“And I’ve missed you, my cherished daughter. There was nothing left of me after I left you and Micajah. My heart and soul were with you. I welcomed Arthur and Merlin’s spell to forget. If not for it, I would have given up my spirit as well.”

  Camelee threw her arms around Genevra and kissed her cheek. Her mother was forced, as explained several times by the king, to give up her children because she loved them, not because she didn’t.

  “We have so much to talk about, my queen.”

  “Aye, a lifetime,” her mother agreed. “But first, I wish to know, is Hild well?”

  “She’s thriving and very happy here,” Camelee answered. “Would you like me to get her? She would love to see you.”

  “No,” her mother said. “I do not want to see her and then have to leave again.” She said the last words loud enough for her husband to hear.

  “Guinevere,” he shot, clearly offended by her words. “You know that here in Avalon, I have no authority in these matters.”

  “Avalon.” Guinevere repeated with a poorly concealed smile. “Aye, I remember, Avalon.”

  “Viviane!” the king said with as much authority as he’d probably had in Camelot, startling the beautiful woman standing with Kestrel. “This has caused havoc in my family. Bring them their loved ones.”

  “Arthur,” Viviane answered. “This is not a matter I can decide on my own. If I could, do you not think I would love to see my Nicholas and bring him here to Kes? I must discuss it with my sisters. You are asking us to bring four more people, mortals here to Avalon, and then, what? Return them to their normal lives when and if we ever catch Morgan again? Four timelines would be altered, not to mention these four coming from the twenty-first century.”

  He looked every part a king, standing tall and strong by his high crystal chair. “I understand what I’m asking. I’m pleading.”

  “Arthur.” It was Nim talking now. “Come with us to the meeting room. Merlin, you come as well. We will summon Gliten and decide what to do.”

  Before anyone could reach out and stop them, the king and the sisters were gone.

  “Does anyone know what his connection is to the sisters?” Michael turned around to ask them.

  “He was brought here at birth by his mother, Igraine,” Sebastian told them. “She is one of the original Nine.”

  “So, he’s their nephew,” Michael said. “Morgan slept with her nephew.”

  “And had me. Correct, Detective.” Sebastian smiled.

  “How do we know you won’t go to her side when she comes?”

  “You do not,” Sebastian answered lightly. “But I helped in her capture on Christmas Eve.”

  “Before or after your memories returned?” Guinevere put to him.

  Sebastian didn’t answer. Instead, he glared at Guinevere with molten anger. “I am not waiting for someone else to decide my fate. I am leaving now.”

  He lifted his hands to the air and began speaking. He didn’t give up for ten more minutes. Twice, the rift in the air appeared, but it didn’t last.

  “If they say no,” Kestrel said softly, “are we stuck here?”

  “No. I know a way to leave,” Guinevere let them know. “We need to go to the waterfalls of Alastra. Beside the pool, there is a tall rowan tree—”

  The air began to ripple, but in a separate place from where Sebastian worked. They all heard a deep-throated roar, like that of an angry bear.

  A hand appeared from the ripple, and then a short guttural cry and a face could be seen, as if it were squeezing through something no one else could see.

  Wolf! Camelee saw his face. She went utterly still watching him break through time and space.

  Chapter Twenty

  He fought harder than he ever had in his life. Harder than a few moments ago when he was fighting and killing Saxons. He’d gone berserk and killed the seven Saxons in almost five swings of his blade. He didn’t remember fighting them. As a berserker he was not in his right mind when it happened. Taken over by rage and fury, he’d gone into a trancelike state and destroyed everything in his path.

  As he was hacking and tearing, he felt his blade go through something thicker than the air. His thoughts were jumbled and indistinguishable, still fighting in a trance. More men had arrived. Fin? Someplace inside him, someone called out to keep going. Keep slashing and cutting through. Do not stop!

  He roared and shouted as he fought his way through. Growing weary but casting it aside. He could see something different. He was in the forest. He should have been looking at trees, but instead, he was looking into a cavernous room made of glass.

