Thank you for your continued interest and support and for all your kind words.
I do not own Merlin or the characters and I especially do not own Wicked In Your Arms.
When Gwen awoke she wasn't certain that she was not in fact still sleeping.
Trapped in darkness, she considered that maybe she was dreaming...caught in some state between sleep and waking, the air as deep and pulsing as a night in the thickest woods.
She shivered as the cold penetrated her consciousness. And the icy wet saturated her bones... And she knew this was no dream.
Memories flooded her...
She saw Nigel's face, remembered his cruel hands, and the sting of his slap on her face.
Blinking, she peered into the penetrating dark... It seemed lighter to her left. She listened hard, trying to glean something about her surroundings.
Nothing...
The silence was deafening. That ruled out town. Because even in her room at night the sounds of life in the city prevailed, a living, breathing thing all around her.
Wherever she was the air was still, dormant.
Wincing at the throbbing pain in her head, Gwen pushed up with her hands... Grit and dirt scraped her palms and the floorboards creaked beneath the pressure.
Footsteps suddenly sounded... She froze, considering dropping back down and feigning sleep, but the door slammed open and light flooded the small room.
It was too late. Nigel was standing on the threshold, gazing down at her.
"You're awake. I was beginning to wonder if maybe I'd hit you too hard."
Gwen rose to a sitting position...
"Why are you doing this?" she asked.
"Because you can't marry Arthur!" he snapped, stepping deeper into the room.
"Why not?"
Her gaze moved beyond him, calculating her chances of making it past him.
"No one can. At least not until our grandfather is dead."
Gwen pushed herself unsteadily to her feet...
"I don't understand," she said.
"Did Arthur not tell you about me? That I'm the black sheep of the family? Or at least my father was. My grandfather banished my father, humiliated and shamed my parents... Shamed me."
He gestured wildly and paced the room.
"That old bastard wants the satisfaction of seeing Arthur married before he dies. He would like to go to his final rest knowing the Pendragon line is secured. Well, he shall not have such peace! I've waited years to make that old man suffer. And I'll make bloody hell certain of that!"
Gwen moistened her lips, quite convinced that she was in the hands of a madman. He would thwart his own cousin's matrimonial goals for the sake of disappointing their grandfather?
No. She doubted he'd stop there. He was too obsessed with devastating the king. She wouldn't put it past him to try and destroy Arthur, also. He was simply warming up with her. She had every reason to believe he would never let Arthur return to Camelot alive.
"But weren't you encouraging Arthur to court Lady Phillipa?"
"Of course. Because I knew it would go nowhere." The light from the main room cast one side of his face into relief while the other side stayed hidden in shadow. "I've heard rumours. Servants talk. I knew she was sneaking about with her father's groom. I didn't anticipate she would run away with him quite so soon, however."
Gwen shook her head and then stopped at the sudden lancing pain...
But Nigel continued, his voice taking on an accusatory whine.
"You weren't even to be considered."
She lifted her chin and squared her shoulders, glad that the motion didn't make her feel instantly ill.
"What do you intend to do with me then?" she demanded. "Hide me away until your grandfather finally expires?"
He crossed his arms, the motion as petulant as a child.
"I hadn't quite thought as far as that. I was simply determined to keep you from leaving for Camelot."
Gwen nodded and edged closer to the door... The fact that Nigel hadn't yet decided what to do with her didn't bode well. And she didn't intend to stick around waiting for him to make up his mind.
Although he hadn't said it, it was there, a dark shadow lurking in the back of her mind. He could simply kill her to be rid of her.
No one would ever know the truth. Her disappearance would forever be a mystery. She would simply have vanished.
Arthur would never know. He would never know what happened to her. Not that she cared... she didn't love him.
At the thought, her stomach lurched sickly. She did love him. She loved Prince Arthur Pendragon!
Gwen watched Nigel, her chest tightening almost painfully. She shoved tangled strands of hair from her face and took a bracing breath. She needed to stay calm even as he appeared to be anything but.
He paced the room, tugging at the ends of his hair as if he might tug free a solution from that mad mind of his.
And every once in a while he'd shoot her a measuring glance, seemingly unaware that she had been moving at a cautious, crawling pace towards the door, her fingers twitching at her sides as her nerves snapped and trembled throughout her.
"I can't believe my cousin actually decided to marry you! This shouldn't have happened." He sliced the murky air angrily with one hand. "He's the bloody crown prince and he should damn well act like it!"
Gwen couldn't help rolling her eyes as she inched closer, yet, towards the door leading into the well-lit room from which Nigel had emerged.
