Though Lancelot was one of my most trusted knights, I had no lost love for his father and I was fairly certain the stoic man felt the same—but I was also certain he would never actually say the words out loud out of a sense of duty.
Even if Iwasgoing to search for an omega queen, I adamantly refused to pluck a flower that had yet to fully grow into its roots. No, I needed a hardier, wilder woman to lead Camelot by my side.
As I strode down the hillside in the direction Merlin had disappeared in with the strange omega, try as I did I couldn’t get the taste of the wild honeysuckle that grew on the cliffs surrounding Camelot castle off of my tongue.
The woman had oozed it as she stared up at me with brown eyes that looked like deep pools of amber as she slid down my front and to the ground.
I forced myself not to think about how soft her body felt against mine and I had suddenly regretted my stance on not bedding women until the Saxons had been dealt with. It had been years since the furs of my bed had been warmed by any soul and it was making my head fill with a buzzing warmth now thatI had felt the shape of her body under the blue dress that I only vaguely realized matched my eyes.
Nearly every person in the clearing seemed to recognize and accept the woman as a princess and the daughter of King Leodegrance, my closest and most powerful ally, but I had never seen her before in my life no matter what I was told.
As I had pushed through the crowd that was hellbent on blocking my path earlier in my quest to find Merlin and the mysterious woman, it soon became clear that I was not the only one who had been unaffected by what could only be the magic of the gods.
“Your Majesty,” Bedivere greeted as he fell into step next to me. His good hand was resting on the hilt of his sword, gripping the pommel as if he could pull it from its sheath at any moment and defend me, though we both knew that was not and could never be the case again due to the loss of his other hand in battle. “Who was that woman and why are the men calling her a princess?”
“You do not recognize Princess Guinevere?” I asked, holding my breath tightly in my chest as I waited for an answer from him.
Bedivere shook his head and his dark beard that had been graying more in the last year twitched as he frowned. “No I do not, she appeared in a bolt of light and suddenly King Leodegrance was behaving as if she had always existed. Lancelot and Gawain were with me in the crowd and they seemed as equally flummoxed as I, Your Majesty.”
I nodded slowly, trying to stomach the sheer absurdity of it all. “I also assume you saw Merlin?”
Bedivere’s silver eyes shifted, though I could not tell what the man was thinking exactly. “Aye, I did. I feared my eyes were playing tricks on me, but it was undoubtedly the wizard.”
Bedivere’s words only confirmed that Merlin had not been a figment of my imagination and had returned in tandem with the appearance of the strange omega woman.
“I must go and speak with him.”
Bedivere moved to join me but I stopped him. “You said Gawain and Lancelot were also unaffected by whatever magic has overcome the rest, yes? Go and get them and bring them there.” I pointed in the direction that Merlin had just disappeared in.
“And you will go alone? Your Majesty, it could be dangerous…” Bedivere’s words trailed off at my quelling look before he begrudgingly nodded. “I will go and fetch the others.”
It did not matter in which circumstances led Merlin to return, I knew and Bedivere knew that the man would never hurt me.
He had been by my side since my tenth year, wandering out of a thick mist one morning dressed in rags and wearing a strange smile on his face. Other than Kay, Merlin was the closest thing I had to a brother and he’d proven himself worthy of my trust time and time again. I just hoped things had not changed for him in the past ten years.
I left Bedivere behind, ignoring the rest of those who tried to stop me in my quest to get to the copse of trees, and breathed a sigh of relief as I stepped inside of the tree line and the buzzing noise softened almost immediately.
None had ever spoken of how absolutely chaotic being a ruler could be. Not a day had gone by where I was not constantly needed, and while I loved watching my people thrive, it had begun to wear on me as of late.
The ground crunched under my boot as I followed the sound of Merlin’s voice as he spoke—though it sounded more as if he was arguing—with the woman.
As I grew closer, I was finally able to understand his words better. “The gods have also only seen fit to show me bits andpieces of Arthur’s future, but I know without you in the mix it will be bleak.”
There was a pause before the woman spoke, her voice tight and steely with anger. “So, what? You’ve just decided to yank me from the future without my permission so that I can fulfill some ridiculous prophecy?”
My steps halted. The future? What was this omega saying? The cadence of her words was also strange. I had never heard anyone speak the way she had before—fast and with a simplicity that I was unfamiliar with.
“I prefer to think of it as a portent.”
There was a long heavy sigh from the woman. “So, if I help you save Arthur, will you let me go back home?”
“You would want to return home after finding your fated pack?”
That word was enough for me to start moving forward again. Keeping my footsteps light, I approached where the pair was standing. Merlin had his back to me but I could see the woman’s guarded expression as she glared up at him and shrugged. “Maybe. I’m not really enthused about living in a time where there isn’t any indoor plumbing.”
Yet another unfamiliar word, further confirming that this woman was not from this land, though my mind had still yet to be made up about her being from a time far in the future.
“Gwen, I’ve been searching the future for you for the better part of ten years. In all of my visions of the future you were never unhappy here—”
