by Sofia Grey
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Published By: The Hartwood Publishing Group
400 Gilead Road, #1617, Huntersville, NC 28070
www.hartwoodpublishing.com
Lila’s Wolf
Copyright © 2014 by Sofia Grey
Digital Release: September 2014
ISBN: 978-1-62916-077-1
Cover Artist: Georgia Woods
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination, or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Lila’s Wolf by Sofia Grey
When Lila Cammell is abandoned by her time-jump partner, leaving her alone in Britain in the Dark Ages, revenge is the only thing on her mind. She’d trusted Jared Grohl with her life and her heart, and bringing him to justice will be sweet.
Finding him captured and enslaved by the Saxons changes all her assumptions. Now it’s a fight for survival, but the only way to save him…might be to leave him behind.
Dedication
To my lovely and supportive critique partners, Elise, Sotia, and Janet. Thank you for pushing me to make this better.
Thanks also to my amazing beta reader, TigerLilyReader, and to Allyson for patiently reviewing the multiple versions of the synopsis.
Acknowledgements
Thanks also to Daisy Banks for her input into my research. Any mistakes are my own.
Prologue
New Oxford
Year: 2552
A bead of cold sweat trickled down my cheek, and I fought the urge to wipe it away. Come on, don’t blow it now.
“Are you quite sure about this, Lila?”
The Archivist paused in his checklist, marking the place with his surgically clean finger while he waited for my response.
I nodded and gave him the confident smile I’d been practicing. The one that made me look controlled and very much in charge. “Of course. We’ve been over the details of this retrieval, sir. Need I remind you my expertise is the key to our success here?” I couldn’t lose this mission now. It had taken me five long months to be accepted. I clamped my jaw tight and a moment later, he resumed his list, running through the final items.
Standing beside me, relaxed but alert, Marc radiated strength and confidence. His presence calmed me. He accepted the stunner, swiftly checked it was fully charged, and then secreted it inside his robes before signing for the weapon. He was trained as an elite soldier, a ghardian, while I worked as a historian in the library. We couldn’t have been more different.
The only thing we had in common was a young man called Jared. I’d been friends with Jared once, closer than family, but to Marc he was just another time-runaway. Marc’s job was to locate Jared, tag him, and bring him back to our time to face evasion charges. Normally ghardians worked in pairs, but since I’d been on the field trip with Jared when he’d made his bid for freedom, the ghardians agreed to my request to help with the hunt.
He’d broken my heart when he tried to abandon me to the ancient Romans. It seemed only fair I got to bring him back.
Chapter One
Southeast Britain
Year: 413 AD
Jared
He poured the oil into his hands. Chamomile and lavender filled his nose—the perfume of summer—and he breathed them in deep, holding the fragrance a moment longer. As always, the scent made him think of Lila.
“Wolf.”
He recognized the warning tone and rubbed his palms together, making her wait until he’d warmed the viscous liquid. She’d forgive him this small delay. Positioned at her side, he began to work the oil into her back, spreading and stroking along the length of her spine. She sighed again, but this time with obvious pleasure, and shifted on the bed, edging farther into the sunlight that poured through the window. With slow, practiced movements, he massaged along each bone in her spine before rising to rub circles into her ample shoulders. He pushed into the dimpled skin with his knuckles and drew a soft moan. She wriggled and he increased the pressure.
“Lower.”
He complied, sweeping down her sides, gently across her hipbones, and now advancing to her generous bottom. He paused to replenish the oil, and then returned to the task at hand. She carried a lot of flesh for a woman of her years but, he reflected, she ate well. He’d barely finished when she grunted and rolled over, presenting her naked front. Watery blue eyes regarded him, a hint of a smile on her face. “Take your time, Wolf. We have all afternoon.”
Nodding an acknowledgement, he started work on her stomach with a series of slow circles around her navel before he eased his fingers up toward her breasts. He caressed them both in turn, sensitive to her response. There was a sharp hitch in her breath when he brushed the side of one nipple. His fingers skated away, teased close to the peak of the other breast, and then glided up to her collarbone to ease the tension he found there.
Before long, he cupped her breasts with a gentle squeeze and stroked the nipples with his thumbs. Large and rose colored, they were rising to attention and firming beautifully for him. He tweaked one, and she gasped, a tremor running through her body. His fingers ached, but he pushed it to the back of his mind; he’d only just started. All the same, he eased south, circling and sweeping, a steady push and pull against her flesh, pausing only to take more oil. He flexed his hand as he did so, resting the tendons under the guise of warming the oil.
“Wolf.” He turned back to her with a ready smile and the furrow disappeared from her forehead. “You’re teasing me.”
He bowed his head and tiptoed his fingertips farther down, testing how ready she was. A graceful stroke across her hipbone, and she shifted as though uncomfortable, lifting her pelvis to meet his hand. It was time. With one bold move, he cupped her mound and drew a loud groan in return. The massage stepped up a gear.
