by Dani Harper
“Rhys. My name is Rhys.” His voice was deep. A little raspy but melodic with an accent that sounded all too familiar.
“Okay, Reese, what the hell are you doing here? You’ve got no car and no clothes. How’d you get here?”
“My name is Rhys,” he corrected, pronouncing it with a single roll of the r, just as Nainie had said her r’s all her life. As did every Welsh person Morgan had met on her trip, from the hotel clerks to the shopkeepers to the tour directors. “You brought me here.”
“I’m pretty sure I’d remember that. What the hell are you doing here?”
“I was a warrior of my clan until I was captured by the Roman invaders. They forced me to fight in the arena at Isca Silurum and named me the Bringer of Death for my skills. I thought I knew hell then, but I had not truly found it until I escaped from them.”
Good grief, was he high on something? The Bringer of Death…Somebody had been playing way too many video games. “Good for you. Ten points for originality. Let me guess, you were drinking last night, and your friends decided to play a prank on you. They stole your clothes and dumped you at the wrong place. Am I close?”
“A prank.” He seemed to consider that. “Yes, you could say that a bit of a prank was played on me. I found a cave, but it turned out to be an entrance to the world below. The Tylwyth Teg found me there, and there aren’t greater pranksters to be had.”
She nearly dropped the hoe. “How do you know about the Tylwyth Teg?” Except for her grandmother, she’d never heard anyone on this side of the ocean speak of them, never mind pronounce their name correctly. The tourist shops in Wales did a booming business in faery merchandise, yet she hadn’t heard the ancient name of the fantasy creatures used very much even in that country. She narrowed her eyes at the man, daring him to answer.
He shrugged a little. Although she wasn’t pressing on his neck anymore, he remained prone. “The Fair Ones are cousin to men but very much older. Ancient as the mountains. It was the custom of our clan to leave offerings for them outside the village. The Fair Ones are often bored, and they think nothing of toying with mortals for sport.”
Nainie Jones had often spoken of her childhood, told of her mother leaving milk and bread on the back step for the Tylwyth Teg. It was an offering, a gift of hospitality, she said, so they wouldn’t play tricks on the family. Morgan gripped the hoe harder to keep her hands from trembling, yet she couldn’t help but be fascinated.
“You cannot enter their territory without permission or payment,” he continued. “I had nothing to offer when they discovered me. Not even my life, as I was dying. I thought they would finish me, but instead they healed me. And that was their prank. Because then they changed me, so they could take their payment in servitude.”
Rhys—if that was even his real name—either believed what he was saying or was a prime candidate for an Oscar. Because try as Morgan might, she couldn’t see any evidence that he was lying. He had to be crazy then, but everything about the whole situation was insane. After all, she was standing in her front yard in her pajamas, holding a naked man at the point of a garden hoe. She’d taken assertive action when she’d seen him lying in the grass, assuming he was drunk or something. Well, she’d gotten the upper hand all right. Now what was she supposed to do with the guy? She couldn’t keep him there indefinitely. “If I let you up, will you behave? Because I swear I’ll beat you with this if you so much as look at me wrong.”
“I will not hurt you. I swear it on my life.”
It would have to do. “Okay. You can get up.” She stepped back, clutching the hoe’s handle, ready to swing and swing hard if need be. The man rolled away from her and got to his feet, his movements deliberately slow.
Omigod, he’s tall. Morgan felt something deep inside her turn over in pure female appreciation. When he’d been on the ground, she’d been focused on his face. Now, her eyes quickly scanned the strong arms and muscled chest, then followed the dark line of hair that traveled down his taut belly and fanned around a very promising cock. She snapped her gaze back up to his face, feeling her cheekbones heat and her body thrum. It was embarrassing, not so much that he was naked but that she was reacting so strongly to him. It was the stupid dreams; it had to be those stupid, sexy, wonderful dreams that were sending her hormones wild. Morgan cleared her throat with difficulty, fought to focus.
