"Stay away from me," the woman said, her voice low and cultured, though oddly inflected. "I don't want to have to hurt you."
He shook away the hesitancy and noticed that the woman had something in her hand. Something silver, made of metal, yet it wasn't a knife or dagger. What was it she had said? She didn't want to hurt him? He snorted to himself and resolutely moved Kamir a few paces toward her, his face set in grim lines.
"Don't come any closer," she warned, waving the small lump of metal in her hand.
"You will not escape me," Navarre said, pulling Kamir up short in front of her. Suddenly a sound unlike anything he had ever heard before—louder than thunder, deeper than the tumult of a raging waterfall—rang out between them. At the same time something struck his chain mail with the force of a mace's blow, and his upper arm began to burn in the deepest part of the muscle. He looked down to see blood pumping from his arm. Incredulous, he looked back at the woman and saw she had begun to run, glancing back over her shoulder, tears streaming down her face, the lump of metal clutched to her chest as she sped away from him.
Navarre swore roundly and wheeled Kamir to follow her. She was headed for the forest and once there, she would be easily lost. He didn't know what had happened but he knew he could not let "Richard's salvation" escape. Kamir pounded across the field as the woman tossed one frightened look after another back over her shoulder. Navarre had almost caught up with her when she reached the edge of the forest and disappeared into the dense foliage. Throwing himself off the back of his horse, the knight plunged after her, cursing Magda and all of her ancestors as the branches snatched at his hair and tore at his body. He needed to staunch the increasing flow of blood from his arm but could not take the time as he hurried after his quarry.
Fool, he thought silently. Be still and she will lead you to her.
Stopping in his tracks, Navarre listened and was not disappointed as the sound of another person crashing through the underbrush reached his ears. She was to the left of him, and if he remembered correctly there was a rather wide stream nearby. She would have to slow down, if only to cross it.
Quickening his pace, Navarre parted the forest, then paused and grinned as the sound of a woman cursing then screaming, followed by a terrific splash and more screaming, filled the forest. Navarre pushed through another yard of bracken and he had found her. The auburn-haired wench sat in water up to her waist, shivering with cold, the lump of metal on the bank of the stream, her face twisted with anger and fear.
"Cold, isn't it, milady?" the knight said, giving her a mocking bow. After a moment of enjoying her predicament, Navarre took pity on the woman and crossed to her side, extending his arm to her. "Here, let me—"
Before he could react, Navarre saw the woman hook her feet around his heels and jerk with all of her might. He fell backward into the stream as her laughter pealed out around him. Navarre shouted as he hit the icy water, his back thumping against a sharp rock, his ankle biting into an extended tree root. Cursing and groaning, he hauled himself quickly out of the freezing stream and unceremoniously jerked the woman to her feet, his fingers biting into her arm. She glared up at him, but as he reached down and picked up the lump of metal beside the stream and shook it in her face, her arrogance faded and her lips began to tremble.
"You are coming with me," he said, his voice little more than a growl. "And if you run again, I will kill you."
Kendra studied the man sitting across the fire from her and sipped water cautiously from the wooden bowl he had handed her moments before. The blanket he had given her after the stream episode was coarse and rough and kept slipping off of her bare shoulder. She felt more than a little disconcerted to be sitting naked, except for the blanket, facing her captor.
As soon as he had hauled her from the icy water, he had first dropped the gun into a bag that hung from his saddle, then without warning, collapsed. Kendra had hurried to his side, her heart pounding as she examined the bleeding hole in his arm, trying to gauge just where the bullet had entered and if it had exited or was lodged inside of him.
She hated guns, always had, but especially after the time she'd spent as a reporter in battle-weary lands, she hated them. Even now she could scarcely believe she had actually fired the pistol. She'd only intended to frighten the man into stopping, but she hadn't counted on him ignoring her command to halt. Pulling the trigger had been a reflex action, a survival action, and as the bullet exploded from the gun she was immediately sorry. Kendra had prodded the wound and found that the bullet had apparently struck the man in the upper part of his arm, then passed cleanly through the other side.
"Lie still," she had ordered, one hand on his chest. "You'll be all right, but I've got to find something to bind this with."
Kendra had gasped as the knight's hand closed around her wrist. Their eyes met for a long, breathless moment, then the knight reached inside the heavy leather tunic he wore and pulled out a kerchief. He handed it to her wordlessly, sweat pouring down his face, the skin around his lips white.
Quickly Kendra had tied the makeshift tourniquet around his upper arm, noting the strength in the bulging muscle there. She had no more than finished tying the knot than the crazy knight stumbled to his feet, picked her up and carried her—kicking and screaming—back to his horse. There he had mounted the huge, black stallion and balanced her in front of him, both of them dripping wet, one strong arm encircling her waist in a viselike grip, apparently none the worse for having been shot with a .357 Magnum and dumped into an icy stream.
After a while Kendra had given up fighting, realizing that all she was doing was wearing herself out against this magnificent hunk of a man who even a bullet couldn't fell. The smart thing to do was bide her time and use the skills that had gotten her out of worse situations than this. He stopped long enough to extract a blanket from behind his saddle and wrapped it around both of them, but Kendra was still freezing, clad in her soaking wet clothing. She tried to protest but soon gave up even that, since her shouted entreaties were met with silence.
