Royal Enchantment

She married the king. She wanted the man.

Guinevere’s marriage to Arthur was a political partnership, never a romance. Merlin knows that the king’s court, newly restored at a medieval theme park, will only be complete if Arthur has his lady. Little did anyone suspect that once Guinevere gets a taste of twenty-first-century freedoms that this ancient queen would lose interest in belonging to any man—even a royal one.

It takes a dragon, and some passionate nights spent in each other’s arms, to lure her back to her husband’s side. Arthur is willing to accept Gwen’s help in protecting the new Camelot from a fae menace, but the bigger challenge will be wooing back Guinevere for a second chance at love...

“That was quite the kiss, my lord.”

Satisfaction sprawled within King Arthur. “There is no need for it to end.”

Guinevere’s posture shifted. It was a slight thing, but it seemed to put her worlds away. “I think there is.”

He blinked. His need for her was like a runaway stallion. Hauling it back took effort. “There is?”

“One kiss does not heal everything.” Guinevere took a step back from him, straightening the bodice of her dress. “You left me in the past to come here.”

He frowned, confused. “I explained that already, but perhaps I should apologize instead.”

Guinevere shut her eyes a moment, then met his gaze without retreat. “Nothing, not even an apology, makes up for being considered invisible for so long. The only times you noticed me was when I made you unhappy. I don’t want to be that woman anymore.”

“But you kissed me!” he protested, realizing how lame it sounded the moment he spoke.

“I did, and it was wonderful. It wasn’t enough.”

SHARON ASHWOODis a novelist, desk jockey and enthusiast for the weird and spooky. She has an English literature degree but works as a finance geek. Interests include growing her to-be-read pile and playing with the toy graveyard on her desk. Sharon is the winner of the 2011 RITA® Award for Best Paranormal Romance. She lives in the Pacific Northwest and is owned by the Demon Lord of Kitty Badness.

Royal Enchantment

Sharon Ashwood

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For all the princesses who wanted

the sword and the frilly dress—and maybe

the horse and the dragon, too. Why not?

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

About the Author

Title Page

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Extract

Copyright

Prologue

Once upon a time, King Arthur of Camelot made an alliance with the fae and the witches to keep the mortal realms safe for all the free peoples. The world back then was filled with peril, with dragons and ogres and much, much worse lurking in the dark places. The greatest danger came from the demons who roamed the earth, causing suffering wherever they went. With the help of the enchanter, Merlin the Wise, the allies waged war upon the demons and succeeded in casting them back into the abyss.

At least, that’s what Queen Guinevere was told. Stuck in the castle with her ladies-in-waiting, all she heard was gossip and rumors and thirdhand accounts of how mighty Sir So-and-So had been that day. As a royal princess, her value was measured by the children she’d bear, not the strength of her sword arm—and certainly not by anything she had to say.

So she missed how Merlin’s final battle spells had stripped the fae of their souls—and how the Faery people blamed Camelot for the disaster—until an enraged party of wounded fae burst into the castle threatening to crush humanity to dust. That’s when fear rose from the soles of Guinevere’s slippers, creeping up her body in chill waves of foreboding. Something had gone horribly wrong for her husband and his friends—but, as usual, Arthur had failed to send her word, and so there was nothing Guinevere could do.

In the end, it was Merlin who gave her a full account of the disaster. He came to her sitting room, dusty and disheveled from the road and with his dark face tight with worry. She set down her embroidery and stood, feeling as if she needed to be on her feet for whatever he had to say.

And then he told her. The fae would indeed carry out their threat against the mortal realms, but no one knew which day, year or even century their attack would come. So Merlin had put the king and his knights into an enchanted sleep and, when the fae returned, the heroes of Camelot would arise once more. As Merlin spoke, the mighty warriors of the Round Table were already stretched out upon empty tombs, trapped as effigies made of stone. In that form they would wait out the ages. They had sacrificed everything—fame, wealth and their very futures to stand guard over humankind.

