Page 11 of Dalla’s Royal Guards (Second Chance #3)

Five

Dalla’s fingers tightened around her bow. The smooth wood, worn from centuries of use but still pliable from her tender care, gave her a small measure of comfort. The speed of the vehicle turned her stomach. To keep from throwing up, she kept her gaze on the swiftly passing landscape.

She had seen a vehicle like this once before. Well, not just like this one. The vehicles then had been bigger… boxier… and often broke down. Thankfully, she’d never had to ride in one. Walking or horses had still been the norm.

She stretched her fingers as a stream of cold air swept over her. It confused her. How could cold air flow inside, making the interior feel like the night air of the desert?

The brief view of the buildings she had seen when she ‘woke’ had been oddly familiar.

She had paid little attention to the changes in the vehicles.

Between the men shooting at them, the people who needed her protection, and the explosion, she hadn’t had the time.

It was only when a compatriot of the people she was guarding said her name that she felt a shaft of misgiving.

May Dalla protect you.

Why would he say such a strange thing? No one would say something like that… even if I had returned to the time I last lived.

The thought of returning to 1916 left her with a sickening sense of dread. She remembered how it had felt like the entire world was dying. Death and destruction had riddled every spot she had traveled through in Europe.

The battered bodies and sightless eyes had reminded her too much of her siblings and parents. She had turned her pain into rage and left a path of destruction through the advancing forces of the Central Empire that had stunned even the most hardened soldiers.

Of course, knowing death isn’t forever may have dulled my fear, she mused.

“What’s your name?” the man sitting behind her suddenly asked.

His question startled her, and she tensed as her mind flew through a series of plausible explanations. She’d been so lost in thought and the machine’s whirring that she had almost forgotten about the others.

Or hoped they forgot about me!

“Dalla. Dalla Bogadottir.” Her mumbled response was instinctive and made her want to groan. She hated this part of coming back. She had learned after her first return that lies didn’t work.

Whatever curse she was under required that she help someone before she was given a blissful period of nothing.

She had hoped that saving the man standing in front of the woman and child was all that would be required of her this time, but that hope quickly faded when every blasted bullet fired at her had missed.

She had even made sure that she stood tall, proud, and wide open, but the bullets appeared to curve around her as if she were holding a shield.

“What did you say it was?” the man asked.

Amusement rose inside her despite her frustration and growing nausea at the motion of the vehicle bouncing on the pitted road. She had been in wagons that were less jarring. The only thing helping was the cold air coming out of the vent washing over her heated skin.

“I am Dalla Bogadottir. I wish for you to tell me what year this is,” she said, hoping to move this part along as she twisted in her seat and ripped the protective cover from her mouth.

Her heart pounded like a drum in her chest. This was her first time studying the man she had protected first among the others here. His light green eyes brought back memories—memories of a man who once held a special place in her heart.

“Gerold…”

The name slipped from her before she realized it. It seemed like only yesterday that Gerold’s brilliant green eyes held her captive. A deep ache of loneliness swept through her. The emotion was so sharp, so piercing, that she turned back in her seat and fumbled for a way to open the door.

“What are you doing?” the man driving the machine demanded.

“I must… I must… I feel sick,” she choked out.

The edge of desperation lacing her voice warned her companions that she was serious.

The man next to her cursed, glanced in the mirrors, slowed the vehicle, and pulled over.

Dalla shoved her bow out of the way and pushed on the door.

A low, distressed mew slipped from her when it didn’t move.

The man next to her leaned over and pulled on a latch.

She half-fell from the vehicle. She stumbled several feet away and sank to her knees. Her breath came in pants as she fought to control her rebellious stomach.

A shudder ran through her when she felt a hand on her shoulder. She drew in the hot, dry desert air.

Now that the vehicle had stopped moving, the world and her stomach were slowly calming. She lifted her head and stared out across the desert to the mountains north of here.

“What year is this?” she asked.

Another shudder ran through her body when he murmured the date. Over one hundred years—she had been floating between existences for over one hundred years. This was the longest space of time between her returns.

“The world survived,” she murmured.

“What do you mean… the world survived?”

The question came from the man who had been driving. He squatted down on the other side of her. She curled a handful of sand and let it slowly slide out between her fingers. The gritty texture grounded her.

“It survived,” she repeated in a tone that warned she wouldn’t elaborate.

After a pause, the man who had been sitting behind her said in a gentle voice, “My name is Nasser.”