As they rode, Kendra had begun to grow increasingly alarmed. She was in England, but something was desperately wrong. She had passed out when it was summer with sheaves of grain waving in the wind. When she had awakened the stubbled ground was covered with frost. A strange weather distortion? An unseasonable cold snap? Then, there was the matter of Innusbury. She had passed through Innusbury on her way to investigate the crop circle and had read a very impressive marker about what was left of the one-time village.
Innusbury had been abandoned in the year 1340, by order of the local aristocrat. Lord Somebody-or-other. Apparently the lord needed the land for his sheep and it was easier for the remaining few inhabitants to seek other housing than to rebel against their liege lord. When Kendra had passed through on her way to the hotel, there had been nothing left of Innusbury except the stone foundations where the village had once sat.
But the Innusbury she and the dark knight had ridden through only hours ago was a bustling little village filled with houses, a chapel, and a dirty inn, which in no way resembled the empty remnant she had visited the day before.
Kendra shifted her position near the fire and eased the pressure on her bottom. Riding on a horse for five hours, bouncing against a man encased in metal, had done little to improve her humor or her backside. Almost worse than the ride was the strange feeling she had that as long as the crazy knight had his arms around her waist, she was safe. She'd leaned back against him with no doubt that he would support her and never let her fall.
Eventually though, even his strong chest grew uncomfortable. She'd hoped he'd stop at Innusbury—or wherever they really were—and let her rest at the inn, let them dry their clothes and get warm. But the dauntless knight had dragged her across the countryside for two more hours before making camp in a secluded, rocky crag. He had then proceeded to build a roaring fire, for which she was very grateful, and ordered her to take off her clothes.
When she'd hesitated, he'd sn
orted, thrown her a blanket and stalked off to deal with his horse, staked a good ten yards away. After she'd stripped and wrapped herself in the blanket, her jailor left her for a few minutes, though his own lips looked fairly blue with the cold. He returned with a dead rabbit, skinned the hapless creature, and cooking it over the open flames, prepared a meager meal. Even with the memory of its dismemberment fresh in her mind, Kendra had pounced on the meat hungrily.
Now she glanced around her, feeling incredibly tired. The sun was just beginning to rise above the tall rocks surrounding the campsite, and with a shiver, Kendra realized that this was the perfect place to kill someone. How long would it be before her body was found? she wondered. Would Mac ever get over if? She pictured his craggy face drained of color, twisted with grief. All her reckless chances, her thoughtless risks had been the epitome of selfishness. Too bad she'd never realized it before. With a pang, Kendra suddenly understood what her death would mean to her uncle. Just as James and Nicole's deaths had shattered her life, so would her death break Mac's gentle heart.
Taking a deep breath, she set aside the bowl the knight had given her. There was no sense in growing maudlin. She had to get away from this madman. She would keep her wits about her until the right opportunity for escape presented itself.
Kendra glanced over at the silent figure crouched in front of the fire. Thank goodness his wound had stopped bleeding and he seemed fine, except that he was shivering with the cold and likely to catch pneumonia from the icy plunge in the stream. Since he'd thrown her on his horse, he hadn't spoken a word to her, and no matter how she begged him to tell her where they were and what he wanted with her, he had remained stone faced and silent. Kendra knew from long experience that there was no way to negotiate with someone if the person wouldn't talk to you. It was time for questions—and answers.
"Listen," she said in a soothing voice, "I'm sorry I shot you. I was frightened, I mean, look at the way you're dressed. Pretty menacing." She tried to smile to soften her words but the knight with the golden eyes simply stared at her and continued to eat the last of the rabbit. Her smile faded and she cleared her throat nervously. "Look, I don't know what your problem is, but I'm sure I could find you some help. This is really common these days, you know."
He stopped in mid movement, the meat in his hand halfway to his lips as he stared at her across the fire.
Kendra stood, laughing nervously. "I mean, everybody wishes at one time or another that they could run away, join the circus, become part of a fairytale." She moved slowly around the perimeter of the stone-enclosed campfire, hands behind her back, until she was only a few feet away from him. "And I know that you don't really want to hurt me, do you? You've probably been under a lot of pressure on your job, under a lot of stress and—"
"Silence!"
She had just reached his side when the man barked the command, flinging the meat to one side, rising to tower over her like Atlas preparing to shoulder the world. Kendra gulped and, feeling her kneecaps melt into jelly, sank down at his feet.
"Sorry," she whispered.
Navarre picked up his sword and strode a few feet away from the woman. What was the witch trying to do, get information from him? For witch she most certainly was. Her words made no sense. Circus? Stress? Job? He glanced up at the sky as daylight stretched pink-gold fingers across the fading gray of night. It would take another day of riding to reach Nottingham, but before he arrived he wanted to know exactly what the witch had to do with Richard and Locksley.
