The Hunter's Prey (The Fay Morgan Chronicles Book 5) Read Online Free Page B

hatched between us was merely a thing of my imagination? What if he enjoyed our pairing, and nothing else?
    “Apple?” Merlin asked, holding out a small and tart fruit.
    “A chunk of bread and hard cheese, as well as the pickles you packed.”
    He chuckled.
    “Did I say something funny?” I asked, spreading the folds of my long dress around me on the tufts of the newly grown spring grass. I stared out at the waves that bashed against the shore far below us.
    “Do you know you’ve always been like that? Ever since I first met you, when you were all of, what? Fourteen years old?”
    “I’ve always eaten when I’m hungry?” I asked archly.
    “Never mind what anyone offers you. Never mind what your father, or the rightful king, or even the lowly court wizard offers you. You have always wanted what you wanted, and you state it so plainly, as though it were your right.”
    “What a rude and unladylike woman,” I said, hiding the sting of his words. My whole life, people—and mostly men—had been calling me unnatural and unruly. That Merlin thought so as well? It shouldn’t surprise me.
    “No, lass. I have always admired that quality about you and wished I had that own trait myself. I’ve always been too sculpted by the reality that surrounds me.”
    “Ah yes, Merlin the greatest wizard of all the isles. The mighty magician who kings and noblemen offer up carts full of gold to have you at their side. You? You are weak?”
    “Not weak. Just, I go along a bit more. That’s all.”
    “And I’ve always wished I could make friends as you do. Be it visiting queens or the lads in the stable, you put everyone at ease. I seem to be made of the stuff that repels them all.”
    Merlin handed me a wood plate with a nice hunk of dark bread, thick slices of cheese and some pickles. “Perhaps all the world wishes to be your friend, but doesn’t quite know how to approach you, lest you smite and smote them?”
    He took out another plate and filled it with apples and cheese.
    “Someday, in some future land, there may be a place for a woman of power such as I,” I said.
    “I hope you are right,” Merlin said. “But even in that future, the folk will still sit a bit in awe of you.”
    I glanced at him. His gaze held me.
    I swallowed and made myself stare at the edge of the horizon, where the world went flat and lost all detail.
    “Well then, you see… I don’t know how to do this,” he said, so quietly I could have ignored the words.
    “By this do you mean wooing me?” I asked.
    He shook his head. “I would never claim to woo you, Morgan. Such words are much too small to hold the…” He shook his head again. “I don’t know how to do this. Give me a complicated spell that a dozen other wizards have given up on and I will create something sublime. But I have been a busy man, Morgan. I have spent my days serving your brother. Fighting you. Being the Merlin that so many in Wales wish me to be, there has been little room for—”
    “Women?” I asked.
    He sighed. “That was not what I was going to say. Though that’s just the problem, isn’t it? One does not plainly state with words what is in one’s heart. One must prove it by acts of valor, and yet I scarcely know how to hold a sword much less hold it without cutting myself to pieces.”
    It was my turn to chuckle.
    “The thought of me being brave amuses you?” He set his plate aside.
    I leaned toward him. “The thought that such a man could grab hold of me and transform me and fill me as you do,” I said and then closed my mouth, lest more words would run out and into the world. It felt heady and strange to be this honest with him, and I wondered if he could hold my words. If he was big enough to hold me.
    He pierced me with his blue eyes, leveling his wizardly gaze that was ever used to studying things and discovering their underlying truth. I stared back, trying to figure him out just as intensely.
    “Are you trying to tell me, Morgan le Fay, free