by Brynn Paulin
Another shadow of the past.
Having Wyn before him shed light on something Toby had never understood and even now couldn’t quite comprehend. Other than his dreams, he had no real memory before his sixteenth year. Though it seemed ludicrous to entertain the idea, he wondered if Wyn might be a clue to why.
Toby swallowed as Wyn stroked his cheek. Wyn’s gaze was filled with
concern…and wonder. As if entranced, he ran his thumb over Toby’s bottom lip. “Tobias.” Foreboding knotted in Toby’s stomach as that name caused a muddle of emotions to race through him. His body responded as readily as if it had reacted hundreds of times before to Wyn’s touch.
He shoved aside his stupidity. This must be some sort of joke. Something that someone had thought would be funny—put a medieval knight in the history prof’s office. This guy wasn’t the “Wyn” from his dreams and the idea that he might be was preposterous.
“Why are you here?” he asked. “Who put you up to this?” The knight frowned as if he didn’t understand Toby. Hmm…a good actor. Toby was about to tell him to cut it out when not-Wyn leaned forward, his chest touching Toby’s. Heat shafted through Toby at the passion in the man’s stare, and his pleasure increased as he fully realized their positions. He liked nothing better than being under a man, particularly one as handsome and muscular as this one.
But how had he ended up on the floor?
Oh God! Who the hell fainted anymore? He might as well have been one of the girls he taught instead of a thirty-year-old man. Bugger it. This stranger probably thought him an utter wimp, Toby decided. What a freaking wuss he was.
Before he could say anything to help him redeem his dignity—some lie about tripping, slipping, having narcolepsy or something else to excuse his faint, lame or not—the man said something else Toby didn’t understand though the words sounded
vaguely familiar, as if he should know them. He shook his head to clear his thoughts, sure that even if someone spoke English to him he’d be unable to understand it. Perhaps the man actually was speaking English.
Slowly Toby reached back and rubbed where his head had hit the floor. That ceramic tile hurt like hell. Had he scrambled his brains? Wait! Was he hallucinating this guy?
No…the man had been here before the…um…faint. The knight’s calloused hand slid along Toby’s cheek as he again murmured something. He leaned forward while Toby’s eyes went wide. A second later, the most perfect lips Toby had ever felt pressed to his and a deep shudder of pleasure slammed through him.
Oh man…
The stranger’s tongue thrust into Toby’s mouth, claiming it as if he’d been there a million times before and would be there a million times more. His oddly familiar flavor of cinnamon and wine filled Toby while his musky, manly scent surrounded them. Toby grabbed the stranger’s shirt only to have his fingers repelled by the hundreds of tiny links covering the man’s chest. Undeterred, he slid his palms upward and drove his hands into the knight’s damp hair.
Toby wanted nothing more than to crawl all over him, to crawl inside him, to feel him inside…
My beloved. We’re together again…
Wait! Toby froze as the words suddenly registered. Holy fuck! That was Middle English! It wasn’t garble at all.
No… it couldn’t be.
The foreboding returned full force to settle like molten acid in his stomach. Despite being on the floor, he felt dizzy, the world seeming to tilt on its side.
Toby shoved at the man’s chest and wrenched away his mouth.
“Do you understand me?” he asked in the man’s language.
The man’s brow furrowed and Toby guessed his accent must be awful.
“Tobias…where is this place?” the knight answered.
Toby shook his head. “My name is Toby. This is the school where I teach. You’re in my…” His voice trailed away. How the hell did one say “office” in Middle English? He’d have to insert the modern word. “Office,” he finished, indicating the room.
“Office,” the knight repeated as if trying the word on for size. He reached for Toby,
but Toby scooted away. What was happening to him? He hadn’t felt this confused since he’d wandered onto his adoptive family’s land, in Northern England, fourteen years ago.
Now, staring at Wyn—was his name really Wyn?—Toby wondered if his dreams were actually time-shrouded memories.Was he going crazy? That was the most likely option.
