Chapter Eight
I t was my wedding day.
Holy shit it was my wedding day.
That same thought kept cycling in my mind as the maids, who had me perched on an uncomfortable stool, wove flowers and freshwater pearls into my hair.
“Your highness,” one of the maids—I was pretty sure her name was Brenna—murmured as she gently tied the strings of the pale gown that would serve as my wedding dress on my shoulders. “Are you well? You seem out of sorts…”
I was out of sorts. It had only been five days since I touched that stupid sword in that stupid exhibit and now I was preparing for my wedding to a mythical figure.
Historical figure, I quickly amended in my head. There was nothing mythical about the alpha who strode around this place like he owned it—which I supposed he did own it.
The king of kings is what all of the legends and iterations had called him.
And I was about to marry him. God, I needed to stop before I started to hyperventilate again.
By day three in this time I’d finally come to terms with the fact that this was, in fact, happening and I was not, in fact, lying in a hospital bed mid-coma.
Somehow, some way, I was the Guinevere from those very same stories that my mother used to tell me before bedtime and it was suddenly my job to bring Arthur and his pack together, and according to Merlin, save the entire damned world.
No fucking pressure, right?
Merlin had also made himself scarce to me over the past few days—probably knowing I wanted to talk to him about everything and not wanting to give me the answers I needed yet. Every single time I caught sight of him in the castle his green eyes grew wide and he slipped away before I could catch up to him.
The Merlin from my mother’s stories had been brave, strong, and mysterious, but right now I was pretty sure this Merlin was just a coward.
“Your highness?” Brenna asked again, prodding for an answer from me.
Apparently, Brenna had been with me for years and I couldn’t help but notice all of the similarities between her and Trini, my friend from the future.
They had the same bright red hair, though Brenna kept hers braided and pinned closely to her head. Their eyes and noses were also similarly shaped, though just different enough that I knew they were two different people.
But looking at Brenna now, I realized she and Trini could be sisters if they lived in the same time.
“I’m fine,” I told her quickly, straightening my spine and shaking away all of my panicked thoughts. “Is it time?”
Brenna nodded as the other maids looped a long string of the same freshwater pearls from my hair around my neck three times, creating a stacked look. It was far simpler than the burnished gold pendants that were in the drawers in my chambers, but apparently the pearls were one of Carmeliad’s biggest exports and represented my new kingdom in ways that I wasn’t sure if I would ever understand.
I stared into the polished metal mirror perched on the dressing table in front of me and the slightly distorted image showed a nervous, but beautiful bride that I hardly recognized.
As always, I was surprised at how much they were capable of doing in this century.
I wasn’t sure what they were using to rouge my cheeks or make my lips shine (and frankly I probably didn’t want to know), but now as I accepted Brenna’s hand to help me stand, I smiled at her. “Thank you, Brenna, you did a wonderful job.”
Brenna’s blue eyes widened at the praise. It was clear she wasn’t used to being complimented for her work and I made a note to do it more often as she was supposed to come with me when we left for Camelot. “Of course, your highness.”
There came a knock at the door and one of the maids opened it to reveal a surprising figure.
Sir Bedivere stood in the doorway, left hand resting on the pommel of a sword at his hip.
“Your highness,” he bowed. “I have been ordered to escort you to the wedding.”
Surprise filled me as I stared up at the man. I wasn’t sure just how much older he was than Arthur, but his long nose was framed by a pair of silver-gray eyes that had lines in the corner from what I could only assume were frown lines as I’d never actually seen the man smile. Also, his dark hair that he wore scraped away from his face was streaked with a pale silver that made him seem more severe as we stared at one another.
But, even still, he was handsome. Anyone with eyes could see it. Just the sight of the alpha sent the maids in the room whispering as they fluttered eyelashes in his direction, their cheeks flushing prettily in a way that made the quiet little presence of my inner-omega in my head stir with irritation.
“He did?” the question rippled out of my mouth before I could catch it, my words full of the shock I was feeling.
After that night in the corridor, I had only spoken with Arthur a handful of times at dinner, but the other three alphas that were meant to be a part of the pack that Merlin spoke of had given me a wide berth—practically avoiding me as much as Merlin had been.
I assumed it was due to Arthur, but now he was suddenly asking Bedivere to escort me to our wedding?
“He did,” Bedivere confirmed, his silvery eyes taking in what I was wearing before he glanced up at my face and offered me the crook of his arm.
I took it silently, trying to gauge the man’s emotions but utterly failing. There was nothing. No twitch of his lips or furrow of his brow to tell me what he was feeling, and frankly, it was a bit off-putting.
But while I could not tell what he was thinking, I could smell his scent. It was the first time I was close enough to him to catch a whiff of it and I blinked up at him a bit dazedly as it danced across my senses. Where Arthur’s scent had been sweet and spicy, like a mix of cinnamon and cloves, Bedivere’s was much more natural. It was like the smell of freshly chopped wood, smooth and warm. Sandalwood , I remembered, thinking of my favorite candle back in my flat.
