Sword in the Stars (Once & Future #2) - Cori McCarthy Page 0,66
back again to collect the little one, but I’m not going to—”
“Nin offered me a deal,” Ari said, words bursting forth from the rickety dam she’d built to keep the secret. “A way to end the Arthurian cycle and portal home, whenever we’re ready.”
“And what does she want?” Gwen stared at their entwined hands. “You, I imagine?”
“How did you know that?” Ari asked.
Gwen lifted their hands toward her mouth, kissing Ari’s fingers. “People are always trying to take you away from me.”
“She wants me, Gwen, but not until I die. She wants my soul. To trap it like Arthur’s has been trapped for all these years. Nin seems to think that I’m the best candidate for tragic entertainment since Arthur himself.”
Ari readied herself for the argument, preparing her already obsessed-upon points: that this might be the only chance to buy enough time to stop Merlin’s backward aging before it was too late. To get home. And since Ari’s death should be a good long while from now, they’d have decades before Nin, you know, collected on Ari’s cursed body and soul.
But this was Gwen she was talking to.
“I can see why you think this is an option, Ari,” she said cautiously. “But it’s not. Do you remember when the Administrator tried to give us everything we wanted… in exchange for you? What did I say?”
“We don’t deal in people.”
Gwen nodded as if this proved her point.
“It’s the only failsafe we’ve got, lady.”
“Then we’ll figure out better options.”
Ari smiled; this was her love, her Gweneviere, who rode the diplomacy of any situation like a stallion she’d broken herself. Gwen’s unbraided hair fell between them and Ari twirled her long, crimped locks between two fingers. She realized, for the first time since they’d crashed in the Middle Ages, they were alone.
Truly alone.
Ari stared at Gwen’s velvet brown eyes, at the small dots of sweat on her nose, and the red, red promise of her lips. “I miss you,” Ari said, touching Gwen’s shoulder, running her hand down her arm and up again. Gwen’s touch moved to the only armor-free places, Ari’s neck, her cheekbones, her mouth.
“Did we forget how to do this?” Ari asked after minutes of such light stroking and paused need that her insides were melting.
“I read that sex causes labor… sometimes,” Gwen said softly.
“So, you’re saying we should go to Avalon and have sex?” Ari’s voice had dropped to a warm, nervous tone, but she wasn’t complaining.
“Yes, but we should make out before we leave.”
“Perfect.”
Ari’s mouth found Gwen’s like the swell of two great waves meeting in the center of a deep blue sea. Between Gwen’s belly and Ari’s armor, only their faces touched, but it was enough. Gwen’s skin was Ari’s one true love. She cradled Gwen’s cheeks, ran her fingers into her hair, and tasted each of Gwen’s lips before relearning that Gwen’s tongue pressing against hers poured liquid heat straight through her.
“Well, that’s fucking canon,” Ari said when they finally stilled, their foreheads pressed together. “Lancelot and Gweneviere, unstoppable.”
“According to our Old Earth history classes on Lionel, Lancelot and Gweneviere were the first recorded love story where a woman chose her love. She’s horrifically punished for it, of course, but all the stories before that were about men claiming wives. And then after, the stories became about men and women who fight for their love against all odds.”
Ari smiled. “So you’re telling me Old Earth’s boring romantic repertoire of ‘cis boy plus cis girl equals love forever’ is because two ladies from the future crashed into the past and broke their terrible mold?”
Gwen nodded, her face still so close that her nose skimmed Ari’s cheek. “Despite everything that’s happened, we were always supposed to come here,” Gwen said, kissing her lightly. “To learn that we are the unstoppable ones.”
Gwen didn’t go into labor in a fit of screams or panic. It was more like running into an uncharted asteroid field. Nothing, nothing… and then nothing but hard, spinning obstacles as far as the eye could see.
The next afternoon, they were deep into their travels toward Nin’s lake and the entrance to Avalon. Gwen rode on the back of the horse, a little too silent, while Ari led him along. She had taken off her armor and piled it in a blanket on the back of the horse. Walking through the Middle Ages in nothing but her pants and a shirt felt bold and dangerous. And stunningly light.