Page 66 of The Outlaw Viking

To his surprise, Ubbi nodded vigorously. “Yea, when ye treat m’lady the way ye did back there, well—if I may be so bold as to express me humble opinion—well, ye behaved no better than a horse’s arse.”

Selik was more amazed than angry. His trusted servant rarely spoke to him in such a manner. “Has she been beaten or starved? Threatened with bodily harm? Nay. I think you forget, Ubbi, that she is a mere captive, like all the others.”

“Hah! Believe that, and I will know for certain ye have lost all yer wits. Mayhap they are lodged in that staff ye have been keeping at half mast this past sennight.” Ubbi looked meaningfully at the juncture of Selik’s braies and snorted rudely, stomping away from him.

Selik felt Rain’s presence next to him then, or perhaps he smelled her Passion. But when he glanced sideways, he saw her gaze fixed on Tyra, who was helping Gyda prepare a quick meal for the unexpected guests.

Bloody hell! She thinks ’tis Tyra my body yearns for. How can she be so blind? Hmmm. Should I allow her to continue to think so? Yea, I must.

Selik deliberately stepped forward toward the raised hearth in the center of the great room and put a hand on Tyra’s shoulder. He leaned down and whispered a few meaningless words in her ear, and laughter rippled up from the young maid’s throat.

He heard Rain gasp behind him. He clenched his fists to keep from turning and reaching out for her.

Never, never in Rain’s modern life would she have expected that she could feel such pain over a man. A cheating, two-timing, lying slimebucket of a man, at that!

He loves Tyra, she thought.

No, Rain had to be honest. Selik had made her no promises. She’d declared her love for him, and he’d made it more than plain that he didn’t welcome her affections. At best, he lusted for her.

He loves Tyra.

Yes, she had to admit it—she was the fool in this picture. Somehow she had painted a scenario of herself as the wonderful savior from the future come to rescue the primitive warrior. Hah! She’d barely saved her own skin thus far.

He loves Tyra.

Oh, Lord, how would she live without him? She hadn’t realized until now how enmeshed their lives had become. Even though she’d recognized her blossoming love for him, she’d thought she could control it, like everything else in her modern life—her education, her career, her family, her emotions, her love life. Everything in its neat little compartment, taken out and put away at will.

He loves Tyra.

Rain’s shoulders slumped, and she turned away from the happily chattering groups of people who crowded Gyda’s great room. Selik and Ubbi stood well inside the room, directing the soldiers on the care of the horses and captives. Gyda stood talking to her servants near the cooking fires, while Tyra prepared the large trestle tables with wooden platters and goblets.

In a mist of tears, Rain spun on her heel, feeling an overwhelming urge to escape the room that contained both Selik and his fiancée. No one even noticed her departure.

Heading back in the direction from which they’d just traveled, Rain walked aimlessly at first. Then, a thought occurred to her.

Coppergate.

If she could get back to Coppergate, the scene of the future Viking museum, perhaps she would discover the key to the time-travel door.

He loves Tyra.

Rain could not think straight, certainly not about her aborted mission to the past. She, who had always been obsessed with perfection, had to admit failure now. It was a bitter pill to swallow.

Nor could she think about Selik and how he would react to her absence. Probably with relief. Even she recognized that she’d turned into a shrewish, self-righteous nag of late.

Most of all, she couldn’t allow herself to think of living once again in her sterile, modern world, where she’d once thought herself happy—no, contented—in her niche as a respected physician. But how could that life, which had always seemed so satisfying, suddenly make her skin crawl with dread? What was missing in the picture?

Love, the voice in her head answered.

But Selik doesn’t love me, her heart cried out.

And if he did? Would you stay with him?

Yes…no…I don’t know.

Despite the tears clouding Rain’s eyes, finding her way through the organized grid system of Jorvik streets proved easy. She soon recognized the craftsmen’s shops Selik had pointed out to her earlier. Slowing her fast gait to a slow walk, Rain looked from right to left, trying to recognize the exact spot where the museum would later stand.

Suddenly, she felt all the fine hairs on her body stand up, almost as if electrified. With trepidation, she approached what appeared to be an abandoned building. The closer she got, the stronger the aura. She felt almost as if she teetered on the outer rim of a tornado’s spiral. If she stepped forward through the sagging door of the crumbling structure, she somehow knew she would be drawn into the vortex, back through the nothingness of time.