by Leela Ash
Alexander kicked open the door to her bedchamber and walked inside, carrying her over the threshold. The fire burned wildly in the hearth and Bonnie was relieved to see that Ariane was nowhere to be seen. As Alexander kicked the door closed behind him, he walked with her to the bed and placed her down gently on top of it.
The only light in the room was the light from the fire and the few candles that burned quietly in the corners. Alexander stood before her and began to remove his armor, and Bonnie’s breath caught in her throat. As he peeled away the layers and revealed his muscular physique, she found herself becoming wet for him, her body convulsing and desiring him even more.
He stepped toward her and placed her hand over his heart. His skin was so hot she could barely touch him.
“What are you?” she whispered as she looked up into his eyes and she was sure that something flashed over them that she had never seen before. Something animalistic… Something wild…
“You’re about to find out,” he breathed, and she was sure that it was followed by a growl.
Her heart beat faster and her arousal grew feverishly. As he climbed on top of her and she felt the strong poke of his desire, she shuddered and bit her lip. Even though she had never been with a man before, she was more than ready. And now that she was lying there waiting for her new husband to make love to her, she could barely believe how lucky she was.
Alexander pulled at her dress and ripped it off over her head to expose her curvy, supple body. Her large breasts bounced free and he took them hungrily in both hands and sucked them greedily.
“Bonnie,” he moaned. “You have no idea what you do to me…”
With each touch of their skin, Alexander became more aroused and his hands became rougher and hotter. Bonnie let her head fall back as his fingers disappeared between her thighs and found her sweet spot, his thumb massaging her and opening up her flower for him to pluck and devour. She had never felt sensations like it, and as he rose high above her and positioned himself at her opening, she looked down to see his huge, impressive manhood. It was thick, long, rock hard and full of veins. She gasped as he thrust inside of her and took her again and again.
As he fucked her slowly and sweetly, Bonnie trembled with pleasure. There was something changing in him before her very eyes, he was no longer the man that had asked for her hand in marriage, he was a beast… an animal… a wolf.
He growled as he powered into her again and Bonnie gasped as, beneath her fingers, his skin tore open and wiry fur sprang up in its place. His hands were paws and they were full of sharp claws which tore at her juicy skin, but it did not hurt her… it only aroused her more.
“More Alexander!” she screamed as the wolf howled above her.
She felt herself on the edge of the most intense sensation she had ever felt and as the wolf slid himself inside of her one last powerful time, she opened up and came in a crashing wave of ecstasy.
Alexander shifted back into his human form and his release thundered through him, he emptied his hot and heavy load right up inside of her and collapsed down on top of his new bride, breathing heavily and completely spent.
Bonnie looked up at him as he pulled her close and cradled her in his arms. So now she knew that the legends were true. The Campbell Clan didn’t just have wolves with them… they had wolves inside themselves.
She smiled as she drifted off to sleep, completely exhausted and more in love than she had ever thought possible. She had found a man who was like nothing she ever could have imagined, but that she couldn’t imagine being without.
A man with a wolf inside of him.
A man who was going to show her everything.
16.
As dawn broke and Bonnie stood looking out of her bedchamber window, she took in the view of the loch and the mountains for one of the last times.
She knew that she would one day return to Castle Grant, but for now, she had to be loyal to her husband and travel with him on his quest to defeat the evil Rose Clan.
After the Campbell’s had come to her home and exposed the wicked ways of Lord Drummond, her father and the Campbell’s had entered into a treaty and they were now bound together, not just by their word, but also by the marriage of Bonnie and Alexander.
She turned and smiled at her husband. He had packed her belongings for her in the dead of night as she slept soundly in the aftermath of their wonderful love making. Bonnie was still blushed and rosy in the cheeks from the things he had done to her… and that wicked wolf who had burst free when he was at his most intense and sexual.
He stood by the doorway and waited for her. She didn’t need to dwell on the views from her past, she was all about moving forward and she couldn’t think of anyone else she would rather do it with. As she slipped her hand into his and they began their walk down the dark corridors to the grand staircase that led down to the castle entrance, she smiled and waved goodbye to the familiar faces from over the years, including that of Ariane, who rushed forward to hug her.
As she kissed her parents goodbye and Alexander lifted her onto the back of his trusty steed, she felt as complete and happy as she had ever been, and she knew that it was all due to him and the journey they were set to embark on.
“Goodbye Castle Grant,” she whispered as they trotted away and over the drawbridge.
She knew that she would be back one day… But until then, all she could see was her future with her incredible husband… and a pack of wild wolves.
THE END
Time Travel Romance
Through the Viking Gateway
Leena Archer
Copyright ©2016 by Leena Archer. All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic of mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Chapter 1
Puririri
Puririri
Natalie blinked. Her phone was ringing. It was three AM, and her phone was ringing. Rolling over, she snatched the phone from the floor and looked at the number.
It was Cedric.
Groaning, she flicked her thumb over the accept call button.
“Cedric, do you know what time it is right now in Ireland?” she growled.