  He pushed his arm through, but the air fought him, closed in on him. And then he caught a glimpse of Camelee standing at a table with others. With one more mighty roar that resounded off the walls, he pushed through and almost tumbled to the floor.

  It took a moment for the cobwebs to leave his head and for him to realize what had happened. When he did, he was awestruck. What? He did it? He did it! He turned to Camelee and smiled. Before he blinked again, she ran to him and leaped into his arms.

  “You came for me,” she cried into his neck, held in his arms, her feet dangling off the floor. “How did you do it?”

  “Do not move!”

  A man’s warning voice reminded Wolf that he was in a foreign place with potentially dangerous enemies. He pushed Camelee behind him and held his blade out before him.

  The man who told him not to move stared at him with an unblinking gaze. “How do you still have your sword?”

  “What?” Wolf asked, looking at his glistening blade.

  The man held up his hands and began to chant.

  “No, Sebastian!” Camelee moved in front of him. “Don’t hurt him!”

  Hurt him? Wolf scoffed. With what? His words? He almost laughed out loud.

  “How did you get through?” the man…Sebastian demanded, lowering his hands.

  “I fought my way through.”

  The man curled the corners of his mouth into a smile. “You cannot fight your way though. You are a sorcerer.”

  Ah, yes, this place was magic. It had to be. He looked around. He’d never seen anything like it. The walls, the ceiling, the floor, all of it was made of solid water. That’s what it appeared to be to him. He wanted to touch it.

  “No,” he told Sebastian. “If I was, all this—” he pointing to the hall “—would be a broken ruin for taking her.”

  “Wolf,” Genevra said. Was this her hall? “Do not threaten Avalon in the presence of the sisters or they will kill you. They will kill you with magic. You will not have a chance to defend yourself. Understand?”

  He clenched his jaw and nodded. “Yes.”

  “I would not deceive you, Chief,” she continued, “though I am uncertain of many things now that I see your sword in this place. Weapons are not permitted.”

  Wolf trusted what she said. He would not threaten this…Avalon again. It was too beautiful to destroy anyway.

  “I am taking her back,” he told them all.

  “Listen—Wolf is it?” Another dark-haired man stepped forward. “We’re all kinda in this together, okay?”

  Listening to him, Wolf’s gaze fell to Camelee. This man spoke like her. He came from her future. Had they known each other? Had he taken her to his bed? No. Something about his eyes resembled Camelee’s. Her brother or relative.

  “None of us, including her,” he continued, “wants to be here. The king is meeting with the sisters about allowing our loved ones to come here without screwing up the timeline.

  “Chief Constable Michael Pendridge, by the way.”

  There were chiefs in her time? But that wasn’t what was making his head spin. What did this man mean screwing up the timeline? It awakened something in him—a desire to make certain things were right in the timeline. He didn’t know where the desire came from. Right now, he didn’t care. He wasn’t leaving without Camelee.

  “I am Chief Ulf Kristiansen.”

  “What are you, a Viking?” Pendridge asked.

  Pendridge, Pendrey, Pendragon. They were relatives. Her family.

  “I am a Dane. High Commander of King Cnut.” It was what he told anyone who asked. He didn’t have to think about it. And he wasn’t. Where was he? Was this real? Had he truly fought his way through the veil that separates realms? His instincts told him to take Camelee and run. But he reined in those rash desires and took control over them.

  “King Cnut?” asked a dark-haired beauty with wide, sea-colored eyes. “I’m Kestrel. Kes.” She smiled and gave him a little wave, then looked around him at Camelee. “You went to the eleventh century? Rough.”

  She spoke like Camelee, Wolf thought, listening. Another one of them from the same place. The same time?

  “Oh, yes,” Camelee agreed wholeheartedly.

  A little too wholeheartedly for Wolf’s comfort. He cut her a worried look.

  “Where did you go?” she asked Kes, without looking at him. What was wrong? What was she afraid of?

  “Fourteen eighty-five,” Kes answered.