But Guinevere had been left behind. Again.

Chapter 1

“Is this where you saw the beast?” asked Arthur Pendragon, High King of the Britons, as he slowed the Chevy SUV into the gravel beside a remote highway.

“Yes, about a half hour’s walk off the road.” His passenger was the dark-haired Scottish knight, Sir Gawain. “That’s a wee bit close for comfort.”

They were miles from civilization, but both men knew that meant nothing. A determined monster could find a town and crush it in the matter of an afternoon. Arthur parked and got out, a cold drop of rain making him look up. The October sky was baggy with clouds, promising a downpour.

Sir Gawain slammed the passenger door and walked around the front of the vehicle to stand beside him. The two men gazed toward the wild landscape of the inlet, a forest of cedars to their backs. Arthur glimpsed a distant sliver of water crowned with the ghostly outline of hills. The raw beauty of the place only darkened his mood. “Let’s gear up.”

They pulled weapons from the back of the SUV—swords, guns and knives—and buckled them on. Once armed, Gawain loped toward the forest at a speed that said much about the urgency of their hunt. He’d shrugged a leather jacket over a fleece hoodie and looked more like a local than a knight of Camelot. On the whole, he’d adapted to the twenty-first century with enviable ease.

Arthur followed, his heavy-soled boots sinking into the soft loam. Unlike Gawain, he’d spent his entire life as a king or preparing to be one, and blending in hadn’t been a necessary skill. Until now, anyway. Waking up in the modern world had changed more things than he could count—but not his duty to guard the mortal realms.

As they crossed the swath of scruffy grass between the road and the trees, Arthur saw the tracks. He immediately dropped to one knee. “Blood and thunder,” he cursed softly. The print was enormous, as big as a platter with three clawed toes pointed forward and a fourth behind. “Not to ask the obvious question, but what is a dragon doing in Washington State?”

“What’s Camelot doing here?” Gawain countered with a shrug.

“Are you saying there’s a connection?”

Gawain didn’t answer, and Arthur didn’t blame him. Sometimes there was no easy way to tell enchantment from sheer bad luck. As a case in point, after Merlin had sent the Knights of the Round Table into an enchanted sleep, an entrepreneur had moved the church and its contents—knights included—to the small town of Carlyle, Washington, to form the central feature of the Medievaland Theme Park. Arthur had gone to sleep in the south of England and awakened nearly a thousand years later as part of a tourist attraction in the US of A. After that, a fire-breathing monster hardly surprised him.

Arthur rose, dusting grit and pine needles from his hands. “A dragon can’t cross into the mortal realms on its own. It doesn’t have that kind of magic.”

“Then it had help,” Gawain muttered. “I suspect that’s your connection.”

Arthur shifted uneasily, the wind catching at the long skirts of his heavy leather coat. “So do we have a new enemy or an old one we’ve overlooked?” There were too many choices.

Gawain grabbed his arm in a bruising grip. “There!” He pointed, his hand steady but his face losing color.

Arthur sucked in his breath as a ripple of movement stirred the undergrowth. He reached for the hilt of his sword, Excalibur, but his fingers froze as the beast reared from the shaggy treetops. He was forced to tip his head back, and then tip it more as he looked up into a nightmare. “Bloody hell.”

The dragon’s green head was long and narrow with extravagant whiskers. Huge topaz eyes flared with menace, the slitted pupils widened as the beast caught sight of the two men. The eager expression in that gaze reminded Arthur of a cat spotting a wounded bird.

“I told you it was big,” said Gawain helpfully.

Arthur’s thoughts jammed like a rusted crossbow. The dragon was close enough that he could make out its scent—an odd mix of musk and cinders. Through the screen of trees, he could see a bony ridge of spikes descending from its humped back onto a long muscular tail that twitched with impatience. Or hunger.

