Chapter Thirty-Two
M y hammer sent sparks flying up around me as I brought it down on the glowing red piece of metal on the anvil in front of me.
After our talk with Guinevere yesterday I had stolen away into my workshop to untangle my thoughts.
She had said fate was overrated—as if it meant nothing—and it should have made me feel uncomfortable or sad, but instead it filled me with a warmth that I did not know was possible.
It was as if she was choosing us over the fate set forth with a determination that made even me blush when I thought about the way her lips had felt against mine.
Arthur had called us all together after Guinevere had gone to bed and made each of us tell him what had happened in Merlin’s rectory, his face impassive until we told him about her kisses.
The alpha had then just chuckled and muttered something under his breath about his daring little wife.
He accepted us in that moment—even Merlin who seemed surprised by the king’s willingness to allow him to court his omega despite his oddities.
It all seemed to be coming together with ease. So, why was I feeling so damned anxious?
I had awoken from a dead sleep in the middle of the night with the urge to climb up on top of the wall and stare out at the plains surrounding the castle and the massive lake that shone under the light of the full moon.
All was calm and quiet. Even the night watch seemed to be relaxed more than usual, playing cards despite being forbidden to do so by Arthur.
They had hopped to attention upon seeing me, but I knew deep in my soul that they would be playing again as soon as I left.
Making a mental note to speak with Arthur about it, I had gone back to bed and slept fitfully for the rest of the night, too many choices to make set out in front of me and as many worries to match.
After sending a squire to deliver my message to the king, I had spent the rest of the afternoon working on the projects that I had been putting off ever since Guinevere came to Camelot.
While I favored bladesmithing the most, most of my tasks had to do with things around the castle. New door handles and hinges for the wing that was being refurbished, fresh horseshoes for the stable, and nails. So many nails.
My entire back table was covered in nail molds as they would be used for the new cottages going up on the edge of the village for our newest refugee residents who had filtered in from the village razing a month ago.
Finally, after all of my usual work was done, I was able to work on something that had come to mind yesterday when Guinevere was snapping at us in a way that made me want to kiss the frown right off of her lips.
She had shown interest in a bow and arrow—though I was uncertain of her talent with such things—but what she really needed was a way to protect herself if an enemy got too close.
Moving the cooling piece of metal back amongst the coals in my forge, I readied myself for another round of hammering.
I had refashioned nearly every tool in this workshop to work with my lack of a second hand.
Typically, one would hold the molten piece of metal with a set of tongs in one hand whilst hammering the metal with the other, but I had no second hand.
Instead, I created a longer set of tongs and fashioned a pair of vertical pads on either side.
Once the metal was ready, I used the tongs to settle the metal over the anvil before pressing the pads between my legs to hold it in place and allow me to hammer the metal into my desired shape. Then I would put the hammer aside so that I could flip the metal and repeat the process until it cooled and would need to be put back on the coals once again.
It took much longer and required more firings of the metal, but I had perfected it in the years since I lost my hand and many of the knights still commissioned their own swords from me.
I could make the most well-balanced blade on this side of Logres—even if I could no longer fight with it.
My gaze stayed on the hot piece of metal as I imagined the small blade that I would create from it.
Guinevere would need something small enough to conceal in the belt band of her dress. The handle would need to be delicate and ornate to match her beautiful looks.
I also had a plan for the blade itself. If I closed my eyes, I could see the ripple of waves that I would etch into the side in order to match her unique brand of magic.
It would be a blade fit for a queen and a courting gift to show her that I indeed wished to be her alpha.
From the moment her lips touched mine, there was no other option than to become hers. If I did not, I feared I would end up throwing myself off of the cliffs in the west in an effort to make myself forget her completely.
Once the metal was my desired thickness I began to form the tip of the blade, thinking of all of the handles I had carved and fashioned that may work for Guinevere’s hands.
Hours later I sat polishing the new blade and its white oak handle that would fit in Guinevere’s slender hands perfectly, holding it up in the dim light and turning it one way and then the other to see how it gleamed.
It was perfect. Now all that was to be done was to give it to her.
As I reentered the courtyard, I realized I would not have to look far for the queen as she was just getting off of her horse with the help of Gawain.
“Did you go for a ride, your majesty?” I asked, making her jump and whirl around to face me.
Guinevere nodded, her cheeks flushed from the cool early evening air. “Just a short one—Sir Gawain has been teaching me how to handle Monet here without landing on my backside in the dirt.”
At the sound of her name, the beautiful spotted mare lipped at the heavy cape Guinevere was wearing, staring at the woman with an affection I was sure would be reflected in my own eyes. Everyone around Guinevere could not help but love her.
Gawain’s smile was soft as he gripped both the reins of his horse and the overly attentive mare’s, his gaze shifted from the queen over to me. “Did you need her majesty for something, Sir Bedivere?”
