He took a step back. The danger was over. “We need to go. We will eat some of the food the men have collected from here.”

  “Wolf,” she said softly. It was the first time she’d said his name. “Please let me go. Take me back to the city, and I’ll take it from there.”

  “Travel with me, and if you find a place you wish to stay, I will see to it.”

  “Okay,” she agreed and turned away.

  His smile faded. He didn’t want her to choose to go. Would he let her? She was his, after all.

  They went to his horse and rode it together back to the town to gather the rest of the men.

  “You took a chance sleeping alone so far from help,” she told him, riding uncomfortably in his lap.

  “Did I?” he said over her head.

  “What if there were ten men?”

  “I would have fought differently, but I would have saved you,” he promised her.

  She dipped her head and laughed softly. “Okay, I believe you.”

  He didn’t seek out another horse so she could ride separately. It was Fin’s suggestion that she ride a horse of her own to keep Wolf’s horse alive.

  “I’ve never ridden a horse before,” she told Wolf. “But I’ll give it my best shot.”

  He looked at her with curiosity, not war, in his eyes.

  “I’ll try to ride,” she explained.

  It took nearly an hour to get all the men outside and at their proper stations. No one had eaten, so they all partook of some bread and sweet butter. There was also dried meat and semi-fresh berries.

  Fin kept his massive warhorse on the other side of Camelee. Wolf didn’t like it. He needed to watch Fin around her. Fin possessed something cold and savage. Wolf didn’t want it set loose on Camelee. He might have to make it clearer to Fin that Camelee was his.

  He thought nothing of the way he saw her, as his. He felt protective of her, amused by her, curious about her. He thought about her coffee and the other things she’d told him about her home. It was all quite magnificent.

  “May I come with you, Chief?”

  Wolf flicked his gaze to Akkar’s. The chief clenched his teeth. “I would not keep you from helping your father.”

  “He does not care if I go. It would be an honor on my family name to fight at your side.”

  “Well, I do not know about fighting yet,” Wolf told him.

  “Then I may come?” Akkar’s dark eyes opened wider, his smile did, as well.

  “You may come,” he allowed and ignored the young man’s happy grin. He wasn’t a friend. He was their commander. If they didn’t obey him, they could die or cause the rest of them to die. Akkar’s duty was to do whatever menial task Wolf needed of him.

  They set out, bringing with them some of the widows and their children. A few men to work fields.

  Camelee rode close to Wolf, clenching her jaw with every bounce of her horse. “What’s going to happen to them?”

  “They will be coming to Denmark in the spring,” he answered, keeping his gaze steady on the road.

  She waited and watched him to see if he would look at her. He wouldn’t.

  “How many of them?” she asked.

  “As many as the longboats can carry.”

  She gave him a horrified look. “How do you know how many that is? You have many different weights here.”

  “If the boat does not sink, we can set sail.”

  “Wolf!” she snapped her mouth shut and then corrected herself, as they weren’t alone. “I mean, Chief! What if you take on water and begin to sink?”

  “Then,” answered Fin, “we begin to throw some of them overboard.” He smiled, amused by her horrified shock when she turned to Wolf.

  “Is that true?”

  He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.

  “What is the matter, Chief?” Fin sped up his horse a bit so he could see Wolf and smirk at him. “Why do you use caution with her?”

  “Fin,” Wolf told him slowly. “For the sake of our blood, I will not bound over these horses and remind you who asks the questions here.”

  “Understood, Chief.” Fin lowered his gaze and slowed his pace, then finally broke off and rode with the others.

  “I do not want to hear your womanly sensibilities about how I was too hard on him,” he told her. “Fin is fortunate I did not kill him. I must command the respect of every man, or woman here. If just one of them thinks I am weak, it could become disastrous.”

  “I understand.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes. You’re the leader. That means they must follow you. I get it. Plus, that one needs to be brought down a peg or two.”

