Release.
The arrow sailed through the air and I thought for certain it would hit its mark… right up until it skidded into the ground just before the hay bale.
Another failure.
My mind was too chaotic to practice, but I did not want to go back into the castle. No, they were there.
It had been two weeks since Arthur summoned us to his study. Two weeks since I had been avoiding them. My so-called-pack.
I could not bear to watch them come together in secret when I refused to allow myself to do the same.
Every moment I briefly considered it, thinking about the purse of Guinevere’s full lips or the way her hair seemed to sway down the small of her back as she walked, my father’s words pushed me away again.
Alphas who are victims to their instincts are no better than animals,he had said as he brought a switch across my back for daring to growl at him after my alpha designation awakened when I was a youth.
The voice of my inner-alpha had gone blessedly quiet after that—or so I had thought.
Now it was roaring to the surface with a vigor that scared me and that tenuous control that I had always maintained was close to snapping forever.
Frustrated, I snagged another arrow, nocked it, and sent it flying. This time it made it into the middle of the target and the roiling feeling in my stomach calmed.
Then I heard her voice behind me.
“Can you teach me how to do that?”
I jerked around to face her—the woman who had been taunting my every waking moment and every single dream in my sleep—and snarled.
“Do not sneak up on a man with a weapon,” I told her harshly, watching her flinch back away from me with wide brown eyes.
My inner-alpha protested at the rough treatment of the omega, of our omega, but I ignored it just as I always had.
“Lancelot!” Gawain snapped with more ferocity than I had ever heard from the other usually amiable alpha.
Realization that I had just shouted at a queen rippled through me and I bent at the waist into a bow. “My apologies, your majesty, I did not realize it was you.”
There was a beat of silence that stretched agonizingly between us. Guinevere cleared her throat, waiting for me to straighten and look at her before she spoke again.
“You can make it up to me by teaching me how to shoot that,” she said, pointing at the bow still clutched in my hand.
“I can teach you, Gwen,” Gawain offered sweetly, a soft smile on his face as he practically bounced to her side. “I am almost as good a shot as he is.”
Guinevere’s expression was fond, her cheeks filling with a warmth that sent a shock of envy coursing through me.
“I’m sure, Gawain, but I would like Lancelot to do it. You already said you would teach me how to play the lute, right?”
Gawain deflated slightly, but nodded.
Guinevere reached out to give the man’s hand a pat. “Can you give us a few minutes?”
Gawain nodded again before walking far enough away that he could no longer hear us, but not far enough that he could not keep a watchful eye on the omega standing in front of me.
“I see he has already begun his courtship of you then?” I asked, failing to keep the sour note from my voice.
Guinevere’s dark brows drew together as she frowned at me, crossing her arms over her chest as she observed my stiff stance with a keen eye. “Yes he has, but we are taking things more slowly than Arthur would like.”
I snorted at that. If Arthur had his way he would have had us bed her, bond her, and be done with it—or that was how it had seemed that day in his study.
“I will not court you, your majesty,” I told her honestly, guilt seeping in when I watched her flinch slightly from the passion in my words. “I cannot. It goes against every vow I took to serve my lord.”
