Page 7

Chapter Four

T amsin took another swallow of wine—a long one this time. “Okay. So where do you fit in all this?”

His eyes didn’t shift from hers. “Right in the middle.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“Then be more specific.”

Irritation prickled. He wasn’t making this easy. Tamsin cleared her throat. “Let’s start small. Where did you come from?”

“Recently, California.” His mouth quirked at one corner. “I hadn’t planned to visit, but I woke up one day in a museum basement. A week later and I would have been inside a display case.”

“I don’t understand.”

That hint of a smile deepened, but it was bitter. “Nor do I.”

It was hard to look away from his lips. “What brought you to Medievaland?”

“I believe you call it hitchhiking.”

She gave him a scathing look.

He relented. “I was looking for a means to journey to the Church of the Holy Well in Somerset. Then I saw an advertisement for family vacations in Washington State. Behold, there was the church I was looking for, in a theme park on the wrong continent. That was not just happy coincidence. My fate is bound to the church. Clearly, once it was in my power to travel, any effort to separate me from it failed.”

Tamsin hadn’t followed a word of what he’d just said, but in part that was because her attention was on his injury. She touched him, just a brush of fingertips over his wrist. His skin was hot, almost feverish, and her powers told her the wound was inflamed. “When were you shot?”

“Shortly after we met.”

She gave him a look. “And since then? It’s after six o’clock.”

“I lay in wait, watching the church. There was a good chance the enemy would return to find me, and I could follow them from there. Besides, if they knew I had been talking to you earlier—well, there was no way I could leave you without protection.”

An unfamiliar ache formed in her chest. “You waited hours with a bullet wound in case a bad faery decided to jump me?”

He gave a slight lift of his shoulders, his expression settling into hard lines. “Witch or not, I need your help, Tamsin Greene. I can’t afford for you to die quite yet.”

“Gee, thanks.” She rose. “I’m going to bandage that arm. While I do it, you’re going to tell me everything.”

Faster than thought, his good hand grabbed her wrist in a bruising grip. “Swear on all you hold sacred you will not use anything but common herbals.”

She pulled against him, but he would not budge. Hot anger bubbled up, burning her cheeks, but it was nothing to the hard, stubborn hostility in his eyes.

“No magic,” he said, his jaw clenched.

“What do you think I’m going to do to you?” she replied in icy tones.

He released her, his movements jerky. “Swear.” His gaze held hers with unbending will—and a touch of fear.

She released her breath in an exasperated sigh. “All right, but it’s not my fault if your arm rots and falls off.”

He lifted his chin. “Your pride as a healer would never let that happen.”

She stalked to the bathroom for her medical supplies. He was right, blast him.

“Take off your jacket,” Tamsin said to Gawain as she set a box of medical supplies on the table.

Slowly, still suspicious, Gawain obeyed.

The sleeve of the garment was torn and streaked with dried blood, but it was all he had, so he hung it neatly over the back of the chair.

He’d packed Angmar’s wound with his shirt, so that left him with nothing from the waist up.

Tamsin watched him, her gaze taking in the show with barely concealed female interest. He felt a lick of pleasure at her regard, but he pushed it aside.

She was a witch, and that marked her as someone he could not trust.

He resumed his seat and held out his bandaged forearm. It unnerved him to require her help like this, but the heat of infection was spreading up his arm. No doubt Mordred’s bullets carried sickness. That would be his style.

As Tamsin reached for Gawain, he caught her wrist again, but more gently this time. Her bones were so delicate, the fine tattoo as much artwork as proof of her allegiance. “Remember, no magic.”

“No magic. Just medicine.”

Tamsin gave him a tight smile and set to work at once, her touch deft as she positioned his arm on the table.

He could smell the heat of her skin as she leaned close.

Her scent was sunlight and herbs, like clean linens dried in a summer wind.

There was comfort in it, and for a moment Gawain forgot what she was.

Her profile was beautiful, the clean, graceful lines of her features marred only by an impish tilt to her nose.

To his dismay, Gawain discovered he was almost smiling.

Witchery! He snapped to attention with a physical start that earned him a searching glance. His ears burned. “Forgive me. I am weary.”

“You’ve been shot,” she said severely. “You’re probably still in shock and need rest.”

