‘My little princess, you were named after a brave queen who, instead of doing what everyone else around her was doing, went against the grain in the name of love,’my mother’s voice echoed in my mind as my eyes traced the ancient runes that served as a backdrop for the sign above the doorway.
For as long as I could remember, my mother had been obsessed with the myth of King Arthur. That little house on the beach had been absolutely packed full of any memorabilia she could get her hands on and I was pretty sure that I’d watched and read every iteration of the story so much that I could almost quote them from memory.
She’d loved it so much that she’d named me, her only daughter, after the mythical queen that had nearly been burned at the stake because she’d dared to love more than one alpha.
The fantastical stories had fostered my love for the theater and I’d been proud to be Guinevere on the playbills for my high school plays.
Then she’d gotten sick and had clung to the stories like a lifeline and I’d helped her, decorating her hospital rooms with comfort items from home as the brain cancer got a grip on her and she started to forget who I really was.
When fiction and reality began to mesh for my mother towards the end there was no difference between me and the Guinevere from the story—half of the time I couldn’t tell who she was even talking to so I’d started to insist she call me by my nickname instead.
After she died I’d hardly been able to even glance at my name on my ID or passport without feeling the need to vomit.
But now, somehow, I felt totally fine looking at the exhibit that had been the only dark spot in an otherwise okay existence in London.
“Guinevere!” Charles called, making me wince as he slipped around a gawking family to come out of the exhibit again. “Are you coming?”
“It’s Gwen,” I reminded him curtly as my feet started to move in his direction.
While we were at the coffee shop I’d dropped my open wallet and when he’d bent down to help me gather my things he’d seen my ID with my full name.
“Sorry,” he apologized sheepishly as he took my hand and practically dragged me inside of the doorway. “I just can’t help it. How often do you meet an actual person named Guinevere?”
“Like a half a percentile,” I provided, remembering the math major beta that I’d dated throughout college. He’d also been fascinated by the name… right up until I awakened as an omega then he’d ghosted me not wanting to deal with everything that comes with dating one of usomegasas he’d once put it with a shudder.
That had been my last try at dating and even that had been better than the British alpha still rambling on about interesting names.
“My mother named me after the king,” he informed me with a grin as we accepted the little brochure about the exhibit from the smiling docent.
The one who very publicly cheated on his wife?
I kept that thought to myself and pretended to read about ancient masonry found when parts of several lakes, thought to be where the seat of the mythical kingdom of Camelot, were dredged up.
There was a depiction of a map of the United Kingdom with pins placed in several parts, most centering around Wales.
A little boy scooted around me to press the little red button at the bottom of the plaque.
“While many scholars argue about whether King Arthur, his beautiful Queen Guinevere, and his round table even exist,” a chipper voice came through the speakers drawing the attention of several other people in the room, “many more prefer to argue about thelocationof Camelot, King Arthur’s seat of power, instead. In the city of Edinburgh, there is quite literally a place called Arthur’s seat—though most can agree that Arthur was a king of Welsh origins—leaving us with several potential sites in Wales and the surrounding areas. For instance, Snowdonia national park…”
I zoned out as the voice continued, parts of the map lighting up with its explanation about potential sites of Camelot. As they spoke, there was an inherent sense that they were wrong about what they were speaking of, like I justknewthat they were incorrect instinctually.
Shaking it off the odd feeling as nothing more than having a fanatic of a mother who probably could have recited every bit of history in this room from memory, I turned to find Charles staring at me with his too-large brown eyes.
“So, did you have anything to do with designing this place?” he asked, gesturing to the exhibit.
“No,” I repeated myself, feeling a little irritated that he seemed to have ignored me before when I answered the same question only minutes ago. “I asked not to be a part of this one.”
Charles frowned, his nose wrinkling with confusion like he didn’t understand my words. “Why? Isn’t it quite perfect? A girl named Guinevere helping to design a King Arthur exhibit? If that isn’t kismet, I don’t know what is.”
I wanted to flat out tell him it was because my mother named me Guinevere and she’d died of brain cancer so it was a little hard to stomach being around the things that she loved so much… but that seemed more like a second date kind of topic.
And a second date with this guy wasdefinitelynot happening if I had anything to say about it.
As I stared at him, I decided that Trini owed me double the takeout she’d promised and if she ever bothered me about going out on another date within this calendar year again I was going to pull this guy’s profile up as a reminder.
I didn’t even know why she insisted I needed an alpha in the first place. It wasn’t like modern day society required it. Sure, the suppressants sometimes gave me migraines, and every once in a while opening the door to my empty flat with only my goldfish Sammy to greet me got a little depressing after a while…
But all of that was still better than Can’t-Take-A-Hint-Charles.
