Chapter Four
E verything about the outside world was too much after ten long years.
The air on my skin, the sound of wind blowing through the trees, the raucous laughter echoing into the clearing, hells even Arthur’s glare felt as if it could peel the very skin off of my bones as the magic of the gods was pulled from my body and I took a knee in the damp grass.
A wave of dizziness filled me and I felt my shoulder hit the ground before everything went dark.
As I floated through that inky blackness, I thought about how I had come to this moment.
Ten years ago I had been happily living in Arthur’s castle, fiddling with my potions and considering taking on an apprentice in my retirement—or at the very least that was what I had kept telling myself.
A relative peace had befallen the realm after five years of Arthur’s reign. Even the tribal kings seemed to acknowledge my king as their ruler in some capacity, though some were more begrudging about their loyalty than others.
None could deny that Arthur was a good, fair king and the people who lived in his lands were happier and healthier than some of their counterparts in other parts of Logres.
But I had never been able to shake the feeling that there was something else that still needed to happen before Arthur’s story was finished and he could live out his days as the King of Camelot, and eventually, Logres as a whole.
Ever since the gods saw fit to form me out of pieces of the universe, my one goal had been to serve and protect the king that they had chosen. Arthur was important, not only that, he was kind, and just, and good.
I went from quite literally being nothing to something with a purpose formed by the hands of the gods, namely Arianhrod who I supposed was the closest thing I had to a mother—not that she had ever said as much to me. That fact hadn’t been lost on me as I learned how humans lived, that I had an end goal as soon as my bare feet touched the mossy soil just outside of Sir Ector’s homestead.
Most humans struggled to find such things. They were a funny species, fighting amongst themselves in what I viewed as petty squabbles, but the gods never gave me any portents or visions concerning those fights.
No, every vision and view of the future I had ever received had been about the man who was angrily standing in front of me, making it clear he was upset with me for disappearing for ten years.
It truly hadn’t felt that long deep in my cave. When I finally pulled Guinevere through to me, it had only felt like mere months had passed since I had last seen Arthur. Time amongst the gods was strange like that.
At first, stepping out of my cave and onto the stage set before me, it had felt like no time had passed at all and Arthur was still the young king that I had left behind in a flurry all those years ago after the gods recalled me to my cave to do their bidding.
Then I spotted the lines around his blue eyes and the gray hairs in his golden-red beard and I knew right away that things had changed for my king—now an established man amongst his people… I just did not know if they were for the better yet. It occurred to me that I may no longer know Arthur Pendragon at all. At least not this version of him.
As I continued to float, exhausted from the sheer amount of magic it had taken to pull two lifelines at the same time, I dazedly thought about the other string.
Guilt filled me as I thought about the poor soul who had been collateral in my last ditch attempt to finally bring Guinevere into our time—to save us all.
I didn’t know anything about that omega. Who she was, what time she had been pulled to, nor could I connect with her the same way that I had been able to with Juneau or Eleanor.
As consciousness started to return to me, Arthur’s voice calling my name through the darkness, I sent a plaintive prayer up to my gods, begging them to take care of her so that I could focus on the task at hand.
Be well, my child, a faint whisper answered fondly, the same voice I always heard when the gods shared their wishes with me—my de facto mother, Arianrhod, the goddess of destiny, keeper of the silver wheel of fate.
The words seemed to untangle my conflicted soul and bring me back to the present.
I awoke with the gasp, the cool air harsh on my lungs as I pulled it in.
“Are you all right?” Gwen’s voice was much softer than it had been only moments ago when she was arguing with Arthur.
I didn’t have the words to describe how I was feeling. I had been able to ignore it in the chaos of everything, but as soon as things started to calm down in the clearing it had become abundantly clear:
My magic was almost entirely depleted—my magical core which had always been overflowing was now hollow.
Never before had I felt such a queer sensation as being so empty of the very fiber of my being. Not only that, my core felt almost cracked.
