Daughter of Time: A Time Travel Romance Read Online Free PDF Page B

blurring from
the pain in my head as the ache from before roared back and
darkened my vision around the edges. I knew what was going to
happen next because it had happened once with Trev. Only once, and
then I’d taken Anna and left.
    “Please, don’t hurt me,” I said, my voice
little more than a whisper. “I just want to go home. My mother will
be worried about me. I wasn’t going to use the knife. I wouldn’t
even know how.”
    Llywelyn studied me, the urgency in his eyes
lessening, though he didn’t loosen his grip on me at all. Tears
welled in my eyes and trickled down the side of my face to get lost
in my hair, much of which had come loose from its braid. Though his
eyes never left mine, he eased away, got to his feet, and retrieved
the knife. He straightened his chair and sat. When his weight came
off me, I rolled onto my side, curling my knees up to my chest and
pressing my face into the cool of the floor.
    Llywelyn sighed. “Did you think I would
force you?”
    “Yes.”
    I lifted my head to look into his face. He
rubbed his eyes with his fingers and then rested his elbows on his
knees and put his chin in his hands. “I’m too old for this,” he
said.
    Then he stood suddenly and took one stride
toward me. I almost managed to hold in a shriek before he crouched
beside me, got one arm under my neck and the other under my knees,
and hoisted me in his arms. He brought me over to the bed and
dropped me, unceremoniously, onto the spot I’d been before.
    “I’ve never taken a woman against her will
and I don’t intend to start with you.” He grunted as he
straightened the pillow under my head. Then he grabbed a blanket
from the foot of the bed and threw it over me. I curled up,
cradling my head in my hands. I’d been so sure he would hurt me and
that I wouldn’t be able to stop him. I was having a hard time
understanding he was leaving me unharmed.
    “Where’s your mother?” Llywelyn demanded,
his feet spread wide, hands on his hips.
    “R-r-r-radnor,” I said.
    Llywelyn’s eyes narrowed. “That’s days away.
How did you plan on getting there?”
    “I . . .” I couldn’t continue, at a loss for
an answer.
    Llywelyn tipped his head to one side and
relaxed his arms, letting them fall loose at his sides. “Where did
you come from, Marged?”
    It seemed like he wasn’t asking for the town
I lived in, or how far I’d driven today, but something else
entirely; something to which I had no more answers than he did.
    I shook my head. “Nothing is clear to me
right now.”
    “I’m not surprised,” he said. “How’s your
head? That’s twice you’ve cracked it today.”
    I put my hand to my forehead where it ached,
feeling a large bump where my hairline started. “It hurts to touch,
and I have a bit of a headache.”
    “I asked also for willow bark to mix with
your wine,” he said. He took a twist of cloth that I hadn’t noticed
on the tray, and dumped it into my cup. It didn’t seem possible,
but it appeared as if he thought it was possible to return to a
time before I attacked him, to normal interaction.
    He sat on the edge of the bed, his weight
making it sag, and I rolled onto my back to counter it. Once again,
Llywelyn hooked his arm around my neck but this time he lifted me
so I could sip the wine. I looked into the deep red liquid with
little bits of bark floating in it, not liking the idea of drinking
something so unfamiliar. As before, however, his will was
impossible to defy and I didn’t feel I had choice.
    “You must sleep,” he said. “We’ll talk more
in the morning. I swear to you that I will not hurt you.”
    I gazed up at him. Somehow, I believed him.
“I’m sorry about the knife.”
    Llywelyn gave me a hard look but I was too
tired to think about what he might mean by it. Mom and Elisa
definitely wouldn’t have approved of him. Elisa had already given
me a lecture about bringing a guy home before I went out
with him. What would she call this? A date? Not exactly .