He didn’t try to comfort her—or if he did, he was too late.

  “Come and sit, dearest,” Genevra comforted at her ear, at her side almost instantly.

  Camelee choked on a sob while the older woman helped her to the bed and sat her on the edge of it. She pretended. Her whole life, she pretended.

  “I am fine, Genevra,” she tried to reassure her. “I’m just a little tired.”

  When she felt able, she turned to see Wolf pouring some water into a cup. He was the facilitator of it all. It all started with him. Besides, of course, being flung back in time a thousand years, he was the reason she began thinking about husbands and children and mothers…and love.

  He came toward her and held out the cup.

  She took it, wondering if this was normal behavior for a slave-master relationship.

  Hild called to Genevra, and the older woman hurried to her.

  “Are you well?” he asked, his voice deep and tender to her ears.

  She wasn’t sure. “It’s been a difficult couple of days.”

  He nodded. “I will leave you to your bed. I would have you know, there is no need to pretend anymore.” He gave her the slightest of smiles and turned to leave.

  Insanely, she stopped him with a brush of her fingertips against his hand.

  She tried to hold herself together. How could just touching his hand make her want to touch the rest of him?

  “How long will we be staying here?” she asked and realized they were alone. Her heart thumped in her ears when he sat at the edge of the bed next to her.

  “That depends on the king. But I intend to make my desire known to him.”

  She tried her best to concentrate on the conversation. It was an important one, but they were sitting on a bed, and she could think of nothing but throwing him down and kissing his boots off. She was having a nervous breakdown. That’s what it was. That’s how she could be an emotional wreck one minute and passionate for him the next. “What is your desire?”

  His gaze pierced through hers and into the deepest recesses of her heart until he found something still burning. “To go home.”

  “Yes,” she said on a breath.

  “Tell me everything about how you came here. Maybe we can figure something out.”

  What? Really? She wanted to hug him, but she didn’t dare. She was afraid she wouldn’t stop until she had him heaving above, beneath, or behind her.

  She told him about Mr. Green and Luke, his bodyguard, the brooch, rubbing it, saying the name Pendragon, and then being here.

  “Pendragon?” Genevra asked from the outer room with Hild.

  “Yes,” Camelee told her, turning to her. “Why?”

  “I feel as if I have heard it before.”

  “It’s fictional,” Camelee told her. “One of the nannies who raised me read The Once and Future King about King Arthur Pendragon and his Round Table Knights. The nannie thought it fascinating that I was named after the king’s castle. I studied it all a little further. His wife was Queen Guinevere. Pendrey supposedly is variant form of Pendragon. So, my name could be Camelot Pendragon.” She smiled. “It fascinated me. But it ended there. I didn’t live in a fairytale.”

  Wolf covered her hand with his. Her heart felt as if it were melting down to her stomach. How could he not be a complete jerk when he looked the way he did? How could he be a murdering barbarian in battle and a tender protector when he was with her?

  “Do you still have the brooch?” Genevra asked her.

  “No. It didn’t come here with me. Nothing did.”

  “Do you think Mr. Green is here?”

  She looked at Wolf after he asked and felt so fortunate to have found a needle like him in this haystack. Did he trust her instincts so much?

  “I don’t think he would be here,” she told him.

  “I will have riders ask around and see if anyone has heard of him, to make certain.”

  He did so much for her. Was it because, like him, she wanted to go home? It wasn’t too much to ask for, was it? “Thank you,” she said softly and smiled at him.

  Did he appear ruffled? Had his steely resolve just quaked a little—right in front of her? She wanted to stare at him, to watch and see if he came undone if she smiled again. But Hild ran to him and stood before him.

  Camelee studied her with her smile growing. She was a cute kid when she wasn’t being pitiful. Her eyes were wide and usually haunted, but now they were curious and joyful. She said nothing for an eternal moment and then placed her little hand on his much larger one.

  “Uf.”

  He chuckled lightly and turned to Camelee and whispered, “Is she barking at me?”

  Camelee laughed and poked him in the side. “She’s saying your name, Silly. Watch the way her nose crinkles after she says it, like someone shook the pepper too close.”

  His grin remained as he spread his warm gaze over her face, looking at her as if he knew something she didn’t.

  “Hild,” she said, to show him. “Who is this?”

  “Uf!” the child exclaimed, lifting off her feet with her expelled breath. A half an instant later, her small nothing-of-a-nose wrinkled at him.

  He laughed and took her hand. “What can I do for you, Hild?”

  “Uf go outside?”

  He looked at Camelee and then at Genevra. “Are you two up for it? I want to keep us all together until I find guards I trust to keep watch over your door.”

  Genevra agreed to go outside. Camelee would love a hot bubble bath but, oh well. “Of course. Sounds fun!”

  They stepped out the door with Wolf going first. No one bothered them or even looked their way. Their gazes were affixed to Wolf’s. Some of them wanted to ask him questions about secret southern routes, and northern boats waiting along the shorelines.

  But if anyone thought they could leave against the king’s orders, they were mistaken. And Wolf told them so. He promised to personally hunt down and kill any deserters.