“Ideas?” Gawain asked under his breath.

Arthur repressed a desperate urge to run. “Be charming. Maybe it will listen to reason.”

Gawain gave a strangled curse.

“Hello, mortal fleas,” the dragon boomed, its deep voice resonant with unpleasant amusement.

Arthur grasped Excalibur’s hilt and drew the long sword with a hiss. It should have made him feel better, but fewer knights than dragons walked away from a fight. He adopted his most courteous tone. “Sir Dragon, pray tell us what brings you to this realm?”

“Are there only two of you?” The dragon’s tufted ears cupped forward with curiosity as he pointedly ignored Arthur’s question. “What happened to your armies, little king?”

Arthur flinched with annoyance. After transporting Camelot’s resting place to Washington State, Medievaland’s founder had sold off most of the stone knights as a fund-raising effort. As a result, Camelot’s warriors now resided in museums and private collections, and there they would stay until awakened with magic. Counting Arthur, Camelot had exactly eight knights awake out of the one hundred and fifty that had gone into the stone sleep and no one knew where the rest of them were. Arthur was hunting his missing men one by one, but it was slow going.

There was no way he was sharing those details. “I don’t need an army to say that this place offers you no welcome. The mortal realms have forgotten the old ways, and dragons are no more than myths. Not even the fae reveal themselves to the humans here.”

The dragon snorted, twin puffs of smoke curling up from its cavernous nostrils. “And what does this world make of you, High King of the Britons?”

Arthur held Excalibur loosely in one hand, the tip resting between his feet. It was a posture meant to look relaxed, but he was balanced and ready to strike. “To my great sorrow, Camelot is forgotten. I keep my true name to myself.”

Amused, the dragon rumbled with a sound like crashing boulders. “But you still tell me to go? You would risk a thankless death for the ignorant rabble who live here?”

“Yes,” Arthur replied with outward calm.

Like a preening cat, the dragon stroked a huge, taloned forepaw over its whiskers. It looked casual, but Arthur detected something else in the dragon’s manner. Anger or sorrow or even disappointment.

“You amaze me, little king,” said the creature. “Once, your Pendragon forefathers held the deep respect of my kind. Now you can do no more than shoo me away as if I were a stray cat.”

“This time is different.”

“Is that why you left the mistress of your forgotten realm a widow?”

Arthur clenched his jaw. Guinevere. The memory of her made him ache with a mix of fury and regret. “That is not your affair.”

“A shame.” There was a dragonish, smoky sigh. “The minstrels of my world still sing of the Queen of Camelot’s beauty. A dragon would have kept his mate close.”

Arthur ground his teeth. Leaving his queen was the only thing he’d done right in their marriage. Back then, even the image of her delicate face and graceful hands had burned like acid crumbling his bones. He’d desired her so much, and yet they’d been so utterly mismatched. His crown and sword, his title and lands—none of it had meant a thing to her. All she’d wanted was—he wasn’t even certain what she’d wanted. He prayed she’d found happiness in the end.

“Don’t speak of my queen,” Arthur growled, all pretense of civility gone. “I ask you again, dragon, why are you here?”

“Ask me rather what I want.” The dragon arched its neck to angle one huge yellow eye at Arthur.

His words echoed Arthur’s thoughts with almost-sinister precision. “Fine. What do you want?”

“It has been long years since I made humans tremble behind their flimsy doors. I was once a destroyer of cities, a fiery death that rained from the skies. The name of Rukon Shadow Wing was the refrain of minstrels’ songs.”

None that Arthur had heard, but he kept that to himself. “Our cities are not your playthings.”

“They are if I make them so, and this mortal realm is ripe for plucking. My name shall be whispered in terror once again.”

“Humans have weapons far greater than my sword,” Arthur said, his voice hard. “You won’t survive.”

“But there your logic breaks down, little king. You don’t have an army, and by your own admission, modern mortals think me a myth.” The dragon gave a sly smile that was horribly full of teeth. “It will be too late by the time the modern generals gather their wits for an attack.”

