“You know, a noble woman?” he went on as if he hadn’t heard her. “Princess? The daughter of an important lord?”

  She shook her head. “I’m an award-winning actress. I can perform almost any role! Currently I’m—” she stopped when she saw his blank gaze. He had no idea what she was talking about. She sagged her shoulders, weary of explaining everything she said. She realized, too, that she was simply repeating part of her publicity campaign. This wasn’t what defined her. Was it? She was more than an actress, wasn’t she?

  Solemnly, she resigned that she was here, and she might not get home again. She would never be an actress again, just a slave. She would never see her family, or anyone from her past, or her future. No coffee or music. Life here could be extremely hard until she died—or not so horrible with a strong, gorgeous guy in her bed at night. Of course, he was a misogynistic jerk. But he was a lot better than nothing at all. In ten seventeen anyway.

  A man was running in their direction. He wasn’t a Dane. She knew because Fin was chasing him on his horse. He held a spear in his hand. Just before the fleeing man reached her, Fin caught up with him and ran his spear through the man’s back. The bloody tip came out of his chest and pointed at her.

  She gasped and in the hopes of not fainting in front of Fin, she spun around and ran into Akkar’s arms.

  “Bring her to the chief’s tent!” Fin shouted at him. “Guard her or it will be your head, Akkar! That Saxon meant to harm her.”

  “I will guard her with my life, Commander.”

  Wait. She stopped walking in her soggy Uggs. “Why would he mean to hurt me?” she asked Fin. “I didn’t even know him.”

  “But he knew of you,” he countered. “He blamed you for his village being captured. He said you were a witch. He claimed he saw you appear from nothing. He believed as long as you lived, this village would be cursed.”

  She blinked and a cold thread of fear went through her. She had appeared from an office in a building on West Thirteenth, where she’d held a charred brooch. She wanted to fall to her knees and cry. It had really happened. And that poor man had seen it.

  “Come now,” Akkar urged her forward.

  Was she supposed to thank Fin for his gallantry? What if he’d just murdered that man for no reason other than to satisfy his bloodlust and he made up that story to cover himself with Wolf?

  She wanted to run back to the tent. This was all really happening. That man really died right in front of her. She fought to stay conscious.

  Was she stuck here? Was there a way back? If there was, the chief seemed powerful enough to help her find it.

  They made it to tent with Akkar’s whispers of admiration for the temporary shelter filling her ears.

  Taking a deep breath to face him again, she pushed the flap aside and entered the tent. She stopped when she saw Hild sleeping soundly and covered in furs.

  Wolf had done it. Amid terror and ugliness, his actions, though small ones, shone light bright lights, drawing and attracting her. Her gaze rose to him facedown and asleep in his bed. His ankles hovered in the air on the bottom end. His arm dangled over the side. He was too big for the flimsy bed. She took a moment to take in the sight of his hills and valleys. He had no blanket. She took a step closer. Was that it beneath Hild’s head?

  He shifted and turned his face, perhaps to breathe. And opened his eyes.

  Her heart thumped so hard she was sure he could hear it. What if he was angry for waking him? What if he rejected her? What would she do for the rest of her life here?

  “Camelee?” he asked groggily and leaned up on his elbow. “Akkar, what—?” His gaze settled on her coat. “Is that…blood?”

  “It is, Chief.” Akkar told him quickly and quietly everything that happened, and all that Fin had said about her assailant. While the young soldier spoke, Wolf kept his warming gaze on her.

  “All right, Akkar,” he said when he was done. “You may wait outside now.”

  Akkar left without another word.

  “Take off your coat,” he ordered her gently. “Quietly, for the sake of Hild.”

  Camelee didn’t argue. It had blood on it.

  “Have you never seen a man—”

  “—with a spear through him? No. I never have.”

  “You will never forget him, but he meant you harm.”

  “Says Fin,” she pointed out in a whisper. “The man held out no weapon. Was he going to kill me with his bare hands?”