  “How about sharing those three beauties, my lord?” someone called out from a group of men.

  Without hesitation, Wolf reached over his shoulder and pulled an arrow from his quiver and his bow from its tether. “Cover her eyes,” he warned quietly, aimed and shot. The arrow landed in a man’s chest and felled him to the ground. “Does anyone else want me to share?”

  Camelee stood staring at him, horrified after he killed one of the king’s men for asking a question. Granted it was a vile question, but—

  When she didn’t move quickly enough for him, he snatched her wrist and pulled her away.

  “Do as I wish in public, Camelee,” he warned her.

  “All right. In public, I will. But alone, I will fight you every step of the way! I mean, you just killed someone for asking a disgusting question, and right in front of Hild!”

  “Good. Let her know, too, that I will not stand for any insult or threat against her or her m—friend. As for killing someone,” he bit out at her, “if he thought about having his way with any of you, he would do it. He would always be a threat to you, to Genevra…and to little Hild. No. I could not allow it. And now the rest of the men know it.”

  “But I thought you didn’t want anyone to know that you cared.”

  “Possession and caring are two separate things, Camelee.”

  She lowered her gaze and walked behind him. What could she say? For now, she was tired of fighting.

  He stopped and turned to look at her with the slightest, most handsome smile. “What are you doing back there? Come, and walk with me.”

  Chapter Twelve

  The next few days went by with Camelee growing more miserable. She didn’t have to tell Wolf how she felt. He could see it in her eyes, or the faraway look in them every so often when she was washing a dish or serving a meal. The bustle of the keep, with cooks and tanners, and seamstresses, and dozens more, all preparing for Christmas swiftly approaching only seemed to make her more unhappy. He did what he could to keep her, and Genevra as well, from serving. Hild needed them. No one questioned that a little girl should need her mother and grandmother.

  They couldn’t find Alric. It was as if he had disappeared.

  “Maybe he found that dentist of his,” he told her one afternoon while they watched Hild play in the inner yard with some of the Danes’ children. Genevra stayed close to the girl, standing a few feet away. Wolf and Camelee stood off to the side.

  Camelee gave him a hopeful look. “Oh, do you think so?

  He didn’t know, but the sting of her wanting to leave wasn’t getting any easier. In fact, he hated that she couldn’t wait to be away. What truly troubled him though was that he cared about what one of his captives thought. She was a servant, just as Genevra and Hild were servants now. If they didn’t learn it from him, they would from some other chief, and life would not be as easy as it was now.

  His side had won and took the throne. All Saxons held captive were the property of the warlord who took them. Like it or not, Wolf was master over them, over Camelee.

  But he felt it was the other way around. He did whatever she asked, or he promised he would—as if he were her servant. He wanted to groan at the terrible truth—that he was allowing a woman—a Saxon woman to break through his impenetrable defenses and come to his heart. She circled it, studying it for a way to get in, the tip of her sword dragging along the ground behind her. But he suppressed his anguish and refused to think about the consequences another moment.

  “You look upset.”

  He turned to her. “Upset?”

  “Worried. Troubled,” she supplied.

  She was discerning. A good trait. “I think too much,” he told her with a smirk as he kept his gaze on Hild.

  “I know what you mean,” she said, smiling at something Hild did. “What are you thinking about?”

  He ground his teeth. What could he say without sounding like something she hated?

  “The coming years…the future.”

  “What about it?” she asked, and her voice stroked his eardrums and played like a song he wanted to hear for the rest of his life.

  “Let us speak of something else.”

  “No,” she protested softly, weakening his resolve. “Why?”

  “There does not have to be a reason. When I say something, I do not like to be questioned.”

  Her head snapped to the right so she could look at him square in the face and let him see the fiery darts ready to shoot from her eyes.

  “You want me to hate you, is that it?”

  “No.” He offered her a confused look. He didn’t want that. “I want you to stop—”

  “It doesn’t matter what era you’re in,” she spoke over him and rose, ready to leave. “People don’t change. You’re just like everyone else. Pride and arrogance rule you.”

  He wanted to fire back, but he had nothing to say that would benefit him. He remained silent while she gathered the child in her arms, said something to Genevra to make her follow, and walked away. He should tell her to wait for him. Her storming off appeared rebellious and troublesome. But if he ordered her about and she disobeyed in the sight of many, he would have to punish her.

  When they reached the door to the chambers, she stopped in front of it and turned to him. “Can I have—can Hild, Genevra, and I have a little while without you? Just to change clothes from the wardrobe the queen has provided us without you being in the same space?”

  “I always turn my back to all of you—” he defended.

  “Yes, but you’re still there. You can stay here and guard the door.”

  He said nothing but stepped around her and entered. He looked around and checked every inch of the place. When he was satisfied that no intruder was waiting for them, he set his gaze on Camelee and left the chambers, closing the door behind him.

  In the hall, he settled against the wall and guarded the door.

  He gave in easily because he was not altogether prideful and arrogant like everyone else. And he would prove it to her.

