“Don’t be angry with him,” I began as soon as Gawain was out of earshot.
“I am not angry with him, your majesty,” Bedivere said, sounding exhausted. “I am worried for him. He has never explicitly gone against an order like this before—Lancelot made it clear that none of us were to touch you until Arthur directs us to do so.”
Anger filled me at his words. “I am not an object to be passed around, Bedivere.”
“You are our king’s wife—that takes precedence over all else—even the gods’ will.”
I could tell that Bedivere was good at keeping his emotions in check. There was nothing in his blank expression that told me how he felt about what he was saying. But as I continued to stare at him, I could tell that there was something deep in his silvery eyes, some kind of emotion I couldn’t quite decipher because I knew almost nothing about the alpha in front of me.
“And that’s how you really feel?”
“It is, your majesty.”
I had started all of this out rejecting the very notion of a pack—it hadn’t ever been in my plans before—but now Bedivere’s wordshurt. My inner omega had gone quiet ever since Gawain had left, but I could feel the rejection deep in the instinctual part of my brain.
I may not have wanted any alphas or any packs, but my instincts had ignored that completely and already claimed them in a way that counted.
“So, you…” I began trying to form my next words carefully. “You don’t want me?”
I cursed inwardly, feeling embarrassed as my inner-thought tumbled so freely out of my mouth and I turned away from him, pressing my chilled hands to my warm face.
The words were as pathetic as they sounded and I just wanted to dunk my head under the water and drown myself like a tragic Shakespearean heroine. But this was notHamletand I was not Ophelia.
“Your majesty,” Bedivere paused for a moment before sighing. “Guinevere, it is not that I do not want you. You are a beautiful woman, that much is clear, but I am not a whole alpha. Even if the fates decree it, I cannot in good conscience allow myself to be with you.”
Hesitantly I turned to find Bedivere crouched on the shore of the creek so that we were nearly eye to eye. He had his single hand perched on the ground next to him, steadying him, while his other—an empty sleeve—was propped on his knee.
“Why do you think you’re not whole?” I asked, frowning at the man. “Because of your hand? I don’t care about that at all.”
Bedivere blinked at me, his face flashing with surprise before it smoothed back to neutral again.
“I cannot protect you, even if I wanted to,” Bedivere said with a shake of his head.
“But the gods—”
“The gods are not always correct, Guinevere. When I was born my mother, who had always been sensitive to the natural world, had dreams of me becoming a great warrior and dying in a great battle serving my king, but I have not seen battle since the day I lost my hand.” He held up his empty sleeve as if to punctuate his words.
I wanted to tell him that hewoulddie in a blaze of glory—or at least he had in most iterations of Arthur’s story. They all had.
But I knew the gods wouldn’t let me tell him anything about his future. Besides, I had decided the day of my wedding to Arthur that there was no way I was letting the future come true anyways so there was no point in mentioning it now.
“I don’t need to be protected,” I began but Bedivere was already standing and offering me his hand.
“Come, your majesty, we will need to get you by the fire to chase away the cold from the water.”
“What happened to calling me Guinevere?” I asked, reluctantly accepting his help and letting him pull me from the creek.
“For that moment we were Bedivere and Guinevere, now we are queen and knight once again, your majesty,” he told me, his words flat as he took in my drenched appearance before sighing. “Lancelot will have a fit if you get sick.”
“He’s not my mother, so he needs to mind his own business,” I told him tartly as we walked back to the campsite.
Bedivere surprised me by letting out a soft chuckle. “No, your majesty, he is most certainly not your mother. That would complicate things more than they already are.”
Chapter Seventeen
“What were you thinking?” Lancelot quietly demanded of Gawain later that night after the embers of the fire had died and our queen was sound asleep in her bedroll.
Lancelot had quickly surmised what had occurred between Guinevere and the younger alpha when they both came back from watering the horses soaking wet.
