“Okay, well you know what?” If he wanted to be her father so bad, then he was going to be the one to hear what she’d always wanted to tell him. She had issues and there weren’t any psychiatrists here. “If you are my father—you ruined my life. In all my success, my heart was always broken because you abandoned me. The Pendreys forgot about me. But you were first.”
His pretty blue eyes glistened with tears. He said nothing for an eternal moment. “I had to keep her away from you. If she hurt you, I would have done regretful things.”
She listened to the rest of his defense and, deep in her heart, she wanted to believe him, trust him. But she’d never learned how to do those things, and everything was simply too unbelievable. It was easier to tell herself none of it was real than to believe it.
What better man to fantasize about being her long-lost father than King Arthur Pendragon, a hero from her childhood?
That more than likely meant that her dream man, Wolf Kristiansen, eleventh-century Viking was not real either. None of this was.
“I would like to be alone.”
“Camelee,” the king tried.
“Please.”
He swallowed and nodded, reluctantly giving in. “Of course. I will make sure you are not disturbed.”
“Thank you.”
Chapter Eighteen
Wolf circled twoof Leofric’s men after Fin and the other men tied the two Saxons to the trees. Somehow, Leofric evaded him. But Wolf would find him and kill him. He wouldn’t stop until he did. The Saxon had taken her. His Camelee.
Alric had recovered enough to tell him that Leofric had her and Hild and her mother. He’d had Alric, too, and ordered his death, but the young cook was wily and fast. He killed the Saxon solider and escaped, but he hadn’t gone far when men hiding behind the trees shot at him. They aimed for his legs to stop him, not kill him. They liked to bring their prey to their leaders alive.
The first thing Wolf had done was bring forty of the Danes’ best men in the forest to eliminate the threat. Three hundred more men from the king’s army followed an hour behind.
It took a few hours to find Leofric’s men. Wolf went mad looking for him. He’d killed more than he could count. Blood covered his hands, streaked his face. He bellowed Leofric’s name as he hacked the Saxon men to pieces. But Leofric wasn’t there.
Fin found the two who claimed to know about the “woman he was after”.
“Leofric knows you love her,” one of the men told him.
“Where is she?” That was all Wolf wanted to know. “I do not care about that coward you follow. Where is the woman?”
“We were…we were chasing her. Her and that little one and her mother. The mother fell and the men overtook her.”
Wolf closed his eyes and fought to control the desire to shove his blade into this man.
“And then the woman and the child disappeared, my lord.”
“They were there and then they were gone, and the air was all silver and Christmasy, or as you heathen would say, yule-ish.”
Wolf glared at the second man who spoke. “Do you find humor in this?” He lifted the blade of his dagger to the man’s throat.
“No, my lord, not humorous, magical.”
Wolf felt his belly drop to the ground. Had she been taken back to her future?
He didn’t want to believe it, but the timing could not be better. Whoever snatched her back had saved her life. Wolf knew Camelee had nothing to do with it or she would have sent herself back before this. It didn’t soothe the beast inside that wanted to howl his sorrow until the sun rose.
The two men didn’t change their stories even after Fin tortured them. Wolf didn’t let it go on for too long.
Was it true? Had she been saved by going back to her future? He was thankful and happy she was saved but his world crashed into thousands of pieces at his feet. He’d lost her, just as if Leofric had killed her. She was gone. Everything stopped for him. He didn’t want to go back to the way his life was before her, without her. He didn’t want to give up. He wouldn’t. He never gave up on anything. He wouldn’t start now with the most important person in his life. Every idle moment was spent thinking of her. How could he ever find her?
They camped in the woods that night. He didn’t sleep. He didn’t want to dream of her. But even awake she haunted him. Twice he thought he heard her weeping and rose to his feet to check around the trees. “Camelee?” he called out. He waited but only silence met his waiting ears. He prayed that if he could hear her to please let him go to her.
Would he leave his brother, the king, Denmark? All of it for her? Yes. If there was even a chance of finding her, he would.
