Dragonswan

She would be dead and it would be all his fault.

Should she die, he would never mate again.

"Mate, my bloody hell," he muttered. He looked up at the clear, full moon above. "Damn you, Fates. What were you thinking?"

To mate a human to an Arcadian was cruel. It happened only rarely, so rarely that he'd never even considered the possibility of it. So why did it have to happen now?

Leave her.

He should. Yet if he did, he would leave behind his only chance for a family. Unlike a human male, he was only given one shot at this. If he failed to claim Channon, he would spend the rest of his exceptionally long life. alone.

Completely alone.

No other woman would ever again appeal to him.

He would be doomed to celibacy.

Oh bloody, damned hell with that.

There was no choice. At the end of three weeks, the mark on her human hand would fade and she would forget he'd ever existed. The mark on his Arcadian hand was eternal, and he would mourn her for the rest of his life. Even if he went back for her later, it would be too late. After the mark faded, his chance was over.

It was now or never.

Not to mention the small fact that during the three weeks she was marked by his sign, Channon would be a magnet to the Katagaria Draki who wanted him dead.

For centuries, he and the animal Katagaria had played a deadly game of cat and mouse. The Katagaria routinely sent out mental feelers for him, just as he did for them. Their psychic sonar would easily pick up his mark on Channon's body, allowing them to hone in on her.

And if one of them were to find his mate alone without a protector ...

He flinched at the image in his mind.

No, he had to protect her. That was all there was to it.

Closing his eyes, Sebastian transformed himself into the dragon and went back to Channon's hotel, where he shifted forms again and entered her room as a man.

He was about to break nine kinds of laws.

He laughed bitterly. So what else was new? And why should he care? His people had banished him long ago. He was dead to them. Why should he abide by their laws?

He didn't care about them.

He cared for nothing. For no one.

Yet as he stared at Channon lying asleep in the moon­light, something peculiar happened to him. A feeling of possessive need tore through him. She was his mate. His only salvation.

For whatever twisted reason, the Fates had joined them. To leave Channon here unprotected would be wrong. She had no idea the kind of enemies who would do anything to have him, enemies who wouldn't hesitate to hurt her because she was his.

Sebastian lay down by her side and gathered her into his arms. She murmured in her sleep, then snuggled into him. His heart pounded at the sensation of her breath against his neck.

He looked down and saw her right palm, which bore the same mark as his left hand, laying upright by her cheek. He'd waited an eternity for her.

After all these centuries of empty loneliness, dare he even dream of having a home again? A family?

Then again, dare he not?

"Channon?" he whispered softly, trying to wake her. "I need to ask you something."

"Hmm?" she murmured in her sleep.

"I can't remove you from your time period unless you agree to it. I need you to come with me. Will you?"

She blinked open her eyes and looked up at him with a sleepy frown. "Where are you taking me?"

"I want to take you home with me."

She smiled up at him like an angel, then sighed. "Sure."

Sebastian tightened his arms around her as she fell back to sleep. She'd said yes. Joy ripped through him. Maybe he had done his penance after all.

Maybe, for once, he could have his one moment of respite from the past.

Holding her close, Sebastian stared out the window and waited for the first rays of dawn so that he could pulse them out of her world and into one beyond her wildest imagination.

Channon felt a strange tugging in her stomach that settled into a terrible queasiness. What on earth?

She opened her eyes to see Sebastian staring down at her. He wore an intriguing mask of black and red feathers that made the gold of his eyes stand out even more prom­inently. It reminded her of a Phantom of the Opera mask as it only covered his forehead and the left side of his face where his tattoo was.

She'd never considered masks sexy before, but on him, mmm, baby.

Even more inviting than that, he wore black leather armor over a chain mail shirt—black leather armor cov­ered in silver rings and studs that was laced down the front. The laces had come untied, leaving an enticing gap where she could see his tanned skin peeping through.

Ummm, hmmm.

Smiling, she started to speak until she realized she was

on the back of a horse. A really, really big horse.

Even more peculiar, she was dressed in a dark green gown with wide sleeves that flowed around her like some fairy-tale princess garment.

"Okay," she breathed, running her hand along the in­tricate gold embroidery on her sleeve. "It's a dream. I can cope with a dream where I'm Sleeping Beauty or some­thing."

"It's not a dream," he said quietly.

Channon laughed nervously as she sat up in his lap and glanced around. The sun was high above as if it were well into the afternoon, and they were traveling on an old dirt road that ran perpendicular to a thick, prehistoric-looking forest.

Something was wrong. She could feel it in her bones, and she could tell by the stiffness of his body and his guarded look. He was hiding something. "Where are we?"

'The where of it," he said slowly, refusing to meet her gaze, "isn't nearly as interesting as the when part."

"Excuse me?"

She watched the emotions flicker in his eyes, but the most peculiar one was a fleeting look of panic, as if he were nervous about answering her question. "Do you re­member last night when I asked if I could take you home with me and you said sure?"

Channon frowned. "Vaguely, yes."

"Well, honey, I'm home."

An ache started in her head. What was he talking about? "Home? Where?"

He cleared his throat and still refused to meet her gaze. The man was definitely hedging. But why?

"You said you like research, right?" he asked.

Her stomach knotted even more. "Yes."