Out of every soul that lived in this castle, I had never met someone as observant as Gawain of Lothian. In every situation, the man’s blue eyes could be seen shifting back and forth, watching everything and storing the information away for later.
“I do—I figured now would be a good time to take her up on her offer to help me in my workshop.”
Guinevere’s brown eyes widened with surprise as she pulled off her leather gloves, turning to whisper something in Gawain’s ear. The other alpha nodded, taking her gloves and heading for the stables with both horses in tow.
“Are you sure?” Guinevere asked, her tone heavy with meaning. It was clear that this would be more than just her assistance and we both knew it.
I nodded resolutely, though I feared my heart was only moments away from beating out of my chest. “I am.”
Guinevere nodded before she tucked her hand into my elbow. “Well, then lead the way.”
My workshop was dim when we entered, the smell of coal and burning metal filling the air.
All of my projects for the day lay out on my tables, neatly organized, and Guinevere rushed ahead of me to examine them all.
“You did all of this today?” she asked, reaching out for a horseshoe but pausing, seeming to remember the last time she had been in my workshop and how it had ended. “May I touch?”
I nodded silently, watching as she picked up one of the horseshoes and held it up to the light. “It’s so smooth.”
“It takes a firm hand to get it just right for the horse,” I explained, reaching for another one and holding it up. It was considerably bigger than hers. “This is for the king’s stallion, Llamarei, while the one you are holding is for your mare.”
“For Monet?” she asked, sounding surprised. “Does she even need a horseshoe if she won’t be going out much?”
I nodded. “It protects all horse’s hooves regardless of how much they are ridden.”
“I see.” She put the horseshoe down and moved on to the ornate door handles that had taken me far too much time to form. “And these?”
“Are for the wing of the castle that is being refurbished—his majesty would like to have guests come next spring, but there will need to be more rooms completed to do so.”
“Guests? For what?”
“Imbolc,” I told her, picking up the door handle and putting it in her hand so she could feel it. “It is a festival during the spring right before growing season and his majesty’s favorite ever since we were boys. You just missed it by the time you came.”
“What does one do at Imbolc?” she asked, her mouth forming the new word as if she was tasting it.
I shrugged. “We dance around fires, plant new seeds, cleanse our homes, and pray for a year of growth.”
“Did you like it? When you were growing up, I mean.”
I thought about it for a moment, remembering when times were much more simple in our little village. My mother and father would always close down the shop in order to help prepare the grand feast that everyone came together to eat and then they would dance together late into the night around the huge bonfire that was set in the middle of the village.
It had made me happy to watch back then before life grew increasingly complicated with every passing year. I had wanted what they had—a romance to speak of fondly to my own children one day.
But that village no longer existed and our Imbolc celebrations were much larger than that modest affair had been.
Truthfully, I stayed in on those nights when the rest of Camelot celebrated raucously. It did not seem right to go out and celebrate when many still looked at me with pitying eyes.
“Bedivere?” Guinevere prodded, giving my arm a little squeeze.
I jerked out of my thoughts of the past, shaking them away as if they were lingering cobwebs. “I enjoyed the celebrations very much.”
“And did you dance?” Guinevere asked, setting down the door handle.
“At times,” I said, suddenly nervous. It had been many years since I had danced to anything. “I fear it is not one of my talents.”
Dainty, dark brows lifted as a slow, mischievous smile spread across Guinevere’s features. “So you’re saying you wouldn’t dance with me if I asked?”
My mouth felt dry as I answered her. “I would do anything you asked of me, Guinevere.”
Her smile slackened to shock as we stared at one another, the truth of my words hanging in between us.
I cupped her face in my hand, feeling the way her heartbeat thrummed under my fingertips, and pulled her up for a kiss.
Her lips opened in a gasp, her tongue sliding along mine as she stumbled back a bit into the table, sending several of the pieces clattering to the ground.
“Oh shit!” she squeaked, pulling away for a moment to look at the damage. “I’m sorry!”
I ignored her apologies and instead pulled her with me up the two steps that led to my bed.
“Are you trying to make sure I don’t break anything else?” Guinevere asked pertly, her brown eyes dancing as she reached forward and gave my chest a small shove, her request for me clear.
I plopped down onto the edge of the bed, suddenly glad I had resisted the urge to be slovenly this morning and had made it up neatly. Somehow, in the back of my mind, I had known this night would end as such. It was as if I had been waiting for this moment ever since she had fallen into Arthur’s arms.
“You could melt down every one of my pieces and pour them over my head and I would thank you gladly,” I told her, the words tumbling off of my lips faster than my mind could catch up with them.
“ Bedivere !” Guinevere gasped with a shocked laugh. “What has gotten into you? My solemn knight is suddenly very talkative.”
