by Diane Darcy
“Where are we going?” Her eyes widened when he tugged a blanket off his horse and wrapped her in it, noting the cut at her chest and knee, as well as the way her finger was bleeding as if someone had tried to steal the ring from her.
His anger rose a notch. She’d obviously been abused. It was yet to be determined to what extent. He grabbed her up and lifted her onto his horse before hoisting himself behind her.
“Do you have a phone I could use?”
Ignoring her strange request, he wondered just when Royce’s men had arrived. Had they taken her clothes? Defiled her? He could feel his skin heating at the thought.
He turned to Royce. “If my betrothed has been injured in any way by you, or your men, you will pray for death before I am done. I vow it.”
In the stunned silence that followed, Kellen turned his horse toward the castle. He ignored Royce’s stammered protests that he’d only just come upon the girl, and took comfort in the realization that the men had all been seated on horses. Only the girl had been upon the ground. With a rising sense of protectiveness and satisfaction, he pressed her stiff body closer to his own. He would guard and defend what was his. And she was his. Indeed, he held his future in his arms.
Chapter 3
What the heck was going on?
Gillian, stiff, chilled, and clutching her backpack, sat in front of the knight, silently scared out of her wits. She wasn’t sure what had just happened, and trying to make sense of everything was giving her a headache.
First, she’d been chased by hoodlums.
Then they’d suddenly disappeared and she’d been faced by a bunch of different men on horseback. Medieval hoodlums.
Now she was on a huge horse, sitting across hard muscled thighs, wrapped tight in a knight’s strong arms and . . . and what? He’d saved her? Or claimed her for himself? She wasn’t sure. But if she’d gotten it right, he was the good guy here. Or was that simply wishful thinking on her part?
Now they were headed toward a village that she knew darn good and well hadn’t been there a moment ago. Was she going crazy?
Huts with thatched roofs, close and in the distance, dotted the countryside. The buildings hadn’t been there before. She would have seen them, and certainly she would have noticed all the people milling about. There was no way she could have missed them.
Gillian shivered as the knight’s heat penetrated her back, and he held her a bit tighter like she was a prized possession. She felt claimed and couldn’t help another shiver. She had to stop letting her imagination run away with her. She was going to ask for an explanation, in just a minute, after she wasn’t so intimidated by the scary guy at her back.
Gillian stared up at the castle beyond the village. Strong and rugged, it looked a whole heck of a lot like the one she’d been drawing except for the teeny-tiny little fact that it wasn’t a ruin in any way, shape, or form.
Perhaps there was another castle close by and she’d been taken there? Had she gotten turned around and somehow been moved to another location? Had she passed out? She had no memory of any of that. None of this made any sense. One minute she’d been standing near a deserted ruin, prepared to fight for her life, the next . . . here. That fast.
She couldn’t help but notice the guy holding her in his arms was also dressed as a knight. Could she have fallen in with some sort of medieval reenactment group? Had they started ad-libbing when she’d shown up? Was this some sort of joke at her expense? Or was it a dream? As they rode on she looked back, searching for her car.
Nothing.
Was it over the hill where she couldn’t see it? Had it been stolen by one of the guys who’d been chasing her?
Taking a breath, Gillian gulped back impending hysteria. This was all going to make sense in a moment. She finally allowed herself to look up at the knight and promptly lost what was left of her breath as she exhaled in a rush.
He’d pushed back his chain mail coif allowing her to clearly see his fierce expression as he returned her gaze. She swallowed and forced herself to breathe again. He wasn’t exactly handsome, as his nose was slightly crooked and had obviously been broken at some point. He also sported scars on his forehead and cheek. But he was striking, heart-poundingly sexy, and very masculine. In a word, magnificent.
She resisted the impulse to reach up and touch his tanned face, his high cheekbones, or his thick black hair, just to make sure he was real.
His gaze was intense, his eyes the warm color of amber, and the contrast to his hard features was startling. Her glance lowered to his massive shoulders, thick with muscle, and she swallowed again and cleared her throat.
“Do you think you could you take me back to my car?” Her voice came out breathless, and she cleared her throat again and laughed nervously. “I’m still kind of shaky after what happened, so I’d appreciate a ride.”
The knight stared down at her for a long moment. “You have no need of a carriage.” His deep voice rumbled, his harsh accent wrapping itself around her in the cool afternoon air. “I am keeping you.”
Gillian laughed shakily.
The knight didn’t so much as crack a smile.
“Ah, okay. I can walk.” Gillian looked down. She was in some sort of trouble here. She knew it but just didn’t know what it was. She didn’t know much of anything at the moment.
“You will stay.”
Okay, the guy was scary, but that comment irritated. “Like a dog? I don’t think so.”
“You will.”
Should she try and slip off the horse and make a break for it?
As if reading her intentions, or perhaps the way her body had tensed at the thought of jumping off the huge animal, the knight’s arm tightened again holding her in place effortlessly. Perhaps that was for the best. She could break a leg or two jumping from that distance.
