Page 15 of Wolf's Keep

Oh, forget that.

How would she explain her presence? She started pacing again. What would she say?

Hi. My name’s Erin Richardson. I found your little gold disc on an excavation in France. In the year 2016.

Yeah, that’d go over well. He’d look at her like she’d grown a second head, or more likely that she’d sprouted a pair of devil’s horns.Shehad difficulty with the concept of time travel. Could a tenth-century chevalier fathom such a possibility?

She glanced down at her clothes. She didn’t look like she belonged in the tenth century. Would that convince him? Or would it alarm him even more? Superstition reigned supreme here. He would view anything out of the ordinary with suspicion. As the work of evil humors. He’d have her confined as a crazy woman in a heartbeat. Or, even worse, condemned as possessed. The witch trials didn’t start for another few centuries, but that didn’t mean he, or any other tenth-century person, would welcome her with open arms.

Her mind raced through her options. She could try sneaking out of here—climbing out of the window clearly not an option—and take her chances with whatever the tenth century could throw at her. With her expertise, she’d fare better than most, but where would that get her? Not back to the twenty-first century. Or… She shivered. Or she could brave Gaharet d’Louncrais.

She stopped pacing, rooted to the spot, her heart pounding.

He may not be a kidnapper, but could a tenth-century chevalier be worse? After her reaction to him, that heady flush of desire that had taken her by surprise, avoiding him would be her strategy of choice, but… She frowned. His family crestwason the back of that disc. And she’d appeared in front of him, not some other chevalier. That couldn’t be random. She could reasonably assume that he would, therefore, have knowledge of the disc and its capabilities. He’d know how to reverse the spell. She cringed. Spell. She’d used the word spell. What was her world coming to?

Get a grip, Erin.

Whatever had brought her here, a bending of the laws of quantum physics, a wormhole,magic—ugh—the disc was now in his possession, not hers. If she wanted back home, back to the site and back to her team, she needed that disc.

Erin squared her shoulders. She’d fronted full auditoriums giving lectures to indifferent undergraduates, faced off with government panels over grant funding cuts and stared down belligerent developers resentful of archaeological discoveries that slowed down their building projects. She could do this. She had to do this.

He may be a chevalier, a man with no compunction about killing with a thrust of his sword—his scar attested to battles fought and survived—but he was still a man. She’d no concrete evidence as to the sort of man he was, but with her research as her reference, she could make a fair assessment. Chances were, he’d be as ruthless as the count he served. But she had one thing in her favor. She knew of his impending demise.

Depending on the month and year she now found herself in, he may have six months or five years, but one thing remained certain. His life would end prematurely, unexpectedly and possibly in a way he wouldn’t see coming. What would that information be worth to him?

With renewed purpose, Erin strode to the door. She could only pray this time he wouldn’t be naked.

Chapter Seven

Following the murmur of muted voices, Erin approached a large open doorway, where light spilled into the corridor. She paused beneath the lintel of the opening. There he sat. Gaharet d’Louncrais. She’d obsessed over finding him, dreamed about him and sketched him, but here, with him in the flesh, touchable,aliveand barely six feet away, she panicked, wanting to backpedal faster than a prudish puritan in a brothel. She wanted to run.

Dismissing a servant, he turned toward her, beckoning her in, indicating a stool by the fire. She hesitated for a heartbeat before lifting her chin and striding into the room, avoiding his gaze.

She stood in the hall, an impressive room with a double height ceiling and a fire blazing in the central fire pit, giving it warmth and flickering light. Stepping closer to the fire, she rubbed her arms, trying to ward off the chill. On rough, stone walls hung beautiful, embroidered panels in dark reds, greens, browns and yellows. Images of battles and feats of bravery danced across them where they were spaced around the lit oil lamps, little bowls of fat on fire, which smoked up the room. She’d sell her soul to the devil for a chance to examine those wall hangings. Nothing quite like them had survived to the modern era.

At one end of the hall was an enormous table. Twenty people could sit at that table, the room itself large enough to hold a small village. With only the two of them in it, the sheer size and grandeur of the room pressed in on her, doing nothing for her flagging courage. Her plan to confront him now seemed foolhardy. If she’d had her boots, she’d have quaked in them. Stealing herself, she faced him.

He sat by the fire, clothed in a simple, black tunic reaching just above his knees, woolen breeches and soft black boots. Coiled energy radiated from him, an animal alertness as though poised, ready to strike at a moment’s notice. Even without armor, without the red surcoat and its black wolf insignia, he looked every inch the tenth-century warrior. He’d a presence about him that dominated the room, all underscored by a sharp intelligence glittering in his eyes. This man would be a formidable enemy on and off the battlefield. She should run while she still could.

He locked eyes with her, staring with an intensity that caused a clenching low in her belly. She squirmed, her skin prickling, as his gaze dropped lower, the weight of his stare burning a path over her body as hot and as heavy as if he’d reached out and touched her. He neither moved nor spoke. His eyes said it all.

She didn’t know what scared her more—the way he looked at her or the way her nipples tightened and her core heated in response. She could well believe women of any century swooning at his feet. One more minute and she’d be positively panting for him.

She eyed the doorway, indecision immobilizing her, but as inviting as it looked, turning tail and running wouldn’t solve her predicament. Better the devil she knew, and she knew him. As well as anyone from the twenty-first century could know him. Better than she knew anyone else she might encounter. And she knew his type. Pulling a mask of indifference over her face, she met his gaze over the fire and waited.

The silence stretched between them.

“Let us start,” he said, his deep voice rumbling, “with how you came by the amulet you had in your possession?”

Caught up in the deep timbre of his voice, it took Erin a few moments to process that his words weren’t in Old French, or Latin. Her eyes widened.

“You speak English?” A very old form of English, but understandable all the same.

“I speak your language, yes. Your pronunciations are quite strange,” he said, frowning. “So, now that we can…understand one another… Where did you come upon the amulet?”

“The amulet?” The little gold disc.She licked her lips, her nerves getting the better of her, and she floundered beneath his all-consuming stare. The man had the most gorgeous eyes. Bedroom eyes.

Get a hold of yourself, Erin.So he lucked out in the gene pool. Good for him. Imagine him in his underwear.Isn’t that what they say? God, no. Don’t do that.

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