Chapter Forty-Three
“ B usy again?” I asked Arthur as I slipped into his study long after darkness had fallen at the castle.
As the knights prepared for what I could only think of as the final battle with the Saxons, I had seen less and less of my mates as I had taken on the domestic tasks they were too preoccupied to handle.
That meant spending my days out in the fields with the people, and though they would not let me lift a finger to help them, I was able to learn about how they kept the earth rich and I was also able to use my magic to help them keep their crops watered.
They had been suspicious of my magic use at first, still wary due to the after effects of Morgana’s mind control, but once they saw how much easier it made things they weren’t shy about asking anymore.
Arthur pulled me onto his lap with a sigh. “It is never ending, little queen, there were many renovations I wished to see finished before we had to weather an invading force here at Castle Camelot, but that must now wait so that she can be ready when the scourge makes it to our valley.”
I didn’t know much about the state of things in Logres, though I was fairly sure that was on purpose on my alphas’ part. They seemed to want to insulate me from the hard truth that was coming whether we liked it or not: the Saxons were coming and they were bringing numbers far larger than anything they had ever faced before.
It was the final battle. The one that was supposed to end with all of my pack dying and leaving me alone again.
I opened my mouth to tell Arthur as such, just as I had tried countless times over the past few weeks since my heat, but yet again the familiar twisting in my gut told me that the gods had not lifted their taboo on it yet.
Instead I closed my mouth. I had been working tirelessly to try and get better with my healing magic—the only thing I could think of that would save Arthur and the rest if they fell during battle.
I had gotten much better at it, but I still needed to be close by and there was no way in hell any of them would let me go on a battlefield.
“Do not look so worried, Guinevere,” Arthur murmured, kissing away the furrow in between my eyebrows. “Nothing will happen to you.”
“It isn’t me I’m worried about,” I told him, holding his face in my hands. “It is you, and Lancelot, and Gawain, and Bedivere, and Merlin.”
I listed off each of their names, realizing now just how much I had to lose.
Before, losing my mom the way I had, had crushed me. She was my entire world and her leaving me behind had left an indelible mark on my soul.
But now? Now my world had expanded and my soul was caught in between the five men who seemed to light it on fire and make me feel more alive than I had ever felt before.
I was standing on the precipice of fate and I was afraid I wouldn’t survive if even one of them left me.
It was why I never allowed myself to try and find love in the future. No pack had been worth risking the hurt. Though, as it turned out, the pack that was worth risking it was just living centuries in the past. I just needed to find out how to stop the inevitable.
“You worry overly much,” Arthur told me, his next kiss landing on my nose. “We have fought many a battle together, this one will be no different.”
Then his lips pressed into mine, but I just wanted to scream at him that this battle was different. But the gods would definitely give me a divine sucker punch to the gut if I even tried to do that.
So I just put my arms around his neck and sighed against his mouth. “Come to bed with me?”
Arthur glanced from me to the papers on his desk. He clearly had a lot more work to do tonight, but even still he lifted me up into his arms and carried me off to our bed to make love to me until the sun started to grow high in the sky.
“Saxons in the east!” someone cried the next morning as we stood in the courtyard. Arthur and the rest had been readying themselves to ride out on patrol when one of the knights—a man named Sir Lionel I believed—galloped in on his horse shouting his proclamation.
The man slid off his horse, out of breath as he bowed to Arthur.
“Report,” Arthur ordered, his entire demeanor shifting from playfully relaxed to serious as his end of the bond grew quiet. He was shielding me from his emotions, probably to protect me, and I wanted to yank on the little thread connecting us, but thought better of it once I heard the next words out of the knight’s mouth.
“I saw the Saxon’s banners raised alongside that of Lothian and Gorre about a half a day’s ride from here. They are on our borders!”
People began to shout, their panic rising at the knight’s proclamation.
“Enough!” Arthur’s bark filled the courtyard, echoing off of the stone walls of the castle. Everyone flinched at the sheer power of it, some even inclining their heads and showing the column of their necks—an instinct that was as old as time for omegas, alphas, and betas who were lower on the power totem pole than Arthur.
Arthur turned to Kay, who had been hovering at his elbow and listing off everything that needed to be done for the day before Lionel had interrupted. “Gather all of the people from the village, tell them to bring anything that they can carry into the castle walls. Then take the men and light the fields on fire.”
“On fire?” I asked, my voice barely above a squeak as Kay jumped into action, calling out the names of some of the men in the crowd to help him.
“Yes, my love,” Arthur said, his voice low as he drew me into his arms, his allspice scent doing little to soothe my worries, but I found myself burying my nose in his neck anyway. “We must not give the Saxons any resources to use should they lay siege to the castle.”
Things were happening too fast and I wished time could stop for just a damned minute so I could catch up.
