So, he sat opposite her. He wanted to see her, though he did not stare, and when he looked, he was quick to look away before being caught.

  “Are you from this village?” he put to her, accepting one cup of whatever they drank here and taking a sip. She stared at the cup and cleared her throat. He observed her glancing around the table for her cup. And then at the other two women, who’d served him. When she realized she wasn’t getting anything to drink, her heated gaze found his.

  “I’m thirsty.”

  He handed her his cup. She stared at it as if were a dead herring.

  She turned away toward the women. “May I have some water?”

  “Camelee,” he said keeping his voice low. He still held the cup out to her.

  “You are tempting them to defy me. Is that truly your desire?”

  She went pale, but only for a moment, and then she fumed at him. “What is this? Who are these people? End this now and I won’t have my lawyers destroy you!”

  “Why do you speak like a madwoman? Are you?”

  “I wasn’t mad this morning. But now I don’t know.”

  He pushed the cup closer. She finally accepted it and brought it to her nose. “You don’t understand—at home, I’m an actress. I’m famous. I am treated very well. I—”

  “Where is your home?” he asked her, not knowing, or caring what an actress was or why she was famous. If she was treated very well, that was going to change.

  “New York. Manhattan.”

  “York?”

  “New York,” she corrected. “New York,” she said again when he gave her a curious look. “The city that never sleeps. Home of the Yankees.”

  “Yankees?”

  She laughed a little. “Oh, come on, you don’t know who the Yankees are? Every guy knows—” She stopped and looked at her surroundings, at the two women cooking, the large stone oven, the bed a few feet away. The fear, so carefully concealed throughout most of her capture, became suddenly clear. The truth of her demise was difficult to ignore. Her tears welled up along the brims of her eyes—but they did not fall. She drew in a deep breath and patted her cheeks.

  When she set her glassy gaze on him again, she wore a well-practiced smile. “Where did you say we are?”

  He didn’t answer. He should have sent the two cooks away. Word moved swiftly around kitchen fires. A chief who had taken an interest in a captive? A servant? And a mouthy one at that? Who cared if she was mad in the head? All the more reason for her to not be sitting here.

  He glanced at the two women cooking. “Stop asking questions. If you must speak, show gratitude to me for letting you sit at my table.”

  She smiled, but her beguiling lips were pulled tight against her teeth. “Well then,” She gave him a pitiful look through her flaxen locks as she stood up. “I think I’ll be leaving now.” She tilted her chin and tucked her hair behind her ears. “And there’s no reason to answer my question. I already know I’m in hell.”

  She turned to leave. He called her name to stop her. “You will remain here and wash the dishes. If you cannot cook, you will wash. That is it. It is done. Do you understand?” He believed she did.

  She stopped and swung around to look at him. Still smiling, as if he were the mad one. “No, I don’t understand.”

  His smirk widened. “Let me be more clear then. If you are not here to do these dishes, I will give you to Fin.”

  Her eyes widened with pure terror. “I am not your property to give away!”

  He nodded to disagree. “You are the spoils of war. My side won, yours did not.”

  “But,” she said, returning to the table. “I don’t have a side.

  “How can you not have a side?” he asked, genuinely curious. “Are you a traitor to your countrymen?”

  “No!” she answered without haste. There was at least that. “Don’t try to put words into my mouth. Now tell me, what are the sides?”

  “Danes against the Saxons.”

  “A re-enactment,” she said in a low voice, almost a whisper.

  “What is a re-enactment?” he asked. “You have strange speech.”

  “But this can’t be real. It’s impossible!”

  The two women, whom Wolf learned were called Brigid and Alison served him turnip and mushroom soup with carrots, and onions, and butternut squash. He tasted it and smiled. “It is real.” He invited the cooks to eat the rest before his men came looking for him. Camelee refused but he warned her that he didn’t know when her next meal would be. So, she ate.

  “Now tell me,” he said after he asked Brigid and Alison to leave, “why do you keep saying this cannot be real?”

  “Because I…I was in New York City this morning. I inherited some brooch and—I don’t know, I rubbed it. I felt compelled to rub it. A name appeared. Pendragon. I said it just like that—” She stopped and looked around as if expecting something to happen. “I said it and then I was here, under your net somewhere in England—”

  “Mercia,” he reminded her, enjoying her tale and how she sounded telling it.

  “Mercia.” She scrunched up her face. “How old is—” Her gaze roved over the room. “It may seem odd that I don’t know, but what year is it?”

  It was odd. What was her ailment, he wondered? “It is one thousand and seventeen.”

  Her mouth fell open a little. He was admiring it when she fell over once again into a dead faint.

  With a sigh, Wolf rose from his chair, walked around the table, and scooped her up in his arms. She had opened her coat and he looked at the shape of her as it fell open. She was slight, thin, but curvy. He felt a bit out of breath. He didn’t know why.

  He stretched her out on the table near his food and sat down to finish his meal.

  He would decide what to do with her later. For now, though, he wanted to keep her.

  Chapter Two

  Camelee’s eyes fluttered open. For one blissful instant, the memory of where she was eluded her. What was so hard beneath her? Where was Karen with her coffee?

