“Even if he orders you to?” she asked, turning away to hide the hurt in her eyes as she glanced down the range.
A ragged sigh left me as I shrugged. “Why do you even want me? I have done nothing but avoid you, your majesty.”
I hurried to add that last bit so as not to sound completely disrespectful.
“I noticed,” Guinevere said dryly, tugging at the golden threads on her deep brown dress before reaching up to tap the tip of her nose. “But I can’t help it and you know that as well as I do. You are one of my scent-matches.”
I did. With her standing as close as she was, her sweet, floral perfume seemed to waft off of her in waves that beckoned me to come closer and get a better smell. But I could not. “I may feel that way about your scent, your majesty, but should we not move past our baser instincts?”
Guinevere shrugged. “I thought so too—at first.”
When I was small, the steward of my father’s castle had taken me out in his boat onto the wide river that lined our lands and taught me how to use a fishing rod. He had meant it as an act of peace amongst the cacophony that was my daily life, but I had always found the practice frustrating and dull. At least, Ihaduntil one day when I hooked an especially large trout. I had never truly felt exhilaration until that moment and the gleam of pride in the steward’s eyes had solidified the memory for me forever.
Now Guinevere was baiting me as if I were that fish, tugging on the more curious part of me to ask her what she meant by her words, urging me to give in to her sweet scent and beautiful face.
I sent a quick prayer of thanks to the gods that I was a man and not a fish and I turned away from her.
“You don’t want to know why I changed my mind?” Guinevere asked, sounding surprised.
“I do not,” I told her pertly as I began to practice again, withdrawing an arrow from my quiver and hoping against all hopes that she would just go away and stop her blasted temptation.
I heard a very feminine huff from behind me before I released the arrow, smiling with satisfaction as it hit right where I had been aiming.
Continuing to ignore the omega, I grabbed another arrow.
On the third arrow I heard her speak again, so softly that I worried I had imagined it. “You smell like bergamot.”
I froze. There it was again, the hook for a fish held out by the clever fisherman.
And maybe I was no better than the fish because I let the bow drop to my side before I shot her a glance over my shoulder. “What does bergamot smell like?”
“Like lemons and oranges—do you know what those are? They’re citrus fruits.” Guinevere asked and suddenly she was atmy elbow, her brown curls brushing past my arm as she stared down the range at my impaled target.
“I know of neither of those, your majesty, but we have something called citron—does that suffice?” I finally answered after a moment, thinking of the trees that grew around my father’s castle. Their scent was tart—sour—so if that was what Guinevere said I smelled akin to I was not certain that it was a good thing.
Guinevere thought about my words for a moment before giving me a slight shrug. “Maybe, I would have to see one. But your scent is citrusy and just a little bit woodsy.”
“Woodsy?”
“Mhm, like if I was to go and stand in the middle of the woods over there and peel one of those citron fruits you mentioned. That’s bergamot.”
Her words painted a vivid picture in my mind and I found my face warming despite my determination to keep myself impassive when it came to this omega.
Guinevere rounded to my front, blocking me from continuing my target practice, and tilted her chin up so that she could look me in the eye. “What do I smell like to you?”
The few days that she rode in front of me on my horse had given me much time to think about such things.
If I closed my eyes and attempted to imagine where in the world I had experienced her scent before then it would most certainly be the cliffs just to the west of Arthur’s territory.
There, bright pink honeysuckle tumbled down the rockface, the scent of it brought up with the crash of ocean waves.
That was what Guinevere smelled like to me. Wild and unpredictable.
But I did not tell her any of that, no, the only words that came out of my mouth sounded about as poetic as an epitaph on a gravestone. “You smell of flowers.”
Guinevere’s dark brows rose. “Just flowers?”
“Just flowers,” I confirmed, feeling guilt creeping in. “Now, may I return to my practice?”