  “I will question Fin on this and get answers. Does that help give ease to your thoughts?” She nodded. When she looked at his handsome face, his plump, bow-shaped lips, the set of his jaw, his piercing gaze, she could think of nothing but him.

  “I want to remain with you today,” she confessed shyly. Goodness, in her world she would never admit such a thing to anyone. Don’t be vulnerable. It was the first advice she’d ever received. And the best. People were fake. Friends were only there to be seen with her. She would get hurt. But she wanted him to know. “I’m afraid here and I feel better when I’m with you.”

  He motioned for her to come and sit with him and Hild. She wasn’t sleepy but the thought of being pushed around by the men, forced to cook for them…no. She wasn’t ready for this reality. She didn’t think she ever would be.

  She accepted his offering and climbed into the makeshift bed on the floor with Hild. The pelts beneath her were kind of soft and warm, but as she feared, there was a stale, nauseating smell coming from them.

  She pulled his fur cloak over her. It didn’t smell as bad. In fact, it smelled like him.

  She pushed it away from her face. She would try to stay close to him—for safety reasons mostly. But not so close that her heart became involved. God forbid. She had never taken the possibility of it happening to her so seriously. She never had to. She found love repulsive. It tricked and fooled. It betrayed and forgot and could not be trusted. If it could accomplish its goal, it would leave people sucked dry of strength and the will to live. No one ever tempted her toward it. But with him…she let her guard down for a moment and let herself feel and hope for something with him. It was instinct really. The fight to survive. She understood what was happening to her. She was bonding to her rescuer. Now that she knew what it was, she knew she had to stop it.

  Oh, if she ever got her hands on Mr. Green, who’d given her that accursed brooch, she’d ask Wolf to beat him up good.

  “Wolf?”

  “Yes?”

  “The man Fin killed said he saw me appear from the air. I was appearing from twenty nineteen.”

  “It is a lot to ask me to believe, Camelee.”

  “I know.” She blushed looking up at him. He smiled and made her nerve-endings burn. “Thank you.”

  “What for?” he whispered back.

  “For not laughing in my face.”

  “I would not do that,” he promised in a sleepy voice.

  Would he invite her into his bed? She wouldn’t go. Not because she didn’t want to. She did. He would get tired of her if she gave him all too fast. As much as she hated to admit it, she needed him. She could debate with herself for the next ten years about if she would need him in the twenty-first century, but what did it matter? She was here now.

  “I must go with the men today to scout out the remainder of our route,” he told her quietly. “I will take half the men and leave Fin and Akkar here to guard you. You will have to stay with the other women until I return.”

  “What if you’re attacked and you don’t come back?” she asked, concerned.

  “I will come back, Camelee,” he assured her with such confidence, she believed him.

  She smiled and closed her eyes, feeling a bit of comfort and relaxation for the first time.

  She woke the next morning to the sight of Wolf changing his shirt, or léine, or whatever he was wearing. She watched him silently washing up before a small table with a basin of water and a sponge. His bare back was tapered at his waist and flared at his shoulders. Scars covered most of him. Even with such marks, his body was a carved masterpiece. If he wasn’t an eleventh-century Viking, or if she hadn’t gone completely mad, she might have thrown all her fears and ideals out the window—if there was a window in the hide tent, which there wasn’t. Ideals that she felt at times weren’t her own but seemed to have been ingrained upon her from someone, somewhere. They were about as old-fashioned and dated as Wolf. One of which was to seek nothing before honor. She wasn’t about to throw her honor to the wind for some savage Viking who considered her his slave. Her fears were a whole different matter.

  She could see light coming in from between the stitching of the different hides.

  “I sent Akkar for some food for you and the girl,” he told her while she sat up and rubbed her eyes.

  She turned to the child. Hild still slept. “Should I wake her?”

  “I do not know. How long does a child sleep?”

  She shook her head. “We should send for Genevra. I should speak to her anyway about—”

  “Chief!” Akkar said from outside the flap of the tent.