“That’s what I called to talk about.”
The chill, serious tone of his voice cut through Natalie’s sleepy haze. Cedric only sounded like that when something was wrong.
“Natalie… I can’t do this anymore.”
Natalie’s mouth opened and closed, and she choked out, “Can’t do what?”
“This. This field work. Your career. If you’re going to be spending half of your time digging in pits on the other side of the world, I’m done. Either get a job in the US, or we end this.”
Natalie’s throat seemed to be closing like a clenched fist. She had to force herself to speak.
“Cedric, we talked about this. You knew I was going to be traveling.”
“I thought you were going to get this field work shit out of your head and settle down at a museum job, or at some university, not spend half your life galloping across oceans. I didn’t sign up for this.”
“But what about the wedding? We already sent the invitations.” Natalie said desperately, searching for a straw to grasp at. “We put a deposit on the venue.”
“We cancel it. I’m not going to shackle myself to a woman who’s not there half the time. That’s not a marriage, Natalie. It’s me or the job. Choose.”
Natalie sat on her bed in silence, just holding the phone to her ear. Her blood was roaring so loudly in her ears it sounded like she was going over a waterfall.
“Natalie?”
“The job.”
“…What?”
Natalie took a deep breath, and an explosion of words burst out of her. “Cedric, you’ve never supported me. When I went into the archaeology program, you told me to buy lottery tickets instead,
because I was more likely to make money that way. Every time I get awarded a grant, or find something interesting, you act like I’m trying to read you an encyclopedia about encyclopedias. You have zero respect for me, or for anything I do, and this has been my dream since I was five. So yes, Cedric, I will choose my job over you, because dead Vikings, who’ve been underground for a thousand years, still treat me better than you do!”
Ending the call, Natalie dropped the phone on her bed. Then she very slowly fell over.
Well. That was a thing that had happened.
It had been building for a long time. Sometimes, Natalie didn’t know why she’d even said yes. She’d just been so caught up in the moment, she supposed. The whole scene seemed to sparkle at the time: the fancy dinner, Cedric going down on one knee, everyone in the room clapping—and then it had all just fallen apart. They argued about everything, whether it was wedding planning or career plans or what to have for dinner, invariably ending with Cedric making passive aggressive comments about every single thing she did. Natalie had actually been glad to cross the Atlantic Ocean and get away from him.
Taking a deep breath, she sighed loudly, trying not to cry. One of the other women in the hostel room sat up, glaring at her.
“Will you be quiet? The rest of us are trying to sleep, here.”
Natalie resisted the urge to throw a boot at her. Instead, she got out of bed and started dressing herself, using her phone as a flashlight. T-shirt, khaki pants, a quilted polyester vest for warmth, and boots. Throwing her phone into her bag, she pulled her hair back into a tight ponytail and stormed out the door.
The hostel she was staying in was only a short walk from the excavation site. A farmer had been digging the foundation for a barn in a disused field, and found a barrow, an ancient grave site. Reaching the dig, Natalie turned on a floodlight. Maybe she could clear her mind a little by trying to find something in this giant, mostly empty pit.
Natalie surveyed the hole without actually expecting to see anything— only the dark brown of fertile soil— but a glint caught her eye. Something golden peeked at her from a corner of the hole. Hopping down, she picked it up and put a rock in its place, so she could mark its location later. T
It was a necklace made of thin discs of gold and inscribed with words; it was too dirty to read. There was a large pendant in the center, easily twice as large as the discs surrounding it. Natalie set it down in front of the floodlight and rummaged around the supplies until she found a clean-ish cloth. Then she began gently rubbing away the soil. As she cleaned, the world began to spin.
Natalie paused.
That was odd. She felt fine, now. With a shrug, she went back to her cleaning, and when she revealed the face of the central pendant, the world went black.
Chapter 2
Natalie found herself in that uncomfortable position where her eyes were closed but the world kept spinning, like she’d just gotten off the tilt-a-whirl at the county fair. She must have had a dizzy spell and fallen into the pit. Probably a delayed reaction from her fight with Cedric. The reality of it had just hit her all at once.
Natalie forced her eyes open, expecting to find herself surrounded by earthen walls and covered in dirt. Instead, she was lying on soft grass, with nothing in sight but a canopy of trees and an incredibly handsome man leaning over her suspiciously.
Very few men could pull off sideburns, but he did it admirably, his thick brown hair framing a square jaw and broad cheekbones. More than that, though, Natalie was caught by his eyes. They were dark and piercing, and fiercely intelligent. If this was an EMT come to rescue her, she was ready to be rescued.
Then she noticed that the extremely handsome man was holding a sword.
Sitting up with a yelp, Natalie looked around. It wasn’t just one man—she was completely surrounded. More than a dozen strangers stood around her, all of them armed, in some cases with farm tools. Not only that, the dig site was nowhere to be seen. These strange men must have picked her up and taken her somewhere.
This night just kept getting worse and worse.