There was nothing more comforting than coming home after a long day and lighting the wood wick candle before sitting with a cup of tea and now the man next to me smelled just like it and I found that it actually soothed my frayed nerves.
I leaned in closer for a better sniff but paused when he stiffened, my face flushing with warmth as I forced myself to straighten and look ahead even though I still wanted to smell him.
The castle was quiet as we walked through the decorated corridors, and aside from the occasional servant running around getting everything prepared for the feast later on, no one was around.
All of the guests who had remained after the night I’d fallen, quite literally, into the 6th century equivalent of an episode of the Bachelor were now outside waiting for the bride to appear for the most hastily thrown together wedding in years—or at least I assumed so. I was pretty sure everybody in this time got married quickly. It was like I was living in a perpetual episode of 90-Day Pack with no way out.
About halfway through the walk through the castle the awkward silence that was hanging between us finally got the better of me and I turned to stare at Bedivere’s profile. “You are one of Arthur’s knights, yes?”
I’d heard his name before when my mother told me the story of King Arthur as a child, but the information was fuzzy after so long that I wasn’t sure what sort of role he played other than one of Arthur’s packmates.
And one of my future alphas, my brain reminded me unhelpfully and almost gleefully.
The subject of the three other men that had been there that night hadn’t come up since my conversation with Arthur that night, and now as I glanced over at the taller, incredibly stoic alpha I wasn’t sure how to even bring something like that up to him.
It also didn’t help that he was currently escorting me to my wedding to his king.
But Bedivere shook his head, unaware of the distracted trainwreck of my thoughts. “I am not a knight any longer, your highness,” he told me, his voice soft.
“Why not?” I asked, surprised. I’d figured that most of Arthur’s closest advisors were his knights. Hence the name Knights of the Round Table and all that jazz, it sort-of felt like a prerequisite.
Bedivere’s neutral expression pinched slightly, his dark brows drawing together. “It is because knights must have two hands, your highness.”
I froze as Bedivere held up his other arm, showing the empty sleeve. How had I not noticed that before?
“Oh my!” The words came out in an exhalation. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t see...”
Bedivere shrugged, his expression melting back into the neutral mask he’d been wearing when he came into my bedchamber earlier. “Do not worry yourself over much. It has been five years since I lost it, and it is an old wound.”
Losing a hand didn’t seem like something that could ever be considered an old wound, but I’d already put my foot in my mouth enough during our very short interaction that I didn’t want to say anything else.
And luckily I was saved before I had to.
King Leodegrance was standing in the doorway that led out onto the grounds dressed in the most opulent clothing that I’d ever seen him in. It was a pale brown doublet with freshwater pearls sewn into the breast and it wasn’t lost on me that we were matching.
“My dear Guinevere!” the man gushed, his eyes bright with unshed tears as he held out a hand to me.
I glanced over at Bedivere one last time before reaching out and sliding my fingers into his.
“You are as beautiful as the spring itself!” Leodegrance said, turning and ignoring Bedivere’s presence entirely as he led me outside onto the grounds. I still didn’t know how to feel about the man who seemed to dote on me like I was his own daughter.
He was kind, funny, and incredibly patient with me even though the daughter he seemed to remember felt very different from who I was. He was the sort of man my mother had always talked about finding. She’d called it her ‘unicorn ,’ the sort of man that didn’t exist in the world, so she vowed to remain single until she had found him.
I wasn’t sure what the painting in the corridor meant, whether it was something false conjured up by the gods to create a backstory for me or if someone who looked just like my mom and was named just like my mom had been married to this man—and happily so according to everyone.
Magic was confusing and I wished I’d had a chance to talk to Merlin about it and I vowed to hunt the wizard down at the first chance I could get.
As we neared the area that had been chosen for the wedding, the lake sparkled in the distance like the prettiest backdrop of a painting. In front of the lake stood a crowd of people around an archway decorated with the same flowers that had been woven into my hair.
I didn’t say anything as Leodegrance continued to chatter, my eyes locked on what we were walking towards.
My stomach started to flip with each step that we took closer to the fate which, only a few short days ago, I thought was just some myth in the books my mother loved so much.
As if he was reading my mind, Leodegrance slanted an affectionate look in my direction. “Your mother would have been so pleased to see this day finally come.”
At his words, my feet caught on the skirts of my dress, nearly causing me to trip as Leodegrance’s grip on my arm tightened in order to keep me standing.
“Tell me about her?” I asked as the crowd turned to look at us. “Something? Anything?”
The maids had mentioned offhandedly that the queen had died when I—or at least the other version of me—was small and that I wouldn’t remember her even though the woman with the same face as the one in the painting had lived with me in the future until her death.