  “Come,” Wolf called back to him.

  Akkar pushed open the flap and entered. His sable eyes found her immediately. He opened his mouth to speak but Wolf held his finger to his lips to quiet him and looked at Hild sleeping.

  Akkar swallowed his words and half-smiled, half-grimaced at her, then looked away.

  “Sorry for the delay, Chief,” Akkar told him quietly. “Work in the kitchen was slow due to the absence of one of the women. Her master was the man Fin killed yesterday.”

  “Wolf,” she said, rising from her blankets. It was cold out here without his fur. “Fin said that man was running toward me to hurt or kill me. Maybe I should talk to this woman and try to convince her that none of this is my fault.”

  “And if you cannot?” he asked.

  She stared at him and shrugged her shoulders. “What do you suggest? That she also be killed?”

  “If she means you harm, yes.”

  She didn’t know what to say to that. He seemed to—

  “You belong to me, Camelee. Everyone I took with me belongs to me.”

  Okay…so that’s what she was to him? Just one of his servants? His property? Okay. It was better to have this fact driven into her head. It would keep her emotions at bay.

  “Gotcha.”

  She turned and walked toward the flap.

  “Camelee, what are doing? You cannot leave. You need to stay and take care of the girl.”

  Who was, by now, awake and looking around.

  He motioned to Akkar, and the young soldier stepped in front of the flap, blocking her path.

  “What? So now I’m a prisoner?” She gaped at Akkar.

  “You will do as I say. You are staying with Hild. You will care for her until I return.”

  No. She would never get used to this. It was bad enough she had to take care of a child, a little orphan who needed a mother, but she wasn’t asked to do this. No, she was ordered to do it. Held prisoner and forced to—

  He swept past her, grabbed his fur cloak from the floor, giving Hild a smile and a wink before he moved around Camelee.

  “Guard her, and get her a cloak,” he ordered Akkar and left the tent.

  “Ugh! He is an infuriating jerk! I wish I knew martial art so I could kick his—” Her gaze fell on Hild, and she stopped ranting when she saw the little girl watching. “Akkar, please send for Genevra. I need her help with Hild.”

  He obliged by sticking his head out of the tent and calling for someone. He said something in Norse and then returned his attention to her.

  “No matter what skills you possessed, you could not hurt him,” he let her know. “I saw him fight on the field. He killed with precision and brute force, taking on two and even three at a time. I have heard tales of him. He is said to be King Cnut’s favored warrior.”

  How could all this be real? But it was. It was.

  “I spoke in anger,” she confessed, then muttered under her breath, “but if I had a gun, he wouldn’t have a shot.”

  The flap opened and Genevra stepped inside. Her eyes were swollen and red, the tip of her nose was red, too. Camelee felt a little kinship with her because the tip her nose always turned red when she cried.

  “Genevra, were you crying?” Camelee went to her.

  The woman nodded. “That man the commander killed. He was my master, the man who took care of me these last twenty-six years.”

  Chapter Seven

  “Oh, no,” Camelee put her hands to her mouth. The man Fin had killed was Genevra’s provider. She almost let out a scream when Akkar grabbed hold of Genevra’s arm.

  “Let her go!” She tried to remain calm for Hild’s sake, and for Genevra’s. “Akkar, hasn’t she suffered enough? She’s lost much today.”

  He looked torn.

  “Please, Akkar.”

  He let Genevra go but stayed close to her.

  “I know what is being said about him,” Genevra announced. “It is not true. Aye, he saw you appear from nowhere, but he did not blame you for our capture. He called you an angel. He said you had come to watch over us.”

  Camelee lowered her eyes, unable to look up. She was no angel. Genevra’s master had died because of her. “I’m so sorry. He was running toward me. Fin thought he was going to attack me.”

  Genevra covered her face in her hands and cried. But she didn’t do it for long. Soon, she wiped her cheeks, pulled herself together, and went to Hild. “Are you hungry, Child? Must you relieve yourself?”

