The chief’s cerulean gaze found hers. Before she let him bewitch her again, she turned and went the other way. Why did this have to happen? He would never believe her over his second in command. Why should he? She had proof of absolutely nothing, except Fin’s confession of being the last person to see her alive. Not only that, but Wolf hardly knew her. Even if she had proof, he probably wouldn’t believe her.

  Fin wouldn’t be punished, and she couldn’t stand the thought of it. She wouldn’t forgive Wolf for letting it go.

  She disappeared into the bushes to relieve herself, on this, her second day here. She wiped miserably with snow and then cleaned her hands with more snow, and a few tears.

  Instead of returning to the camp, Camelee realized that no one had been following her. The chief and Fin had gone to Hild. She was alone. She didn’t have much time. She didn’t think about possibilities or consequences, just about escaping.

  She ran. Soon, her Uggs were soaked through with freezing boggy water. Tall reeds grew all around her. This didn’t look like anywhere in Manhattan that she knew of. New Jersey maybe? Pennsylvania?

  This time yesterday, she was in Manhattan. What happened? She woke up in her bed. Karen brought her coffee and a blueberry scone, pulled open her bedroom curtains, and turned to smile and tell her about her day. Yesterday, they were filming the last episode of the first half of the season. She missed it. Would they sue her? Not if she’d been abducted. But she was beginning to believe that she hadn’t been abducted. In that case, they really couldn’t sue her. She almost laughed. She was going out of her mind. How did they treat mental disabilities in the eleventh century? She was guessing not too good.

  She thought she heard him calling her name. She stopped and looked around. There was nothing, not a tree, not a house, a stone, a marking of any kind. There were only reeds as far as her eye could see. She panicked. How would she ever find her way out? She turned around. Was that the way she’d come?

  She heard him again, resonating, agonized, urgent. “Camelee!”

  The hairs on her arms and the back of her neck stood on end. “Woman, answer me!”

  “This way! I’m lost!” she cried out to ensure his leniency when she explained what she was doing here.

  “Thank you, God,” she heard him say when she burst through the towering reeds. She ran through the water, pulling up the reeds that tangled around her ankles, and almost leaped into his saddle.

  He pulled her up by the arms and let her sink onto his lap. He wrapped his arms around her. “Where were you off to?”

  “I had to go, and I was so sad that Hild’s mother wasn’t with you that I wasn’t thinking about which way I was going. Next thing I know, I was lost. Oh, Wo—Chief,” she quickly corrected when she saw Akkar.

  She wouldn’t tell him she was terrified to gain his pity. If he had a brain in his head, he would know that she wouldn’t tell him if she was afraid. “How big is this bog?”

  “You would come to its end in one day. Or go around it in two days,” Akkar answered her.

  Wolf grinned at her at Akkar’s expense.

  “I was not intending to take us through the bogs,” the chief let her know as they made their way back to camp.

  “Good news to my ears.”

  “I also have bad news,” he said regrettably.

  “Hild’s mother,” she guessed.

  “Frida,” he told her. “Some of the women know who she is…was.”

  “What happened? And don’t tell me Fin had nothing to do with it,” she added softly and tilting her head so that only he could hear.

  “She was mauled by a bear. She is…” he paused trying not to be too candid. “Hardly recognizable”

  She blinked up at him. “Where was she and what was she doing there?”

  “Perhaps she was lost,” he answered. “Same as you.”

  She grimaced at how that excuse had turned so quickly against her. “So, you’re not going to question him any further?”

  “Camelee, she was mauled by a bear. I saw the body.”

  She wanted to tell him that maybe Fin had raped her and then left her for dead. But he wouldn’t see it.

  “What did you tell Hild?”

  He shrugged his shoulders and Camelee was once again reminded of how mighty he looked and how strong he was. He was real. He was a Viking warrior and a chief, though she wasn’t sure what the latter was.

  “Genevra asked me to let her tell the girl,” he said. “I allowed it.”

