I hadn’t taken her words to heart at the time because I had already decided that there would be no way I would ever make a nest for an alpha. My plans to be independent like my mom were already underway regardless of my designation.
And up until tonight I had kept my word.
The handful of times I used the heat centers I never made a nest and instead forced myself to block it all out as the unfortunate byproduct of my shitty luck. Once I was prescribed suppressants by the only doctor in the state of Washington that was willing I never looked back, ignoring his advice to wean myself off once a year.
But now, after whatever Merlin had done to me when I fell through time, all of those long pushed down instincts had come roaring back to the surface as soon as Arthur with his damned delicious scent and even more delicious voice had reaffirmed that I was his wife and not just in name only. It was the real deal.
Before, my hands had moved automatically to arrange the luxurious furs that had been left behind by one of the maids and before I knew it I was giving into my baser desires as if the half-a-decade of denying them completely hadn’t existed at all.
Arthur moved to get into the nest but my bare foot shot up and pressed into his chest, stopping him.
The alpha frowned, his golden-red beard twitching as his blue eyes slid along my bare leg that had been revealed by the motion. “Omega?”
“Ask again,” I told him, my foot still on his chest.
A warm, callused hand wrapped around my ankle, rubbing small circles into the hollow just underneath the bone there. “May I enter your nest, omega?”
This was it. My last chance to stop him and tell him no.
It was completely crazy to do this—to accept being his wife and to accept that there was very probably a future where he died.
And yet here I was about to do it anyway. Something about Arthur’s scent screamed to me that all was well—like it had always been meant to be this way. No alpha from my time had ever smelled like him. Their scents had all been slightly acrid, like they were milk that had just curdled and gone bad.
I always chalked it up to the suppressants doing their job and pushing down those omega instincts that had been an annoyance and blockade to my goals.
But now as my foot slid down the embroidered surface of Arthur’s tunic, I couldn’t help but draw in a large inhale of it.
“You may enter, alpha,” I finally surrendered, my voice sounding nothing like it usually did. It was more breathy and rolling, almost like the purr of a cat. I had never purred for anyone before and it surprised me almost as much as it seemed to surprise the alpha hovering at the edge of my nest.
Arthur’s expression seemed to smolder as the permission echoed in between us.
My decision had been made.
Ironically, I wasn’t sure what the future held. There had never been any mention of the Guinevere from the legends being anything other than a cherished princess.
They definitely hadn’t mentioned that she was a depressed theater kid from the future who was still trying to grieve the loss of her mother.
If I was so different, maybe I could change things, starting with tonight.
Arthur reached up and yanked at the neckline of the tunic he was wearing and drew it over his head. It fell to the floor with a dull thud as he began to systematically work on the flowing white shirt that he was wearing underneath.
In the dim candlelight, I could see each plane of his broad, scarred chest and the smattering of red-gold hair that trailed down into the dark breeches he still wore. But hair wasn’t the only thing on Arthur’s chest. There were also what looked to be hundreds of scars from different wounds reminding me that the man in front of me wasn’t just an alpha but also a warrior who had seen his fair share of battles.
Then I watched as his hands moved to the ties on the front of the breeches he was wearing, tugging at the knots until they loosened and the trail of hair thickened again as the waistband started to sink down his hips.
Only then did he step into my nest, pressing one knee into the thick furs, his gaze moving to me and the dress I was still wearing.
I was suddenly glad that fate had seen fit to send me back to a time before corsets and the complicated dresses of later on in history because I was eager to undress for the man in front of me and I was pretty sure I wouldn’t have been able to do it in any sort of elegant way if I was stuck in a laced up whalebone corset.
Instead, the pale dress that the maids had dressed me in this morning was held together by soft ribbons that were the same colors as the pearls and lilies still woven in my hair.
Rough fingers tugged at the line of ties that were on either side of my waist before he moved on to the ones that held the dressup on my shoulders. Once those were untied, the dress was easy enough to pull down, exposing the thin white tunic underneath.
Just like the night he’d seen me in my nightgown, I followed Arthur’s eyes as they skimmed the shadow of my breasts.
Before he’d looked away because it was inappropriate, but now I was his wife and he could look his fill.
“Aren’t you going to finish?” I asked after an extended pause, gesturing to the outer part of the dress which was still pooled around my waist. “Or should I do it myself?”
