Itwasunprofessional—but I must have felt sick or something because here I was obviously doing it myself. I just never thought the cot would be so damned uncomfortable. They always made it look so cozy, but to me it was lumpy and uncomfortable, like I was lying on a pile of straw rather than the taut fabric pulled over a metal frame.
And where were the soft blankets they always kept neatly folded next to it? Whatever was over my legs wasscratchy.
Drip, drip, drip.
The sound of water falling again brought me back to the main issue at hand. I needed to get up and find Albert to let him know that if the ceiling in the office was leaking because of the storm that had been hovering for the past week, that there were definitely going to be other spots in the museum that would be leaking as well.
I opened my eyes—or at least—IthoughtI opened my eyes. I could physically feel them open but instead of seeing the shabby, dim office where they kept us design folks I saw absolutely nothing.
Had the power gone out during my impromptu nap?
My lips pulled down into a confused frown as the haze of sleep started to fade from my mind.
No, none of that was right. The last thing I remembered hadn’t been working, though Ihadbeen at the museum.
Charles had brought me there and taken me into the King Arthur exhibit…
Then there’d been a glowing sword and then nothing at all, I realized with a soft gasp.
“Are you finally awake?” a voice asked me in a strange, lilting accent as the inky darkness all around me was penetrated by asoft green glow from what looked to be crystals hanging from the ceiling.
As my surroundings became clearer, I realized I definitely was not in the museum anymore but instead inside of a cave with a low ceiling.
I sat up, trying to stave off the sudden wave of nausea that came with going vertical too fast and wheeled myself around in the direction where the voice had come from.
Standing a few feet away from me was a man. He seemed unassuming enough, though his clothing was strange. He was dressed in what looked like a gray-blue tunic over a flowy white shirt and a pair of what looked to be some kind of animal skin pants underneath.
If I wasn’t trapped in a strange cave with him I would have almost thought he was one of the actors the museum hired to dress in period clothing and act like people from different time periods.
But the man’s eyes seemed to glow in the dim light, chasing that notion away entirely. He wasn’t bad to look at with his grungy devil-may-care stubble and curly hair that seemed to stick up in all directions like he had a habit of running his fingers through it.
He looked almost normal—even handsome—but those eyes of his coupled with the fact that I’d somehow been kidnapped told me he was anything but. My instincts were telling me to calm down, that the man wouldn’t hurt me, but I’d never been one to listen to those anyway so I tamped down on them hard as I shot him a glare.
“Who the hell are you?” I asked, my voice rough and groggy still.
The crystals lightened even more, changing color to a paler light that let me see that not only did his eyes glow, they glowedgreen as he stared at me, his mustache twitching down with his frown.
“I know it’s a lot to take in but there is no need for such aggression, Guinevere.”
I wanted to snort derisively at his tone, but rule number one of getting kidnapped was not to piss off your captor and my sarcasm had gotten me in trouble before.
“Who are you?” I repeated again, more nicely this time as I slowly started to scoot backwards away from him until my back hit the cold wall and I could feel the dampness of it. “And where am I?”
The man took a step forward and my hand shot up to stop him. He paused before holding both of his hands up like I was some kind of animal needing to be soothed.
“My name is Merlin and I’ve been looking all over for you, Guinevere.”
I flinched at the use of my full name again. I thought I’d heard it more in the past twenty-four hours than in the last year of my life and it was like I could hear the echo of my mother saying it even as it rolled off of the man’s tongue.
“Gwen,” I corrected him as I started to shiver from the chill of the wall. Bringing my knees up, I hugged my arms around them in an attempt to ward off the cold.
Glowing eyes shifted away from my face to my shaking shoulders. “Apologies for your surroundings, this cave does me well when I need to gather my magic, but I fear it is very uncomfortable for most others.”
He lifted a hand, his fingertips lighting up with the same glowing green color of his eyes and the cold wall behind me started to heat up like a heating pad, soothing away the shivers as he crouched down in front of me.
I gawked at him, my brain struggling to come to terms with what I’d just seen and completely glossing past it. Maybe hehad some lights on his fingertips and heated walls like some people could install in their bathroom floors. Yeah, that was it. Definitely not magic.
“I am sorry for pulling you so abruptly out of your timeline as, ironically enough, I was running out of time to get you here,” he told me with a soft chuckle, his eyes crinkling in the corners and softening his whole face.
