The Darkest Knight (Guardians of Camelot #3) - Victoria Sue Page 0,86

didn’t contain the same amount of satisfaction as it had a moment ago.

“She’s had you trapped,” Lance continued. “You are as weak as her pathetic soldiers. You cannot even direct them. They react. You have no control. What’s a king with no subjects?”

Temper flickered over Mordred’s features, and then he laughed again. “No control?” He smiled and confidence settled over him. “Where do you think the Ursus come from?”

Lance didn’t answer.

“You don’t know,” Mordred crowed in delight and shook Mel. “And your pathetic little trickster hasn’t worked it out?” Kay held his breath. He knew Lance was goading him, waiting for a chance, but a chance for what? Charles had failed. The books had been wrong.

“They come from a sick imagination,” Lance snapped, and Mordred grinned.

“Sick? Maybe, you’ll certainly be sick when she makes more. If you keep losing your temper, you might even qualify.”

So they’d been right? The Ursus were black souls?

“Now wouldn’t that be a delicious thought. Would you like to spend the rest of your miserable life as one of her subjects? Maybe if I ask her really nicely, she’ll let you loose in that shelter you seem to be so attracted to. A few Ursus would clear it out. Make more room?”

Lance shook his head. “Don’t pretend you have any say in this.”

Mordred waved a hand around the room again. “True power that your boyfriend can only ever dream of is promised to me as soon as you are all dead.”

“Really?” Mel spoke up. “Your queen? The one I defeated last year? What do you call her?” Mel glanced at Kay. “Morgan le Fey? The queen of many faces.”

Kay froze. The queen of many faces. As if a blindfold had been ripped off, Kay knew what Mel was trying to tell him. The Ursus were evil souls. They knew that. Roxy had said it herself. How was she able to pick out a half dozen people of a population of six billion when she couldn’t get her own body? But Morgan knew which were evil because she could see them. See their black hearts. The driver from the limo company Roxy hated that Kay had seen the face of an Ursus on. The woman from the park. The woman from the camp that gave food to starving kids so long as they prostituted themselves. True evil wore the tattoo of Black Annis.

And they’d been wrong, Charles wasn’t her son. He didn’t have the same ability as Morgan did. To see the evil in an ordinary human face. It was him. Without even pausing to question what he needed to do, Kay grabbed the sword from the stone floor and whirled, thrusting it through Mordred’s chest. “Gawain,” he screamed. “Get Galahad.”

Shock and utter confusion chased Mordred’s features, and then everyone was free. Mel scrambled over to Galahad, but Lance got to him first. “The bond. The bond right now.” Lance nodded and lifted Galahad’s arm, quickly slicing a track on his skin and doing the same to a bewildered Gawain. Whispered words were said quickly, and Gawain stood cradling his Tresor.

Kay glanced to the man in front of him as Mordred gasped. “Who? Who are you?” Kay leaned forward as Mordred’s eyes began to glaze over, and he smiled. Kay wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of the answer.

“Someone who just beat your ass.” And he pushed Mordred’s lifeless body away from him and watched for a few seconds as it crumpled in on itself, disintegrating into the same evil dust that the Ursus did.

“Kay?” Mel shouted, and Kay scrambled over to Charles. “Can you lift him?”

“I will,” Lance said and hoisted Charles into his arms. Gawain stared, utter shock on his face, holding Galahad in his own.

“We need to get out of here,” Mel said. Ali helped Roxy to her feet, as she was already healing.

“How did you know?” Charles whispered as Kay touched his face gently.

“Because I remembered what I’d been trying to. About the woman in the camp.”

“Did she have a gray horse?”

Kay laughed a touch hysterically. “Not that one, but I need to tell you all about that too.”

Chapter 23

Charles cradled Kay against him all the way home. Kay was quiet, too quiet, and he was worried. His own injuries were nearly healed, but something about what had happened in there had deeply affected Kay. Had it been that Kay had discovered Mordred was his father? Charles had no strong feelings about the possibility when he had thought he was Mordred’s son