  He nodded, then stopped, unsure what he was nodding at.

  “He must be told that you are mine, Camelee.” He expected her to be angry. She was bolder than any female he knew. But he didn’t expect her to laugh.

  “Okay, okay. Chastise me. I didn’t take you seriously in public. I’m sorry, but only delusional men talk like that where I come from.”

  “Well, we are where I come from now,” he told her angrily. “If you prefer to be alone for the remainder of your journey. I can arrange it.”

  He had been hard on people before. It didn’t usually trouble him. But it did now. Still, he said nothing. He led a thousand men at times. He wasn’t about to let some woman turn him soft.

  “Well?” he put to her. “What will you have?”

  “I’ll stick with you,” she said after a few moments in which he thought she would foolishly tell him she wanted to be alone.

  There. He felt pleased with himself for a moment. And then pleased with her for using good judgment, though she was clearly angry. It was the sign of strength, the sign of a leader.

  “Tell me again what you did in this other life of yours?” he asked her, keeping close while they rode.

  “I am an actor.”

  “But what do you do?”

  “I…” she paused and looked off to the side a little as if something had just occurred to her. “I pretend. I get a script, I memorize my part. I, along with the rest of the cast, rehearse it and then we perform it as perfectly as we can, and it’s recorded and edited for the movies. There’s a lot more I’m leaving out because you’re looking kind of lost, but that’s the gist of it. I don’t usually have to lift a finger for myself.”

  He blinked and kept riding, regretting that he had asked.

  “What about you?” she asked. “What do you do when you’re not raiding? And what are you fighting to claim now, Viking?

  “We fight to hold our claim over England and King Cnut’s throne. As for when I am home, I farm my land. We grow wheat and oats and barley. I built my own longhouse and am trying to add to it. I tend to my animals and livestock. It is a hard but satisfying life.”

  She nodded. “So, England is in the hands of the Danes?”

  “That is correct. The Danes are unbeatable.”

  “That is because you’re all so barbaric,” she told him with distaste tainting her voice.

  “Civilized people aren’t prepared for the likes of you.”

  “It is war, Camelee,” he defended, not understanding why he did. “We do what must be done to win and to stay alive.”

  “You’ve made many widows,” she pointed out.

  “I am called to fight by my king,” he told her, keeping his horse at a slow pace. “Should I disobey him? Should I not practice my skill and become a master at it so that I am not killed on the field?”

  She nodded. “Yes, of course. My brother was in the military. He died four years ago.”

  Wolf lowered his head. Her brother was a warrior. He gave the man the respect he was due with a moment of quiet.

  When he looked up, he found her smiling at him. He doubted the good of his senses when every part of him grew warm, and he smiled back.

  Chapter Five

  Camelee bit her bottom lip every time her horse set its hooves on the ground. It had been six hours since they’d left the town. She thought her thighs must be bleeding. The pain was almost unbearable. Except for when Wolf asked her if she was all right and she said yes because Fin was listening. She didn’t want to come off as helpless—but at this point, she feared falling out of the saddle.

  “Chief—” Ugh! How she despised calling him that! She understood they were supposed to be in the eleventh century and women were subservient. She hated having to pretend. But like any other acting job… “I need—”

  “Chief,” Akkar called from his horse, pulling up close so they could see him in the dim light. “There are women with little ones. They need to rest. Can we stop for the night?”

  Camelee shut her mouth and prayed Wolf would agree to stop for the night.

  He was looking at her, waiting for her to finish what she was going to say. His expression told her that he might understand what she was going to say but didn’t. His eyes warmed for a moment. “Very well, Akkar. We will stop here for the night. Tell Bjorn to prepare a fire.”

  “Thank you, Chief,” the young soldier said and hurried off.

  Wolf nodded and then glanced at her. “You will stay with me.”

  “No, I won’t. I’m going to sleep with the other women.” She didn’t wait for his approval but started after Akkar.