  No coffee.

  Everything came back, not in a rush, but slowly, taking its time to lengthen the time of her torture. Dear God, no. Vikings? Was this a dream she was stuck inside of? An acting job on the series with that gorgeous blond? Whatshisname? She was afraid to open her eyes. What if she didn’t wake up? She couldn’t go on, acting like she wasn’t afraid because she didn’t want to give some maniac the satisfaction of seeing her crawl.

  Screw that. She was terrified. So afraid, in fact, that she’d fainted twice. But fainting was beyond her control. She wouldn’t tremble or fall apart. She just couldn’t. It wasn’t in her nature. Still, she didn’t want to face the Viking reality. He’d said they were in the year one thousand and seventeen!

  Please, God, please, don’t let it be real or some cult group preparing to kill me.

  “Are you going to pretend you are asleep for much longer?”

  His voice rolled across her ear like a deep, ancient drum. The sound of him called to her and startled her. In fact, she was sure if it was possible to jump out of one’s own skin, she would have done it. She gave herself a moment to slow her breath and not throw up. She almost couldn’t do it. She was still here. Wherever or whenever here was. She was in trouble—about to lose her mind and her life. Either this guy was the leader of a whole bunch of maniacs who went around acting like marauding Vikings in twenty nineteen where they belonged, or she’d traveled back in time to–God forbid—ten seventeen to a Saxon village just taken over by Vikings, and she was now a slave.

  If so, she seriously considered opening her eyes and cursing him to his face and letting him kill her.

  “Camelee.”

  Oh, why had she told him her name? The sound of it from his mouth sounded possessive, sultry, and almost oppressive.

  Since the idea of time travel was ridiculous, the only other possibility was that she’d been abducted. She had to escape and find a phone.

  She was drowning!

  Choking, she bolted upright. She took a moment to note that she’d been lying on the table. She coughed, and then glared at him holding a jug of water he’d just poured out on her face.

  If he were anyone else, she would have smacked the jug out of his hand and then slapped his face. But her captive was a big guy with broad shoulders clad in fur. His dark hair flowed past his shoulders, braided at the temples, and pulled away from his face. He looked deadly, in a beautifully, soulless kind of way. His face was scarred on both sides. Nothing hideous, but he’d definitely been sliced up. He had faint lines around his icy blue—no wait, were they pale green eyes? They changed when the firelight hit them a certain way and were the color of lagoons on a brochure of Fiji, but unlike the brochure—or the island, there was nothing inviting in them. He had a well-groomed mustache beneath his nose, with a bare space just above the dip of his bow-shaped upper lip. She forgot to breathe looking at him. Of course, this nut would have to be the best-looking guy she’d ever seen.

  “I was praying you and this horrible place weren’t real,” she told him, clearing her eyes.

  He knit his dark brows. “To which god do you pray?”

  She knew what these Vikings believed. She’d watched the show. She held up her finger. “There’s only One.”

  He didn’t argue. “But I am real. You are mad.”

  “And you’re a real piece of—”

  He stared at her, horrified. “What is the black liquid coming from your eyes? Are you possessed?”

  “What?” She rubbed her fingers under her eyes. “Oh, it’s mascara. It’s not waterproof, sorry.”

  His expression darkened and it was a frightening thing to see. “Wipe it off before someone sees you and thinks you are melting.”

  She snatched the hand towel he offered her.

  He snatched it back and seemed to grow right in front of her.

  She hesitated, but only for a moment. No one ever treated her this way, and this bastard wasn’t about to start. She yanked it from his fingers and leaped from the table, wiping her face. He didn’t chase her or try to take it back.

  “Are all the women in the next centuries as bold and willful as you?”

  “You believe me?”

  “No, of course not.” His lips tilted into a smirk. “Do I look like a fool to you?”

  She tried not to stare at his lips. They were carved in the shape of a cupid’s bow on top, with a full, succulent lower lip. Both were perfectly accentuated by his facial hair.

  “Please don’t make me answer that.” She smirked back.

  “Why do you pretend not to fear me?” he asked, silkily.

  “What would you like me to do? Beg you for mercy?”

  He shook his head. “No. I prefer your trickery.”

  “Really? I would have thought a guy like you would lavish in someone else’s fear.”

  “Because I am a Dane?”

  “Because you’re a misogynist, and probably a rapist.”

  “No, I am not a rapist. I do not know what the other thing is, so I cannot agree or disagree.”

  “Look, if you let me go, I promise not to say a word.”

  “Where will you go?”

  She shrugged. “Back home. I won’t go to the police, I promise.”

  “All right,” he said, leaving his chair. “Go. You are free.”

  Was he serious? Just like that? He was letting her go? She hurried for the door, pulled it open, and ran outside. There were a handful of old men roaming about. Some women were balled up in their doorways, wailing. Everything looked so real.

  She heard raucous sounds coming from down the road. The town hall. She ran the other way—straight into someone’s arms.

  Oh, no! The really mean one. Fin!

  “Well, well. Are you escaping?” he purred above her ear.

  “No! He let me go!” she argued.

