Beyond Time: A Knights Through Time Travel Romance (Knights Through Time Travel #1)(7)

Thunder rumbled, making her jump as she backed out of his office, shutting the door behind her. No doubt about it—she was stuck until morning. Unless… She ignored the insistent dinging and found Will’s number…which, of course, went straight to voicemail.

“Will, it’s Mellie. Somehow I got locked in the museum. Guess I didn’t hear you calling when the power went out. Could you please come back and let me out? It’s kinda creepy in here at night with no one around.”

It wasn’t like she was asking him to drive a long way. Like her, Will lived within walking distance, biking or walking except when the weather was bad and he took one of those hourly car rentals. Though for him, “too cold” was a lot colder than for her. Originally from the South, Mellie had moved up north to attend college, her parents deciding it would do her good to get out of a small town and spread her wings. But when she’d visited a few colleges in big cities, Mellie decided it wasn’t for her. All the noise and crowds, not enough green space, and so in the end she’d settled on a college in a smallish town, but one larger than her hometown. Four years she’d been in the north, and in that time her family had all ended up close by. Her parents first, then her brothers—one for a job, the other for his now wife. And in four years she still hadn’t acclimated to the cold or the snow in the wintertime.

Not wanting to walk through the glass corridor linking the sculpture gallery to the modern gallery, Mellie took the long way through the medieval gallery. Normally, she avoided this wing; it was in the oldest part of the museum, the original structure, built back in the early 1900s. There was something about all those objects belonging to people long dead, and the various weapons used in battles that creeped her out. Not that she believed in spirits or ghosts, but there was an odd feeling in the gallery, the same in the Egyptian and Greek wings, but stronger here.

The emergency lighting made the glass cases glow, and an object in one of the cases caught her eye, winking in the darkness. A set of daggers drew her forward as if pulled by a string on a windup toy, and before she knew what she was doing, Mellie found her fingers touching the glass, mesmerized by the wicked-looking blades.

Whoever owned these must have been a warrior, not only strong and undefeated in battle but kind and just. The type of man who’d only ever loved one woman his whole life. What would it have been like to be loved by a man like that?

There was a crash, then another, and the skylight above her head shattered, a huge tree limb from one of the old trees hitting the roof, sending pieces of the skylight and debris raining down, bouncing off the cases like icicles hitting the ground. Mellie covered her head and cowered next to the base of the case. The downpour drenched her as the thunder cracked across the sky, the floor rumbled, and lightning arced inside the building as she went sliding across the floor, screaming as the walls shook.

Lightning swirled around her like one of those static electricity balls in the kids’ section, the energy inside changing colors when the kids ran their hands over the surface. Deep within the storm, Mellie swore she heard voices, smelled smoke, blood, and death. When the crescendo died down and it was silent once again, except for the whistling of the wind as it blew in through the skylight, she peeked out between her arms. Why hadn’t the alarm gone off?

Something cold pressed against her jeans, sending shivers down her bare arms. Looking down, she gasped, clapping a hand over her mouth. The daggers were lying on the floor beside her, the case across the room shattered, glass all around the floor. There were cracks in the walls and other cases had been destroyed—a toppled suit of armor was haphazardly strewn across the floor, the head in one corner still spinning, sending crazy laughter bubbling up.

Mellie reached out, touching the hilt of one of the daggers as pain lanced up her arm, blue light flowing through her as she involuntarily curled her hand around the hilt. In the blinding light, she caught a glimpse of crimson, and then there was nothing but darkness.





FIVE





Was her head pounding from the headache, or was that actual pounding she heard echoing through the room? Mellie rubbed her eyes, groaned, and rolled to her side, panting before she heaved herself to a sitting position.

Broken tree limbs, debris, shattered cases, and priceless artifacts lay scattered across the reclaimed wood floor. Puddles of water shimmered, and in one she could see the first tinge of blue sky through the gaping skylight.

“Wait until Jacob sees all the damage. He’ll start eating junk again for sure.” Glass crunched under her feet as she stood, brushing leaves off her t-shirt and pulling them from her hair. “I’m glad I’m not the one that has to clean this mess up.”

A grunt made her whirl around, heart beating triple time as she searched for the source. A squeak escaped as she spied a huge man, dressed in some kind of dirty kilt and a linen shirt with stains all over it. The guy looked like he’d been rolling around in a pile of red clay or rust.

“Who are you? You can’t be in here,” she stammered as she looked at the weapons scattered across the floor. Surely the museum would understand if she had to poke him with a priceless sword…she’d pretend it was Greg and run him through. What was a homeless guy doing sleeping in the medieval gallery?

“Hey, I’m talking to you. How did you get in here? The doors are all locked.”

The man groaned, clutching the sides of his head, dark hair hiding his eyes. He said something she didn’t catch; she was too busy figuring out what was wrong with the scene in front of her—well, besides the crazy man. And then it hit her: the daggers from the case were missing. No longer on the floor, they’d vanished.