He used one finger to spear the curls between her legs, and found her moist and excited. Good.
He brushed his finger back and forth across and felt the little bud swell under his touch. “Sa,” she murmured, her accent getting heavy, the more aroused she became. He moved to kneel between her open thighs, kissing a path up the pale flesh while she moaned and trembled. He spread her lips, holding her open for his mouth, ready to receive his tongue.
The massage forgotten, Hilde grabbed his hair. She closed her fingers tight, ensuring he couldn’t lift his head. No matter, he could rest his hands while he pleasured her with his mouth. Hot open kisses and little licks soon reduced her to a quivering mass, moaning his name as he drove her closer to orgasm.
She climaxed with a long, drawn-out shudder, and he waited for the spasms to finish, knowing she needed a minute before they continued.
“You are so very skilled.” Her fingers relaxed on his scalp, and he drew a deep breath, closing his eyes to take a short rest.
As she’d pointed out, they had all afternoon.
Chapter Two
Lila
My knees buckled as I stepped away from the landing site. As a
rule, the time jump made me feel a little nauseated, but this time I dropped to the ground and retched into the grass while Marc sent back the clean landing signal.
I guessed all the drugs and surgical procedures from the past six months had finally caught up with me. I looked up into Marc’s familiar face, grateful for the steadying hand on my back. “I’m fine,” I said, seeing the concern in his dark eyes. “I always react badly.” He nodded and let it go, stepping away and orienting himself to our location.
One of the more annoying quirks of our time jump system was that you couldn’t recreate a jump site and time—we couldn’t go back to the same point where I’d last seen Jared. This was our closest coordinate. Although six months had passed in our lives, it was just over two years here, and a lot could have changed—had changed—during that time. The Romans had pulled out of Britain, and the Dark Ages had begun.
The Saxons had been invading from the east, the Scots sweeping down in raiding parties from the north. It seemed everyone wanted a piece of Britain. Various factions all vied for dominance, and these were troubled times. My expert knowledge of the period was vital, since I’d been studying post-Roman Britain for years and had made three previous jumps with great success. It was only the last that had failed so spectacularly.
Dragging my attention back to the here and now, I scrambled to my feet and pasted a smile on my face when Marc strode back to me.
“It’s all good.” He sounded confident. “We have an easy walk to the town and we’ll find accommodations there, and then hopefully pick up his trail.”
It might have been an easy walk for Marc, but I was still getting used to an artificial leg. I’d been lucky to get out of here alive last time. Having my left leg amputated at the knee had been a small price to pay, but gave me one more reason to hate Jared. I wanted to be the one to catch him. The fantasy of laughing in his face while I locked him into a set of restraints had sustained me through five separate operations and many weeks of bed rest. I had almost died, while he’d skipped off with his Roman friends. He’d probably be married by now, might even have a clutch of children, and he had no right to any of it.
•●•
I’d been here before. Last time, it’d been a thriving village, but now it was little more than a blackened shell. A yellow-eyed tabby cat hissed at us from a tree branch before running down the trunk and disappearing into an overgrown patch of brambles. Apart from that and the ever-present songbirds, we found no life at all. The inn, the smithy, and the church were rubble. Marc kicked at a broken drinking cup, shattering it into a dozen pieces. “Saxons?”
I nodded. “It must be. They’ve stripped the place bare.” I shuddered and wrapped my cloak tighter around me. “We’d better start walking; the next town is miles away.”
The plan had been to spend the first night in the village inn then pick up horses and expand our search area. Now I would be grateful for a dry hut to sleep in. My legs ached, and my head pounded, but I refused to show Marc any weakness. If he thought I couldn’t cope, he was likely to send me back at the earliest opportunity. When I heard the rumble of an approaching cart, I felt like throwing myself on the driver and begging for his help. An old man, hunched low over the reins to a flea-bitten pony, halted when Marc waved to him. I saw the gleam of excitement in his eyes when Marc waved a small leather purse.
“Greetings, stranger.” Marc spoke the local dialect with ease. “We are footsore and weary travelers, trying to make our way to Londinium . We’d be grateful of the chance to ride with you, as my lady is particularly tired. How far to the nearest inn?”
“There is no inn, not any more. I am returning to my lord’s hall, just four miles from here. Are you a merchant, sire?”
Marc offered an enigmatic smile and opened his cloak to show the leather tunic and short sword beneath. “I am, good friend, and I do a fine trade in ladies’ fripperies. But I am well able to defend my wife, should the need arise.”
The old man flashed us a toothy grin in return. “There may be some business for you at the hall. Please, climb up, you and your wife can sit behind me. There is a party riding out to Londinium in the next week, if you are in no hurry.”