  “Camelee,” he called.

  She sighed and looked up, then at him.

  “Good dreams.”

  If she didn’t feel like she was going insane, she would have smiled at him. “Good dreams to you, too, Chief.”

  She rode her mount after Akkar and followed the other women when he gathered them together. He spoke even less Saxon than Wolf, but she managed to settle down amid other women.

  She soon regretted her decision to stay with them as most of them cried themselves to sleep. She wanted to join in right along with them. Of course, she hadn’t lost her husband. But she did lose everything else, including her mind. She felt the burning behind her eyes and bit her inner cheek to keep from crying.

  “Mumma.”

  She heard the low, pitiful cry a few pallets away and opened her eyes. A child. She closed her eyes again. She couldn’t comfort a child. What did she know about such things?

  “Mumma!” The crying grew louder.

  Camelee put her hands over her ears and tried to block out the sound. Where was the child’s mother? The weeping grew louder. Had one of the men taken the mother? She sat up.

  “There, there, now, Treasure,” soothed a woman’s voice beyond the firelight. The comforting sound of her seeped through Camelee’s bones and warmed her blood. For a moment, and then it turned her cold.

  Finally, the mother had returned. She seemed to be just fine. Had she been off giggling with one of them, at the cost of her child? Camelee threw herself back down.

  The child began crying again. “Mumma!”

  “Miss?” someone asked, approaching her.

  It was the woman. The mother.

  “Yes?” Camelee asked.

  “You…ehm…know the chief? The little girl’s mother was taken away by one of the men and the child needs her.”

  “What?” Camelee sat up again. She wasn’t the child’s mother? “Someone took her?”

  “Correct,” said the woman. “You know the chief. Please, help her.”

  Camelee left her pallet. “Bring her.”

  They followed her by the light of campfire until they came to Wolf’s side of the camp. He had his own fire close to his pallet. He was awake and staring into the flames when they stepped into the light.

  He stood up when he saw them. “What is it?”

  He appeared concerned and she was grateful once again to be in his care.

  “Sir, the mother of this child has been taken by one of your men,” Camelee informed him, then waited for him to rise up and find the—

  “How do you know she did not go of her own accord? I heard no screaming.”

  No, she wouldn’t claw his beautiful eyes out in front of a little kid. “This woman says the child’s mother would never have left her.”

  “Is that so?” he asked with a scowl as he turned to the woman. “And who are you?”

  “Genevra, my lord.”

  Camelee turned to her and saw her for the first time in the firelight. Her hair was blonde, a shade lighter than Camelee’s and piled atop her head with a few strands hanging down the sides of her beautiful face. Her eyes were silvery-blue and her skin, golden tan and beginning to show signs of her age. Early forties. Something about her looked too well-bred to be wearing tattered skirts.

  “Where is your husband?”

  “I have never taken a husband, my lord.”

  He quirked his mouth at her and turned to the little girl holding Genevra’s hand. “And what are you called, Child?”

  “Hild.”

  “Hild, did you see the man with your mother?” When she nodded, he asked her to describe him. But the little girl was young, about four and didn’t know what he was asking.

  “Hild,” Camelee bent to her. “Did he have hair like mine or like the chief’s?”

  “Like you,” Hild told her, wiping her eyes.

  That describes almost all the men here, Camelee thought miserably. She narrowed it down until they both realized she was describing Fin. Wolf bolted across the campfire. He reached an empty pallet and then stormed for his horse.

  But as he was beginning to mount, Fin sauntered back into the camp.

  Wolf went directly to him. “Where is the woman you took to your bed tonight?”

  “I took no woman to my bed,” Fin told him, sounding insulted. “She refused and I obeyed your order not to force myself on her.”

  “Well, then where is she?” Camelee demanded, stepping forward.