The corners of Leodegrance’s eyes crinkled in pain as he smiled. “If you asked your grandmother, she would tell you I had invited a hellion into my bed when I picked Adelaide out of all of the other omegas she presented to me. She was so… vivacious . Life seemed to swell from her in a way that I had never witnessed before and I was drawn in immediately.”
He said the words almost reverently as his eyes held a faraway look, like he was there in his memories. “She used to be able to ride with the best of my men—hells better than me even and you know how much I enjoy a ride.”
I nodded even though I didn’t know. I didn’t really know anything about the man who called himself my father other than that we looked similar and both seemed to love the same woman… though I still wasn’t sure how it all worked yet.
“She would also get this look in her eye at times,” Leodegrance continued. “I swear it would send my mother into a conniption trying to prevent whatever trouble Adelaide was going to get herself into.”
His laughter was rough as he shook off the ghostly threads of a memory that felt far too similar to the memory of my own mother. My own Adelaide.
“You were so small when she left us, my daughter, and she smiled up at me as the sickness finally took her and told me what an odd thing life was. To be so happy and to have it cut so violently short.”
My steps slowed before I halted, forcing him to stop with me. “She said that? That life was an odd thing?”
Leodegrance nodded, a half-smile on his lips. “I was so very angry at the gods for taking her away from us when our life felt as if it had barely yet to begin. But Adelaide was having none of my tears. She took me by hand and pulled me in close and whispered that life was an odd thing and that sometimes—”
“One end just means a new beginning,” I finished for him, a shiver running down my spine as the same voice from before seemed to whisper the words to me on the wind.
Leodegrance blinked at me with surprise, his brown eyes widening. “That is exactly what she said. How can you remember such a thing? You were but a babe!”
I didn’t have the words to explain that my mother had said the same things to me when she died only a year ago—not when I was a small child.
Whispers from the crowd filled my ears making me remember where we were and what we were doing.
Leodegrance’s lips pulled down into a frown, like he wanted to keep me here and ask me just how I knew my mother’s dying words, but then he glanced up at the waiting wedding guests and finally let out a heavy sigh.
“Shall we?” he asked, giving the hand tucked into the crook of his arm a pat.
I nodded, my mouth suddenly dry as the reality of what I was about to do hit me like a hammer.
The crowd seemed to part like the red sea as we approached and at the end of all of the staring faces was Arthur, his expression calm and confident—a harsh contrast to what I was sure was pale horror on my own face.
If I thought his clothing had been opulent the night of my arrival, it had nothing on the deep red tunic with ornate gold embroidery along the edges of the hem and neckline. The man exuded royalty in a way that made all those around him seem to look and feel smaller in comparison.
Each step that brought me closer to the alpha made my heart thud in my chest like the gong of a bell.
As panic filled me a light rain began to fall overhead, causing the people to murmur and glance up at the otherwise blue sky. The coolness of it did little to calm my frayed nerves and Leodegrance pulled the cape of the mantle he was wearing over my hair to keep my flower crown from getting drenched by the rainfall.
“Odd,” he muttered as we drew closer, his eyes shifting briefly upwards. “Not a cloud above us and yet it is raining?”
“A blessing from the gods!” a familiar voice crowed from behind Arthur as the much larger alpha stepped out of the way to reveal the officiant of the wedding to be none other than Merlin.
The crowd began to clap as they continued to stare up at the falling droplets of water that seemed to sparkle in the afternoon sunlight.
Then we were directly in front of Arthur and he was offering his hand to me. Everything seemed to come crashing down on me all at once as his warm fingers wrapped my own clammy ones and he gave them a comforting squeeze.
“Be at peace,” he murmured, his voice a soft purr as he examined my face with concern.
I tried to school my features and failed utterly as the ceremony began with a flourish.
“We gather here in front of the life of the valley to witness this union blessed by the gods,” Merlin began, his voice seeming to bounce off of the hills in the distance—like the entire world was ringing with his words.
Merlin began to tie brightly colored cords around our joined hands—there were four different colors: blue, green, red, and white, which were the symbols of tying our fate together and what I assumed were the four elements as I remember exactly how this story was supposed to end.
I had been putting off thinking about Arthur’s end for days, trying in vain to tell myself that those legends had been changed and twisted to suit whoever was telling them for hundreds of years, so it couldn’t possibly happen here, right?
However, there was just one thing that never seemed to change with every iteration and retelling.
At the end of Arthur’s story, Arthur and the rest of his pack would die in a blaze of glory leaving Queen Guinevere all by herself to mourn for the rest of her days.
Which would be fine if this was all some kind of story in a book. But no, they weren’t going to just leave Queen Guinevere the fake mythical figure. I was Guinevere now and I was so afraid to let myself actually like any of them because at the end of this story they were supposed to die and leave me behind.
And I didn’t even know how to stop it.