wcEND.rtf (4 page)

As Maude stumbled out of the bedchamber to do his
bidding
, Hunter turned his gaze to his lady wife. He thought he saw a slight tremor, an almost imperceptible twitch of her eyelids. Had he imagined it?

"Détra," he called, approaching the bed. For an infinite moment there was no response, then her body began to shudder. He had not imagined
that.
Détra had indeed moved. She was not dead.

Relief washed over him.

Détra
'
s body jerked, and, opening her eyes, she lurched forward, gasping for breath as if emerging from a pool of water. She half lifted herself from the bed, taking in big gulps of air.

"Easy, easy," he whispered, supporting her back with one arm until her breathing eased and she lifted a confused gaze at him.

"
What happened?" she asked, still gasping. "I feel like I have just returned from the dead."

Hunter flinched inwardly at her uncanny remark. And as she seemed not to remember what happened, he used the same excuse he gave Maude. "You fell and hit your head."

"Oh," she whispered, scooting back against the pillows. Her hand immediately went to the bump on her forehead and she winced; then, lifting both of her hands, she halted them in front of her, flexing her fingers.

"They tingle," she whispered, a perplexing expression on her face. She rubbed her eyes, as if to clear her vision.

Remembering the tingling in his own hands when he regained consciousness, Hunter offered, "It shall soon pass."

She nodded, seeming distracted, her gaze darting in every direction. "Where am I?" She turned a puzzled gaze to him. "Who are you?"

Taken aback by her incongruous questions, Hunter knew not what to say. Tongue-tied, he stared at her. Had the incident muddled her wits?

She frowned. "You look oddly familiar."

Was Détra trying to confound him? Suspicion filled his mind. "You mean to tell me you know me not?"

She shook her head. "Though I rarely forget a face, I confess I can't quite place yours. Have we met?"

"Met?" Hunter said, springing to his feet, wondering about her odd speech. "I am your lord and husband."

"What?" She seemed truly perplexed. Though the bed curtains impaired her vision her gaze strayed around the room. Then with a sudden move, she lurched out of the bed, and the coverlet slipped to the floor, exposing her thin chemise.

"Where are my clothes?" she demanded as she inspected herself. Then, with a sharp intake of breath, Détra jumped backward, as if to escape from herself. She snapped a handful of her glorious auburn hair in her hand and stared at it in petrified horror, then pulled on her tresses as if trying to pull out her own hair, yanking at it with considerable force, crying out with obvious pain.

Deus!
What was she doing?

"What the hell is going on?" she cried.

Taken aback by her language, Hunter nonetheless reached for her. With a fear-filled gaze, she backed away from him, stumbling over her garment chest. The small silver mirror on top of it fell on the stone
floor with a clink. Her gaze strayed to it. She hesitated for a moment,
then lowered herself and picked it up. Straightening, she pressed the mirror against
her chest as if gathering courage to look into it. Befuddled, Hunter watched as her trembling hands lifted the mirror to her face then stared into it, letting out a shriek the likes of which he had never heard before.

A moment later, she dashed out of the bedchamber with Hunter at her heels.

******************

ISABEL RACED DOWN THE STONE STEPS INTO A LARGE room as if the devil were after her. Ignoring the presence of several people gathered there, she rushed to the freedom of an open door to the outside world.

Rain prickled her body with its cold needles, drenching her immediately as she blindly dashed across the vast expanse of yard.

Trembling with cold and horror, Isabel dared a look behind to gauge if she'd been followed. Lightning silhouetted a man against the castle behind him as he dashed after her. Her breath caught in her throat. The castle looked eerily similar to the ruins she'd visited and where she'd collapsed just moments ago. At least she thought it was moments ago. Automatically she lifted her wrist, looking for her watch, but it was not there.

In her momentary hesitation, the man reached her. "For Heaven's sake, Détra, what has come over you?" he shouted over the roaring thunder.

Who's this Détra person?
Isabel wanted to ask, but the words died out in her throat as she raised her hands to fend off the ma
n
—
h
ands as alien to her as the red hai
r
that clung wet
l
y to her face. As unnatural as the voluptuous breasts peeking from underneath her camisole. As unrecognizable as the stranger's face she'd glimpsed in the mirror before she fled the room.

Isabel fought against the crescendo of terror possessing her, against the lure of fainting that teased her senses, against the need to ignore the absurdity of her thoughts. Instead, she sought to find strength where none seemed to exist. This must be a dream, a horrible nightmare, and soon she would wake up from it.

The man was speaking to her, but she hadn't heard a word he said. She thought he looked eerily familiar, but certainly not her
lord and husband,
as he had claimed. And then she remembered where she'd seen him.
He
was the man in the vision she'd seen in the ruins of
t
he old castle while holding the chalice with the bright blue stones, the man who had stood by the pregnant woman, looking at her with adoring eyes.

And she, horror of horrors, was that woma
n
!

Good God! She had for the briefest moment during that vision wished to be that woman.

Had she wished the vision into life?

Horrified, Isabel snapped her glance down to her stomach. Relief washed over her to find it flat. She glanced back at the man, but there was no adoration in his gaze now, just puzzlement and concern.