  “Genevra is a kind soul. I must apologize to her for my flash of anger when she called me daughter.”

  “Why should that anger you?” he asked.

  “I just have this sour part of me about mothers.”

  “You will be one someday,” he pointed out.

  “No, I won’t. I don’t want children. I never want to be a mother.”

  The slight smile he usually wore when he was around her faded. “You sound certain.”

  “I am. I will not be a good mother, and I won’t take the chance of screwing someone up.”

  “Very well,” he said, “first of all explain what you main by screwing someone up and then tell me how you know what kind of mother you will be?”

  “Because I…why all the questions?” she argued, stiffening in his arms. “Why don’t you question Fin like this?”

  “Because I was not thinking about having children with Fin.”

  “What?” She was already staring at him, so when he spoke, she was watching him. He was serious. He was also insane. Stark raving mad if he thought—he could force himself on her and get her pregnant. Oh, no! What if he tried? What if that was his intention all along? She should have kept on running. So what if she was in a bog? It had to end somewhere.

  “Wolf, I would prefer not to ever be a mother, and I certainly don’t want to be forced. I don’t love you. This is not my home. I will not settle here.”

  He folded his arms across his chest like a shield against her and scowled. “Do you know how to get back to your home, Camelee?”

  For some crazy reason, she didn’t want him to put a shield between them. She wanted to run her fingers over the steel muscles shaping him, kiss along his granite jaw until it softened toward her.

  “Help me find a way,” she said in a low voice facing his chest.

  “Is that what I am here for?” he asked, looking down at her.

  She wanted to close her eyes against him. The truth was she’d been afraid out there alone in the bog. She was relieved he had come for her. She was afraid here, wherever here was. She was thankful for his consideration and kindness toward her.

  They rode until they reached the camp. Fin was there to greet them. He smiled, like some dashing rogue. But he didn’t win her over. She didn’t care if they’d found Hild’s mother mauled by a bear. If Fin had something to do with it, she didn’t want him to get away with it.

  She dismounted and hurried to the little girl, mostly to be away from Fin’s watchful eyes. When she reached her, she saw another woman with her.

  “Where’s Genevra?” she asked Wolf when he dismounted and reached her.

  “Genevra has a master,” he told her. “Lord Alfred of Bristolton. He asked for her attention.”

  “Of course.” Camelee grumbled under her breath. “He wanted her attention, instead of her giving it to an orphaned child.”

  “Would you prefer I killed him?” he asked, unruffled, as if he could go do it and come right back to finish their conversation.

  “Of course not!” she breathed, horrified at the suggestion. “We don’t go around killing people because we disagree with their stance on certain issues.”

  He knit his brow while he studied her, and then he smiled. “I had my tent set up for the girl. I think she will be more comfortable.”

  Camelee looked around at the large tent, made of sewn animal hides. She swallowed. It was about the size of a city bus. A tent like this would take a long time to make, many animals…

  “Are you unwell?” he asked, laying his hand on her shoulder. “Come, inside where it is warm.”

  “This is your tent? You sleep here alone?”

  “I rarely stay in it,” he told her. “We do not usually put it up. I made an exception for the girl.”

  She marveled at it. “It’s—”

  “And for you,” he added quietly.

  Her belly flipped as she stepped inside. For a mad moment, she celebrated his fondness for her, but reality settled quickly over her—along with blessed heat from many candles lit on stands and hanging from rafters, precariously close to the top.

  She was no longer afraid of having been kidnapped by a cult of maniacs in the twenty-first century. No. She was convinced more fully that she had somehow, magically been sucked through time and entered the horrific eleventh century—when a Dane was seated on the English throne.

  As impossible as it all seemed, they had traveled long hours and not once had she seen anything in the sky except for birds. They’d traveled far and she’d only seen one or two houses. No buildings in the distance. New York City wasn’t this big. The English countryside in the eleventh century was. There were hills everywhere, most were blanketed by a thin sheet of snow.

