Ah, yes, this place was magic. It had to be. He looked around. He’d never seen anything like it. The walls, the ceiling, the floor, all of it was made of solid water. That’s what it appeared to be to him. He wanted to touch it.
“No,” he told Sebastian. “If I was, all this—” he pointing to the hall “—would be a broken ruin for taking her.”
“Wolf,” Genevra said. Was this her hall? “Do not threaten Avalon in the presence of the sisters or theywillkill you. They will kill you with magic. You will not have a chance to defend yourself. Understand?”
He clenched his jaw and nodded. “Yes.”
“I would not deceive you, Chief,” she continued, “though I am uncertain of many things now that I see your sword in this place. Weapons are not permitted.”
Wolf trusted what she said. He would not threaten this…Avalon again. It was too beautiful to destroy anyway.
“I am taking her back,” he told them all.
“Listen—Wolf is it?” Another dark-haired man stepped forward. “We’re all kinda in this together, okay?”
Listening to him, Wolf’s gaze fell to Camelee. This man spoke like her. He came from her future. Had they known each other? Had he taken her to his bed? No. Something about his eyes resembled Camelee’s. Her brother or relative.
“None of us, including her,” he continued, “wants to be here. The king is meeting with the sisters about allowing our loved ones to come here without screwing up the timeline.
“Chief Constable Michael Pendridge, by the way.”
There were chiefs in her time? But that wasn’t what was making his head spin. What did this man meanscrewing up the timeline? It awakened something in him—a desire to make certain things were right in the timeline. He didn’t know where the desire came from. Right now, he didn’t care. He wasn’t leaving without Camelee.
“I am Chief Ulf Kristiansen.”
“What are you, a Viking?” Pendridge asked.
Pendridge, Pendrey, Pendragon. They were relatives. Her family.
“I am a Dane. High Commander of King Cnut.” It was what he told anyone who asked. He didn’t have to think about it. And he wasn’t. Where was he? Was this real? Had he truly fought his way through the veil that separates realms? His instincts told him to take Camelee and run. But he reined in those rash desires and took control over them.
“King Cnut?” asked a dark-haired beauty with wide, sea-colored eyes. “I’m Kestrel. Kes.” She smiled and gave him a little wave, then looked around him at Camelee. “You went to the eleventh century? Rough.”
She spoke like Camelee, Wolf thought, listening. Another one of them from the same place. The same time?
“Oh, yes,” Camelee agreed wholeheartedly.
A little too wholeheartedly for Wolf’s comfort. He cut her a worried look.
“Where did you go?” she asked Kes, without looking at him. What was wrong? What was she afraid of?
“Fourteen eighty-five,” Kes answered.
Wolf swallowed his thumping heart. Believing Camelee’s story in theory was different than seeing all this magic unfolding before him. What could he do against it?
“Are these your children?” he asked Gen—the queen. He shook his head at himself. What was he to believe? His belly was tied in knots painful enough to give him proof that he was alive.
“Michael and Camelee are born from my womb,” she answered gracefully. “I have always loved Mordred as my own and, today, I welcome Kestrel into my heart.”
“Mordred,” Sebastian held up his hand when Wolf asked who was Mordred. “I prefer Sebastian now.”
“That is good name, Sebastian. I would like to meet the woman who captured your frolicsome heart.”
He smiled and bowed. “I will be certain you do meet her.” He turned to Wolf. “Tell me what you did.”
“I do not know. I was fighting some Saxons in the forest where Camelee disappeared. I…I went berserk, as I sometimes do. I—”
They all asked for an explanation. He gave them one as best he could and then continued. “I felt a change in the air, and hoping it was the rift, I attacked it. I fought it for a few long moments because it did not want to let me through. I was unwavering in my purpose.”
