A cold, sharp rock prodded Arthur in the back, but he hardly felt it for wondering when the Saxons might return to the cave. His belly felt as chill and heavy as the stone surrounding him, knowing he had no weapon. The floor of the cavern was clear even from small, palm-sized rocks. He knew; he’d felt around half blind to no avail. Seemed they’d used this space for this very purpose before.
He tried to listen for them. His head pounded, his temple swollen so that his left eye was nearly shut, and all he could hear for a long moment was the rushing of his own blood.
Then the light at the narrow entrance all but disappeared as something tried to shove its head inside.
Something very large.
Gods’ blood, a bear.
He bit back a shout but part of it escaped him anyway as a yelp. At the sound, the beast struggled harder, snuffling and clawing at the packed dirt floor. Arthur scrambled around, hoping to get out of the animal’s direct line of sight, and looked about with fresh desperation for some gap in the stone he hadn’t yet seen.
The cave flooded with light again, startling him, and before he could catch his breath, something crawled inside. He opened his mouth to cry out—
—and then saw it was a man.
And not just any man.
“Bed! Over here—that bear—” He launched himself at Bedwyr to pull him out of range of those claws.
But Bedwyr only embraced him, hard, holding him in place. Arthur clutched him back, his one good eye trained on the entrance, waiting. When no sign of the animal showed itself, he closed his eyes and buried his face in Bedwyr’s neck, breathed in his sharp, musky sweat. Curled his fingers into his shirt.
Or tried to. Instead, his nails scraped bare skin.
He pulled back and took in the man who knelt before him.
“Bit chilly to be naked, isn’t it?”
Bedwyr met his eyes. His brow looked even sterner than usual. “I’m sorry.”
“Why?”
Bed’s gaze slipped, roving over Arthur’s face as if he wanted to memorize it before…
Before what? “What happened?”
“I told Philip to do it. To say the charm over me.”
Arthur stared at him. Took in his naked strength again. “And?”
“And…it worked.” Bed looked up at him. “I can shift now.”
“Gods.” He smoothed his hands down the man’s arms. They must have made powerful wings. “What was it like?”
“Strange.”
Arthur snorted. “I imagine so. To fly…” He shook his head, not able to imagine it at all.
But then Bedwyr was shaking his head too. “I didn’t fly, cub. I didn’t… I wasn’t a dragon.”
The words didn’t make sense at first, and he could only stare at Bed’s mouth.
“I’m sorry,” Bed said again.
“Why do you keep—”
“I was a bear.”
A bear.
That bear trying to get to him—it had been Bed?
“I’m sorry I didn’t wait for your agreement.” Bedwyr gripped his hair. “I couldn’t—it seemed like the only way to find you.”
The stars in the night sky, the ones he’d stared at for years and years. The dragon and the bear. The bear and the dragon. Side by side. Forever.
“We searched and searched, and I got desperate. I made Philip do it.” Bed’s hand was warm on his face. “And now I’ve taken it from you.”
A dragon and a bear.
Only, those weren’t the only figures in the sky. Not far from the great bear—
“Maybe you’re the dragon,” Bed said.
“No.”
Bed pulled back to look at him. “You must be, if I’m the bear.”
“No.” The sudden clarity of it, the rightness of it, filled his chest. “I’ve never been the dragon. Don’t you see?” The urge to laugh swept over him. “I’m the man I am because of you. And I’m not just that man. I’m your man. Your cub. Bed.” He gripped Bedwyr’s neck. “I’ll be a bear because of you too.”
Bed stared at him, confusion straining his features.
But then understanding dawned, and his eyes widened.
“You want me to turn you?”
“Yes.”
“But…” Bed frowned. “What if the stars say different? What if the gods mean you to be—”
“I’m meant to be yours. I always have been. Years ago I said I would be, for the rest of our days, remember? I made that promise and spilled my blood, and so did you. This is what the stars want.” Arthur kissed him. “Fuck me.”
