[Faye]
I can't breathe. Something is in my throat. Choking, I sit up. Monitors in the room begin to ding erratically as I continue to gag, my heart beating fast.
"Hold on, Mrs. Drake" an agitated voice advises. "We just need to remove your breathing tube."
Breathing tube?
"Heart rate is elevated," a nurse records. "All other vitals seem to be within normal ranges."
The long tube is removed from my lungs and I almost vomit at the pulling sensation. Like a fish caught on land, I begin to gasp.
"Breathe, Mrs. Drake, breathe," a calm hand rubs my back. “You’ve been incapacitated for a few days. We had to put you on a ventilator when you stopped breat
“Good night, my love,” I kiss her brow before sitting by her side in an old wooden chair, its velvet cushion long shredded with time. Faye does not respond, her eyes closed tight, her breath shallow. She has been like this since the night of the battle, unresponsive and unmoving, preserved by her own magic, for the last three months. Technically we won; Mab is dead, her forces are scattered, and I am serving as regent, bringing the powers of Avalon back together once more as we work together to reconstruct our world. But we also lost. Arthur is gone, missing. I cannot feel him through the bond, not since I saw Mab pierce him through the heart with her bone blade. Nobody is sure why his body was taken. Some suspect that Mab had one final plan in place and that somehow he plays a part in it. We are searching for him, following every lead throughout this world and the next, but each time we th
[Kaydence]It's been two months since we lost Arthur in the battle for Avalon.Two agonizing months since my best friend fell into an enchanted sleep. I watch my mentor, Merlin Devona, cry over her every night. She tries to hide it from everyone else, but I know. How could I not? We spend most mornings together working on my skills as a paladin. I'm getting stronger, and more skilled, but not nearly as strong or as skilled as I was in my past life as Sir Kay. Kay had a lifetime to learn. I've only been at it a couple of months, and I know this, but it still doesn't keep the whole situation from feeling pointless and frustrating."Tell me why I have to do this?" I whine as Devona grinds some herbs in her pestle. "This has nothing to do with fighting.""All g
[Kaydence]The morning is bright. Too bright. My eyes hurt from too much mead and not enough sleep and I find myself for not the last time wondering why I let Devona trick me into this quest.I must have been getting on her nerves. Either that or she just needed me to find something to do so that she could focus all of her attention on the queen. It doesn’t matter.“Are you still with us, Sir Kay?” Gawain is annoyingly chipper. He’s a morning person. He also has this annoying habit of deadnaming me that is getting under my skin.“It’s Kaydence, you dumb ass,” I grumble, blinking at him while I shield my eyes, my other hand firmly placed on the pommel of my saddle.He
[Queenie]We are getting low on supplies. It takes quite a bit of baneberry juice to make the sleep potion. Because we need to keep him perpetually asleep, I need a constant supply. In Torq, baneberries are not very common and the cost of exporting them is stretching our finances thin, even with Mab’s hidden stash of gold.“This is why we should have stayed in Delas,”Mab argues.“We didn’t need to buy anything when we were still there and…”“It was teeming with knights. I had to stay indoors the entire time,” I argue. “Torq is better. I can actually go outside and talk to people here.“You
This story is a fairytale of sorts.I know because I’m living it— in our world right now. But unlike most modern fairytales with a princess and a prince falling madly in love and living happily ever after in some dream-like world, my tale is something much older and darker. And like most traditional tales, it ends in tragedy.There is no “happily ever after.”Not in my world.I have been trapped in a never-ending nightmare.My name is Faye Archer.Welcome to my nightmare.It all started long, long ago…in a dream I can't quite remember.[Wales, 6th Century A.D.] The sharp edges of the cave are slick. Light filters through the rocks in small streams. As I weave around tall pillars of rock, my body moves in and out of the darkness, the trail ahead of me illuminated softly in the light of the full moon. He is waiting for me, as promised. I knew he would be. He always is. Every single time. He waits standing next to a large stone slab, a table carved from one of the pil
[Berkeley, California. Modern Day] The sun assaults my vision, even through my closed lids, as it filters through the slats of very expensive-looking redwood blinds. I rub my eyes, blinking awake. I always feel a little out of sorts when I wake from my dreams, but today is worse than usual. When I reach above me to find my glasses, I realize that the headboard does not have a shelf. As I continue to blink, I also remember that I didn’t wear glasses last night, but contacts that I forgot to remove and would be a pain in my ass to remove later. My neck is sore, and I notice my pillow is lumpier than usual. As I sit up and rub the sore spot on my neck, memories from the night before start to slowly flood their way back into my brain. The house party in Kensington. There was a large house with a pool and a huge yard with a view of the Golden Gate Bridge. There was a fire pit and really strong punch. Embyr left me alone with a handsome young man with golden hair and a shirt with
[Arthur] I never want to stop devouring her. Her nectar tastes of springtime and the richest mead. Like honeyed roses. I lick a path from her inner thigh into her core, and she moans for me. She is exquisite. I nuzzle into her freshly waxed mound and nibble on her little bundle of nerves, and she goes ecstatic, her body rocking hard with another orgasm. I smile up at her as she looks down at me, disbelief in her eyes. “You are far too young to know how to do this to me” she pants. My grin grows wider, more self-assured. “Am I now?” “Don’t get cocky!” I press my member against her opening, ready to go again. “Like this?”She groans, exasperated. I laugh as I press my member into her glistening opening, rocking us both. She flips the dynamic and begins to ride me, her full breasts bobbing above me in a sensual dance. She has endless curves, her hips full and her belly round in the most seductive ways. Not only that, but she is one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen
[FAYE]I can’t think. I can’t breathe. A panic attack is approaching, and I need to get out of this room. This is all too much to process.“I need to go.” I rush to the door. Embyr had given me a ride here, but it was all a downhill hike and not even a mile to my apartment. I didn’t even care, to be honest. It could have been ten miles and I wouldn’t have cared. I just couldn’t stay in this room any longer. “Faye, wait!” my mother stands up. I can hear her stiletto boots on the floor behind me. Before she can move any closer, I open the door and run down the street in borrowed sneakers three sizes too small. The T-shirt is long enough so I don't have to worry about my bare legs. I’m wearing some clean gym shorts Arthur found that were close enough to my size to stay on, so I’m not even flashing anyone. Plus, this is Berkeley. I doubt this is the strangest thing anyone has seen on a Saturday.I hear heavy footsteps behind me, the careful strides of an experienced runner. He catche