Turning her head, her gaze slid to the men who’d surrounded her earlier, now riding in the opposite direction, and then to the graveyard. The location and layout were the same as the one she’d run to earlier: but everything else was different and new—pristine headstones and wooden crosses where there’d been none before.
The knight’s large hand reached out and pulled her head back against his chest, forcing her to face forward again. Okay then. Sitting stiffly, and not looking up at him, she tried her best to ignore the guy. She tried to ignore his heat as it burned though his chain mail, tunic, the blanket at her back, and beneath her legs. She had to think.
“Do you have a phone?”
She could feel the knight studying her for a long moment, could feel that she was trying his patience even before he let out a long sigh. “Nay.”
She’d find one up at the castle. She’d call the police and they could try and make sense out of everything that had happened to her. Maybe they’d have a laugh at her expense as she tried to explain the wild things that had occurred. Maybe everyone in the area knew what was going on here and she’d look like an idiot. But surely, they’d escort her back to her car? Or find it, if it had been stolen?
Relaxing a little now that she had a plan, she swayed with the horse as they went through the small village full of busy adults and playing children. Simply built cottages lined the streets. Some looked to be businesses displaying wares. Animal pens clustered between dwellings were filled with noisy, smelly pigs, goats, cows, and sheared sheep. Plowed fields and pastures with people working them surrounded the village, but Gillian couldn’t see any farm equipment.
She spied a river, a pond, and what looked to be a mill. A man pounded metal in one of the buildings, and smoke poured from a chimney in the middle of the structure. Several paths led from the village to the castle.
As Gillian and the knight passed, everyone stopped what they were doing to stare. She looked back wondering if she should call out for help, wondering if she needed help, only most of these people didn’t look as if they would, since they were bowing and dipping as the entourage moved by.
Every person was dressed in medieval clothing. T
he women in loose dresses with their hair covered, the men in belted tunics and tight pants. Most of the children were barefoot. Could this simply be a new style in England?
She gazed up at the castle dominating the landscape, again searching for differences, but nothing had changed since the last time she’d looked. She’d stared at the ruin for hours while she’d sketched. There was the turret in the correct location, the parapets, the bay windows, and the tower. Did they make identical castles back in medieval times? Sort of like medieval tract housing without the subdivisions? Cheaper to make the same type over and over again? Had she been moved to a restored version?
The gatehouse, with its twin towers jutting skyward, caught her attention. According to the brochure, they were completely unique, with no other in England or anywhere else like them. This had to be the same castle, only now it stood in its full glory, strong and rugged, not a crumbing stone in sight.
She shook her head. How could that be? What was going on? Had she fallen into a fairy ring? Moved through a worm hole and into the past? Entered a time machine without noticing?
She looked for electric lines, anything that would establish this as the twenty-first century, but found nothing.
She closed her eyes. She was a logical person; she could figure this out. If she took away all the illogical things she believed she was seeing and remembered back to the last thing she remembered for sure, it was obvious that none of this was even happening to her. That only left one explanation.
She was dreaming, delusional, or out of her mind. And was there anything that had happened to her that could cause her to be in that state of mind?
She felt the blood rush out of her face. Of course, there was an explanation. The hoodlums who’d chased her toward the castle ruins were assaulting her right this minute; she was lying in the graveyard and her mind was taking her to this far-off place, so she could escape the trauma.
Her heart pounded in her chest, and her breathing escalated.
She’d turned the hoodlums into medieval hoodlums in her mind and then conjured up a Knight in Shining Armor to defend her, complete with sword, shield, and strength. She patted her knight’s arm, grateful for his reassuring presence, but ready to let go now and face reality.
Because this was unacceptable. How was she going to fight the violence if she didn’t show up for the event? Had she hit her head? Had her attackers hit her head? Was she unconscious? In a coma? Would she wake at any moment? Or would they kill her when they’d finished, with no resistance whatsoever from her?
Anger built in her chest, sharp and stinging. She had to wake up. She wouldn’t let them kill her. She would survive this. She’d come to her senses and defend herself. She was strong and could handle this.
She had to fight!
She had to live!
She definitely had to wake up.
Gillian tried to will herself back to the scene of her assault and attempted murder. She needed to defend herself before she actually was murdered.
She closed her eyes. Wake up . . . wake up now . . . wakey wakey time . . .
Nothing.
She opened her eyes. All she could hear, see, and smell were the knight, his horse, and the village.
Anger and heat emanated off the knight, as it should. He should be very angry at the way she was being attacked back in the real world. Like any good imaginary knight worth his salt would be.
She glanced up at him, impressed all over again at what a really great imagination she had. Sure, he was a little rough around the edges. His face was hard, all angles and planes, his jaw as rugged as any Hollywood hero’s.
But the possessive way his gaze roamed her face and blanket-wrapped body, lingering on the skin above her tee-shirt, sent a little thrill through her. Her feminine side couldn’t be more pleased with him. He really was her perfect dream knight.
His long, thick, and dark hair stuck to his thickly muscled neck. His chest was hard and seemed to simply bulge with power. She shivered. The better to protect her.
She reached out to lightly touch his chest, wondering if it was the chain mail that made him seem so big; but under a thin layer of chain, it was warm muscle flexing.