  This morning was especially cold, making the tent—his tent, well appreciated.

  The skins held the warmth inside. It was cozy, bathed in golden light, but there was an underlying smell of gaminess. Hild was uncovered and afraid and sitting on a bed made of skins. The thought of it turned Camelee’s stomach.

  “This woman,” he announced, motioning with his chin to Camelee, “will watch over the child from now on. You may go.”

  “What? No!” Camelee refused.

  His eyes smoldered like storm clouds over turquoise seas. “You cannot refuse.”

  “I just did!”

  He shook his head and left.

  Bastard! Camelee wanted to go after him. How dare he just walk away? She wanted to tell him what she thought of him ordering her around. Ordering her to take care of this little girl. Camelee didn’t want to be a mother, and he knew it!

  She tightened her jaw. Well, she guessed that was that. She couldn’t leave now.

  “Mumma coming home soon,” Hild declared happily when Camelee went to her.

  Camelee squeezed her eyes shut. No! She wanted the girl to know the truth. Why have the child wait for someone who was never coming back? Yes, it hurt, but not telling her the truth hurt her more and for a longer period.

  She bent to the child. She didn’t know what else to tell her. She had been given false hope as a child, and when her biological mother never came for her, it devastated her.

  “No, Hild,” she said as gently as she could. “Your mumma is gone. She has died. She’s not coming back.”

  As she suspected, Hild’s smile vanished, and tears quickly filled her eyes. “Yes. Mumma coming back.”

  “No, little one, she is not coming back. We will take care of you—”

  Hild began to wail for her mother. Camelee didn’t know what to do. She’d never been around kids before. Not alone and in charge. What should she do? She sat down next to the girl on the skins. “Hild, everything is going to be all right. Mumma is watching over you from Heaven, and we will all take care of you and love you.”

  The child continued to cry. She was so pitiful that Camelee began to cry with her. The poor girl had lost her mother. It was terribly sad. Camelee hadn’t cried in years. Not real tears. Both her and Hild’s lives had completely changed in the space of a breath. She understood, so she cried.

  She felt a warm hand rest on her shoulder. She sniffed and wiped her eyes before she turned to look behind her.

  “It is as you told her,” Wolf’s heavy, quiet voice swept across her ears. “All will be well.”

  “How do you know that?” she asked, turning to face him.

  “Because,” he said staring into her eyes, tender, and yet feral with his flowing braided hair, “if anyone tries to make it unwell, I will kill them.”

  Chapter Six

  She pulled back, out of his reach. He was tempted to grasp for her. Stay near. He wanted to tell her. But she wouldn’t obey him.

  He watched her put her arm around the girl. “She needs to rest.”

  He pulled off his fur cloak and yawned. “So do I.” He crossed the tent in three long strides and fell onto a long, folding bed covered in furs. This is what he needed. To sleep. His lack of it contributed to his latest line of thoughts. Constant thoughts of her.

  He opened his eyes. Camelee hadn’t moved from her spot. She said nothing but stared at him.

  He was surprised that his disobedient servant was learning subservience so quickly. He smiled at her. Slightly. “You may come.”

  He threw down his blanket on the girl as a sign that he cared about their well-being, and then closed his eyes.

  “Excuse me!”

  He opened his eyes and looked at Camelee. He tried not to scowl at thoughts of how enticing she looked with her hair disheveled and her cheeks flushed. “Woman, why are you raising your voice at me?”

  “Are you serious?” she barked. Then, before he could even ask her what she was saying, she continued. She looked at the child sitting up, leaning her back on the bed, close to him, and lowered her voice. “You’re serious about this whole slave thing, is that it? She’s beneath you so she sleeps on the floor? I bet we’re supposed to be thankful to you for it, too, huh?”

  He sat up. “Huh?”

  She threw up her hands. “Oh, for goodness—”

  “Camelee.” He cut her off. He’d been patient long enough. He didn’t like the way she was making him soft. He had to stop it before his men saw it. “You will cease this,” he warned. “We are weary.”

