enchantress were still missing, while Bran stood off to the side, still looking as shell-shocked as Lucan.
“Congratulations!”
Briana wasn’t sure how Maeve and Aren could look disappointed and pleased at the same time. Not enough bloodshed for them, she imagined.
Lucan stripped off his shirt and held it out to her. Taking that as a sign he needed her back in human form, she let the cat slide back under her skin.
The shirt was over her head and his arms were wrapped around her before she was even back on her feet. Her eyes slid shut, no one else mattering now that she was back in his arms.
“I wanted to come after you,” he whispered against her hair.
“I know.” She squeezed her arms around him. “I got bored waiting, so I came looking for you instead.”
His lips found her forehead, his smile bringing her own to the forefront. In a minute he’d remember she was bleeding and that they’d just lost one of his closest friends to Morgana.
“Don’t mind us,” Maeve said, the exaggerated sweetness in her voice sharper than the sword she held in her hand. “Unless you’d rather us award this to someone else.”
Lucan glanced at Briana, indecision darkening his night-forest eyes.
Frowning, she took a step toward him. It wasn’t nearly enough to stop the choking wave of fear that rolled through her, sending her heart into a backspin. “Luc?”
He shook his head, “I’m sorry.”
The churning in her stomach worsened as the echo of Morgana’s words rang in her ears. “What’s going on?”
“I can’t do it.” He touched his forehead to hers. “I can’t live—”
“Without you,” she finished. “That’s what you were going to say, right?” With trembling hands she caged his jaw, searching his eyes for any sign that she wasn’t about to lose him for good. “Whatever you’re thinking of doing, don’t.” Not today. Not ever.
“You don’t understand.”
She didn’t let him say another word. She rocked up on her toes, silencing him with her mouth. For one painfully long second she thought he had no intention of kissing her back, and then he locked his arms around her, hauling her flush against him.
Twining her arms around his neck, she surrendered entirely to the slow heat that spiraled into an all-consuming flame that could never be extinguished. She refused to believe this would be their last kiss, the last time she’d feel his breath on her lips or the comfort of his arms holding her close.
And it took every bit of strength she had left to pull away when she knew that he’d already made his decision. But that certainty didn’t stop her from ignoring those around them to say one more thing. “Arthur regretted waiting too long to fight for Gwen. Don’t make the same mistake. Fight for me. For us. Always fight for us.”
A slow smile curved his lips. “Always,” he echoed.
She’d been so sure he was going to release her from the mate bond that she was sure she hadn’t heard right.
Reading the confusion on her face, he palmed her cheek. “I’ll always fight for us.”
“I see you’ve made your decision then,” Maeve interrupted. “The sword is yours.” She tossed the weapon to Lucan, and when his fingers closed around the hilt of the blade the inside of the mountain vanished.
Once more they found themselves standing a few feet apart on the same stretch of sidewalk where they’d first been snatched away. Thankfully night had fallen, making them—her in a T-shirt that only came mid-thigh, and him with a sword—a little less conspicuous.
Not that either of those things would have stopped her from launching herself into his arms anyway. Ignoring the lingering pain from her wounds, she closed her eyes and tucked her face against the column of his throat.
“Don’t you ever scare me like that again.” She tipped her head back to meet his eyes. “I thought…” She trailed off, shaking her head, the searing tightness at the back of her throat making it hard to talk.
“You weren’t wrong. Going into the last round I had every intention of releasing you from the mate bond whether you wanted me to or not.”
“Luc—”
“But,” he cut in, “what I was going to say before you interrupted me earlier, was that I don’t know how to let you go. The second I realized I won the last round, I tried to imagine my life without you, and everything was just…gone. I’ve lost family, friends, my freedom, but giving you up? Imagining that was the most terrifying moment of my existence. I know I should walk away, that you’d be better off without—”
She slapped her hand over his mouth. “You should probably stop there.”
Laughing he pulled her hand away, pressing a soft kiss to her palm before holding it over his heart. “I love you, Briana Callaghan.”
“I love you too.”
“I still can’t believe you won,” Briana said a while later.
Her wounds had closed and she sat opposite Lucan in the house she shared with her brothers, neither of them sure how long they had before one of the others came looking for the sword Lucan had yet to let go of.
“Do you think it was too easy?” he mused, not for the first time.
“Are you asking because no one died?” The Gauntlet had always been painted as a gory death match and most of them had escaped with relatively minor injuries. It was just one more thing that confused the hell out of her.
He shrugged. “It’s lighter than I remember.” He opened and closed his fingers around the hilt.
“You haven’t tried to summon Rhiannon.” With the sword he could bargain for his release. No matter what kind of grudge the goddess held, the sword would give her back the one thing she craved more than anything—her son.
“What if it doesn’t work?”
She searched his face. “Are we talking about awakening Arthur or letting go of the wraith?”
Lucan rubbed his chest. “I’ve wanted to be free of it for so long…” he trailed off, frowning. “The wraith could have taken over and killed everyone the second I was inside that volcano. I wanted it to.” He tugged her close, his expression brutally savage. “I would do anything to protect you.”
Briana slid her arms around his neck, tucking her face against his throat. “And that’s supposed to worry me? Maybe you should think back to my reaction to the redhead in the parking lot.”
He shook his head. “It’s not the same.”
“Stop. We’ve both lived lives surrounded by violence, war, death. We can’t change that, can’t change how it shaped us. I love you, all of you.” She tapped his chest. “Even the darkest parts that you seem to think make you a monster.”
He didn’t look convinced, but she didn’t give him the chance to argue. She opened her mouth over his. Whatever he decided didn’t matter nearly as much as making him understand that this—their kiss, their trust, their love—was all that really counted.