“I will stop you.”

“Assuming you could find the men to do so, every accord with the hidden world, including the witches and even the fae, decrees that the magical realm must stay hidden. Breaking that trust means war with the few allies you have left, and you can’t afford that.”

Arthur said nothing. Unfortunately, the creature was right.

The dragon chuckled, smoke rolling from its muzzle. “Poor king. Even if you could convince the human world that I am real, the rules won’t let you say a word. What will you do, I wonder? Stand aside and watch me rampage through the countryside, or try to stop me all by yourself?”

Arthur finally lost his temper, gripping Excalibur’s hilt, but the dragon still wasn’t done.

“That would be the finest song of all,” the beast said with a growling purr. “Rukon Shadow Wing defeating the mighty King of Camelot. You see, at the end of it all, that is what I want the most. The trophy of your head in my lair.”

“I will not play the games of a delusional lizard!” Arthur roared, his gut burning. “I will see you dead first.”

The creature’s gaze flashed. “Foolish and rude. An unfortunate move, little king.” And it bared its scythe-like fangs, saliva dripping from their points.

Arthur heard Gawain’s breath hiss with alarm. His friend had been so still, Arthur had all but forgotten his presence. Now, with quicksilver speed, Gawain drew his gun and fired, grazing the long, weaving neck.

The dragon stretched its head high and snarled. White flame shot toward the sky, the heart of it a blue as pale and clear as gemstones. Terror shot down Arthur’s spine, making his heart pound so hard he barely heard the branches shatter as the dragon crashed through the trees. It was coming toward them at a deliberate jog, tail lashing in its wake.

Gawain and Arthur fell back step by step, keeping just enough distance to avoid the wicked jaws. The creature was perhaps eight feet high at the shoulder, but three times that from nose to tail. The huge head bobbed on the snakelike neck, jaws gaping to show its flickering tongue. But despite the danger, Arthur’s thoughts turned to crystalline calm as he tracked its every motion. This kind of impossible fight was what Arthur of Camelot had trained for.

They reached the grassy ground beyond the trees and used the room to run, drawing the monster into the open. Gawain fired again just as the dragon’s shoulders pushed out of the forest. The weak sunlight shimmered along its scales as it twisted away from the shot, but this time the beast wasn’t so lucky. Chips of scale flew as the bullet hit its side. It was no more than a flesh wound, but the dragon bellowed with fury, the sound so loud it was a physical blow.

The beast bounded forward and snatched up Gawain, quick as a heron plucking fish from the water. The knight’s howl of surprise shut off as the dragon’s jaws clamped around his chest. The gun flew from Gawain’s hand as the long neck reeled him skyward. One burst of flame, and he would be cooked.

Arthur swung Excalibur, his only thought to save his friend. Rukon reared up as Arthur attacked, the long belly flashing creamy white. Arthur lunged for one of the pale gaps between scales. It was a suicidal move, but a man defended his brothers, and a king spilled his blood for them. Arthur felt his blade connect, the shock of the blow jolting his shoulder before he spun away. Blood spilled but Excalibur’s edge did not slide far into the flesh. The beast seemed to be made of iron. Still, Arthur bolted in again, refusing to give up.

The next second Rukon’s whiplike tail whirled through the air, hammering Arthur so hard he flew back into the forest. Branches crackled and clawed at his face, turning the world into a mosaic of green and golden leaves—but not before he saw the dragon toss Gawain into the air with a disgusted flick. Gawain spun, arms outstretched, and dropped into the bushes with a mighty crash.

Arthur scrambled to Gawain’s side, dreading what he would find. Just as Arthur reached him, the dragon roared again, then thrust its head through the trees toward Arthur. He scrabbled for Excalibur, but it wasn’t needed. The dragon simply wanted to mock them now.

