The Myth
Long ago a young orphan boy named Arthur lived his life with one desire: to become a brave knight. He trained day and night under the instruction of his foster-father, Sir Ector, until there were many his age who could not best him with a sword—or at least not a wooden one.
One day a young boy named Merlin came to Arthur and befriended him, eventually revealing himself as a wizard sent with a missive to give to Arthur:
“You must go to where the sword in the stone awaits by the place where two rivers meet, there you must pull the sword and take your place as the king to unite all kings.”
Arthur could hardly believe his friend, but still Merlin spoke with enough conviction that they went and Arthurdidpull the sword from the stone at the tender age of ten and five years old—hardly a squire let alone a king.
Time passed and soon Arthur’s youth began to fade and in its place was a young man intent on creating a better world for the people of Logres. Many battles were fought with the tribal kings around the Isle until most bent the knee for the king of kings
But even still, the true testament of a king is the legacy he leaves behind. Eventually Arthur sought out a wife—an omega that could bear him many heirs and rule over Camelot at his side.
He found her in the court of Carmeliad, a neighboring country. Princess Guinevere was everything Arthur could ever want and everything he was afraid he could never protect.
So, at the advice of his trusted friend and advisor, Merlin, Arthur turned to his closest allies and asked them to do something no alpha had ever done: he asked them to form a pack to protect Guinevere from the Saxon invaders that were beginning to press into the shores of his kingdom.
Guinevere slowly began to fall in love with all of her protectors, unsure of herself until her king, always the wisest in the room, reassured her that this had been his intention all along—so even when Guinevere was accused of adultery when she was discovered kissing his most trusted knight and packmate Lancelot, Arthur stood up for his omega and declared that any alphas that choose to come together as a pack would be protected in his kingdom.
This started to end the all-too common bloodshed that was prevalent during these times when alphas fought over the rarity that was an omega in bitter territory disputes.
Unfortunately, this new peace was short lived because, as spring began to fade and the blazing summer began, the Saxons had invaded Camelot and threatened to burn it to the ground.
Arthur and his knights fought valiantly for their cause, but they were no match for the bloodthirsty Saxons and one-by-one they began to fall in battle.
Guinevere, watching from a far hilltop, felt each of her mates go and she began to cry, her tears causing a storm of the likes that none had ever seen before and washing away both armies, forming a massive lake where her beloved pack could find a peaceful rest.
A pack, the first pack, was lost that day, but in its place Camelot was saved.
Prologue
Merlin stared pensively into the basin of glowing liquid, his eyes tracing the two glowing threads still remaining after he had pulled Eleanor’s string.
There were still two left and there they sat, mocking him as he tried to parse out which thread exactly was hers.
Guinevere. The gods had whispered her name into his ear a decade ago and he hadn’t known peace since.
Merlin wished that the gods would be clearer in their portents and show him the whole picture of the dire future that awaited Arthur—the friend he should have never made in the first place.
When he was sent down from the ether of the universe for the express purpose of guiding the young king of Camelot, the gods had made the both of them the same age making it far too easy to befriend the too-cheerful young boy who treated everyone around him with a fairness that was rare for humans.
Even when people treated Arthur as a motherless orphan of unknown origins, he was still kind and that kindness had bled over into his early reign as the king of Camelot.
And then the gods had sent him visions of a future where Camelot burned to the ground and with it went the hope for any sort of joined Logres. One land where peace lasted longer than a few months and where the squabbling of the tribal kings would finally be over.
Then they whispered her name and sent Merlin a flash of warm brown eyes that crinkled in the corners, and after that, the wordpack.
Merlin hadn’t understood it at the time, the word was foreign to him outside of discussions of what to do about the wolf packs that constantly tried to pick off sheep from the flocks on the outskirts of the lower village surrounding Castle Camelot.
Meeting Juneau had changed that. He hadn’t been sure of what to make of the overly talkative omega when he pulled her thread first. She seemed too ill-matched with the rough bikers that she was fated to be with.
Merlin had felt terrible as he watched her try to navigate a modern world that overwhelmed him even just seeing it through her eyes.
Butsomehowshe’d made it work like she was meant to be there the entire time.
That had steeled his resolve for the next thread, and while Eleanor had been much more reticent of her match than Juneau had been, in the end she was happier than she ever could have been in her own time.
Now, he was sure that Guinevere would bring happiness not only to Arthur, but to the three other alphas that he’d seen flash in his mind’s eye as the gods showed him their future.
