Chapter Twenty-Three

Removing her cloak and laying it beside her, Ulfhild leaned back against the boulder at the edge of the meadow, sighing as she ran her hand across the soft grass under her. She had come to the enchanted woods to escape the stormy skies and the sucking mud that had been reeking havoc on the village. People were starting to murmur about unhappy gods and curses as the skies continued to dump buckets of rain on them. Her father had even called off training for his warriors, and that had never happened.

Ulfhild missed the exercise. Without it to distract her, she'd had nothing but time to think on the prophecy and the strange warrior. Her mate. She should learn to say it. There was no doubt any longer that it was true, but it was still difficult to wrap her mind around it. A shifter. From the future. The Spirit was truly a fickle and unpredictable thing.

A barely perceptible rustle in the bushes had her freezing in place and reaching a hand into the pocket of her dress where she secreted