Primal Pleasure: Pendragon Gargoyles, Book 3 by Sydney Somers Page B

to know who she was talking about.
    “The cat that always fails to catch his prey?” He scoffed at the comparison, apparently having seen an episode or two.
    “If it makes you feel any better, it’s not really Sylvester’s fault that Tweety is so clever.”
    “Tweety can fly. I’d say that gives him a certain advantage.”
    She mulled that over before coming back with, “Dragons can fly too. Does that mean you’ve never bested one?”
    “Too many to count.” The response was pure, arrogant male.
    “So what—Sylvester isn’t predatory enough, is that it?” She shrugged. “I suppose you’re right. You are a hunter. Elmer Fudd is a much better fit.”
    “Fudd? He couldn’t catch a rabbit if someone duct-taped one to his ass.”
    Emma hid her smile. “Leah’s loft is just around the corner.”
    She heard him mutter something under his breath about Fudd being an embarrassment to all hunters everywhere. She dug her key out of her bag, acutely aware of Cian giving her only enough room to breathe as she unlocked the door.
    Inside the door, he came to a standstill next to her, and she followed his gaze to the floor-to-ceiling mural on the opposite wall.
    “The battle of Camlann,” he whispered. Eyes locked on the mural, he walked down the few stairs into the sunken main floor.
    He reached a hand out, running his fingers across the likeness of King Arthur in the middle of the battle, the red dragon insignia on his shield making him impossible to miss. Around him, knights and gargoyles protected his back, fighting Mordred’s army though they were outnumbered ten to one.
    Despite the brutal violence of the piece, the agony on the faces of the wounded, their injuries splashed across the battlefield in bold strokes of red and black, there was something so hauntingly beautiful about it that captured Emma’s attention every time she walked past.
    Above the battle, the goddess Rhiannon looked down from the sky, forbidden to interfere and change the events that had been set in motion thousands of years before. Camelot rose in the far distance, its ivory stone walls gleaming in the setting sun, a beacon of peace amidst such savagery.
    “Who painted this?”
    “Leah. The woman with me at the casino.”
    He glanced back at her. “The human? How could a mortal have painted this, as if she’d been there?”
    “My sister and I told her about it.”
    He traced the outline of Excalibur, then his arm dropped back to his side. He fell silent after that, never taking his eyes off the mural.
    “How did you survive?” She knew so few did. The vicious battle raged long after both Arthur and Mordred had fallen. And of those who’d lived, so few made it out of Camelot when Morgana had laid siege to the kingdom.
    “I would have died on the battlefield that day if not for Constantine. When Arthur…when we lost our king, some of us became ruled by our animal halves. Near the end I had been almost cleaved in half by a Fae, and although I could barely move, I felt no pain. I had no chance of besting him. I knew it, but I was prepared to die if it meant I might at least take the Fae with me.”
    Emma’s pulse picked up speed even though he obviously hadn’t lost the fight or he wouldn’t be standing in the room with her now.
    “Constantine had other ideas,” Cian continued. “He finished the Fae off and dragged me off the battlefield. When I had healed, along with a few other of the Guard and a handful of Arthur’s Knights, we tracked the gargoyles who’d betrayed us. They’d left an opening in the ranks that Mordred’s men had slipped through to reach Arthur that day. We left none alive.”
    He turned away from the mural finally, and although the battle had taken place centuries ago, the instinct to comfort him, to soothe away the pain still imprinted on his face, had her closing the distance between them.
    “I’m sorry.”
    “It happened a long time ago.”
    “For an immortal that can still feel like