I had been formed of magic by Arianrhod, of her very essence, and now that lifeblood was nearly gone from me.
Fear filled me as I continued trying to form the words of my predicament.
“Of course he is not well, omega, he is on the ground,” Arthur said as if Gwen was stupid. I could not see his face from where I was lying on the ground, but his tone was abundantly clear.
I winced, my king was definitely not making a good impression on her.
“I know that . I do have eyes, you know,” her words were sharp and barbed as she threw them at him. “But I was trying to see if he can speak, you absolute brute!”
They were met with a stunned silence from the king and I nearly let out a gasping laugh as she let out a little harrumph. I could almost envision Arthur’s dumbfounded expression at her audacity to speak to him that way.
But I didn’t get the chance to actually laugh because a pair of cool hands cupped my jaw and an altogether different sensation filled me.
I had described Juneau and Eleanor’s magic being sparked within them giving them access to the magical cores that they had always possessed, but feeling it was unlike anything I could ever adequately describe.
My eyes flew open just in time to see the brown in Gwen’s eyes start to glow an unearthly shade of blue.
Then the gaping emptiness in my soul started to fill as I was a dying man trying to slake his thirst. Whatever magic Gwen possessed was calling to mine, drawing it out of its hiding place and grounding me on the earth again.
Then she yanked her hands away with a gasp, the glowing blue fading back to brown again. “How did you do that?”
I sat up with a groan, feeling less like I was going to float away at any moment and more like I had just been run over by a herd of angry deer instead. A marginal improvement. “I did not do anything. You were the one performing that magic, Gwen.”
“Me?” she asked incredulously, holding up her hands. “ How ?”
But I did not have time to explain the intricacies of magic to her right now for, in the distance, I could hear the heavy footfalls of the rest of Arthur’s would-be pack as they approached, just as the gods had shown me in flashes all those years ago that they would.
I wish I could be surprised at who the gods had chosen for Arthur and Gwen, but I was not. It all made utter sense as each member’s face came into view.
Heading up the group was Lancelot who had been a newer addition to the round table at the time of my leaving. He had grown into his solemn dark eyes and the perpetual frown he always seemed to wear.
He had looked sullen as a young knight all those years ago, but he had grown into his looks and I was sure that the maidens would describe him as ‘broody’ rather than sullen now. He was one of Arthur’s best sword fighters then, so it was unsurprising that in the ten years of my absence he had risen in the ranks of the knights who served Arthur.
Flanking Lancelot on either side were Bedivere and young Gawain who I’d never formally met outside of my visions as he had been just a lad living in the kingdom of Lothian upon my exit. As the middle son of King Lot of Lothian and the only child of a lower-noble queen who died promptly while the youth was barely out of infancy, he was an unfortunate and overlooked soul.
Bedivere, however, had been around Arthur almost as long as I had, having grown up in the same village as we had as the son of the blacksmith.
If anyone would have a level-head about any of this, it would be Bedivere. He had been older than us, more like an older brother to Kay, Arthur, and me than just Sir Ector’s most trusted squire.
Time had seemed to have aged him as well—the bright and cheerful visage he once possessed was all but gone now as he frowned at the scene before him, his silver eyes taking in my position on the ground and the two figures knelt on either side of me.
“My king, is all well?” Lancelot called, glancing suspiciously at Gwen and me.
“I do not know,” Arthur answered with surprising honesty, his blue eyes locked on me. Despite his continued anger with me, it was clear that my oldest friend was concerned about me as he held a hand out to help me to my feet.
Hesitantly, I took it and as soon as I was on my feet he offered the same hand to Gwen who glanced at it before ignoring it entirely and standing on her own.
Arthur let out a huff of exasperation, letting his hand drop to his side before he turned to his knights. “Apparently, my men, I am supposed to form something called a pack.”
“A pack?” Gawain asked, his nose scrunching with confusion as he looked over to Bedivere to explain the word to him. “Is that not what the wolves do?”