***
It was the end of the day. The sun was starting to set. The men were heading for the main hall, ready for dinner after a long day’s work. Alrek himself was about to enter when there was a blinding flash and a crack of thunder. While everyone looked around in confusion, for there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, Alrek saw smoke rising from a field just outside the settlement. Whistling to gather everyone’s attention, he headed in that direction.
The field did not have so much as a blade of grass blown out of place, but it had sprouted a woman. She was lying flat on her back, apparently unconscious, with her mouth hanging open. She was so unnaturally pale that Alrek wondered if she was dead, until he saw her chest rise and fall with her breath.
She clearly wasn’t a Gael. Even if she was a Gael, Gael’s didn’t usually travel by means of lightning. She was unlike any woman he’d ever seen before, her clothes completely foreign. His men stared at her suspiciously. Even Banki looked like he wanted nothing to do with her. Still, Alrek thought, women didn’t just come out of nowhere. We’ll have to do something with her.
He was about to drop his sword and see if he could wake her when she woke up on her own. Their eyes met, for just a moment— and then she saw his sword and panicked. She jumped away with a shrill yelp, setting everyone even more on edge.
Alrek knew his men were looking to him for an order, but he stood silent as he watched the strange woman scramble about, a smile teasing the side of his mouth. She looked like a frightened chicken. Finally, she lurched to her feet, staring at them in terror.
Grabbing the bag slung over her shoulder, she held it out in front of her, saying something completely unintelligible. Even if she was speaking a language he knew, she was so upset Alrek wouldn’t have understood her anyway.
The men were beginning to shift, but Alrek held up a hand and they maintained their position. This woman seemed completely harmless. There was no need to kill her.
Yet.
The woman had noticed his motion, and turned to Alrek. He was stunned by the expression on her face—pleading desperation. They didn’t need to speak the same language for him to understand she was begging him for mercy.
Her expression wasn’t the only thing he was stunned by. He’d seen many blue eyes in his life, but none that were quite the same shade as a calm ocean on a clear day. They would have been beautiful if they weren’t filled with fear, and the fact that they were, barely made a difference.
While Alrek stared, she continued to speak, babbling in that strange foreign tongue of hers. She began taking things out of her bag, dropping them on the ground in front of her— a small white tube, a metal ring with jangling keys on it, some pieces of paper held together with a coiled wire. Finally, she found whatever she was looking for and yanked it out, thrusting it toward Alrek.
Everyone jumped, Alrek himself included. Banki growled at his side, ready to thrust his spear forward, but Alrek flung an arm in front of him. The woman was standing there with her eyes clenched shut, shaking like a newborn foal. She clearly expected him to take the object she was holding.
Cautiously, Alrek leaned forward and took the object from her hand. It was rectangular, carved from some smooth white material Alrek had never seen before and decorated with metal edges and studs. Banki leaned over curiously, though he didn’t lower his axe an inch.
Alrek turned the device over, examining it closely, and to his shock, it vibrated and lit up like a torch. No, not like a torch. Not like anything Alrek had ever seen. The flat front of the object was glowing with some uncanny light, colorful symbols drifting across it. He couldn’t even have begun to guess the source of this light, or even what it was for.
Banki glanced suspiciously from the rectangle to the woman.
“What magic is this?” he muttered, glaring at her suspiciously. Giving him a frightened look, the woman started digging in her bag again, this time coming out with a folded leath
er pouch. This, she gave to Alrek as well.
There didn’t seem to be anything usual about it at first— it was just a folded leather pouch, stitched neatly at the sides. Then Alrek flipped it open. A tiny picture of the woman herself, more accurate than any drawing could ever be, stared out at him. She’s smiling. Quite unlike the face she was making now, he thought, glancing up at her. More of those strange runes surrounded the picture, and it gleamed with iridescence in the evening light.
Fiddling with the pouch in his hands, Alrek discovered it was like a book—several leaves of leather stitched together, containing small chips of a strange rigid material. A central pouch held foreign coins and some pieces of paper.
She must think we’re here to rob her, Alrek thought. She’s trying to give me her valuables.
“I’d put that down, if I were you,” Banki said. “It’s unnatural. It must be some object meant to cast a spell on you.”
Alrek frowned, looking up at the stranger. Women attempting to lay curses usually didn’t look that terrified. She was still searching her bag, dropping objects on the ground as she went.
The next thing she produced was a small, thick tube made of dark metal. Evidently, she didn’t think this was important enough to offer as a gift, because she dropped it to the grass along with everything else. It landed on one end with a loud click, and an impossibly bright light began to pour out of it. The men jumped, yelling as the beam of white fire cut across them.
“Alrek, you can’t tell me that hasn’t got some dark trick about it,” Banki said angrily. “No man can make a light like that.”
Everyone else seemed to agree. Growls went up around the circle, and more than a few men started to inch forward, axes and spears at the ready. Alrek’s eyes went from his angered men to the frightened woman. She was frozen in place, not seeming to understand what they were so angry about. The look on her face chilled him to the bone.