Despite myself, my shoulders relaxed at the sight of it, my instincts once again rearing their ugly head to simper at me that this man wouldn’t hurt me with no evidence to back it up.
I was also going to ignore that little tidbit about atimeline.I didn’t know what that was about and I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to like the answer he was going to give. No, for now I needed to focus on the location we were currently in and try to figure out a way to get out and get to the police.
“Where ishere?” I asked, gesturing to the cave. “Are we still in London? Where is Charles?”
Not that I cared to see him, but if he was also kidnapped somewhere I felt like I should at least saysomething.
But Merlin just frowned and shook his head.
“Charles? Who is Charles? You are the only one I pulled through the sword, Guine—Gwen,” he said, quickly correcting himself with a sheepish smile.
“The sword? Are you saying youpulledme through a sword? How?” The glowing fingers I’d ignored before were coming back to bite me as I watched the man chew on the inside of his cheek like he was trying to figure out how to break some bad news to me.
“Well…” Merlin began just as something underneath me started to glow. The lumpy makeshift bed I’d been lying on began to shift underneath me like a sinkhole had opened and I was slowly being sucked inside.
I moved to get up, to get off of the suddenly unsteady floor and move to safety, but my legs wouldn’t obey me as they started to sink into what could only be described as a glowing crevice. “What are you doing? Are you doing this?”
Merlin shook his head roughly, his mouth agape as he reached out for me and a shock of electricity made him withdraw with a hiss. “I think the gods are telling me it’s time for you to meet them, I’m afraid they aren’t the most patient beings…”
“Meet who?” I blurted as I scrabbled at the edge of the hole for purchase. If I could just get a good handhold I could get out of this. “Help me!”
But Merlin just shook his head as he leaned in close so that our faces were only an inch from each other.
He has no scent,my brain whispered in realization as the man spoke.How is that possible? Even betas have scents.
“I will follow as soon as I am able, Gwen, do not panic. You are in the time your soul was always meant to exist in. Things will be confusing for the time being, but Arthur will take care of you. He is much too chivalrous not to.”
“What?” I asked with a shout as a roaring sound filled my ears as my shoulders sank into the hole and the last thing I saw before darkness closed in around me was Merlin’s concerned face before I fell.
Wind whipped around me, forcing me to swallow my scream as it tugged at the strange clothing that I hadn’t been wearing a moment ago.
Pale blue skirts flipped up around my face, temporarily blinding me as the sensation of dropping thousands of feet filled my stomach, like the drop of a roller coaster except this lasted longer than any coaster I’d ever been on.
Then, with an audiblepop,I wasn’t falling through darkness anymore but through balmy, damp smelling air and into someone’s arms.
The sound of people’s gasps filled my ears as I tried to reorient myself, the strong arms keeping me from falling straight on my ass tightened as my feet dangled pitiably.
I sucked in a breath, taking in a mouthful of the man’s heady, spiced scent and gasping as my insides tightened with anticipation. My suppressants must have been wearing off because normally the scents of alphas were a dull echo compared to the blast I was getting from the man clutching me tightly in his arms.
The man in question also sucked in a gasp and something vibrated in his chest for a moment before stopping abruptly as my toes finally brushed the uneven ground beneath us.
My eyes fluttered open and I was staring into a pair of the brightest blue eyes I’d ever seen—like the tropical ocean on a sunny day the eyes of the man in front of me practically shimmered in the surrounding torch light.
Wait, I paused,torch light?
“Are you well?” the man holding me in his arms asked, his deep voice tinged with confusion as he let me slide down the front of him and despite myself I couldn’t help but notice how rigid and firm his torso was.
He looked like something straight out of a medieval Hollywood movie with his square jaw that was only barely disguised by the red-gold beard and neatly coiffed hair.
As Trini would have said:Me likey.
Which was a completely inappropriate thought for the predicament I now found myself in.
His clothes were also something different than I’d ever seen before, the deep rouge doublet he was wearing was embroidered with shining gold thread, forming a triumphant dragon over his breast that was bisected by the gold filigree chain spanning from one side of his shoulders to the other.
All of that was encapsulated by the burnished gold crown twinkling just above his furrowed brow as he stared down at me.
Uncomfortable, I stepped out of his arms and away from him, needing to catch my breath outside of the sphere of his mouth-watering scent. It had been so long since I’d smelledanyalpha in this capacity, so it made sense that it was affecting me so much… but even still there was something nagging me deep in my mind that the man’s spicy cinnamon and nutmeg scent wasnotnormal by any means.