  Wolf swallowed his thumping heart. Believing Camelee’s story in theory was different than seeing all this magic unfolding before him. What could he do against it?

  “Are these your children?” he asked Gen—the queen. He shook his head at himself. What was he to believe? His belly was tied in knots painful enough to give him proof that he was alive.

  “Michael and Camelee are born from my womb,” she answered gracefully. “I have always loved Mordred as my own and, today, I welcome Kestrel into my heart.”

  “Mordred,” Sebastian held up his hand when Wolf asked who was Mordred. “I prefer Sebastian now.”

  “That is good name, Sebastian. I would like to meet the woman who captured your frolicsome heart.”

  He smiled and bowed. “I will be certain you do meet her.” He turned to Wolf. “Tell me what you did.”

  “I do not know. I was fighting some Saxons in the forest where Camelee disappeared. I…I went berserk, as I sometimes do. I—”

  They all asked for an explanation. He gave them one as best he could and then continued. “I felt a change in the air, and hoping it was the rift, I attacked it. I fought it for a few long moments because it did not want to let me through. I was unwavering in my purpose.”

  “So,” Sebastian concluded, “this going berserk of yours pushes you into another realm, and there, this realm was vulnerable to you.”

  Wolf shrugged his shoulders and reached for Camelee’s hand. Hers was small and damp in his. He wanted to tell her he loved her, and he wanted to stay with her for the rest of his days. He wanted to reassure her that all would be well, but he wasn’t so sure it would be.

  “Can you do it again?” Sebastian asked him.

  “If I get angry enough,” Wolf replied.

  “I would suggest you hold your temper if you wish to live another instant.”

  At the sound of Genevra’s friend, Merlin, they all turned to watch him make his way from the other end of the long table and come toward them. “How did you get here, Northman? And why is there a sword hanging from your belt? Do you possess magic?”

  “He possesses no magic, Merlin,” Genevra assured him. “He fought like a warrior to get to the woman he loves. That is all.”

  The man shook his head as if to clear it. “He fought to get here? What does that mean? And what do you mean, that is all?” He raised his voice slightly. “The meeting is over. They will all be retuning at any moment. When they see him—”

  “Then hide him!” Camelee shouted at him.

  “Mr. Simeon, do something!” Kestrel joined in.

  “He cannot be hidden,” Merlin said. raising his hands. “He will tell us how he arrived here. And then your father, the king, will tell you their decision.”

  Wolf had no idea what was going to happen, and he hated the feeling. He decided he didn’t like magic. It may fashion beautiful objects like the castle, but it held too much power over a man.

  “Camelee,” he said as he turned to her while everyone was questioning Merlin. “Forgive me if you do not share my sentiments and I seem like a madman—”

  “I do. I do share them,” she vowed, reaching her free hand to his. “I’ll be mad with you.”

  He smiled, and meant it, for the first time since she’d left, he felt lighter and kissed both her hands.

  They heard the king’s footsteps before he entered the hall. When they did see him, Wolf thought he would have known in a moment who was the king among the servants walking with him, for he carried himself with the same confidence and authority as King Cnut.

  He looked more like Kestrel and Michael than he did Camelee. When his blue gaze found Wolf, he stopped dead in his tracks. “Who is this?”

  “I am Chief Ulf—”

  “How did you come here?” the king demanded, and then without giving Wolf a chance to reply, he called for someone called Viviane.

  “Father, wait!” Camelee cried out and clung to Wolf as if she could stop harm from coming to him “I love him! He’s not here to hurt anyone. He wants to be with me. Don’t you take that from me!”

  The king immediately stopped and gave her a sorrowful look. Wolf guessed the meeting Merlin had mentioned did not go well. His fears were conformed a moment later when two women entered the hall.

  Wolf thought they were almost too beautiful to be real.

  “What is this?” one demanded.

  “Who are you?” asked the other on a shaky voice.

  “I am Ch—”

  “How did you get here?”

  “Merlin,” they said in unison, “did you bring him?”

