Bedivere nodded, using his hand to cup the side of my face, his thumb tracing circles on my cheek. “Sir Ector was one man—one alpha—and he had failed to protect his wife with his own two hands. Guinevere, sweetling, I only have one hand. What hope could I have of protecting you if it came to it?”
“But with a pack…” I began cautiously as Bedivere smiled for the first time since telling his story.
“With a pack, it is not just my one hand trying to protect you. We all will and I have a tenuous faith that the gods know what they are doing,” Bedivere told me, his voice tinged with a purr.
I laid my head on his chest, listening to the thud of his heartbeat which now matched mine perfectly.
After a few moments, one last curiosity pulled at my exhausted consciousness. “Did they ever catch who did it? Who attacked your village, I mean.”
There was a brief pause.
“The men who attacked the village were the first wave of Saxons coming across the river to Logres eight years ago. We have been at war ever since.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
“Isee our queen has welcomed you into the pack, Bedivere,” I said to the alpha dryly the next morning when he reported to my office to help with the ledgers.
The man wore her honeysuckle scent like the most enticing perfume to ever exist, and for a brief moment, I felt a twinge of jealousy for the alpha that was quickly replaced by my happiness of having one of my oldest friends join my pack.
“She has, your majesty,” Bedivere replied, his tone even and professional as he handed me a stack of papers.
But now I knew just how happy Bedivere felt. It seemed to swell off of the alpha in waves, echoing down the faint bond that I now shared with him.
He had been one of my closest friends since I was but a babe, but he had lost himself the day that he had lost his hand and it had hurt me to see him so isolated.
Now, the man seemed to glow as he continued to assist me as if everything had not changed the night before.
“Will you finally call me Arthur in private?” I asked, keeping my voice light as I used my seal to approve castle expenditures and the purchasing from the other territories that would allow us to plan for the upcoming seasons.
“No, your majesty,” Bedivere said, though I saw his lips flash up into the ghost of a smile before it was gone again. “I am still your advisor.”
“You have always been more than that and you know it,” I reminded him, but let it lie. It was not worth it to argue on such an auspicious day.
“Where is my wife anyway?” I asked, glancing out the window to find the sky outside had darkened to the color of pitch. A storm was approaching.
“Out at her archery lesson with Sir Lancelot.”
“Ah,” I said, thinking of the moody knight. “And does he still have his head firmly lodged up his arse?”
Truth be told, I had avoided the other alpha just as much as he had avoided me.
It was clear to me that he was attracted to my wife and I knew he was meant to be a part of my pack because my inner alpha seemed to already accept him as such. When Guinevere had returned smelling of tart citrus a few nights ago, it had surprised me given that the man typically seemed to fortify his defenses towards her.
“I could not comment on such things, your majesty,” Bedivere said simply as he got to work organizing the documents that I had just approved. They would need to be delivered to their rightful owners so that they could get to work on them.
“I am asking your opinion as someone who was formerly very firmly in the same camp as the man.”
Bedivere sighed heavily, finally seeming to let down his guard. “Lancelot and I are very different individuals. He has his own reasons for being reticent about our pack and I do not blame him.”
I leaned back in my seat, contemplating the man’s words. Lancelot, despite being a part of my round table for several years, was even harder to read than Bedivere.
King Ban of Benoic was my least favorite of the territorial kings, so I had held his son at an arm’s length for quite a long time before finally accepting him into my inner circle. He was a loyal knight—that of which I could never doubt—but that did not help bring him into our pack if he did not wish for it.
My time was running out—the hazy dreams that I had seen were growing closer as we approached Beltane and I was anxious to secure my pack beforethathappened.
I did not know specifically what was going to occur, my dreams were never so clear as to tell me out right, but I knew that something dire would happen and it would affect Guinevere and Lancelot the most.
Our entire pack would need to be together to overcome it and that now, I realized, included Merlin.
