Free Captive Heart by Phoenix Sullivan Page B

name is Gareth.”

Chapter 19

Lyn
    My trust, of course should have started with Arthur. Outside of the three champions of the world, the lineage of King Lot held most renown.
    “Lot’s son,” I murmured—with wonder, gratitude, perhaps a little awe. Certainly with shame as I recalled the way I’d treated him, however necessary it had seemed.
    I felt a need to touch him, to make his words— Gareth’s words—real. Except Marrok was there before me, laying a hand to Gareth’s cheek with a look of reverence in his demon eyes that went beyond the pale of Gareth’s confession. After a too-long moment, he double-patted Gareth’s cheek and dropped his hand. His expression, however, didn’t change. Not until I took Gareth’s hand—my champion’s hand—in mine and bade him sit. Then I saw a flash of—anger? jealousy?—rise up in Marrok’s eyes.
    Though quickly quelled it confirmed for me where his true affections lay. What looks might have passed between him and I were in my imagination alone. While suggestive they may have been, with me they were naught but a game he played.
    Disappointment opened a chasm in me, deep and dark. I looked to Gareth for his reaction. Had I lost him too? He, however, only looked abashed, apologetic—either for being who he was or not disclosing earlier.
    He sat as I bade, his hand, strong and warm, embraced still in mine. I took Marrok’s hand, hard and hot, in my other, and he folded himself beside Gareth.
    Knee-to-knee, hand-in-hand, I sat in front of them.
    “I have been a fool,” I told them. “On two counts. Marrok chastised me earlier for the way I’ve treated you, Gareth.” And now that I understood why Marrok had come so readily to Gareth’s defense, my scornful words still deserved apology. “For what shame you’ve endured, I’m truly sorry. Not because I know you now for Lot’s son, but because you’ve proven you’re above my scorn. And because…” I took a deep breath “…because I’m no longer afraid to tell you why I said such vile and hurtful things.” That last still held a lie, although I was trying to make it true. I still feared what Nimue might do.
    Gareth shrugged it off as he’d done from the first, treating me always with a courtesy my behavior didn’t deserve. “My lady had greater concerns than what words she chose for me.”
    At some point Marrok’s free hand had found Gareth’s—and Gareth had not pulled away. I found my eyes drawn to the gesture, the large and deadly hands curled protectively about each other. A gesture they would never dare in public, meant for private eyes alone. Eyes they could trust.
    My heart sank, the joy it should have felt at that show of faith in me overwhelmed by the certainty that what flares of passion and desire that might have coursed through me in their presence would be forever denied.
    But just because my heart was breaking didn’t mean I couldn’t still trust them with it. And with Nessie’s.
    “No, there’s more,” I said at last, clenching my own hands about theirs for strength. “Ironside has a powerful accomplice. Merlin knows her, knows what she’s done.”
    “She?”
    “Nimue, a Lady of Avalon, a fae.”
    “Why would she—?”
    “Love makes for strange bedfellows.” I only meant Nimue and Ironside. I didn’t think—
    Gareth blushed and Marrok’s lip twisted out a rueful grin as they passed side-long glances to each other.
    Surely they hadn’t—
    The stone that was my heart shifted within my chest, crushing breath. In anguish, I clung tighter still to their hands.
    “What have we to fear from Nimue?” Marrok said. It could as easily have been a statement of defiance as a question.
    “She wields Old Magic.” I forced myself to breathe, to speak. “Only a handful of fae now are as powerful as she. She knows we come. It was she who sent me for a champion. It was she who set the thieves upon Lord Corbin. It will be she who orchestrates what other challenges we’ll