  “I fought my way here,” Wolf told them on a wave of authority. He was tired of being ignored. “I ripped open the veil with my sword.” He remembered what Genevra had warned him about threatening Avalon, so he controlled his words by ending them there.

  The two women were not as pale when they entered the hall as they were now. Wolf could see and sense their fear. Who was this man who could tear through time and other realms to get here? What else could he do? They had no idea. For that matter, neither did he.

  “I came for her, and only her.” He reached his hand out to Camelee and hoped he wasn’t struck dead. He couldn’t help but slip his gaze to Genevra for any clue as to how he was doing.

  “Uf! Uf!” Like a little drop from heaven sent to save him, Hild barreled into the hall with two other little girls. When she saw him and Genevra, she squealed with glee and ran into his arms first.

  “Uf, you come back!”

  He held her and closed his eyes. She’d lost her mother…twice. He couldn’t let her lose anyone else.

  The two women watched, one with a smile curving her mouth, the other, wide-eyed, and looking like some sort of faerie with her hair cascading around her face.

  “Aye, my lady. I told you, I will always come back.”

  He smiled and kissed her head before he let her down to run to Genevra. He heard a sniffle and looked down to see Camelee wiping her eyes and smiling at her mother.

  “Uf,” one of the women called out.

  “Wolf,” he corrected and felt a glint of hope course through him when they both turned to Hild and smiled warmly at her.

  “Explain how you tore through time.”

  “I was fighting Saxons and felt my blade rip through something other than flesh. I swung again and again, seeing nothing but white fog or smoke, thinking of nothing but Camelee, and still I hacked my way through.”

  Their dainty hands trembled. One of them covered her mouth and whispered to the other, whom Wolf suspected by now, was her sister.

  “Queen Guinevere, please remove the children,” the other one asked.

  “May I ask why?” the queen requested, squaring her shoulders.

  “We must test his power.”

  Test? Power? Wolf turned to Camelee, but she had no idea what was happening either.

  He was grateful that they had thought of Hild and the other two girls and sent them way first. If they meant to harm him, they would have used his weakness against him. He would not have fought back in front of Hild.

  When the children were gone, he turned to the sisters and drew his blade. They looked at each other. The king and Merlin looked wary and a little afraid.

  Everyone else was still, breathless, waiting for what was to come. Camelee stepped out of the way.

  The two women raised their hands and began a low chant.

  Magic. He couldn’t fight magic.

  As if reading his mind, the sisters turned their hands toward Camelee. The king leaped forward and was stopped with one swipe of a sister’s hand in his direction.

  All right then, they did indeed try for his weakness. The air around their hands began to sparkle and billow outward toward Camelee. The first vaporous finger touched Camelee and wound around her wrists.

  “Hey, what are you doing?”

  Wolf watched the next five fingers coming at her and put all his strength into a swipe of his blade. He felt the thickened, sparkling air and swung at it again. The vapors dropped to the floor and faded away.

  The sisters gasped and sent more, but his blade sliced through all of them.

  They stopped, released Camelee and the king with Wolf’s permission, and stared at him.

  “I am Nimue of the Nine Sisters of Avalon,” said the short-haired woman. “This is Viviane, one of my sisters. Who are you?”

  “Chief Ulf Kristiansen of the north, High Commander of King Cnut.”

  “It is foretold,” Viviane told him and the rest, “a man would come and be able to leave and return at will, without using magic. His power comes from the Creator. His purpose is to stop others from changing the timeline from Avalon.”

  “I know nothing about any of that,” he told them. “I came for her alone.”

  “You cannot take her from Avalon,” the king spoke up. His tone was strong and authoritative. “Morgan will find her. I won’t let you put her in danger after I took her from her mother for her entire life!”

  What was Wolf to say to that? He swallowed and shifted his gaze to Camelee. She was all that mattered to him in any world. If this witch called Morgan was a danger to her, he would find her and kill her. He could stop a spell and destroy it, but he had to be quick and not distracted.