"We must get back inside," he said, pulling her gently with him.

Stubbornly she sank her feet in the mud. She didn't want to go anywhere. The openness of the outside suited her much better than four suffocating walls. Yet, as if to discourage her, the heavy rain took a sudden turn for the worse and lightning began to strike with the regularity of a clock ticking the minutes.

"Unless you wish to catch your death," he said, a twinge of annoyance tempering his voice, "I suggest we return inside, Détra."

My name is Isabel,
she wanted to scream, but the words didn't come out of her mouth. Just like it happened
in her nightmares when she wanted to run but couldn't, wanted to scream but there was no voice. Yes, this was just like i
t
—
a
dream, a nightmare. She was probably burning up with fever in some hospital bed, hallucinating. Shockingly, the explanation calmed her.

Ignoring hi
m
—
h
e was, after all, a figment of her imaginatio
n
—
I
sabel spun around and simply walked away.
I
f she continued to walk and think of other things, like a nice cup of tea, he would probably go away. Her mind went through the motion of preparing te
a
—
t
he water, the kettle, the tea. Moment by moment, action by action, thought by thought.

Strong hands snatched her from this idyllic scenario, lifting her with ease, as if she weighed no more than a feather. Frustrated, Isabel began kicking and punching him, but he ignored her protests and hauled her back to the castle.

He carried her with him up the steps to the second floor, leaving behind a trail of muddy puddles.

"Put me down, you animal," Isabel screamed, the sound of another woman
's
voice resonating eerily in her ears.

He continued to ignore her until they reached the room from which she'd just escaped and threw her down on the bed, his heavy body keeping her in place. He pinned her arms against the mattress and above her head. "Cease your struggles, my lady wife. It is not becoming of your position in this castle."

Shock made Isabel gape at him, for a moment doing exactly what he commanded. But when his words sank i
n
—
h
e saw another woman when he looked at he
r
—
I
sabel resumed her struggles with renewed energy. She had to get out from under him! But the more she struggled the more pressure he applied, and his hard body plastered against hers until her lungs clamored for breath. The bastard was going to kil
l
her! Realizing she was no match for his strength, she ceased her struggles but sought his face with a fury-filled glare. He met her gaze with a dark, prodding stare, but pulled back a little.

Able to breathe again, Isabel gulped in air as she moved her gaze away from the impenetrability of his dark eyes to the nose that looked
l
ike it'd been broken before, to the well-defined lines of his cheeks and the full bottom lip of his mouth. His face was handsome, in a rugged sort of way, intriguing in its maleness.

To her artistic eye, that is.

She promptly swept her gaze up to find his eyelids ha
l
f closed, shielding his thoughts and his intentions as his
m
outh settled suddenly over hers.

It was a hungry, searing kiss that lasted just long enough for Isabel to enjoy a tantalizing taste of him and short enough to disallow any reaction from her.

Surprise clouded her judgment for the seconds the kiss lasted, but when his hands began pulling down the wet camisole that kept her barely clad, Isabel gathered her senses pretty fast. "What are you doing?" She pushed him away, furious he'd taken advantage of his strength and her temporary insanity to paw her.

Freeing her from the pressure of his body as he sprang up, he gave her a bitter grin. "I am not about to ravish you, if that is your fear." He threaded his fingers through his wet hair and drops of water s
l
id down his neck disappearing in his drenched shirt. Isabel followed their trajectory with disturbing interest
.

Now that he no longer covered her with his heated body, Isabel realized it was colder inside the room than it was outside the castle.

"I merely do not wish for harm to befall you."

Isabel sat up in bed and pulled the saturated fabric back into place over her chest. No, not her chest, she recogn
i
zed immediately. The man had not touched her body, but the body of another woma
n
—
his wife?
Good God, how could this have happened to her? Isabel struggled with the undeniable fact that this body was not hers.

Closing her eyes, she willed again the nightmare to end. When she opened her eyes a moment later the dark, handsome stranger still stood before her. And her body was still not hers. She pinched herself hard, but the pain she felt denied she was in the throes of an enduring nightmare, as she'd like to believe.

Reality or delusion, something really weird had happened. She couldn't dismiss the vision the chalice had revealed to her nor what was happening right now. She had been wide-awake when the vision occurred, as she appeared to be now.

Her shoulders slumped with the weight of her predicament and Détra's voluptuous breasts. This was not a nightmare, this was really happening to her, the product of her thoughtless wish. And this ma
n
—
s
he darted a sly glance at him, realizing she didn't even know his nam
e
—thought she was his wife. He saw this Détra when he looked at her. How was she going to pull the wool over his eyes long enough to undo this bizarre situation? And how was she going to undo it?

"I don't feel myself," she whispered.

That much is obvious,
his gaze seemed to say, but politely he inquired, "You remember naught of me?"

Suddenly Isabel realized two very important things. She was not only in another woman's body but also in another centur
y
—
t
he Middle Ages by the looks of it. And though modern and medieval English should resemble each other very little, she and Détra's husband seemed to have no trouble understanding each other. Isabel had no doubt it was the chalice's doing. After all, what was a
little translation compared to time travel and body switching?