Page 32 of Wolf's Redemption

“Here’s an idea. Why don’t you tell me how to use the amulet so I can go home? I’m only slowing you down, and there’s no reason for me to stay.” She hiked up her dress and retrieved the gold disc from her jeans pocket. “So what do I do? Say the words again? In reverse maybe?”

He stared at her over the fire. “You are eager to return home and to reunite with your family. I understand. Family is precious.”

“Precious?” Bek snorted. “Not my family. I haven’t seen them in years, and I have no desire to. A bigger bunch of crooks and con artists you’d ever find.”

She hadn’t looked back when she’d skipped out on them a day after her seventeenth birthday. Not a glance, not a fare-thee-well, and she’d made no promises to return. And, unless she was willing to join the family business, they couldn’t give a toss that she’d gone either.

He frowned at her. Lucky him to have a family that cared.

“Then you must have a… What is it called… A career?”

She grimaced. “No.”

No one would call working at Charlie’s a career. It was a necessity. One she could avoid if she stayed here. Now there was a novel solution to her less-than-perfect life.

Firelight danced across his face and chest. It certainly had some appeal, but it wasn’t a workable option. Not if she wanted to keep her resolution of not getting involved. She needed to return, preferably before her parole office put out an APB on her for skipping out of town. And being in the twenty-first century again was a surefire way to ensure she did nothing stupid with Mr. Sex-on-a-stick. If ever that term applied to anyone, it was him. Fuck, he was gorgeous and deliciously sinful.

She shoved away the smutty images. “I don’t belong here, Ulrik. Though my life might be a crap-shoot back home, it’s still mine, and it kind of beats living in a forest forever.”

She’d miss her playlist, her favorite tattoo artist on the corner of Evelyn and Gosterwood. Hell, she’d miss running water, flushing toilets, instant heat and her bed. As old and lumpy as her mattress was, it trumped sleeping on the ground. “I have to go home.”

He studied her across the fire. “I do not have the answer for you, Rebekah, but I know someone who may. The last time wespoke, my lord had intentions of searching for a reversal to the spell.”

“Oh.”

Damn it. Guess she wasn’t leaving anytime soon, then. She tucked the little gold disc back into her jeans.

“If it gives you some comfort, my lord is with a woman who is also from the future.”

“Another person got pulled back in time?” She leaned forward. “Really?”

Was this something that happened to people all the time? They found an amulet andwhoomph!They’re back in the tenth century?There must be all sorts of modern people running around here.

He set the second hare over the fire. “Yes, truly. Much the same as you, she found an amulet and deciphered the script.” He shook his head. “It is uncanny. Two women, in such a brief period, traversing time, when I have never seen the likes of it in all my life.”

Okay. So not an everyday occurrence.“Maybe it was the eclipse.”

“The blood moon?”

She shrugged. “You’re right. That’s just superstitious guff. There’s probably a scientific reason for it all far beyond my comprehension. I wasn’t exactly the smartest kid in class.”

He stood up, reached into the waistband of his trousers, and pulled out her phone. “You understand this, and it is clearly a scientific marvel. Not magic, as I first thought. And”—he gave her a rueful smile—“you almost outwitted me.”

He moved to sit beside her, and Bek’s gaze followed every lithe movement, every stretch of his trousers across his muscular thighs. He handed her the phone and took the wineskin, removing the stopper and raising it to his mouth. A drop trickled down into his beard. She tracked the droplet, itching to reach outand stop it. Or maybe lick it off with her tongue. She pulled her gaze away and stared at her phone, her body flushed. This man was killing her.

Her phone was dark and the screen cracked, a spiderweb of lines running across its face. “It’s a communication device. Nothing special. An outdated model. It’s not even an iPhone. Everyone in the twenty-first century has one of these.”

He spat out his wine, and the fire flared with the splash of alcohol.

He wiped his face on his sleeve and stared at her, his eyes wide. “Thetwenty-firstcentury?”

“Yeah.” She shrugged. “Like you said, I’m from the future.”

His Adam’s apple jerked in his throat. “That is… That is more than athousandyearsin the future.”

“Yep. Modern girl here.” And a city girl. “Totallyunsuited for a place like this.”

He took another swig from the wineskin. Then another. Then he handed it to her.

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