“Who are you?” Toby asked cautiously, eying the achingly familiar brown-eyed man. Standing, he’d be taller than Toby by several inches—and definitely wider. Toby worked out, but the muscles on this knight were huge in comparison. And geez…why not? His daily activity until now had likely been to train, ride, train, slay some bad guys, train some more then feast on a high-protein diet.
Toby shook his head at his final, fanciful thought. This was an actor not a medieval knight. Not a real one anyway.
“Wyn,” the man replied, driving a nail into Toby’s doubt.
“Wyn.” Toby took a deep breath. “From…where?”
Don’t say Cine Nerung. Don’t make me face this.
Pain flitted across the knight’s eyes. “Cine Nerung,” he answered, as if he’d read Toby’s thoughts. “You know me naught? You do not remember me, Tobias?”
“The year?” Toby croaked, ignoring the other questions.
Wyn stood and paced to the window then touched the metal blinds hanging over it. A moment later, he pulled a finger along the shiny spines of the books lined up on Toby’s pressboard bookshelf and stopped at the framed snapshot of Toby and his parents.
He turned, his face pale. “The year of our Lord thirteen hundred and forty.” He picked up the picture and examined the photo. Gesturing with it in his hand, he said, “Tell me, Tobias, to what year have I traveled?”
Wyn’s voice quavered slightly. He was shaken but most wouldn’t recognize it through his calm facade. They wouldn’t hear the tiny wobble in his words. But Toby did. Somehow he knew.
“Tobias, what year?” Wyn demanded.
“I’m not Tobias.”
Wyn’s jaw tightened. His lips pressed together and his brows furrowed as he regarded Toby as if trying to see inside his soul. Something stirred inside Toby, a part of him that whispered, “I’m here…”
Oh shit.
Scrambling to his feet, Toby leaned against the solid brick wall behind him. “I think you should leave.”
“And where would you have me go? I do not know where I am. I do not know where I’ve been sent. I do not even know the year. The one I counted on does not acknowledge me.”
Toby looked away to hide the guilt that rushed over him. “It’s two thousand twelve. The year of the Lord two thousand and twelve. Some seven hundred after yours.”
The picture landed on the shelf with a thunk. “How many years have you been here, Tobias?”
Toby shook his head and chose not to argue once more that he wasn’t Tobias. Wyn seemed convinced he was, and at the moment, Toby was so confused, he wasn’t so sure he wasn’t the man Wyn sought. “I’m thirty.”
“Fourteen years, then. For me, eight have passed. I have not forgotten you. The pain I’ve carried and…you…you don’t know my face.” Wyn’s words portrayed sorrow, yet his countenance was an expressionless mask.
Startled that Wyn knew how long it had been since Toby’s first sane recollection, Toby wanted to tell Wyn that he did recognize him. That he did know this virile knight. But he couldn’t take that step. Something stopped him. Something he sensed buried in his memories, something that might make Wyn more angry than the fact Toby refused to acknowledge him.
Anyone else might have refused to admit the possibility of Wyn’s medieval origin. They would have continued to think this was a joke. Toby couldn’t deny the truth he sensed, though it scared him and shook the foundation he’d stood on for the last fourteen years.
“I’m not the person you’re looking for,” he finally said.
“Y
ou are not?” Wyn crossed the room, stopping an arm’s length from Toby. He pushed the hair from Toby’s forehead then traced the faint scar that ran from Toby’s left eyebrow to the hairline above it. “Where did you get this mark?”
“I don’t know.”
“I gave it to you. We were sparring and the tip of my sword caught you. Lord Faddelsworth beat me soundly for it because I was only to use a wooden sword. And you begged him not to hurt me.”
“I’m not Tobias.”
“You have a scar here.” Wyn drew a finger across Toby’s torso, just below his pec. “An enemy dagger. I killed him.”
Toby shivered at the touch. He wanted more, but he couldn’t be what Wyn said he was…what he wanted. The darkness of his past promised he’d be sorry if he tried to be Wyn’s Tobias. He didn’t understand it, but he was afraid of that sinister unknown. “Why are you here?” he asked.
“I was sent to you.”
Toby wanted to ask why, but he figured Wyn didn’t know any more than he did.