  For an instant, Fin looked so angry that Camelee thought he would strike her. She was about to take a step back, but Wolf moved in front of her, blocking Fin’s view of her. “Let us go find the child’s mother,” he told his brother and waited for him to go get his horse.

  “I will return as soon as I find her,” he told Camelee and Hild.

  He shook his head, scowling at Camelee and muttered under his breath something about why was he doing things to please her. It made her heart sing when she thought about him doing things to make her happy. It made her want to smile at him, and even blush.

  He was a big brute, who looked at killing as if it were a sport. His ideas were ancient and misogynistic. How could she entertain any kind of pleasant thoughts about him?

  As soon as he was gone, and the reality that seemed to be happening to her returned, her thoughts switched to Fin. Fin didn’t seem like the kind of guy who respected a woman’s “no”. He was lying. If he’d been with Hild’s mother, he’d had sex with her, whether she wanted to or not. Maybe he’d hurt her after that, to keep from Wolf finding out what he’d done.

  She glanced at the little girl, who’d been watching her.

  Genevra set her jewel-like gaze on hers and swiped away a stray lock of golden hair from her eyes. “You are not from Bristolton. I do not remember ever seeing you.”

  Camelee smiled at her, as if she could not help herself, also glad for the change of topic. She had a dreadful feeling in her guts about Hild’s mother. “I arrived this morning.”

  “Just in time to be captured by the Northmen?” Genevra asked, her eyes going wide. “You poor dear. Let me tend to you.”

  At first, Camelee didn’t want a stranger trying to “tend” to her, but Genevra was a kind woman with a compassionate ear. And there was something about her, something Camelee couldn’t put her finger on. But it made her feel comfortable, comforted, and they’d barely said a word to each other.

  “Goodness, what did you say you are called?” Genevra asked, bringing her fingers to her forehead. “Did you already tell me and I…oh, if you did tell it to me, it is only because there is so much going on with the poor babe that I—”

  “No, no, I haven’t given it yet. I’m so sorry. It’s Camelee.”

  “Camelee! What a lovely name!”

  Camelee offered her a warm smile. Genevra was a kind person. It was nice to find one, even if Camelee had to go back a thousand years to do it.

  “Mumma!” Hild took up crying again. She yawned and closed her eyes as if she just couldn’t hold them open another second, but she needed her mother before she could relax and rest. Camelee wanted to comfort her. She understood that feeling. She also remembered giving up hope of her mother—her true mother—ever finding her. And then giving up trying to find her mother. She learned how to go to sleep on her own.

  “There now, little one,” Genevra cooed, sitting by the fire, and pulling Hild into her lap. “Remember what the chief said, he will try to find her and return her to you, aye?”

  Hild nodded and rested her head on Genevra’s bosom, and then finally closed her eyes.

  Camelee sat near them, looking at the little girl. All the emotions she’d been holding back for the dozen or so hours came like liquid fire to the back of her throat and the brims of her eyes.

  Genevra said nothing but reached out in the fiery light to hold Camelee’s hand.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t usually cry, but I’m just thinking of her future,” she confessed, heedlessly wiping her eyes.

  “We do not know what the years hold for her,” the older woman offered.

  “But we do, Genevra. And it isn’t good. Unless you consider a hard life of work, I mean toil, fun.”

  “We are not promised a fun life, Daughter.”

  “Don’t call me that,” Camelee scolded, her expression going cold. “I’m not your daughter.”

  Genevra smiled gracefully. “But you could be.”

  Camelee stood up. “But I’m not.” She marched off without another word, not understanding why she was so upset, just knowing she was.

  Mothers couldn’t be trusted.

  *

  She opened her eyes to the low, morning sun, and the two Viking warrior-looking men returning on their horses. She sat up on her pallet. They were alone. Hild’s mother was not with them. Her heart sank.

  And then hardened on Fin. On all of them for raiding and killing these women’s husbands, for making Hild an orphan in this crappy world of theirs, if, God forbid, she was truly in it.