Suddenly she noticed something she hadn’t before. The man’s arms and shoulders showed at least a dozen scars. There were more on his torso, some on his legs. The scars were white, wounds that had healed long ago. They were also curiously wide, as if they’d never been sutured. What the hell had happened to him? An accident? She prayed that he wasn’t one of those troubled souls who felt compelled to cut themselves. Worse—had he hurt the great black mastiff?
“I want to know what you’ve done with my dog.”
He looked surprised. “It’s me, surely. You called me Rhyswr, but my name is Rhys.”
“No, I called my dog Rhyswr. And there’s no way you could know his name unless you’ve been watching me.” Had the stranger been hiding in the woods last night, spying on her as she walked around the yard with the dog? Or had he seen her with the dog at the clinic and followed her home? Her grip tightened on the garden hoe. Maybe letting the guy get up had been a really bad idea. “Look, I want to know where my dog is right now before I call the police.”
He ran a hand through his dark hair then pinched the bridge of his nose as if thinking. “I know not how to explain. You’ll think me mad.”
“Too late, buddy. Goes with sleeping in a stranger’s house and standing around naked.”
He flushed slightly, and those golden eyes darkened, but he made no effort to cover himself. “A warrior goes into battle naked, as does a gladiator. But we are not at war, and this is not your custom. Does it offend you that I have no clothes?”
“I’m not offended so much as pissed off that you broke into my house, scared the hell out of me, and lost my dog.”
“Your dog is not missing.”
“Good. Where is he?”
“I am the black dog you befriended. When they found me, the Tylwyth Teg were amused by this—” he pointed at his tattooed collarbone “—and thought I would make them an excellent hound. I’ve been a grim ever since, a barghest, bound in service to the Fair Ones for all time. Forced to wear a collar that was forged in faery fire, crafted by faery hand. There was no hope of escape for me until you unmade the spell with your kindness.”
Holy crap. The guy was a loony after all. “Stay there. Right there. Understand? Don’t make a move.” Morgan brandished the hoe as she sidled over to the front door, then dove through it, slamming and locking it after her. Ran to the phone in the kitchen, snatched up the cordless receiver, then dashed through the house to the back door. It was locked. A quick check of the windows showed that they were securely latched as well. How on earth had the man gotten inside?
The sensible side of her said to call 911. Now, right now! Yet strangely, she found herself reluctant to do that. Instead, some inkling was fluttering at her brain like a bright luna moth before a window. She strained to discern what it was but came away with only the same vague sense that she knew this man. Intimately. Cared about him.
“That’s ridiculous,” she said aloud. Obviously she was thinking with her hormones, reacting to a fantasy, to a dream for heaven’s sake. The guy might be a serial killer. Homicidal maniacs could be attractive, couldn’t they? So could compulsive liars. But what purpose would a grown man have in claiming to be a dog? Did he really think she’d fall for something so outlandish? Maybe he had a fetish for veterinarians…
Good grief, why did she have to think of the word fetish with the most attractive man she’d ever met standing naked in her yard? Of course, that attraction was beginning to wane in the wake of the fantastical story he’d told her. She found herself feeling a little sorry for him. Maybe he had missed his medication or had a reaction to something he ate or drank. Maybe he’d su
ffered a head injury that had left him out of touch with reality—after all, something had happened to him to give him all those scars. Yet, he didn’t seem to be dangerous. If he was, he’d already had plenty of opportunity to do whatever he wanted to her. Yet, he hadn’t laid a hand on her as she lay asleep in her bed. Hadn’t threatened her in the least.
What to do? The truth was, she didn’t want to have Rhys arrested, didn’t want to press charges or cause trouble for him. But Morgan was equally certain there was nothing she could do to help him except to report him as the lost soul he obviously was. I could just mention that he was wandering my property and skip the part about finding him in my house. Maybe there was a missing persons report on him. Maybe someone would recognize him and take him home.
As she peeked through the curtains with the phone in her hand, waiting for the police dispatcher to pick up, she realized there was one thing she did know about the naked stranger in her yard.