“This match goes to me. Have a worthy army waiting for my return, and bring reporters so that they can sing the song of my victory.”

“Reporters?” Arthur repeated the word with confusion. What did a dragon know about the human press?

He didn’t get a reply. With a huff of smoke, the dragon drew its head out of the trees and turned its back to the forest. Then it broke into a thundering run across the grass and unfurled huge leathery wings, each spine tipped with a glittering claw. The wingspan was enormous, blotting out the light. With a thunderous flap, Rukon Shadow Wing sprang into the sky, beating hard until the long, twisting form soared above the wild landscape.

As it rose higher and higher, a bright spiral of light appeared in the clouds. It was no bigger than a coin to Arthur’s sight, but he knew it was a rift into another realm—a doorway no dragon should have been able to create. Rukon dived through it, and the light winked out. The sky was suddenly empty of anything but the coming rain.

Gawain moaned and rolled onto his back. “Did I ever mention dragon breath smells like old barbecue?”

“How badly are you hurt?” Arthur asked, helping Gawain as he struggled to sit up.

The knight paused before answering, as if doing a mental check of his bruises. “Hitting the bushes hurt the worst.” He peered at the sleeve of his leather jacket. The fabric was scarred by the dragon’s fangs, but not torn. For some reason, Rukon had spared him.

Arthur clapped his friend on the shoulder, unable to speak. Relief had closed his throat with a burning ache. They had survived, but he had a feeling their good luck had just run out. Too much didn’t make sense. How was the dragon traveling between realms? Was Rukon really so hungry for glory—for the chance to kill Arthur before the cameras of the human media—that it was willing to risk starting a war with every magical creature that preferred to hide from human eyes? And why hadn’t it butchered Gawain?

“Have you ever heard of Rukon Shadow Wing?” Gawain asked.

“No,” Arthur replied, getting to his feet. “And I’d remember if we’d met.”

Arthur picked up Excalibur and scowled at the blade. The strike against the dragon’s scales had dulled the edge. He slammed the sword back into its scabbard and paced the loamy ground, anger and confusion prickling along his nerves. What was going on and, more to the point, how could he stop it?

Both men jumped when Gawain’s phone rang with the sound of a tiny fanfare. The knight was still sitting on the ground, but he unzipped his pocket and extracted the smartphone in its shockproof case. “Hello?”

Arthur watched his friend’s face pucker in confusion. He knew most of Gawain’s trademark scowls, but this was different. The knight held out the phone with a faintly dazed expression. “It’s your wife.”

The clouds picked that moment to unlock their downpour.

Chapter 2

Minutes later, Guinevere handed the phone back to Merlin the Wise. They sat in his workshop, the light dim and the details of the room lost in shadow. It didn’t bother her that she couldn’t see much. Her mind was already far too crowded.

“That voice,” she said, the words faint. “That was his voice.”

She’d heard her husband speak through a tiny square of a slippery, unfamiliar material called plastic. Impossible. Disorienting. A bone-deep queasiness made her clutch the edge of her chair.

“What about Arthur’s voice?” Merlin asked gently.

She wasn’t sure what to say. That hearing Arthur speak had made the blood rush to her cheeks? That she’d thought him lost to her forever? That hearing his words—she could barely recall what those were, she’d been so flustered—brought back bitter disappointment that Arthur had left her behind?

No, she’d never reveal that much vulnerability to Merlin. He was too arrogant and too manipulative for trust. She had no wish to be a pawn on his chessboard.

“Has Arthur changed?” she asked instead. Despite the unfamiliar form of communication, she’d recognized the force of Arthur’s personality through his shock. There had been something different, more grim.

“Yes, he’s had to change. This is a new world,” Merlin said, offering no details as he pocketed the phone. “And, no, he’s the same as he always was. That’s the strength and the curse of Arthur.”

“He left you behind, as well,” she said, suddenly putting things together. “That must have been a blow.”