Dalla nodded, putting off the moment that she would have to look into those eyes that reminded her so much of Gerold. She rose and swayed. Nasser gently steadied her. A shiver ran through her at the heat of his fingers through the thin linen cloth of her tunic.

When was the last time I felt a man’s touch? Any touch at all?

“How are you feeling?” Nasser asked.

“Better. Where is the woman and child?” she asked.

“They are safe.” The other man spoke.

Dalla turned to look at the man. Shock coursed through her.

This man… this man was the spitting image of Pascal Marchand.

Dalla didn’t know if it was the heat, the result of her sudden appearance back into the world of the living followed by the adrenaline rush of combat, or just plain shock, but the world tilted at an odd angle.

“My sweet Pascal…,” she murmured, reaching out to touch his cheek before the world turned dark.

Musad glanced in the rearview mirror and then at the silent woman sitting next to him before focusing on the road in front of them.

She was sitting with her head resting against the window, seemingly alright now, but…

the confusion, the loss of consciousness, and the nausea were all symptoms of a head injury.

She had been unconscious for less than a minute, but her collapse had shaken them both.

Musad’s first thought had been that she had a gunshot wound.

Nasser had been thinking the same. They had both seen men fight like crazy for hours before suddenly collapsing from a wound they didn’t even know they had.

Musad had caught her and carried her to the SUV.

Even poor Colin had been so concerned that he struggled to help.

They’d had to order the man to be still, lest he aggravate his own injuries.

Luckily they could see no blood on the woman’s limbs or clothes besides what came from Colin, there was no blood or bump found on her head, and her pupils seemed to be the same size. Those were good signs.

Perhaps it wasn’t an injury. Now that he considered the evidence, it seemed likely that woman had PTSD.

She seemed a seasoned warrior, unflinching in the face of death, perhaps even seeking death given how she had made herself such a prominent target.

It made sense. Musad didn’t quite know how to keep her mind on happier things, but he could try.

“We’ll be at the rendezvous within an hour,” he said. “Colin, how are you holding up?”

“I’ve had better days,” Colin admitted. “Miss, I never did thank you for saving my life.”

“You’re welcome,” she murmured.

“I’ve never seen anyone handle a bow like you did,” Colin continued.

Musad’s focus narrowed on the way her fingers caressed the smooth wood. He gritted his teeth when his body reacted as if she were stroking him. Since when did he react to something so innocent? He returned his attention to driving—which left only her voice to affect him inappropriately.

“I’ve had a lot of practice,” she replied.

“Where?” Nasser asked.

She straightened in her seat—which Musad saw because somehow he was still struggling to keep his gaze from returning to her. More importantly, Musad wasn’t sure if she was going to reply, and he very much wanted to know the answer to Nasser’s question.

She mumbled, sighed, and mumbled again. Musad’s lips twitched in amusement. The combination of her surliness and coyness… it had him feeling something incredibly strong… giddy almost. His low chuckle earned him a heated glare from her before she quickly looked away again.

“Vinland, Albion, the Ottoman Empire, Alkebulan, the Greeks, and the Roman Empire. The last two were not so bad… as long as you stayed out of their politics. I remember…” her voice faded, and she fingered the loose string of her bow.

Her words made no sense, and Musad’s brow furrowed as he scrutinized them.

Was she referring to the books where she’d learned those techniques?

But then, that last line about staying out of their politics…

I suppose she meant skimming over those passages…

“What do you remember?” Musad asked despite himself. Even though her words made little sense, he wanted more of them.

She shrugged and turned to stare out of the window again. She was hiding something. That frustrated him more than he liked to admit.

He glanced in the rearview mirror at Nasser. His brother gave him a brief nod. The nod sparked a strange echo in Musad’s chest. His alignment with Nasser made him feel both off balance and centered in a way he never had before. As if this woman were the sun and he and Nasser were in her orbit.

“Where is Albion and Alkebulan?” Colin suddenly asked. “I haven’t heard of them before.”

“I believe you now call them England and Africa,” she said before leaning forward as the SUV began to climb through the mountains. “The mountains here are beautiful. So much has changed since I was last here.”

“When was that?” Nasser asked.

She looked over her shoulder at Nasser. Again, Musad sensed the storm behind her silence. She turned and silently stared at Musad, too, before she looked out the window. When she finally replied, her response was both angry and heartbroken.

“Back when Gerold and Pascal still lived.”