He had, without doubt, the finest butt on the planet.
SIX
He was in a cell again. There was no window from which to see the sky but at least there was light. It was clean, unlike the dank and stinking hole Rhys had been forced to live in at Isca Silurum, and it had a plumbing system that the very elite of Rome would envy. Fresh water was available to him at all times. Food—good food, not leavings—had been brought to him. Strange that such luxury was given to prisoners. He’d been given clothes too. Although he didn’t care for the garish orange color, they were clean and smelled of strong soap.
But a cell was still a cell. He was a man again yet once more a prisoner. Surely the Fair Ones had planned it thus, tantalizing him with freedom, then yanking it away just as he allowed himself to rejoice. He could almost hear their cold, crystalline laughter, devoid of true mirth. Yet the long night brought no other worldly visitors to mock him.
Strangely, his captors didn’t mock him either. They’d spoken briefly but politely when they brought him clothes and each time they brought him food, and he had thanked them for their great kindness. They looked at him oddly then, and he didn’t know what he had said wrong. He knew the language fluently—had come to know many languages over the centuries—but of course he hadn’t interacted with anyone as a dog. And this country was new to him. Perhaps he had missed something, some custom or nuance of behavior.
Rhys snorted. Obviously he’d missed more than that or he wouldn’t be in a cage again. He had committed no crime that he knew of, yet Morgan had clearly expected him to go with the man she had summoned. The blond man had the bearing of a soldier, but Rhys was far larger and more powerful. He could have stood his ground and simply refused to go. Yet to please Morgan, he had automatically done what she wanted as if he truly was her obedient pet.
The longer he was in human form, the less that subservient role appealed to him…Rhys was certain of his vow to protect her, however. He just couldn’t figure out how to fulfill it. He’d sworn to stay with Morgan—yet she didn’t want him with her. A day and a half had passed, but he didn’t bother questioning how long his sentence was.
After all, in his experience, once a prisoner, always a prisoner.
But other prisoners came and went. He listened carefully to what few words were spoken between the men and their captors but gained no clues. Where were they going? Only the elderly man in the closest cell remained. The officer had called him Mr. Waterson and treated him like an old friend rather than a prisoner. He’d been drunk when he was led into the cell, but the officer simply helped him to lie down and covered him gently with a blanket. He’d snored all night, but Rhys had heard far worse sounds.
There was a morning meal, everything wrapped in white paper again. Even the cup was paper. Tastes. Textures. Colors. Rhys reveled in every detail until the last crumb was finished. He was startled by a deep, gravelly voice.
“I got an extra hash brown here. You want it, son?
Reverting to old habits, Rhys hadn’t yet spoken to his neighbor. He had never talked to other prisoners, not because it was forbidden but because it was better not to know them. It was all too likely he’d meet them in the arena. “You offer your food?” he asked, wondering if it was a joke.
“Food and I aren’t real good friends in the morning. You get old like me, your stomach gets testy. I’ve had more than enough.”
Rhys took the proffered potato patty through the bars. “My thanks.”
“Name’s Leo. Haven’t seen you around here before. First arrest?”
“Rhys. I have not been in this prison before.”
Leo laughed. “This here’s just the local jail, son. Prison’s the Big House, and it’s for nastier fish than us. Although I see you’re in peels, so maybe you’re a bit badder than I think.”
“Peels?”
“You are wet behind the ears. Peels. Oranges. You’re wearing prison gear. Where’s your clothes?”
“I have none.”
Leo’s shaggy, white eyebrows went up. “Well, that explains what you’re in for. Me, I drink a little too much now and then. Can’t get my old gray ass home sometimes. Drunk in public. But not disorderly, not since I was a marine at least. Used to be a bit of a hothead in my younger years. Funny how age cools you down, makes you think things through.” He laughed again. “Can’t remember stuff worth a shit though.”
