“I hardly know her,” Arthur finally answered, his gaze far away. “But if my dream is to be believed, young Gawain, then soon enough we will all fancy the strange omega so far out of time.”
“I will not,” Lancelot said, the gravel under his boot crunching as he turned and walked away at a steady clip.
“Walking away from the king without permission is not advised,” I called out to him only for the alpha to throw up a hand in response.
“Then have me run laps until I collapse for all I care, Bedivere,” he called over his shoulder.
After a few beats Gawain, ever the one to dislike a long drawn out silence, finally spoke up again. “Heavens, why would the gods pick someone as stubborn as Lancelot to be a part of our pack?”
Arthur’s lips ghosted upwards at the younger alpha’s earnest statement before his stern expression was back once more. “We are not a pack yet, young pup.”
Gawain flinched and opened his mouth to apologize to Arthur who just held a staying hand up.
“Be at peace, I was not scolding you. I am only stating it because I have yet to wed my bride. Shall we get through the wedding first before deciding how this… ill-gotten pack is to be?”
With that Arthur left to go and complete preparations, leaving Gawain and myself still standing at the edge of the forest.
Gawain let out a long-held breath and pressed a hand to his chest. “I fear that all of this is going to send me to an early grave, Bedivere. My heart is already weary beyond measure and it has been but a few days!”
Despite Gawain being long past the time for such things, I reached up to give his hair an affectionate ruffle.
“All will be well, pup,” I told him despite my own uncertainties as we took the long path back to the castle. “Now let us head back so you can finish tuning that lute of yours. It sounded off earlier.”
Gawain’s blue eyes widened. There was nothing more terrifying to the young knight than an off-tune musical instrument. I had watched him face down an entire group of Saxon warriors without so much as breaking a nervous sweat, but just the thought of his lute being out of tune?
The man was quaking in his boots.
“It didnotsound off!” the other alpha protested as he hurried to catch up with my longer strides.
“It did, I swear it did. You know my ma used to play the lute…” I told him as we walked together, me regaling him with tales of a time long past as I tried to get his mind off of what was fast becoming our very uncertain future.
Chapter Eight
It was my wedding day.
Holyshitit was my wedding day.
That same thought kept cycling in my mind as the maids, who had me perched on an uncomfortable stool, wove flowers and freshwater pearls into my hair.
“Your highness,” one of the maids—I was pretty sure her name was Brenna—murmured as she gently tied the strings of the pale gown that would serve as my wedding dress on my shoulders. “Are you well? You seem out of sorts…”
Iwasout of sorts. It had only been five days since I touched that stupid sword in that stupid exhibit and now I was preparing for my wedding to amythicalfigure.
Historical figure, I quickly amended in my head. There was nothing mythical about the alpha who strode around this place like he owned it—which I supposed hedidown it.
The king of kings is what all of the legends and iterations had called him.
And I was about to marry him. God, I needed to stop before I started to hyperventilate again.
By day three in this time I’d finally come to terms with the fact that this was, in fact, happening and I was not, in fact, lying in a hospital bed mid-coma.
Somehow, some way, I was the Guinevere from those very same stories that my mother used to tell me before bedtime and it was suddenly my job to bring Arthur and his pack together, and according to Merlin, save the entire damned world.
No fucking pressure, right?
Merlin had also made himself scarce to me over the past few days—probably knowing I wanted to talk to him about everything and not wanting to give me the answers I needed yet. Every single time I caught sight of him in the castle his green eyes grew wide and he slipped away before I could catch up to him.
The Merlin from my mother’s stories had been brave, strong, and mysterious, but right now I was pretty sure this Merlin was just a coward.