  She was obviously too simple-minded to recognize when a man had had enough, for she raised one eyebrow and put her hands on her hips, ready to fight. “Oh,” she contended, “so now it’s we? Good, then you don’t need me.”

  “No.” He glanced down at the child, sucking her thumb, and trying and failing to keep her eyes open. “Not now, it would seem. You are free to go.”

  She gasped. He thought it a strange reaction—as if she had never been spoken to like that before. Impossible if she came from this time…or if she was royalty. Was she some princess escaping an unwanted, upcoming marriage? She looked as if she could be royalty, save for her red, puffy eyes. He’d walked in on her and the child weeping. Camelee had gathered herself though and stopped when she saw him.

  She was a curious thing. Why had she been weeping? She had said she had no husband so what was so terrible about going with him? Had he not treated her well from the beginning?

  “I—”

  She held up her hand. “Good day,” she said, then disappeared through the flap.

  “Mumma coming back?” the little girl asked him.

  It both warmed his heart and worried him that she thought of Camelee as her mother already. Camelee said she didn’t want to be a mother. It seemed her mind was made up. She left the child with him to go sleep outside in the cold. A mother wouldn’t do such a thing. She would lay on the floor with her child and keep her warm. Good thing he’d been thoughtful and gave the girl his blanket.

  He hopped off the bed and reached for his fur cloak. He returned to the girl and took the blanket from her. He rolled it up and put it under her head. Then he covered her with his cloak and looked down at her. He wondered what truly happened to her mother. Should he leave Camelee out there with Fin?

  “Mumma coming back?”

  “Yes, Hild,” he said softly. “She is coming back.”

  Where else was she going to go?

  *

  Camelee stormed out of his tent, wishing there was a door she could slam. She wanted to scream and rant and rave, but that wouldn’t help her here. Besides, what kind of example would she be setting for Hild? Not that she cared about how the girl saw her. He thought to throw the child at her in the hopes of what, she wondered angrily; convincing her that she did want to have his children and without pain killers? Because you know, she did things the old-fashioned way now.

  She hugged herself while she crossed the camp and fell onto her pallet. She didn’t need his stupid tent. She certainly wouldn’t lay on the floor by his feet like a loyal dog! She’d rather freeze.

  Someone dug his boot into her side. “Up now. There will be no sleeping all day around here. Get with the others and start making our meal.”

  “Get your foot out of my side before I hack it off with the chief’s axe,” she said in her toughest New York accent, a role she did in one of her first movie roles as Josephine, a gang leader’s girlfriend in Silver Bullet, a crime thriller.

  Her attacker wasn’t buying it. He pulled back his foot and meant to kick her. Someone stopped him. Akkar.

  “Friend,” he warned, “she belongs to the chief, Wolf Kristiansen. Harm her and he will surely kill you.”

  Her assailant paled and ran off. Camelee thought about telling Wolf about him for the way he treated a woman. She didn’t care if she was in ten seventeen and things were different. She wouldn’t stand by while women were being assaulted.

  “Thank you,” she said to Akkar.

  “For what?”

  “For scaring that creep away.”

  He shrugged. “In truth, I was thinking about his life, not yours.”

  “Ugh, right. For a minute, I forgot that you’re a savage son of a—Viking.”

  “How could you forget that?” he asked sounding serious enough. He looked to be about eighteen years old, with russet hair shaved close up to the tops of his ears. There was a long, single braid swinging between his shoulders in his fur cloak.

  “I really don’t know,” she told him. “Um, where are you motioning me to go?”

  “With me. I’ll take you to the other women. The men are getting hungry.”

  What did she care? She wanted to scream it. She wasn’t a slave! “There’s been a mistake, Akkar. I’m not a slave.”

  His dark eyes widened. “You are not? What are you then?”

  “Do I have to be something in order not to be a slave?” she asked, following him.