Their eyes met, and she barely resisted a fan-girl sigh. His gaze was bright against his tanned face, his lashes and brows as dark as his hair, and the combination was startling. She could feel a sappy smile forming on her lips.
He was really a good-looking guy in a rough-and-tumble sort of fashion. And the possessive way he held her, the way he looked at her, made her feel incredibly beautiful and feminine. Not bad for an illusion. Maybe she shouldn’t be in such a hurry to leave.
As they started to cross the drawbridge, the horses’ hooves struck hollow notes against the wood distracting her, and she looked down into a stream of murky water. “Are you serious? There’s an actual moat around the castle?” The detail in her hallucination was amazing.
“Aye. All my fortifications are strong.”
Strong like him. Feeling very safe, she laid her cheek against her knight’s chest and when his arms tightened around her, melted into him.
Why not feel the comfort he could offer before returning to the nightmare her life had become? She hadn’t had a man’s arms wrapped around her like this since . . . well, she never had. Certainly, not like this, and not with a man like him.
Another feminine trill of excitement caught her off guard and she shivered. He was everything he should be. Everything a knight and hero ought to be. And for the moment, he was hers.
They traveled under the rusted spikes of the raised portcullis; its dangerous teeth pointed menacingly downward. Seconds later they were fully enclosed in the darkened, walled passageway of the gatehouse, and Gillian glanced at the ceiling and spotted a murder hole.
She knew from artistic research it was used to drop boiling water or rocks onto the trapped and unsuspecting. There was a balcony, slits in the walls to fire arrows through, and a well-protected stairwell to maneuver weapons from above. In other words, the place was a death trap to invaders.
One of these days she was going to depict the inside of a gatehouse and make it spooky, dark, and exciting. She was sure the paintings would sell.
If she were still alive.
The sound of the horses’ hooves rang loud in the enclosed space as they moved single file through the enclosure, finally coming out into the huge bustling inner courtyard.
She gazed at what looked like a small city enclosed within the walls. The huge keep in the middle dominated, and buildings were set around the outer edges: barracks, stables, and other outbuildings. People were busy, some carrying trays, others pulling horses behind them, some children playing, but most stopped what they were doing to stare at Gillian.
This was just so amazing. She’d had no idea her imagination was so rich.
Her knight rode his destrier up to the keep; and in one smooth move, dismounted with her still in his arms and easily carried her up a few stairs, through the open doorway, and inside the keep.
Gillian, limp as a wet noodle, enjoyed every moment of it. She laid her cheek against him again, soaking up the tingling, melting, and thrilling sensations he inspired in her.
The muscles in his arms and chest shifted as he moved; and when he came to a stop, he wasn’t even the least out of breath. She, on the other hand, was losing her own.
Wow. Just wow.
Once inside the castle her knight bellowed something, and it took a moment for Gillian to decipher his words.
He was calling for someone and his accent! Fabulous! She wanted to squeal. This was simply the best dream she’d ever had, bar none, in her entire life.
An older woman, dressed in medieval garb, came running; her head covered with a white sheet, a set of keys dangling at her waist. “Yes, my lord?”
The knight set Gillian on her feet and when she stumbled a bit, placed a big, warm hand on her shoulder until she steadied herself.
He didn’t remove the hand as he gave th
e other woman instructions. He turned Gillian and grabbed her cheeks with one hand; she wondered if he was going to kiss her, right there, in front of all the people who’d started to gather around.
She couldn’t think of a reason why she shouldn’t let him. It was just a dream, after all. Her gaze dropped to his full lips, curved in an inviting smile. She might wake at any moment. This could be her only chance. She wasn’t going to protest and miss out.
His hand firm on her cheeks, he squeezed them together, forcing her mouth to gape open and looked inside. “Well-formed teeth,” he proclaimed and looked up at their audience.
The servants leaned in for a look, murmuring and nodding their approval; Gillian shrieked as anger, outrage, and embarrassment boiled up inside her. “What are you doing?”
She jerked away and slapped the knight’s hand. “What am I, a horse?” So much for her dream man.
Her response visibly surprised him.
Making sounds of disapproval, the woman with the keys took Gillian’s hand and led her toward stone steps going up the side of one wall. “Come with me, lass. I’ll see you settled soon enough.”
Gillian glanced back at the knight, sending him a dirty look to let him see how disappointed she was in him; but at his bewildered expression, her anger dissipated.
Okay, the guy was sort of a clod. But she was willing to give him a second chance; because the man, as well as the place, was making her romance buttons hum on high alert.
Since she’d no doubt wake to a nightmare, she didn’t want to waste even one tiny moment of this experience.
Anyway, what was the harm in taking a look around the place before she woke up? After all, it seemed real enough that she might be able to use something she saw in her paintings. Imagined or not, the place felt so authentic she considered patting herself on the back for having such a great imagination.
Of course, she was assuming she’d eventually snap out of it and wake up in the real world. But what if she wasn’t able to? Was she simply unconscious? Or was it possible she was dead and her version of heaven included castles and knights?