Marc helped me climb into the back of the cart, where I settled next to a wicker basket of chickens. They clucked and squawked when he shifted them to make room for us both, but settled again quickly with the rocking motion once we set off. Marc draped one arm around my shoulder, tucking me under his cloak with my head against his chest. I hesitated at first. In my time, physical intimacy was rare. We’d developed into a self-contained race of enlightened people, no longer subject to the whims and violence associated with strong emotions. If Marc, or my physicians, knew of my deep resentment at Jared’s betrayal, they would never have allowed me to make this jump. I had to stay calm and aloof. Accepting the comfort of Marc’s body-warmth was in keeping with the period, and I was only acting the part. It didn’t mean I would enjoy it.
Chapter Three
Jared
The first time Jared saw the ripe corn sheaves swaying in the breeze, the color reminded him of her hair. She used to wear it long, in a thick plait like a rope that swayed across her back when she walked, tempting him to give the end a gentle tug. He saw her everywhere these days. The yearling colts galloping across the meadow made him think of her. She had legs that seemed too long for her body and a wild grace that captivated him from the start. The electric blue flash of a kingfisher diving into the river matched the brilliance of her eyes, and the plump, velvet rose petals he harvested were the same color as her lips.
He needed to focus on her now, more than ever.
Hilde lay beneath him, her breathing a heavy rasp as she came down from her last climax. Not fully sated yet, he waited, holding his hard length inside her and stealing a moment for himself. All too soon, Hilde’s eyes snapped open, and she smiled archly at him. “More, Wolf. Another.”
Although his back ached and his shoulders burned with the strain of propping himself up, he smiled as if delighted with her response. Not long now. Bending his neck, he closed his eyes and suckled her nipples. He could pretend she was someone else. “Give me more, Wolf.”
Ah fuck. His erection was softening. A frisson of panic, a sharp pain cut low in his belly, and he fought to stay focused.
Corn-colored hair, rose petal lips, kingfisher eyes.
He’d never even kissed her, never known how she would feel beneath him, but he could imagine she lay with him now. She would have soft, small breasts that fit into his palms, and a tiny waist, and the heels of her long narrow feet would be raking his back. He thrust with renewed vigour, his teeth grazing the skin on the underside of Hilde’s breasts and rasping over her erect nipples. Yes. Better.
Hilde grunted, her nails digging painfully into his shoulders, but that was okay. He pounded into her, driving harder than ever before, his aches and twinges forgotten. Through half-closed eyes, he pictured her. It was her throat he kissed. Her lips he plundered. Her hair that he raked between his fingers.
Lila.
“Wolf,” Hilde moaned. He felt her tighten around his cock, the spasms finally enough to exhaust her. She lay replete, but then pushed at him with a firm shove at the iron collar around his throat. The thrall ring chafed around his neck and rubbed on the ever-present sores, but he held back a hiss of pain, biting down on his lip to stay silent.
“Get off me, boy, I’m done.”
Chapter Four
Lila
My stomach churned and grumbled as the cart bounced along, and Marc drew my head onto his lap, arranging me so that I curled up next to him, covered by his cloak. Under the pretense of being his wife, such physical contact would be normal, but it felt unsettling to me, especially when he rested one hand on my nape. The breath hitched in my throat. What was he doing? His gentle fingers circled the back of my neck in a soothing motion, caressing beneath the heavy weight of my hair. Turning my head, I stared, met his gaze, and drew a tiny smile.
&
nbsp; This close, there were crinkles around the edges of his eyes, a shadow across his cheeks, and a pale, almost white scar dissecting his left eyebrow. He wore his dark hair long, in keeping with the period, and I suddenly realized how well it suited him. Combined with his neatly trimmed beard, it lent him a rakish appearance, as though he had mischief planned. He looked very unlike the serious ghardian I knew; he had to be a better actor than I imagined.
“My wife has been feeling unwell.” His voice was a low rumble above my head, while I closed my eyes and pretended to sleep. The nausea faded after a few deep breaths, and I relaxed, feeling strangely at ease when Marc shifted, hugging me closer to him. It allowed his fingers to curl around the edge of my shoulder, his body becoming a warm and cozy blanket, and something tight inside of me relaxed.
•●•
“Lila. We’re here.”
I opened my eyes, struggling to sit up and take in our surroundings. Had I fallen asleep? The hall turned out to be a large and well-maintained Roman villa set in lush farmland. A mixture of slaves and freemen picked grapes and were tending the fields as the cart bumped down the track to the gatehouse. Whoever had built this had been wealthy. The cart stopped on a narrow section to allow a pair of slaves—children—to drag a massive basket of fruit from one orchard to another. They looked too small to be doing such heavy work, and I found it hard not to stare at them. Marc gave me a gentle nudge, a reminder to look away. Slavery was normal for this period, but while the logical part of me knew that, I would never get used to seeing it.
Once the explanations were complete, we were offered hospitality as though we were valued guests and not complete strangers. This might have been helped along by Marc’s cover story. He claimed to be a merchant selling ribbons and beads, and had plenty of samples in his bag. The resident ladies were all keen to see his wares.