  Yes! Of course! How could Camelee have forgotten that? Oh, poor Hild if she had to stay with Camelee. She was but three or four years old. Did she even know how to use a –potty?

  “I will…what can I do?” she asked Genevra, who seemed more together after just losing her only source of provisions than Camelee did after, well, after losing everything she had and knew.

  “I’m so sorry for snapping at you,” Camelee told her. “I’m tender about the subject of motherhood, but I had no right to be angry with you.”

  “Oh, my dear Camelee,” Genevra poured out to her. “Forgive me for being so bold as to bring it up.”

  Camelee stared and studied her. From where did she pull such humility? Camelee knew she, herself, had never possessed such a virtue.

  “Come, let us find a hidden place for Hild, and then some food, hmm?”

  Hild nodded emphatically, then, “Mumma coming back?”

  “Yes, Child,” Genevra let her know.

  Camelee decided to keep her mouth shut. It really wasn’t any of her business what the child believed. She would stay out of it.

  Akkar protested when she wanted to go, but she invited him to join them and she did it with a smile that left him blushing and chuckling, like the guys she remembered from her first year of college. Only this one hadn’t saved her from that Dane who was about to give her a hard kick. He’d saved the soldier from having to suffer under the chief. But—Akkar was honest. And she liked that about him.

  “I have always wanted to be a warrior,” he told her while they walked through the camp with her on one side and Hild on the other with Genevra on the outside. “My father was a farmer, and not interested in the fighting. He didn’t understand my heart’s desire.”

  “That must have been difficult for you,” Genevra said, listening.

  He turned to her and his gaze on her softened. “It was.”

  “Did you run away, Akkar?” Camelee asked him. If he did, he had lied to Wolf.

  He shook his head. “I informed my father of my intentions to leave. He shrugged. He did not care.”

  Camelee clamped down her teeth then fought to open her mouth to bite out, “The love of a parent, huh? What a laugh.”

  “Though I do not have any children,” Genevra told her, “I believe a parent’s love is the sincerest, the purest, and given without condition love there is.”

  Camelee smiled politely at her. “I don’t believe that.”

  “What has caused you not to believe it?”

  She breathed in deeply. At first, she was going to refuse to answer. But maybe she was here to learn some sort of lesson and once she learned it, she could return home. There had to be a purpose to all of this, a way home when the purpose was accomplished.

  “My parents abandoned me to an orphanage when I was a baby.”

  “Oh, poor dear,” Genevra cooed. “You know some parents cannot—”

  Camelee held up her hand to Genevra. “Please. I’ve heard it all. None of it matters at the end of the day. They didn’t—” She paused. She didn’t know it was going to be this difficult to speak of it, to say the words, or why she was telling them to this perfect stranger. Was it because Genevra seemed like a mother to all? Something about her was comforting and Camelee wanted to tell her everything. “They didn’t—love me enough to keep me.”

  Genevra’s large eyes were striking in color. They seemed to illuminate the morning in flashes of silver and blue. “Mayhap, they had to give you up,” she said softly and without hesitation, as if the words were there all along, waiting to come out. “If they had not, you might have died.”

  Camelee stared at her as they stepped beneath another giant tent. This one though, had no sides, only a roof.

  “What, Genevra? Like what?”

  “I do not know,” the older woman said as she smiled regretfully. “I have not lived the kind of life where, if I had a babe, I would be forced to give her up.”

  “Forced?”

  “Mayhap,” Genevra answered.

  Camelee shook her head, and then turned her wide gaze on the Viking men. All of them were sitting, shoving food into their faces, or covering half their faces with a cup. Both men and women Saxons were serving.

  She pulled Genevra and Hild toward another tent, where the women were cooking food. They all greeted Genevra with solemn hugs. Most asked how she was after losing her lord. She assured them all that she was well, though Camelee doubted in her heart that she was.

  “This is Camelee of—” Genevra began to introduce.

  “New York,” Camelee told her.

  “York. She belongs to the chief—”