He had made a single comment to Guinevere who had shut it down with that sharp tongue of hers before ignoring every soul at the fire save for little Henry for the rest of the night.
Gawain, however, would not be able to ignore Lancelot in the same way.
“I do not know,” the younger alpha said, putting his head into his hands. “It felt so…”
I watched as he trailed off, his cheeks filling with color again.
Lancelot made a disgusted noise as he shook his head. “It does not matter how itfeltGawain, our king could have you beheaded for such an action. That omega sleeping on the other side of the fire is hiswife.”
“But—” Gawain began, clearly about to repeat the nonsense about packs that Merlin seemed hell-bent on forming with us as his fodder. It did not matter to the wizard whether Arthur killed us all if he was so pleased to do so for stepping into his territory. Nay, he seemed stuck on the notion that we would become thispackand protect Guinevere together.
I looked down at my stump before scoffing. I was not able to protect myself, let alone any other living being.
“You were in the wrong, pup,” I told him more harshly than I had intended to. “As long as we are protecting her, she is our queen. You will not approach her again with such intentions until you are explicitly told by his majesty that you are allowed to do so.”
Gawain crossed his arms over his chest stubbornly and looked in Guinevere’s direction. “She did not seem upset about it.”
“Sheis ‘her majesty,’ and it does not matter how she feels about it,” Lancelot said, his voice harsh. “And she will ride with me for the rest of our journey.”
Gawain opened his mouth in shock, his eyes squinting with anger before he stood up from the ground and stomped off into the forest, leaving Lancelot and me behind.
Lancelot sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face as he shook his head before looking over at me, his dark eyes seeming to try to gauge my expression. “Do you believe I am wrong, Sir Bedivere?”
“I believe that you are doing what needs to be done to return her majesty safely to our king,” I told him slowly, measuring my words. “But I also cannot fault the lad for being drawn in by hermajesty. She is unlike anything that we have ever seen in our time.”
Although Lancelot was the most stubborn man I had ever met, even I had been able to see how his eyes followed the omega queen as she moved around the campsite, or how he was almost envious every morning when she chose to ride with myself or Gawain instead of him.
They had argued but it was more like two flames meeting for the first time—a large blaze burning everything and everyone around them—rather than any true animosity.
Just as Gawain desired Guinevere—it was clear to me, who was older than both of them, that Lancelot too wanted to be caught in her pull.
And despite my earlier words to her… I too yearned for even a fraction of her. Much like the flowers my mother used to grow in her little garden that followed the light of day, I too desired to turn my face into Guinevere’s sun and bask in the light.
I hardly knew anything about the omega, but her scent danced through my dreams at night like a specter haunting me.
It would never come to fruition—it could not—but seeing her standing alone in the creek earlier with her dress clinging to curves that I had been so studiously ignoring had tested even my patience.
“It will not end well, Bedivere,” Lancelot finally said quietly, his expression pensive. “Mark my words.”
Later, long after Gawain had returned and silently gone to his bedroll and even Lancelot had leaned his head back to rest his eyes, I sat staring at the near-dead fire.
Deep in my soul I felt as if something had shifted tonight and I knew things would continue to shift until whatever future that Merlin had prophesied came true.
I just wished I was better prepared to face such a thing.
Staring down at my sheathed sword, I lifted it up in my much weaker left hand, flexing my wrist until the sword began to wobble and it toppled to the ground with a soft thud.
Never before had I considered what I was thinking of now, but if fate was going to march forward without any consideration for me or any of the other people involved in this matter, perhaps it was finally time to put down my welding mallet and step back into battle.
I just needed to decide whether this battle to come would be one of wills or a fight to the death.
“I don’t want to ride with you anymore,” Guinevere told Lancelot as she glared over her shoulder at the man.
They had spent the morning bickering ever since the alpha had directed her to his horse rather than mine or Gawain’s.
“I fear the feeling is mutual, your majesty,” Gawain told her dryly as our horses climbed the grassy hill that was the last obstacle in our way to Camelot. “But you will be pleased to know that we are very close to home.”
Guinevere’s warm brown eyes widened as we reached the crest of the hill and Camelot lay in front of us.
