Oh, Camelee lamented, why hadn’t she taken those self-defense classes with Karen when she had the chance?
“Because I come from the future,” she told him. “A little over a thousand years from now.”
He didn’t laugh the way she thought he might. He slowed the horse, turned in the saddle, and pushed her out of it. She landed hard on her side in the dirt and gasped for breath.
“Now you can hold her,” he offered with a malevolent grin. He motioned to the one holding Hild, and the beast picked her up by the arm and held her over the ground. When he reached Camelee, she grabbed the girl and he let go.
But Hild didn’t want Camelee either. She wanted her mother, or Genevra—or even Wolf, but not the woman who had told her that her mother wasn’t coming back.
“Please, Hild, you mustn’t cry,” she begged, catching the many glares headed in her direction. “They will—”
“Shut her up or we will leave her here alone!” Aethelwold called out.
They would have to kill her before she let go of Hild. Oh, where was Wolf? And how could she be wishing for the Vikings to come and save her? Wait. Would they come? They would probably come because of all the men these Saxons killed. She’d seen the bodies when they’d dragged her out of the tent. If they came, it wouldn’t be for her and a Saxon orphan. She didn’t care, as long as they showed up. She didn’t want to be here and every second she was in the eleventh century, she hated it more. But if she had to be here, she preferred to be with Wolf.
Would Wolf save her? She prayed that he would try.
They finally made camp an hour later to eat. Hild had finally stopped crying, but she had been through so much. Camelee set her down in the grass under a tree and sat beside her while the child slept.
The instant her body relaxed, her mind took over and images and memories of what they had done to Akkar assailed her. She’d blocked it out. She’d liked Akkar. He wasn’t even a warrior. Still, he had fought well to save her and Hild. She didn’t know why she had tears to shed for him. She hardly knew him. She fought her hardest to hold them back. The instant these scabs on mankind saw weakness, they would pounce.
“You!” Aethelwold barked at her. “Get up and serve us! Do you think you will sit on your arse and do nothing?”
“Move,” another man called out, “before we wake the other one and have her serve us.”
“Wake her and die, Eadric” said Aethelwold, with all kinds of darkness in his gaze. “We finally have peace, and you threaten it?”
“Apologies, Aethelwold. We could leave her.”
“I won’t leave without her!” Camelee told them in a hushed voice that sounded more like a hiss.
“No. She is to be a gift to my wife,” Aethelwold told her, not surprising Camelee that he was married and staring hungrily at her. “She has always wanted a daughter.”
“Is the other one for you then?” Eadric asked with a wink.
Aethelwold laughed and then the rest of them joined in. His smile faded when his gaze settled on her, still not moving. Without a word, he rose and went to her, drawing a blade as he went. One of the men giggled with satisfaction.
When he reached her, she called up every ounce of courage she possessed and looked at him.
He pulled back his arm and then swung it hard, striking her in the face with his palm. “Next time, it will be my fist,” he promised as she fell to her knees before him. He took her by the hair but instead of immediately pulling her up by it, he pushed her face into his crotch. “Now, get up and serve me before I make you suck me off in the daylight!”
She wanted to pass out, but Hild…she wanted to scream and defy him, but she had no choice. She didn’t doubt he would do good on his warning.
She pulled herself up and stepped, a little dizzily, around him and went to the fire where the food was. It was a pot with what appeared to be game and vegetables cut up and cooking over a separate fire.
“Be glad it was not Leofric who took a fancy to you,” a young man said, appearing close to her. “He is not called Leofric the Merciless for no reason.”
“God help me.”
The boy looked up. “Mayhap He sent me to do just that. ’Twas I who has done most of the work. Just add some herbs and water while it cooks—”
“Alric, leave her to her duty,” Aethelwold called out. “You are relieved.”
“I was simply giving her instructions,” Alric said, sounding insulted.
“She will find her own way.”
Alric spun on his heel. “You would have her destroy my recipe? ’Tis your palette I worry about, Aethelwold. You know how certain dishes upset your middle.”