Rhys considered that. His newly restored body was still strong, but was he any wiser than he had been the last time he walked upright? He remembered all the centuries in between, however, and for a moment he envied Leo and his forgetfulness. Rhys could recall every single face that had recoiled from the sight of the black dog, every hapless mortal over the endless years whose misfortune it had been to witness the grim’s appearance.
Finally Officer Richards, the man who had taken him from Morgan’s house (in a car, a fine conveyance although Rhys didn’t care for the enclosed feeling), came and stood in front of his cell. The blond man was nearly as tall as Rhys, but his frame was narrow and wiry. His eyes conveyed a great deal of intelligence, however, and Rhys had no doubt that they took in every detail.
“Mr. Reese, I can’t keep you here any longer. You have no record, and you’re not being charged with any crime at this time, although I would advise you to keep your clothes on in the future. I’m concerned that you may have a health problem, however, and I’d like a doctor to have a look at you. It would have to be voluntary, however. I can’t compel you to see him when I release you.”
Rhys blinked. “You are…letting me go?”
“Have you committed a crime I don’t know about?”
He shook his head slowly.
“Good. Will you allow me to take you to a doctor?”
“I have no injuries, no need of a physician,” he said carefully. Rhys didn’t want to offend the man, but he could see no reason to go to a healer.
“I had a feeling you’d say something like that. All right, then. You’ll need to change your clothes.” Officer Richards opened the door and handed Rhys a green sack. “We can’t have you running around looking like an escaped prisoner. Dr. Edwards called, had some things put aside for you at Ellison’s Hardware on her own dime, so I picked them up. You’ll have some extra socks and briefs to take with you because they don’t sell those separately, of course. There’s a comb and a toothbrush too.
“You’re very lucky that Doc Edwards has been concerned enough about you not to press charges, never mind make sure you’re dressed. She’s a kind woman, perhaps too kind. My wife probably would have shot you if you’d showed up buck naked in our backyard. I figure when you get on your feet, you can pay the woman back for the clothes—but I’m going to suggest that you bring the money to me to pass on. I can’t enforce it, but I think it would be wise if you didn’t bother Dr. Edwards again.”
Kindness again. “My thanks,” Rhys managed. “I will repay her for these.”
“I’ll be back to get you in about twenty minutes. You too, Mr. Waterson. I’ve got some paperwork to fill out and then you�
��ll both be out of here.”
Richards left and Rhys considered the green bag. It was strange material, almost thin enough to see through and slick to the touch even though it was dry. Plastic. He pulled the clothing from the bag and set it out on the bed. It was so very different from what he had once known. Sure, he was aware of what each item was and how it was worn, but seeing and doing were sometimes different things. The orange shirt and pants were closer in design to the pullover tunic and simple braecci he was accustomed to wearing in his previous life.
Luckily the plastic packet of three small white things had a drawing on it. The idea was vaguely similar to a Roman loincloth but was all made of one piece. He chose one and knew enough to put it on first, but it took a couple of tries—and Leo clearing his throat meaningfully—to decide which way it should face. The braecci—pants, he corrected himself—were a fine dark blue that reminded him of woad, a dye his mother and sisters had made of fermented leaves, but the garments weren’t woven out of wool. In fact, none of the items were made from wool. The fabrics were strangely soft, except for the pants, which felt more like stiff linen.
“Are there no sheep here?” he asked Leo as he rubbed the material between his fingers. “This cloth is strange to me.”
“Cotton. Comes from a plant, you know? They make everything out of it.”
Like linen then, Rhys decided. But finer. Softer.
Finally he was dressed. Leo had informed him that the little white square in the collar of the black T-shirt was meant to be hidden inside at the back of his neck. The pants, which the old man said were more properly called jeans, had a zipper, which clamped together like wolfen teeth when Rhys pulled on a small metal charm. He’d pulled it up and down a few times, amazed at the clever mechanism—and promptly learned that the tiny metal teeth could snag cloth! Thankfully he was able to pull the hem of his T-shirt free.