I shrugged, inhaling her honeysuckle scent—sweetened with her arousal—deep into my body. “I have never had much to say before.”
Guinevere pushed in between my legs, spreading them around her thighs as she toyed with the knots that made up the leather doublet I was wearing. “I’m afraid that if you keep talking like this, I’m going to have to beat the other ladies off with a stick.”
I shot her a startled look and the omega threw her head back and laughed. “I wasn’t being serious, Bedivere, I was only—”
“Joking,” we said in unison. It was a phrase I had heard often from her mouth when she was teasing one of the other people in the castle. Most had moved on from her odd way of speaking, chalking it up to her less-than-typical upbringing in King Leodegrance’s court. But I loved to listen to all of the strange words she would throw out at random, weaving a colorful tapestry with her words and her incredibly dry sense of humor.
“Please do not hit the other ladies of the court, Guinevere,” I told her softly as I used my hand to tug at the stays of her green riding dress, loosening it until it began to slip down around her shoulders. “I fear they may accuse you of becoming a tyrant.”
Guinevere allowed her dress to slide down her body until she stood in front of me in her linen shift, the fire from the forge behind her showing the outline of her curves in a way that nearly made me spend myself before we even began.
As I watched, my cock was rock hard in my trousers, I ached to feel her soft skin against mine as soon as I could.
It had been years since I had welcomed a woman into my bed and never before had I felt quite the level of anticipation as I was feeling now.
She was a picture—a goddess brought to life in front of me. Her creamy skin seemed to glow in the firelight, making her seem even more ethereal as she made short work of my doublet, shoving the leather down my shoulders before tugging at the linen shirt beneath.
“You are beautiful,” I murmured, every detailed compliment I had flying clear out of my head as I seemed to revert back to my old ways.
“So are you,” she whispered back before dipping her head down to press a kiss to my chest, just over my heartbeat.
Her hair, which she had taken out of her usual braid at some point, floated down around me, the curls tickling my bare skin as she explored, her fingers stumbling over each and every scar I bore.
“You all seem to be marked by your battles,” Guinevere said softly as she gently pushed me back amongst the covers and crawled over me.
“Arthur’s foster-father, Sir Ector, told me that scars meant you were victorious—if I had no scars then that would mean I had fallen in battle or was too cowardly to ride into battle at all,” I explained, pulling the hand that was skirting down my abdomen up so that I could kiss the inside of her palm. “Let me do that, sweetling.”
Her face flushed at the endearment and she nodded before rolling off of me so that I could remove my trousers.
I stood, yanking at the stays with my one hand while Guinevere’s eyes seemed to be locked on the other. Without my shirt’s sleeve covering it, my scarred stump was bare for her to see and I nearly hid it behind my back.
“If Sir Ector told you such a thing, then why do you not apply that logic to your lost hand? You survived that day,” Guinevere pointed out as she sat up on her knees, the linen shift she was wearing riding up her silky smooth thighs.
It was not as if I had never considered those words before, but most scars usually meant one could go back into battle. Mine had removed me from it completely. “It made me less of a knight.”
My trousers dropped to the floor and I had to avoid her gaze as she set her sights on my cock which was standing at painful attention, seemingly ready for her perusal.
“Has anyone ever said such a thing to you before?” Guinevere asked as she reached out to snag my arm and pull me back into the bed.
“Not to my face,” I replied dryly, running my hand through my hair. “But most treat me as though I am different.”
“Different is not bad,” Guinevere said, gently lifting my wrist and pressing her lips to the mound of scar tissue. “I’m different from almost everyone here and people treat me as such—do you think I am any less deserving of love?”
“Of course not!” I told her with a scoff. “Never could I dream of saying such a thing.”
“Okay, then what about Merlin? He’s not really even human. Does that mean he doesn’t deserve our love and our friendship?”
Merlin had been odd from the start when he walked out of the mist as a child claiming that Arthur was the king of kings. No one had believed him then and had treated him as a bit of a pariah. It had only been Sir Ector and my family that had fed the skinny child and let him live amongst us as family.
“No, I would not think such a thing,” I said, my eyes still on where her lips were kissing every inch of my scarred stump without a bit of disgust. “I see your perspective, sweetling, but I fear it will take time for me to truly understand it.”
“Does that mean you want me to put my clothes back on?” Guinevere asked, hiking up her dress so I could get a view of slick folds and the curve of the underside of her breast.
“Gods no!” I rasped, a growl rattling out of my chest. My inner-alpha, which remained quiet most of the time, seemed to stir from its long slumber as if it were a wyvern sleeping atop its pile of gold, ready to collect another beautiful bauble for its collection. The bauble being the woman in front of me. “There is nothing in this world that could stop me now.”
That seemed to be the exact right answer, because Guinevere let out a little squeal and threw her arms around my neck. “Good, because I want to see what that cock of yours can do.”