"Consider this a unique research venture then."

"Meaning what?"

His jaw flexed. "Haven't you ever wished you could

go back to Saxon England and find out what it was really like before the Normans invaded?"

"Of course."

"Well, your wish is granted." He looked at her and flashed an insincere smile.

Okay, the guy was not Robin Williams, and unless she was missing something really important from last night, she didn't conjure him from a bottle. If he wasn't a genie...

She laughed nervously. "What are you saying?"

"We're in England. Or rather we're in what will one day soon become England. Right now, this kingdom is called Lindsey."

Channon went completely still. She knew all about the medieval Saxon kingdom, and this ... this was not pos­sible. No, there was no way she could be here. "You're joking with me again, aren't you?"

He shook his head.

Channon rubbed her forehead as she tried to make sense of all this. "Okay, you have slipped me a mickey. Great. When I sober up from this you do realize I will call the cops."

"Well, it'll be about nine hundred years before there are cops to call, about a hundred more years after that before you have a phone. But I'm willing to wait if you are."

Channon clenched her eyes shut as she tried to think past the throbbing ache in her skull. "So you're telling me that I'm not dreaming and I'm not drugged."

"Correct on both accounts."

"But I'm in Saxon England?"

He nodded.

"And you're a dragon slayer?"

"Ah, so you remember that part."

"Yes," she said reasonably, but with every word she spoke after that, her voice crescendoed into mild hysteria.

"What I don't remember is how the hell I got here!" she shouted, sending several birds into flight.

Sebastian winced.

She glared at him. "You told me there wouldn't be any Rod Serling voice-overs, yet here I am in the middle of a Twilight Zone episode. Oh, and let me guess the title of it, Night of the Terminally Stupid!"

"It's not as bad as all that," Sebastian said, trying to decide the best way to explain this to her. He didn't blame her for being angry. In fact, she was taking all this a lot better than he had dared hope. "I know this is hard for you."

"Hard for me? I don't even know where to begin. I did something I've never done in my life and then I wake up and you tell me you have supposedly time-warped me into the past, and I'm not sure if I'm insane or delusional or what. Why am I here?"

"I..." Sebastian wasn't sure what to answer. The truth was pretty much out of the question. Channon, I practi­cally kidnapped you because you are my mate and I don't want to be alone for the next three to four hundred years of my life.

No, definitely not something a man told a woman on their first date. He would have to woo her. Quickly. And win her over to wanting to stay here with him.

Preferably before a dragon ate one of them.

"Look, why don't you just think of this as a great ad­venture. Instead of reading about the history you teach, you can live it for a couple weeks."

"What are you? Disney World?" she asked. "And I can't stay here for a couple weeks. I have a life in the twenty-first century. I will be fired from my job. I will lose my car and my apartment. Good grief, who will pick up my laundry?"

"If you stayed here with me, it wouldn't be a problem. You'd never have to worry about any of that again."

Channon was aghast at him. Oh, God, please let this

be some bizarre nightmare. She had to wake up. This could not possibly be real.

"No," she said to him, "you're right. I wouldn't have to worry about any of that in Saxon England. I'd only have to worry about the lack of hygiene, lack of plumbing, Vi­king invasions, being burned at the stake, lack of mod­ern conveniences, and nasty diseases with no antibiotics. Good grief, I can't even get a Midol. Not to mention, I'll never find out what happens next week on Buffy!"

Sebastian let out an elongated, patient breath and gave her an apologetic look that somehow succeeded in quell­ing a good deal of her anger.

"Look," he said quietly, "I'll make a deal with you. Spend a few weeks with me here, and if you really can't stand it, I'll take you home as close to the departure time as I can manage. Okay?"

Channon still had a hard time grasping all this. "Do you swear you're not playing some weird mind game with me? I really am here, in Saxon England?"

"I swear it on my mother's soul. You are in Saxon England, and I can take you back home. And no, I'm not playing mind games with you."

Channon accepted that, even though she couldn't imag­ine why. It was just a feeling she had that he would never swear on his mother's soul unless he meant it.

"Can you really take me back to the precise moment I left?"

"Probably not the precise moment, but I can try."

"What do you mean, try?"

He flashed his dimples, then turned serious. "Time-walking isn't an exact science. You can only move through the time fields when the dawn meets the night, and only under the power of a full moon. The problem is on the arrival end. You can try to get someplace specific, but you have only about a ninety-five percent chance of success. I might get you back that day, but it could also be a week or two after."

"And that's the best you can do?"

"Hey, just be grateful I'm old. When an Arcadian first starts time-walking, we only have about a three percent chance of success. I once ended up on Pluto."

She laughed in spite of herself. "Are you serious?"

He nodded. "They're not kidding about it being the coldest planet."

Channon took a deep breath as she digested everything he'd told her. Was any of this real? She didn't know, any more than she knew whether or not he was being honest about returning her. He was still very guarded. "Okay, so I'm stuck here until the next full moon?"

"Yes."

Oh, good grief, no. Had she been the kind of woman to whine, she'd probably be whining. But Channon was always practical. "All right. I can handle this," she said, more for her benefit than his. "I'll just pretend I'm a Saxon chick and you..." Her voice trailed off as she recalled what he'd said about time-traveling. "Just how old are you?"