“We should leave,” Toby said. “I’ll take you home. To my home, anyway.” And do what, he didn’t know. Well, he knew what he wanted to do. He held out his hand. “Wyn…”
The knight blinked his amazing light-brown eyes then smiled sadly, his disappointment with the situation palpable. Toby’s guilt escalated, but when Wyn slowly placed his hand in Toby’s, an immediate spark went through Toby. It sizzled through him as if soldering a connection between the two men, fixing something that had been broken by reconnecting it. The jolt went through to his cock as though he’d been stroked by an invisible hand.
He stared at Wyn as his heart thumped harder in his chest. He wanted to grab Wyn’s wide shoulders and pull him across the small space separating them. Then he wanted to feel those lips on his once more while he buried his fingers in that long black hair.
Toby steeled himself against doing exactly that. What the hell was wrong with him? Bracing himself only served to draw his attention to his throbbing cock. He’d gone rockhard the second he’d touched Wyn.
“Toh-bee,” Wyn said, dragging out the end of Toby’s name. His effort to call him by the correct moniker when he obviously wanted to call him Tobias warmed Toby’s heart. Wyn was obviously the kind of man to do what needed to be done to make things work.
But you didn’t…
Toby’s eyes burned as his inner voice prodded at him. He closed his eyes trying to sort out what he needed to do, what he wanted to do, what he should do…
His free hand drove through his already unruly brown hair. As the connection continued to arc through him, he knew what his intuition fed him was true. There were no signs that any of this was an elaborate hoax. Everything meshed with the dreams he’d experienced for so many years but had pretended not to have.
As crazy as it seemed, Wyn was a displaced medieval knight and Toby needed to take care of him, even if he disappointed Wyn by not being Tobias.
Were his dreams premonitions? In his lucid musings, he’d seen this man in medieval costume. Toby had always put it down to wishful thinking. Lord, he’d been enough of an oddity to be adopted as a teenager and be the only homosexual in his family. He didn’t want to add any other “psychic” weirdness to the mix.
Wyn reached out and stroked the side of Toby’s face with his rough thumb. Toby bit back a groan. He needed to feel those calloused hands everywhere. He shifted, bumping into the door that led to the hallway.
“You were once mine,” Wyn murmured, following him.
Toby’s cock throbbed at the word “mine”. He wanted to be. At least for a night. Who would know anyway? There were things he needed to do, things he needed to sort out, such as why a strange twist of fate had dropped Wyn into his office. Would fate care if he and Wyn fucked? Wyn sure seemed up for it. As much as Toby didn’t want to admit it, it felt right to him.
First they had to get out of here. Toby scanned Wyn’s attire. Every girl on campus would notice him and want to grope him. Thank goodness for knee-length chainmail.
Toby had a spare change of clothes in the office, but there was no way they’d fit those knightly shoulders or the legs that were several inches longer than Toby’s. Toby would definitely like to see Wyn in a nice pair of worn jeans that showed off his package to the best advantage—the best clothed advantage anyhow.
Damn, he was hornier than a teenager on prom night. This instant connection along with his drought in companionship was playing havoc with his head. All he could think of was cock when he should be trying to reason through this—well, figure out escape from his office anyway. He suspected the more he thought through the situation the more confused he’d get. By necessity, this would need to be visceral, not cerebral.
His tongue ran across his bottom lip as he imagined tasting Wyn. Wyn followed the path with his thumb. His body pressed to Toby’s and Toby dropped his head back against the frosted window on his office door. His eyes closed. He wanted to feel Wyn. Now. Anywhere. Everywhere.
“We can’t do this here,” he murmured, reluctantly, as the rings from Wyn’s chainmail pressed into him through his cotton dress shirt. The buttons clicked as they moved against the links.
This was the kind of guy he liked. Manly. Assertive. Demanding. Maybe one kiss—
No! Not here. Get a grip, Tob!
He shoved against Wyn’s solid chest, though it was the last thing he wanted to do. Damn, Wyn was all muscle.
“Look. We can’t do this here. People here don’t know I’m gay. I’d like to keep it that way.”
“Happy?” Wyn asked. “But you do not seem to be happy at all. You are not as you were when we were together.”