Bedivere hushed him, but his expression told me that he had the same thought as the younger alpha.
“Merlin was in the midst of his explanation when he took ill, though I am sure he will continue now that he is well again.” All of the earlier worry that he had for me seemed to have evaporated again as he remembered why I had returned in the first place.
I hesitated, trying to find the words. The gods had neglected to give me tact when they formed my person, so I was afraid I would make things worse with my explanation.
“Oh, for goodness sakes,” Gwen muttered under her breath as she stepped up to my elbow and faced the four alphas with a toss of her curly hair. “A pack is one omega and multiple alphas or betas all bonded together.”
Apparently, Gwen also shared my lack of tact because all four heads whipped in her direction, their mouths were agape as they stared at her as if she had grown a second head.
“ Pardon ?” the word rippled out of Arthur’s chest in a guttural growl. His gaze shifted to me and when I didn’t deny her words his face flushed red. “I will not share my omega.”
“And I won’t be anyone’s omega,” Gwen shot back petulantly. “So you don’t have to worry about a damn thing, your majesty .”
As the two began to bicker, their audience’s heads bounced back and forth as they continued to trade barbs with each other.
“Well, my lady , I do not know what sort of future you come from, but here in this time omegas require an alpha’s presence to survive.”
“Oh yeah?” Gwen took a step forward and fearlessly pressed an accusatory finger into the man’s chest. “Well, in my future, you’re—”
Gwen gasped as whatever she had meant to say was trapped in her throat. In her anger with Arthur she seemed to have forgotten the taboo on telling us parts of the future that she knew.
She doubled over with a cough and all of the fight seemed to blow out of Arthur as he reached for her, his angry expression slackening. “Guinevere?”
But Gwen was already straightening and holding her hands out in front of her in order to ward him off. “ Don’t . My body is already not listening to me despite my suppressants, I don’t need you touching me and making it worse.”
A twinge of guilt filled me with her words because I had a hand in causing her current predicament. My magic, when it threaded its way through the universe to grab her, had wiped any impurities from her body—including the pills that many omegas of the future took to ward off their estrus and dull their senses to the world around them.
I had only briefly seen them in Eleanor’s time in Colorado when Clint offered them to her for her heat as soon as she had fallen into his arms from the 1800s.
“I was only trying to assist,” Arthur said, but still he held up his hands and stepped back from her, turning to me again. “Merlin, what could the gods mean by this ‘pack’ business?”
“Omegas are stolen from their beds far too often by rogue alphas and alphas have engaged in territorial disputes over their omegas more often than any of us would care to admit,” Bedivere cut in, surprising everyone in the clearing as we looked to the normally silent alpha. “It is not so bad now thanks to you, my king, but it still does happen. You understand that better than most.”
Arthur flinched away from the other alpha’s words, likely remembering the end his foster-father and mother had faced regardless of Arthur’s ability to protect them.
“Packs are the norm in the future,” Gwen chimed in, seemingly surprised that she’d been able to say the words at all, before her lips pulled up into a wry smile. “Huh, it seems like I can say some things.”
Arthur ignored Gwen’s words before shooting me a plaintive look. “I cannot imagine that I would desire to ever share my omega with any other soul, Merlin, it is against my very nature. Who would you and the gods possibly have me share with?”
This would be the hardest part of all of this. Getting Arthur, who was the epitome of the alpha designation, to accept not only one other alpha into his union with Gwen, but three would be a testament to the fate that the gods had set forth. If it was anything other than that, then I knew it would have been a complete failure.
I glanced over at Gwen who seemed to know what I was about to say next, her brown eyes slanting towards the men standing behind Arthur. They hadn’t been introduced to her yet, but I knew that an omega’s instincts were never wrong.
“You will not have to look far, Arthur,” I began slowly, lifting a hand to gesture to the three alphas. “The men who will be a part of the first ever pack in Logres are already here.”