But Arthur was already pulling away, turning from being my alpha into being the king his people needed to survive.
Holding a hand to my throat, I watched with growing panic as Arthur continued to give orders, sending his men scurrying to complete them as rain clouds began to gather in the sky—whether conjured by me or the sheer desperation in the air I wasn’t sure.
“It is happening again,” a small voice said from next to me, nearly making me jump out of my skin.
Next to my elbow stood Henry, his eyes wide and his face pale.
“What’s happening again?” I asked, crouching so I could look the little boy in the eyes.
“Are they all going to die?” he asked, nodding to the knights who were moving about like a well-oiled machine.
“No, of course not,” I told him, though my voice was high and thready with my own anxiety. “They are going to protect us all from the bad Saxons.”
But Henry didn’t look convinced or comforted by my words, instead he reached out and gave my hand a squeeze. “I am going to help Mama Andrivete in the kitchens, your majesty, would you like to come?”
Somehow, this little boy was trying to soothe away my worries instead of the other way around.
“Sure,” I told him softly, returning the squeeze. “Why don’t you go on ahead and I’ll follow.”
Henry nodded before hurrying off into the main doors of the castle.
“That little one has gone through much,” Bedivere said, seeming to materialize out of nowhere as he spoke.
“He’ll be fine,” I told him with far too much false-brightness in my voice. “We all will.”
Bedivere’s hand pressed into my back, warmth spreading from his palm as he sighed. “I can feel your emotions, sweetling, just as well as you can feel mine.”
His end of the bond was a tangled mass of confusion. The desire to be helpful intermingled with the confusion and worry that such business brought about were all present.
“Are you going to be in the battle?” I asked, suddenly feeling a renewed sense of anxiety at the very idea of him trying to fight with one hand.
But, thankfully, Bedivere shook his head. “No, I shall remain at your side. We have already discussed it. It is better for Merlin and me to remain with you should things…”
He trailed off but I already knew what he meant. It was better for the two of them to stay with me in case the other three members of our pack perished during the battle.
In all of the iterations of the King Arthur myth, Queen Guinevere had somehow stood alone as she watched her beloved pack die—so it soothed something inside of me ever so slightly that I wouldn’t be in this one. The future had changed that much, so that meant I could change it even more, right?
I sure as hell hoped so.
Leaning into Bedivere’s warmth, I continued to watch as the castle was thrown into the chaos of the impending battle, feeling helpless about what I could do to change the fate of the men I loved and of the people who I had grown fond of and wanted to protect.
“Guinevere,” Arthur’s voice pulled me from my misery and I reached for him and let him tug me into his arms.
“Don’t go,” I asked in vain, knowing he had to.
“I love you,” was all he said, as he pressed a kiss to the crown of my head before passing me onto the next alpha.
I repeated myself again as I pressed my nose into Gawain’s neck and inhaled his sage scent. “Please don’t go.”
“We will return to you, my queen,” he promised, accepting a kiss of his own from me.
Finally I turned to Lancelot who still at times held himself apart from our pack, though I could feel his desire to embrace me through our shared bond.
I held my arms open, sighing with relief when he tucked his head into the crook of my neck and held me close. “Stay with me?”
He just shook his head before pressing a soft kiss to my lips. “I cannot, but I shall protect them for you.”
I wanted to cry. To throw myself around their legs like a child and refuse to let them go.
But even as the idea sprang to mind, I knew I wouldn’t be able to stop them.
Someone at the edge of the courtyard blew a horn, signaling that it was time for the first group of men to head out as the second group finished getting ready for battle and saying goodbye to their own loved ones.
Arthur, Gawain, and Lancelot got back onto their horses, looking grim as they shot me one last look before Arthur turned to the men.
“Today we fight for Camelot! Today we rid Logres of the Saxon scourge!”
There was a chorus of bellows followed by the sound of hooves on stone as they filed out of the courtyard.
I watched them go, my hands clasped in front of me like I was praying—and I was. I was begging the gods to change the fate they had set before me and let me live with my pack forever.
Once they were gone, I turned to Bedivere. “We need to get our horses.”
“Why would we do such a thing, your majesty?” Bedivere asked with a frown, his dark brow furrowing with confusion.
I just shook my head at him. “I can’t explain it without getting sucker punched by the guys in the sky—but let’s just say my fate is waiting for me.”
“And fate is not a patient mistress,” Merlin’s voice came from behind us and we turned to find the wizard standing with the reins of our three horses.
His expression was grim as he gazed at me, his green eyes seeming to echo my own worries. “Come, Guinevere, it is time.”
I wanted to ask how much he knew of the future that was supposed to come about. Did he know that they were all meant to die? That I was going to be all alone again, but instead I just reached for the reins. “Let’s go.”