“We’ve never been together.”
Wyn’s jaw hardened again.
Toby shook his head knowing he’d have to explain differently. He took a deep breath. “Gay. As in… Homosexual,” he finished in English. This wouldn’t work. There wasn’t a Middle English word for his preference—at least, he didn’t know one.
Wyn’s brow wrinkled.
“Gay means that I like men,” Toby finally rasped.
“You always have,” Wyn replied simply.
Well, yeah, but—
“People here don’t know that. If they found out…”
Wyn frowned. “Things are the same in this place as in Cine Nerung.”
“So you understand?”
“Sadly, I do.” Wyn took a step back and Toby regretted his absence immediately. “Yes, I understand. My name was denigrated before the entire village. I was stripped of my knighthood, my sword broken on the stairs of the church that I am never again allowed to enter. My family has disowned me. I understand. Had I not immediately fled, I would have been tortured and killed.”
Toby’s stomach lurched as the truth of Wyn’s confession hit him hard. “It’s not that bad here,” he assured Wyn. “Although I have heard of families disowning people and churches being a problem. In my case, I might lose my job…as you did.”
Things weren’t so different here, he decided. Perhaps they operated with more civility, but the same fates waited for many gay men: denigration, being stripped of a job, being disowned, emotional torture, persecution.
He shrugged it off. He coped. They all coped. “It’s not horrible here. We have electricity,” he rationalized, inserting the modern word in a place where none other existed to explain his meaning.
Wyn looked confused but didn’t ask for an explanation. Toby didn’t explain either. Wyn would learn soon enough. Toby had a feeling Wyn was in for a crash course in twenty-first century living…and Toby was his mentor. And unlike Toby’s students, Wyn was not going to be safe from his attentions. Good God, he was a slut. He swallowed and grasped the frayed shreds of his decency.
“Come with me to my condo…my home,” he added, clarifying what the modern word “condo” meant. Wyn would need to learn modern English and this way seemed as good a way as any. “I have a spare room you can use.”
He slid away from the temptation of W
yn’s arms and went to his desk to gather the things he was taking with him for the weekend. He shoved them haphazardly into his leather satchel. His next class was Monday afternoon and he wondered if he could manage to get a sub to fill in for him. If Wyn was still with him, and Toby suspected he might be, Toby might need a few extra days off beyond the weekend.
Behind him, he heard Wyn sheathe his sword with an agility that loudly contrasted Toby’s tumultuous nerves. The thought of dragging Wyn across campus to where he’d parked tightened his sphincter muscles with anxiety.
Toby looked at Wyn as the man silently regarded him, and he wondered how he measured up in the knight’s eyes. What was going on in that head?
“Will you come with me?” Toby asked.
Wyn gave him a short nod. “I have traveled centuries to you, Tobias. I will go wherever you lead.”
Toby returned the nod with one of his own. Wyn wasn’t going to play fair. He saw determination in his visitor’s eyes, as stony as the strong facade he maintained. Ever the warrior… He saw Toby’s refusal to be Tobias as a battle to be won.
He couldn’t win. Intuition warned that, if Wyn triumphed, he would hate Toby in the end.
“Stay close to me,” Toby warned. “I’ll get you out of here unscathed.” He couldn’t promise anything beyond that.
Wyn watched as Tobias—no, he called himself Toh-bee—opened the door and glanced outside as if he expected an angry mob might wait for him.
Finding it clear of enemies, Tobias stepped outside then beckoned Wyn to follow. Wyn had little choice but to comply. Whether this Tobias knew Wyn or not, Wyn had been sent here for a reason. There was no chance he’d let Tobias out of his sight.
On some level Tobias still knew him. Wyn saw the reluctant recognition in his blue eyes. For some reason, Tobias didn’t want to acknowledge him. Though that hurt, Wyn knew he’d still follow Tobias anywhere.
Despite mentally strengthening himself against what he might find outside Tobias’ chamber, Wyn’s eyes went wide at the sight before him. A bright corridor filled with short-skirted females surprised him. The clear ceiling overhead, seen through an iron framework, stunned him as he stared up at a blue, cloudless sky.