“Now?”
He smiled at the alarm in his man’s voice. “What better time?”
“Any other time. Gods’ blood, Arthur, those dogs could show up here any moment, and if I can crawl through that rock, so can they—”
“Are our men with you?”
“What? Of course—”
“Then this is the time.” He looked Bed square in the eye. “We’re going to emerge from this cave as the shieldmates we are. As the blood-bound we are. And as something the Saxons will never expect. We’re going to emerge as two bears, written just as surely in the stars. You’re going to make me your mate for all the world to see.”
Bedwyr was all but glaring, but now something was warring with his hesitance.
Lust, pure and hot.
“Make me your bear, Bedwyr.”
Bed’s nose flared. “We won’t fit through the entrance,” he forced through his teeth.
Arthur grinned and slid his palm down Bed’s belly. His cock was pressing against Arthur’s thigh. It grew thicker in his hand. “You think too much,” he breathed against Bed’s mouth before he claimed it.
Bedwyr didn’t give him control for long, taking over the kiss with a hunger that made Arthur’s own prick stand. “It’s not safe,” Bed growled, even as he jerked at Arthur’s laces.
“You’d best be quick, then.”
Bed chuckled darkly. “Fuck you.”
“Finally.”
It was hasty and somewhat painful without the oil they often kept for the purpose, and he was going to have a few new bruises from this blasted cave floor, but when Bedwyr’s body went rigid above him, Arthur’s eyes were open. He would store away this moment, this raw look Bed was giving him along with his seed, so that someday, if the gods saw fit to let him become an old man, he might turn it over in his mind and remember.
He had wanted this, and Bedwyr had made it possible, as he had done with so many other things.
They had done it together, bound in every way.
Bed’s breath rushed out of him. “I thought they’d stolen you from me.”
“They did. But you found me. I knew you would.”
Bedwyr kissed him. Arthur gripped his hair and held him in place, until they both were empty of everything but each other.
Bedwyr crept to the entrance of the cave and peered out.
Gawain leaned against the rock. He looked down, cocking an eyebrow. “All finished, then?”
Bedwyr grunted, his neck growing hot under his cousin’s amused expression. “No one about?”
Gawain shook his head. “Not yet. Palahmed and Safir are keeping watch on the hillside, the others in flight.”
Bedwyr started to shuffle back inside to tell Arthur, and then the fool pinched his arse.
“Let’s go, Bed. I’m ready.”
He crawled outside and stood. Gawain was right: there seemed to be no one around the place. He turned and helped Arthur to his feet.
His cub shivered. “When is this going to happen? I could use a pelt just now.”
“Under the charm, it happened right away, but Philip said turning by seed is unpredictable in its timing.”
“Here.” Gawain unfastened his cloak and handed it to Arthur, along with his dagger.
“Thanks. You go on and shift, Bed. Conserve your heat.”
He knelt. Just before he did it, he looked up at Arthur to find him watching intently. “It’s going to look strange.”
Arthur nodded, his brows knit. It was the look he wore when he was shoring himself up inside.
Bedwyr tried to make it quick, but he was new at it. As soon as his skin shuddered with fur, he pushed to all fours.
“Gods,” Arthur breathed.
Bedwyr shouldn’t have been glad for his poor eyesight, but his heart was just cowardly enough to feel so. Whatever Arthur’s expression betrayed just now, he was grateful he couldn’t see it. He scratched at the dirt with his claws.
“Bed.”
Reluctantly, he looked up. Arthur was still a blur, as if he stood in a fog. Bedwyr blinked.
Arthur knelt in front of him. He smiled, and Bedwyr’s pulse calmed. “You… You’re magnificent.” His hand rose into sight and smoothed the fur on Bedwyr’s jaw. Then it scratched him behind the ears, which felt very good. He leaned into the touch, and Arthur grinned.
“Aye, all right, love birds.” Gawain threw out an arm impatiently. “Let’s get our arses away from here before—fuck!”
