The Darkest Knight (Guardians of Camelot #3) - Victoria Sue Page 0,13

you to worry.” He knew Ali worried because at Camlaan she had posed as her twin brother and thought her Tresor might be meant for him.

“Do you?”

Gawain shifted uncomfortably. “No.”

Ali was silent for a moment. “Why don’t you want to find your Tresor?”

“Of course I want to,” Gawain prevaricated. “I just have other things to worry about. I have to help finish the translations, and now there’s the triquetra symbol to research.” He knew Ali was watching him and pretended not to notice.

“All of which are important, but none as much as finding your mate.”

“Mate?” Gawain repeated and frowned.

“Tresor. Other half. Whatever.” Ali was clearly getting frustrated.

“I’m sure he or she will show up when it’s time,” Gawain offered, trying to sound reasonable, but he could feel his heart pick up its normally steady beat. He took his hands from the keyboard and rubbed them on his pants.

“What’s the matter?”

Gawain forced a smile. “Nothing, sorry. I just have my head in this research.”

“I don’t think that’s the reason,” Ali said bluntly, “but I will of course respect your privacy.” She smiled to gentle her words and then left.

Gawain let out the breath he was holding, but his heart didn’t slow. How could it when the thought of having someone dependent on him made him sick to his stomach. He’d seen how Tom and Mel were, and even as they were fiercely independent, both Lucan and Lance were driven frantic over their possessiveness and worry they might lose them. It just wasn’t worth it. he knew he wouldn’t get away with it forever, but he hoped with everything in him he would be the last. Being last meant the final battle, and then it would be all over.

Then he could go the Krušedol Monastery and present the token he had been given over seven hundred years ago and be admitted. He would spend whatever remained of his life cataloging books. He’d miss the knights, but he wasn’t destined for home and family. He knew that.

“What did you do? What did you do?” His mother screamed and pulled the lifeless body of his little brother from the small creek at the foot of their cottage. Alfred had been missing an hour when Gawain realized he wasn’t in the one-room cottage where Gawain and his mother and baby brother lived. His father had been dead two years and had never even seen Alfred born.

She cried and pulled Alfred close, rocking and crying hysterically as he stood, tears streaming down his face. “I left him in your care. How could you?”

Gawain couldn’t answer because he didn’t know. One minute Alfred had been begging to play with the carved horse Gawain’s father had fashioned for him four years ago, and the next Gawain had gotten lost in the carvings he was attempting on the stones he’d carefully selected from the river. There had been a group of players passing through the village, and one could read. Gawain had been so excited, and the musician had taught him some letters. Gawain had practiced scratching them out diligently until the stones were so marked he needed fresh ones.

“He was here,” Gawain whispered. He had even let him play with his horse, but Alfred had wanted Gawain to play as well, and Gawain had snapped at him and told him to go away.

He hadn’t meant it though. Of course he hadn’t. He loved his brother.

“Get out of my sight,” his mother yelled, and then Anna and Karmenth had come running and helped his mother get Alfred back to their cottage.

And not one of them had even glanced at Gawain. And so convinced his mother hated him because he had murdered his brother, Gawain ran.

And a whole other nightmare had started until he had saved Lance’s life. He’d never seen his mother again, but he doubted she would have missed him. Gawain blinked, trying to get the sound of her screams from his head, and concentrated on the books.

Kay closed his bedroom door. He’d listened as the knights had one by one gone downstairs and then left the house, and it was all quiet. He didn’t have the courage to see Charles right then. Couldn’t share breakfast and chat about plans. If he was honest, he was struggling to look him in the face, and he was wavering between trying not to be so hurt and being incredibly angry.

He walked into the empty kitchen and got some juice, suddenly resolving not to wake up in his own bed tomorrow.