He had traveled at night in the hopes that if no one saw him with his beautiful burden, Locksley wouldn't know he had taken Richard's salvation from Abury until after they had safely reached Nottingham. They would spend the day in the crag, and at sunset, start out once again.
Navarre wiped the back of one hand across his face and his shoulders sagged. He was weary, exceedingly weary, and his arm ached where the witch had pierced him with her sorcerous weapon. Zounds, it had hurt like the very devil! How had she done it, he wondered? How had she burrowed a hole in his arm from such a distance with only the help of a strangely shaped lump of metal! He wanted to examine the lump but was fearful she could cause it to hurt him again, even kill him, just by his holding it.
Magda had said in her prophecy that Richard's salvation would also bring with it the king's destruction. Was the lump of metal that destruction? Or was it the woman? Which was salvation and which the danger? Or were they either? He drew one hand cross his face and released his pent-up breath. He would lie down, he would rest, and when they arrived in Nottingham, he would seek Garrick's counsel.
With one eye on the woman, Navarre moved back to the fire and shrugged out of the open-sided tunic he wore, wincing at the pain that laced down his arm as he did so. He unfastened his leather hauberk and bent over, letting the heavy armor fall straight down, trying not to disturb his arm again. One side of the leather brushed the wound and he grunted as the piece slid to the ground, then turned away from the woman's open curiosity as he began unfastening the chain mail he wore. Used to having his squire remove his armor, he struggled with the small fastenings at the side, his fingers too large and too square and at the moment, too cold, to accomplish much. His arm pained him more than he wanted to admit even to himself.
Kendra watched the knight struggle for a minute, shivering with cold, then, resolutely stood and crossed over to him, mildly slapping his hands away from the straps at his side.
"Here, let me help you," she said, her smaller hands making short work of the latchlike apparatus. She had quite a time keeping the blanket from falling off and totally exposing her nakedness, but at last she had the metal sheath unhooked and the man grunted what could have been thanks, as he pulled the long tunic of chain mail off. "Honestly," Kendra went on, "men take the simplest things and turn them into major—"
She stopped, her voice catching in her throat. He looked back at her, almost defiantly, his long, black hair rumpled around his face. But it wasn't his face that commanded her attention. Under the mail he wore a long-sleeved white tunic with no collar and straight sleeves, which currently lay plastered coldly against his skin, and leggings which molded themselves to thick, muscular thighs. The costume showed his magnificent physique to its best advantage, and as she watched, with her blurred vision, he shed the undertunic as well, giving her an unobstructed view of his wide, well-muscled chest.
Kendra took a step back from the knight, running her tongue across her lips as she gazed up at the slightly blurry, yet still incredible specimen of manhood standing in front of her. No man on earth really looked like this—and particularly no nuts-for-brains psycho who thought he was a knight in shining armor. Kendra sat down again, feeling as though the air had been knocked out of her.
Suddenly she knew the answer to the strange things that had been happening since she blacked out. The reason there was no wheat, the reason Sean had disappeared, the reason Innusbury was now a bustling little village, the reason it was cold, the reason everything had this strange, hazy, dream-like quality to it. Because it was a dream. She had been knocked out, maybe hit by lightning, and was probably at this moment being rushed to the nearest hospital in Wiltshire.
Chapter Four
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It all made sense now: a tall, dark, handsome, silent knight in shining armor appears out of nowhere, sweeps her up on his black stallion and makes her his prisoner. C'mon, O'Brien! This is the stuff dreams are made of! Even as the realization she was probably unconscious, maybe even in a coma, sent a wave of fear through her, the thought of sharing a dream with this now apparently harmless, handsome apparition seemed suddenly very attractive.
Kendra gazed up at the knight and felt her heartbeat quicken. It had been a long time since she had felt attracted to a man. After her husband died, it was a year before she even acknowledged there was an opposite sex. Mac had begun "fixing her up" with blind dates, but every one of them had been a disaster. She'd never again met a man who could thrill her the way James
once had, just by walking into the room. Until now. Too bad he wasn't real.
Her sudden silence got the knight's attention in a way all of her ranting and questions hadn't been able to accomplish.
"Are you ill?" he asked, kneeling beside her. Kendra blinked at the sound of the deep, husky voice next to her ear. She turned and found her lips inches away from his. He was wearing only the blanket now over his leggings. His chest was broad, smooth except for a dusting of dark hair that ended in a V between his pectoral muscles. His scent was heady, masculine. It should have repelled her, but somehow it did the opposite.
"What the hell," she whispered, never taking her eyes from his mouth, "it's my dream."
Slowly she ran both hands beneath the blanket and up the front of his bare chest. He stiffened and drew away from her.
"What—what do you think you are doing?"
"This," she said softly, pulling him back to her and taking his face between her hands. Opening her mouth slightly, Kendra brushed her lower lip against his and the knight's golden eyes turned to burnished amber. Thanking her subconscious mind for its attention to detail, she moved to deepen the kiss. He jerked away from her and jumped to his feet as if she had branded him with a hot iron. Hot iron, she thought languidly, is what I chiefly need right now. Navarre moved quickly away and in a matter of moments was brandishing his sword again.
Tess Mallory - Circles in Time Page 5