Arthur jerked his hand away. “Wolves,” he murmured, but Bedwyr could smell them. A sharp whistle sounded—Gawain calling to Palahmed and Safir. Bedwyr stepped around Arthur, putting his body between his cub and the wolves, and tried to isolate their positions. He could hear them breathing, and then one growled in a long, low rumble.
“Four,” Arthur said, “shoulder to shoulder but spreading. Take care, Bed.”
He could see their shapes moving and struggled to track them, swinging his head from side to side. Arthur’s boots scuffed behind him. Fighting the urge to shift human again and grab Gawain’s blade from him, Bedwyr backed into Arthur, trying to shove him toward the cave and whatever protection it might offer.
But his cub resisted him, of course. Stubborn fool.
One gray form came closer and joined its brother in a growl. Then Arthur grunted with effort and the wolf yelped. It scrambled in the dirt, whining loudly, and Bedwyr realized Arthur had thrown the dagger. The beast rolled and kicked, and then seemed to regain its feet and run off.
“Where’s Palahmed?” Gawain’s voice sounded tight. “They were just over the ridge.”
As Bedwyr reached out with his senses, listening for hoof beats, another wolf lunged. Gawain shouted, and Bedwyr charged the gray form.
He struck it with his shoulder, knocking it back, though it was heavier, more solid, than he’d expected. It regained its feet quickly and snarled at him. Its breath smelled of ale.
These were men, like him.
Only, not like him.
Nothing like him, damn them.
He roared and charged the beast again. It snarled and yipped, sounding vicious but petulant. Saxon dog. Bedwyr braced his feet and roared at it.
Three startled whines rose around him. He turned to each and roared again, showing off his teeth and clawing at the ground. He swiped at the nearest wolf but caught only fur before it leapt backward.
The hoof beats they’d been waiting for arrived then. The horses rushed past Bedwyr on either side, and then came the sounds he feared every time he saw a horse: the thump of hooves kicking flesh. Two of the wolves cried out. Their plaintive howls receded quickly as they fled. The remaining wolf held its ground before Bedwyr. He was about to swipe at it again when an odd scent caught his nostrils and he hesitated.
It wasn’t sweat, precisely, nor dirt, nor sun-warmed steel, yet the image flooding his mind at the scent was of a training yard—the one he’d grown up in. The one he’d learned to fight in, under his father and Arthur’s grandfather Marcus.
When he focused again he found that the wolf’s posture had changed. It had ducked its head so that it had the same sort of submissive aspect to it that Khalida bore around Gawain and Palahmed.
Only, it wasn’t looking at the ground. It was staring at Bedwyr’s truncated right foreleg.
“Arthur! Up!”
Bedwyr shook his head to clear his thoughts. That’d been Safir, urging Arthur onto the horse.
“Come, Bed! We’re away.”
He squared his stance before this last wolf. He wasn’t moving until his cub was on that horse.
“Bed!”
“He’s shielding you,” Palahmed said. “Climb up behind Safir. Hawk! Come with me!”
Gawain leaned in close. “We’ll wait on the ridge, cousin. Don’t dawdle, aye?” Then Bedwyr could hear him scrambling onto Palahmed’s horse.
Relief coursed over him as the horses left, and again when two dark shapes dropped from the sky to peck at the wolf’s head. The beast retreated a step or two, trying to duck away from Rhys’s and Morien’s harassment, but that strange scent remained—the one of the training yard.
Then the wolf’s form changed. Bedwyr could make out the shape of a man crouching on the ground. The scent grew very strong, and then the man spoke.
“Go, before the dogs bring more men.”
The voice gave him such a shock he shifted without warning. He looked up sharply and found himself eye to eye with…
“Cai?”
He looked the same as he had all those years before. Tall and lean, his blond hair long. His beard looked rougher, making his face seem thinner, his eyes haunted.
“Go,” he rasped.
Then he shifted into a wolf again and loped into the forest.