  He took her by the hair and dragged her back. “If you are trying to deceive me—”

  What if the leader lied and said he didn’t set her free? She fought back, trying to dig her heels in, but it was no use. Okay, this just left the possibility of it being a prank, or a movie set. He was hurting her, pulling hair from her head.

  “Get your hands off me!” She’d never been treated this way before. She was having a hard time believing it.

  He gave her hair another hard yank. Her anger and reflexes took over and she kicked him in the calf. He raised his hand high over his head and was about to bring it down on her. She closed her eyes, too afraid to move. She’d never been hit by a man! She wanted to scream but something stopped Fin’s hand. Camelee had to open her eyes to see what it was.

  “Fin, let her go.”

  It was the simplest of warnings, but there were a thousand threats behind it.

  Fin lowered his hand and released her with a slight shove.

  Camelee was shaken to her marrow. Whatever century they were in, she’d been about to get hit by that piece of trash.

  She was saved by another one.

  She was spitting mad! She was Camelee Pendrey! She—

  “You should come back with me,” he urged in a hypnotically low voice.

  Right. He knew what was behind the door when he’d told her she was free. She felt sick. She looked around at the multiple tents and thatched-roof huts, the snowy paths toward a horizon with nothing in the distance. She bent over and clutched her belly. No help was coming.

  If she was in ten seventeen, no help was coming.

  If she was in ten seventeen, she’d gone mad, and no help was coming.

  She felt him near as she hunched over and threw up her breakfast of coffee. She still had the hand towel he’d given her. She wished it had been a knife so she could end it all right now. She almost sobbed when he laid his hand on her back to comfort her.

  He removed it when someone passed by. She straightened and wiped her face then handed him back his towel.

  He motioned for her to follow him. She was his prisoner without using any restraints. She’d like another chance at that knife, so she could bury it into him. But she breathed and patted her hair. She wasn’t a complete fool. This one seemed to like her. He wasn’t as barbaric as the others. She needed to stay close to him while she was here. Yes, she still had hope of being rescued from this place, whether by a doctor or by the police once she was reported missing.

  She followed him back to the hut and almost ran inside after him when three of his men came traipsing out of the larger town hall. They were laughing and pulling three weeping women behind them.

  Camelee stopped at the door and then stepped back out. Were those men going to rape those women? No! She headed toward them.

  “Camelee.”

  She heard the leader call her name and was tempted to forget what was going on and return to him. How was he already familiar? Was it a part of a victim’s psyche? You latch on to the one who shows you kindness?

  Well, she’d be aware of it. Right now, though, she wasn’t about to let three women be raped. “Hey! You there!”

  The men stopped laughing and squinted to have a look at her.

  “Let them go!”

  They began to laugh again. One of them released a woman and moved toward Camelee with naked male intent in his eyes. He said something in a language she didn’t understand. The other men laughed.

  Her captor paused at her side and then approached them. He said something to the men and they bowed their heads.

  “Are they going to violate those women?” she asked her rescuer.

  He set his gaze on her and studied her thoughtfully for a moment. “Most likely.”

  “You’re their leader. Tell them to let the women go. Please.”

  He smiled and stared at her. When he realized she was serious, his smile faded. “Those women are the bounty of war. They—”

  “They have nothing to do with your war,” she told him. “They simply don’t all have you to protect them.” It was a line from Stand by Her, a movie she’d starred in last winter.

  He stared off in the direction the men had taken. She could almost see him trying to decide what to do. She realized that the more he did for her, the more obligated she would feel to him. But right now, the women here needed help.

  “They are human beings, made in God’s image,” she told him. “They’re afraid, just as your sister, or mother, or wife, or someday your daughter, would be.”

  His expression darkened. She’d hit a nerve. He pushed her aside to head off toward his men. She heard him shout something and then watched the women running back to a hut. She wanted to thank him but when he returned, walking briskly toward her, he passed her without a word and headed for the town hall.

  This time, she followed him, though she didn’t want to be in a room with his men. She thought it best to stick close by him. She might be a pampered actress, but she was a tough New Yorker, too. But again, she wasn’t a fool to pick a fight with any of these men.

  Most were big and blond or ginger. They wore furs and hungry smiles as the women served them. Her captor was dark-haired and a bit smaller, smaller than 6’3” that is, more athletic. He didn’t smile often.

  He leaped onto a table and called for what she guessed was attention when they all turned to him. He spoke in his language, which Camelee suspected was Old Norse. She didn’t understand it. Many of them set their gazes on her as they let go of the women they were groping.

  Her gaze softened on her captor. He went against what they wanted, to do what was right. He also caused her to have many enemies. But then she heard him say something that sounded like mother. They all looked remorseful, their gazes even warming on her.

  But the gentleness didn’t last long. He pulled her forward by her shoulder, said something that included her name, and then pushed her behind him.

  “You are serving,” he told her over her shoulder. “Go find out what is needed of you.”

  “Serving? Oh, but I don’t serve.”

  “Now you do,” he answered woodenly and turned to look forward once again.

  “That’s it? You’re abandoning me?”

  He smiled and she knew she had to put away her thoughts of how good-looking he was.