Of all the ways he could have met Merlin again, knee-deep in a battlefield would not have been Arthur's first pick.
Fighting a rival pack was always messy. Somehow he didn't think an Ambrosius would help matters any.
"What are you doing here?" he demanded.
"Technically we're not in Camelot," Merlin pointed out, hastily sheathing his dagger. "I could as you the same thing."
"We're literally two feet from the border!"
Merlin cocked his head. "That was oddly specific."
Arthur could hear his men shifting back to human and starting to move around just a few yards back. The ruined wall would only hide them for so long. "I'm a werewolf," he growled. "I always know where the border is. And speaking of werewolves and things you're not, what are you doing here, Merlin?"
Merlin shrugged. "Hunting monsters."
"I don't remember seeing any vampires here." He couldn't smell any either, although admittedly the wind was working against him at the moment.
Merlin just looked at him. "Not all monsters are vampires, Arthur. Whatever your father might think."
The breeze shifted, and Arthur could smell the blood hidden by Merlin's dark clothes.
Werewolf blood.
Suddenly he remembered what the Ambrosius clan had been banished for.
"Their alpha was eating people," Merlin said defensively. "He had to be stopped."
Arthur had suspected that from the reports he had gotten. It still made his stomach roil to have it confirmed, and it made his tone sharper when he snapped out the truth. "It won't matter if you get caught."
And that was a real possibility. The rest of the pack would come looking soon.
"I'm gone," Merlin assured him, but he hesitated as he turned. "Arthur?"
"What?" he demanded.
Merlin's eyes were deadly serious. "Uther being king won't matter either. Not if he keeps going the way he is. The elders are planning something."
Arthur's hackles rose. "What are they planning?"
"I don't know."
Arthur snarled and stalked forward. "That's my father. What. Are. They. Planning?"
"I don't know!" Merlin shouted. "It's not like they tell me anything!" He glared at Arthur. "I'm doing you a favor by warning you at all. That's what, three favors you owe me now?"
It was.
Which didn't change the fact that Merlin's rant had been entirely too loud.
Merlin realized it the same moment he did. His face went even paler than usual. "Oops," he breathed. He turned and ran.
Arthur stood frozen. He should go after him. It was what his father would want, and he might still know something. He might –
But he owed Merlin. And Merlin wasn't . . .
Merlin wasn't exactly wrong. Uther was losing himself to the blood madness that plagued their kind, and Arthur didn't know how to bring him back.
He didn't know what to do.
Somewhere past the wall, Leon let out a shout.
Arthur took off, relieved to have action again. The wind, the running, the fight, those were simple things. Those were things he understood. Not messy, like the problem of Uther was.
Then he caught not just Leon's scent but Merlin's too, and he snarled as he ran, because of course this was messy too. Of course it was.
By the time he crashed into the clearing, Merlin was surrounded. Half the men were still wolves. The other half were in steel. Merlin's hand kept flicking towards his knife, but he never quite reached for it. He knew it would be useless, probably.
But the others had only just arrived. He could tell that much. Which meant –
Which meant it had just been Leon and Merlin, and Merlin hadn't attacked. Which meant, what, that he had hesitated? Why would he?
Then Merlin's eyes flicked to him before continuing around the circle, and Arthur understood.
The Ambrosius clan only hunted monsters, and if Leon was one of his men, then Merlin was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.
The idiot.
"He's an Ambrosius, sire," Leon said. We need to bring him in was understood.
Arthur really, really wondered whose brilliant idea it had been to stamp the clan coat of arms on as much of their weaponry as possible.
The wolves growled in satisfaction. The knights didn't look much less savage.
Merlin's eyes just kept flicking around and around, looking for a way to run.
Arthur still dreamed about the place he'd been held. The place Merlin had rescued from. He still had a scar from where Morgana had bit him. Before Merlin had killed her. He had seen some of what this pack had done. The pack Merlin had helped destroy.
Merlin, who had joked with him as they traveled together. Who had moaned, Mum's going to kill me.
Merlin, who his knights would expect him to bring in. Merlin, who might be able to tell him how to save his father.
"We bring him back to the capital," he told Leon, blank faced. "Carefully."
"Sire."
The knights moved in. Merlin slowly raised his hands in the air.
Merlin's eyes weren't flitting around anymore. They were locked on Arthur.
"Utherson," he said like they had never met before. His voice had none of the teasing it had held when he had called Arthur 'prat' or 'dollophead.' It was as flat and lifeless as the wolf whose blood stained Merlin's dagger.
"Prince Arthur," he corrected, his voice as cool as the other man's, but he hoped Merlin got the message.
He was Uther's son, yes.
But he was also his own man, and the sum of what he owed Merlin was more than a matter of debt.
It was a long road from here to the capital. He'd figure something out.