"You've bewitched him! Snared him in your woman's web... just like that whore who tempted my father so many years ago and then cried rape after he took what she offered!" His eyes glittered with a frightening faraway light and Gwen swallowed against the sudden bitter taste in her throat. "I should take you myself...see what the great allure of you is."
She stiffened, her pulse spiking into a feverish rhythm against the flesh of her throat. Her every muscle tensed, bracing for an attack.
Without looking at her he continued, as if he had not just voiced that he might like to assault her.
"If I didn't fear that you would weave a spell on me, I would." His lips twisted into a snarling grin. "I should like to take something that is Arthur's... Arrogant bastard! He doesn't know what it's like to suffer, to have everything taken away..."
Gwen refrained from pointing out that the prince had spent the last ten years fighting a war in which he had lost his own brother, countless friends and comrades, because Nigel was past the point of reason.
He was deteriorating... making less and less sense as he paced back and forth in the small room, his boots scuffing the grimy wood planks.
Again, her gaze darted to the lighted room beyond. She didn't know what waited outside the meager dwelling he'd taken her to, but she knew her odds were better out there than in here with him.
As Nigel dove into another diatribe on all the injustices delivered to him and his family, Gwen sucked in a deep breath and bolted for the door.
Adrenaline rushed her veins at his shout...
She cleared the door into the main room and skirted a small table, her gaze locking on the single door.
Suddenly, she was there, her hand grasping the latch. She yanked the door open in one clean pull and burst outdoors.
Gwen didn't waste a moment to acclimate herself. Nigel sounded close, terrifyingly close, but she refused to waste a second to look behind her, although his curses burned her ears.
Dark night surrounded her. The cold winter wind cut through her clothes, but she didn't let it affect her... She didn't let it stop her from diving into the woods pressing all around the small cottage she had just escaped.
The loamy odour of wild earth filled her nose... Clearly he'd taken her somewhere outside the city.
But with a fortifying reminder that the forest had never scared her, she plunged headlong into the depths of it.
Nigel followed, crashing through trees and brush behind Gwen like an angry boar. He was faster than she'd expected.
Or perhaps her injuries slowed her...that or her heavy skirts. And her thin-soled slippers couldn't gain much traction on the slushy ground.
Whatever the case, she couldn't shake him as she raced into the deep woods, her legs pumping hard and furiously beneath her cumbersome garments.
Her muscles burned, but she didn't stop...
Her wet hem dragged across the frozen ground and she grasped a fistful of skirt, trying to lift the fabric high as she zigzagged wildly through trees, but she didn't stop. She didn't dare to...
He shouted her name, the sound echoing on the frigid air, sending the birds above squawking and flying from their night nests.
Ugly sobs tore at her throat, but still she ran on, a certain, stark knowledge pressing its full weight on her.
He would kill her if he caught her.
He was past reason at this point and fully enraged as he tried to run her to the ground like a hound after a hare.
Panted breaths crashed from Gwen's lips. And tears trailed cold wet paths down her cheeks.
Branches tore at her exposed face, snagging her clothing. Her chest hurt, but she pushed on, blindly running through the moon-soaked night.
Still, there wasn't enough light. Not nearly enough. Not enough to see any great distance ahead of her.
Suddenly, the trees and undergrowth thinned out on every side of her. But by the time she'd realized this... it was too late. She couldn't stop in time.
She jerked to a halt just as the ground beneath her feet ended. Her arms flailing wildly, fighting for balance... The tips of her slippers toed the rocky edge... And rocks hissed and slid loose.
She yelped, hovering, wobbling precariously on the precipice. Arms sawing at the air as she struggled to fling herself back away from the drop.
All to no avail.
She toppled forward, her scream a horrible unearthly sound on the night...
Icy air rushed past Gwen as she careened down the side of the steep incline with no hope of stopping.
Not until she reached bottom.
Wind tore at her body. And her hands dragged against the craggy wall, ripped to bloody shreds as she fought for purchase...a handhold, anything to stop her descent.
The floor of the earth loomed somewhere below, waiting to greet her. To break her with cold, relentless force.
Arthur...
She would never see him again...
She would never tell him how she really felt...
She would never tell him that she wanted to marry him...
Only him...
And not because she'd decided she needed to marry...
Not because of security...
Not because she craved respectability...
And not because marriage was that thing every woman should do.
She loved him and he would never know it. She would be gone. Forever lost, forgotten at the base of some ravine.
With a desperate cry, she fought harder, her nails splitting as she clawed.
Bits of rocks and grass flew around her as she plummeted, but nothing more.
She couldn't save herself.
Nigel had gotten his wish after all.
Stay happy and stay safe!