“Have you gone mad?” Lancelot’s voice was sharp as his expression turned thunderous.
“Watch yourself, Lancelot,” Bedivere warned with a growl.
Lancelot rounded on the older alpha. “And you are accepting of this? Thissharingof an omega?”
“It does not matter what I think,” Bedivere replied, his silver eyes pinning Lancelot in place. “This is what the gods have fated and our king has ordered.”
“And what I have dreamt,” Arthur finished for Bedivere gravely, finally looking us in the face. I half-expected to find anger in the depths of the king’s eyes, but all I found was an odd sort of acceptance that sat oddly in my chest.
“You have had another dream?” Lancelot asked, all of the fight seeming to drain out of him as he sank down into one of the plush armchairs and scrubbed a hand over his face.
Arthur nodded. “I have.”
We all knew the meaning behind such a thing. While Merlin’s visions from the gods were all based around misty, mysterious fate, Arthur’s were based around a solid future.
“What was in it?” I asked, curious despite myself.
Arthur’s expression hardened and he shook his head once, his shoulders stiffening. “I dare not say it out loud.”
It must have been a terrible dream for Arthur to be so quiet.
“But I must tell you that it is imperative that we come together as a pack—not just for Guinevere’s sake but also for everything we have built here in Camelot.”
“How can so much of our future hinge on one woman?” Lancelot cut in, his dark eyes bouncing between the three other alphas in the room.
“Because,” a voice came from the door. “Guinevere is an omega out of time—her very existence is the root of so many other lifelines that if we do not, we will all fall.”
I jumped to find Merlin entering the study, his deep blue tunic and robes whipping behind him as if by some unnatural force because there was no breeze in the room.
He looked stronger than he had the day that they had returned from their journey from Cameliard. His skin no longer looked sallow, nor were there the same deep circles underneath his eyes.
Even his eyes seemed to glow with a renewed unearthly light that was brighter than I could ever remember seeing it before during the few times I had seen him before he disappeared.
“Where is my wife?” Arthur asked, moving to stand.
Merlin waved a hand and the door shut behind him with athud. “She is with Lady Andrivete bathing after our lesson.”
Arthur’s expression brightened a bit and he leaned back in his seat. “How is her magic coming along?”
I froze at the reveal of that information—information that he had purposefully shared with us to gauge our reaction. Lancelot seemed to be just as surprised as I was, though Bedivere seemed unfazed as always so I could not tell what he was thinking.
“Then Iwascorrect in thinking that all of the rain around her was odd,” Lancelot gasped before glaring at Bedivere. “You had me believing myself to be insane.”
Bedivere shrugged one shoulder, the corner of his mouth pulling up into a wry smile. “She is not of this time, Lancelot, Ifeel as if it should be quite obvious that she should possess some sort of magical ability.”
“I take it we are finally giving in to the pack then?” Merlin asked with a satisfied huff as he approached Arthur’s desk. “Excellent, what brought this change on then, Arthur?”
“I had a dream,” Arthur answered, making the wizard fumble his steps as he stared at the king with wide green eyes.
Merlin glanced over his shoulder at me and then to Lancelot before leaning over to whisper something to Arthur that I could not hear.
Then he straightened, his expression bright again. “So, who will be courting our lovely queen first?”
“This is an episode of theBachelorette,” Guinevere said as she stood with her hands on her hips and glared at the five of us. “I can’t just go on dates and,whoops, suddenly a pack forms.”
“Dates?” I asked.
“Bachelorette?” Bedivere asked at the same time.
