Chapter 5
Five
My apartment was modest but cozy. Tonight, though, the stillness had me turning on more lights than necessary. I’d been home for ten minutes but still hadn’t drummed up the courage to open the book staring back at me from my kitchen counter.
After fetching it from the shop, I navigated Nolan and Charlee’s texts, ensuring both I was fine and apologizing for ditching the girls inadvertently.
In the middle of the dance floor, I just wanted to be alone with my thoughts, attempting to make sense of what happened.
But now that I was alone, part of me wanted to forget the book and head back to Boots & Brews.
Chicken.
Walking toward it as if the book would bite me, I sat on my stool and couldn’t help imagining a chronicler in some medieval castle with a candle beside this very book, just like me—or maybe not exactly since I was pretty sure his wasn’t from Bath & Body—writing these words.
I traced the faded gold foil of the book’s title, De Cura Sanguinis, as I had the day I picked it off the bookshelf.
I opened and closed my hands, making fists to control their shaking.
Please don’t be able to read it.
Still hoping that it really was all a dream and the bit of blood and pin pricks in my neck were imaginary, I opened this time to the first page.
In the year of our Lord twelve hundred and eighty-four, when the curse was cast, I set down these words for those who come after. The heart, when unguarded, opens gates no hand may close. Love unrepented binds the soul to both heaven and shadow.
I slammed the book shut.
No, no, no. Impossible.
Most of me wanted to toss the thing over a cliff. Unfortunately, a teeny part of me wanted to see if it would happen again. This time, I’d be prepared.
I had to know.
Opening it once more, I continued to read.
So it was in the borderlands of Northumbria, before the curse had a form or a name, as I served beside the Waryn family, when Lady Isobel came to me for repentance. Little did I know how little comfort I could offer her.
This time, I understood. The book didn't pull me … I had to meet it halfway. Intent mattered. Desire mattered. But most importantly, what my heart was seeking mattered.
So much for being prepared.
One second, I was sitting on my stool in the kitchen. Another, the smell of roasted meat and the sound of men’s laughter registered just as my surroundings changed. No wonder I’d been convinced it was a dream.
It was like being tossed into the middle of a Renaissance Faire.
An inn, or tavern, but with notable differences that alerted me to the fact this was the real thing.
The air was thick with wood smoke and yeast, a dozen conversations rising and falling in accents that sounded almost musical.
Candles in iron sconces dripped wax down uneven stone.
The fire roared in a wide hearth large enough to roast an entire deer, its glow catching on pewter mugs and the edges of chain mail.
Behind the bar, a pretty woman with sharp eyes barked an order that sent two men scrambling.
Not just men. Knights.
I stumbled off the stool, garnering more attention than I should have. Problem was, my sundress had been replaced by a velvet gown so heavy I could barely walk upright. Or maybe that was courtesy of a too-tight corset I’d somehow overlooked.
Maybe because I was in the freaking middle-ages!
Lifting my dress and hurrying toward the door, I pushed it open and stumbled into the night.
I’d probably regret not taking in more details, but preserving my life seemed more prudent than research at the moment.
My understanding of medieval Scotland, presumably where I’d landed since that was where I bought the book, was cursory at best. But I knew enough to understand the danger of a single, unarmed—as if that would do any good—woman sitting in the middle of a tavern.
“Keep walking.”
The exact thing I tried to avoid.
Spinning around at the sound of his voice, anything I’d been about to say floated away like the current state of my sanity. Somehow, impossibly, he was even better looking than Riven.
Slightly lighter hair, though still dark, and eyes that were still blue but not in a “see through them” sort of way. A deep blue that could have been colored contacts they were so perfect.
He wore exactly what I’d expect a medieval knight to wear: a linen tunic laced at the neck and fitted trousers tucked into worn leather boots.
The only subversion to my expectations was the sword strapped across his back like it belonged there.
I’d imagined it would be at his side. Also, he wore a sword like he knew how to use it.
Maybe stop ogling him and run, you dimwit.
“I vow on my honor, I’ve no desire to hurt you, my lady. But it would be wise to keep walking as you’ve drawn attention in your leavetaking.”
At least I could understand him.
“I thought you’d speak French.”
He arched a brow, eyes flicking toward the tavern behind us before returning to me. “I can. Though your tongue is strange to mine. You sound of the southern shires … and yet not.”
“That’s one way to say ‘you talk funny.’”
The corner of his mouth lifted. Something about the faint humor under all that command made me hesitate. His tone wasn’t threatening. It was more protective, like someone used to being obeyed.
And that, apparently, worked on me more than it should have because I was still here.
“Waryn,” another man yelled a second after the tavern door opened. Looking above him at the wooden sign swinging in the light breeze, I noted its name. The Wild Boar. Unfortunately, I also noted the look the other man gave my companion.
Wait. What?
“Did he say Waryn?”
My knight didn’t hesitate. As the man and his companion … make that two companions … rushed toward us, he freaking ran away.