  He smiled at the memory of her surprised look when she realized why he went inside, and when he left. He did not want to make any of the three females feel unsafe because of him.

  Was she truly from a thousand years from now? At least she wouldn’t be a Saxon. She would be whatever she was. His brow creased at the little he knew about her. He would have to remedy that.

  A thought occurred to him, and his belly sank. Did she hate him? Was that why she wanted to be free of him? He had to admit, there was no privacy in the chambers. One morning, Camelee had been slipping out of her clothes. Wolf could see her through a bronze bowl on the table. He remained hypnotized by the silken image of her. A siren, come to lure him away. When they slept in the dead of night, he remained awake, listening to her breathing, falling into the rhythm of it, afraid of what was happening to him.

  “My lord,” a passing soldier stopped. He then said, “I did not know you were here. I am on my way to speak to the king about your brother.”

  Wolf snapped to attention. “Fin. What about him?”

  “I saw him back in Mercia while I was traveling. He was a prisoner of a Saxon regiment. I came back to tell the king.”

  “Where in Mercia did you see him?”

  “Going toward Warwick.”

  Wolf’s head pounded with every beat of his heart. He needed to know what this soldier would tell the king. But he couldn’t leave Camelee and the others alone. There was no one else he trusted to guard them.

  “Will you plead with the king to send his men to rescue my brother?”

  “I will.”

  “What did Fin tell you?”

  “I did not speak to him. I saw him only. He was with the Saxons. Why else would he be with them if he wasn’t their prisoner?”

  “Was he bound?”

  “Yes. He was bound and tied to a horse. He could barely keep up with the pace and was dragged. He was their prisoner, Sir.”

  Wolf nodded, controlling the rage bubbling up inside him, twisting his insides. He was going to end those bastard Saxons once and for all. “You must be sure of all these things before you bring a request before the king to send an army out for one man.”

  “A Kristiansen,” the soldier corrected.

  “Yes,” Wolf agreed. He knew how valuable he and Fin were to any regiment. His men trusted them to keep alive as many of the men as they could. Wolf would give his life for any warrior, and he would kill anyone for those he loved. He looked toward the chamber door. His heart pounded like a quick beating drum. “Go. I need to take care of something here, but be sure to tell the king that if he sends an army, I will lead them.”

  “Yes, my lord.” The soldier hurried off to see the king.

  Wolf remained at his post, aching to go rescue his brother. But he had just made a choice when he decided to remain here to go to her one more time instead of running off to save Fin.

  When had this happened to him? How had he allowed it with a servant from God only knew where? Not many things in his life frightened him, but this did. This had the power to change him, to make him change his mind about many things before he could stop it. It was like a fever running hot through his veins, searing his nerve endings, and touching her was the only way to find relief.

  He knocked softly and opened the door. If not for Camelee and her little family, he would leave now. What was she going to do with them while he was away? How could he keep them from the ravenous beasts around them?

  “Camelee?” he called out when he found the small outer, or sitting room, empty.

  “Yes?” she called back from the bedroom. “I told you we were changing our clothes.”

  “Yes, I only want to inform you that I must leave for a short while.”

  She appeared from around the doorway half-dressed in nothing but a kirtle. Her thick blonde tresses tumbled around her face. His knees hurt. He suddenly felt like a boy, awkward, unsure. Where should he look?

  “For how long?”

  “A few days.”

  She dipped her brow and pouted her enticing mouth, drawing his gaze there. “A few days isn’t exactly a short time.”

  “My brother has been captured by the Saxons. I must go.”

  Her enchantingly blue-gray eyes opened wider. “Oh, no! Of course! Why are you here telling me and not already gone?”

  “You are…” He wasn’t ready to confess his weakness for her. “…under my protection, under the king’s protection. I will go to him before I leave and request that you are all moved to the queen’s quarters.”

  He hadn’t asked the king yet, but Cnut owed him something. Wolf had helped him take England. He was still subduing the king’s enemies while the king stayed home with his new wife. “I will do my best to be quick.”

  “I’m sure we’ll be fine.”

  He nodded, feeling a little ill. Why had Fin foolishly gone off alone?

  “Where are Genevra and Hild?” He looked over her shoulder, but the child hadn’t come out looking for him.

  “Resting. Genevra is trying to get Hid to take a nap.”

  He looked down into her eyes and thought of kissing her. He had the right to. She belonged to him. But he wasn’t certain how she would react, so he did nothing.

  “Christmas Eve is in three days,” she reminded him softly.

  Had she wanted to share the festivities with him? He wanted the same thing, and he wanted more.

  “Uf.” Hild appeared at Camelee’s side, her pale blonde curls disheveled around her face. She held up her arms to him.

  He truly had to stop picking her up and holding her. He would spoil her. And she was a Saxon after all.

  “Uf!” she demanded, crinkling her nose.

  He bent and scooped her up.

  “Yes, my lady?”

  “Me sweep. Aye, Uf?”

  She meant to go to sleep in his arms. She’d been doing it since the second night here. The first, she’d spent crying for her mother.