“I’ve taken worse blows than this,” he grumbled. “I’ve no time to coddle a scratch.”

He had work to do and lives to save. Angmar’s fate nagged at him like another, deeper wound. He’d combed the theme park, looking for some clue as to where Mordred had taken him, but there had been no sign. He closed his fist tight, imagining Mordred’s throat crushing in his grip.

“Tell me what’s going on,” Tamsin said in a soft voice as she unwrapped his makeshift bandage with warm fingers.

Her hands were delicate but practical, the nails cut short and unpainted.

They fascinated him as they eased away the torn strips of linen he’d used—a towel stolen from one of the theme park’s food trucks.

Using warm water, she softened the blood that had cemented the cloth to his arm, taking care not to aggravate his already torn flesh.

The action brought her face close to his.

Her tantalizing scent engulfed him again.

She gave him the full force of her brown eyes. “Begin at the beginning.”

Gawain steeled himself against that gaze, making his words brusque. “Do you know the old tale of the demons and the alliance who cast them back to the darkness?”

Tamsin’s expression grew troubled. “Funny you should mention that old story. I was thinking about it today, in fact.” She bent her head to inspect the wound.

Her hair shone in burnished waves, and he yearned to feel that golden silk against his skin.

Gawain raised his other hand to touch and caught himself just in time.

“What have legends of ancient wars to do with you?” she asked.

How was he to answer that? He’d wanted to ease up to a full explanation, but she was a witch and therefore understood magic. Gawain decided to save time. “I was there.”

Her hands stilled a moment, then resumed their work. She began swabbing his arm with something that stung and smelled of bitter herbs. “Go on.”

He did, and he told her about Merlin’s spell that turned the knights of Camelot to stone.

She worked silently while he spoke, applying ointments and fresh bandages.

Her lovely face went still and smooth, a mask of concentration making it impossible to guess her thoughts—but he noticed she refused to look his way.

Tension wound tight in Gawain’s chest, but he pushed on with his story, refusing to falter.

“That must be how I came to wake up in a basement,” he finished. “If the church was moved to America and the contents scattered, my tomb must have been sent to the museum in Los Angeles.”

“You woke up from being a stone statue?” Her voice was utterly neutral.

“There is a rising threat. Mordred’s invasion of the human realms must be what triggered the enchantment to wake me.”

Tamsin finished knotting the bandage and sat back, a faint crease between her brows. “How long ago did you awaken?”

“I’m not sure. Months.”

She shook her head, that glorious fair hair sliding over her shoulders. “Your story makes no sense.”

Gawain’s gut turned cold. “Why not?”

“After so many centuries, it would take more time to get your bearings and start to function in this day and age. You should still be speaking—well, we would call it Middle English. Your version of the language would be hard for us to understand.”

It was a logical objection. A bubble of panic slid through him as he answered.

“Making myself understood was all part of the spell. The magic was designed to provide enough factual knowledge to function in whatever time or place we rose again. I understand firearms and subways. How to buy food in a store. It’s not perfect, but I can get by. ”

All the same, the experience of waking had nearly broken him.

Merlin’s enchantment did not buffer the shock of moving through time.

“Still, escaping the museum was just the start of the nightmare. Crowds of people, whole villages’ worth of men and women on one street.

Strange vehicles. Pictures made of light.

I could name what was around me, but I didn’t understand it.

There was one day when the only thing I recognized was an apple. ”

Tamsin was clutching the roll of bandages, her knuckles white. Damn and blast, he had frightened her again. “How did you survive?”

“However I had to.” Gawain’s voice had gone rough with remembered anger. “I disappeared into the shadows, where a warrior of my skill had respect.”

Her lips parted, as if she was about to speak, and then she closed her mouth tight. She swallowed.

Gawain watched, trying to assess every nuance of her expression. “You don’t believe me.”

Her voice shook. “I don’t know if you’re mad or on drugs.”

At least she had returned his honesty with her own. Gawain found himself close to pleading, something he wasn’t used to. “You have the means to find out where the rest of the knights have gone. That’s all I’m asking.”

She drew herself straighter, still clutching the roll of bandages. “Why? Won’t your friends wake up if it’s the right time? You found your way here. They can, too.”