Shunned by superstitious villagers, Teleri of the Woods lives in a dark forest where she is hidden away from danger, but when she finds a gravely wounded knight, she opens her heart and her home Wales is a wild place in 1280. Sir Roger FitzAlan is there by order of the King, commanded to build a mighty walled castle to defend England's borders. But the site the King has chosen has a strange circle of massive blue stones and when Sir Roger and his men arrive, a beautiful young woman is praying within the ancient circle. Even more arresting, the young woman flees from Roger's men astride a sleek black Arab stallion stolen from Roger's best friend nearly five years before. Roger gives chase and before long, the black Arab and Roger's mount leave his men-at-arms far behind. When the woman disappears into a thick wood, Roger follows her alone and quickly loses her. But someone else is in the deep woods, and that someone is intent on killing Roger. Teleri of the Woods is delighted to have lost her pursuer and it isn't until the following day, when she returns to search for her lost pouch, that she discovers Roger, barely alive, and struggles to rescue him. Roger awakens in her bed, cranky, furious, and too ill to leave. Forced to remain with the beautiful young woman, he slowly becomes aware of the world about him in a way he has never known. Despite Teleri's lack of gold and possessions, she is rich in knowledge and appreciation of life. As Teleri teaches Roger about her life, he's forced to confront his lust for her and his prior beliefs about love. But their time together in the magic woods must come to an end and when it does, what will Roger do about the forbidden love that once ruled him? How will Teleri cope with life beyond her enchanted woods? And how will they solve the dark mysteries that swirl around Roger and threaten both their lives? Filled with Barnett's trademark humor, wit, and wonderfully warm writing style, readers everywhere who have anxiously awaited Wild won't be disappointed. --Loise Faye Dyer Since her first book, Jill Barnett has been acclaimed as a fresh and witty voice in romantic fiction. Set apart by her unique humor and whimsical view of the world, she creates delightfully original novels with characters who, according to Romantic Times, "seem so real they are like close friends. Pure magic!" She is the recipient of a National Waldenbooks Award and a four-time RITA and Golden Choice finalist. Her work has been critically acclaimed as some of the very best by the Detroit Free Press, The Dallas Morning News, and Publishers Weekly. Jill currently lives in the Pacific Northwest, where she is working on her next book, Wicked, which Pocket Books will publish in 1999. Readers may write to her at P.O. Box 8166, Fremont, CA 94537-8166. Chapter: The Welsh Marchlands, 1280 Legends were born here. With good reason. High in the hills, the mountains took on odd shapes like that of King Arthur's crown, the Devil's giant hand, or even God's profile. Ancient stone rings with mysterious pasts marked the countryside. It was here where the Druids once roamed, and the fairies had been known to bury their treasures under old oak trees -- the ones with branches that looked like they were trying to climb clear up to heaven. Sometimes, when the wild wind blew down from the hills, the trees in the woods sounded as if they were singing, the stars fell right down from the sky, and people's lives could change over the space of one night without them ever knowing it. If you looked down from the tall mountain called Craig y Ddinas, the sleepy hamlet of Bleddig appeared to be nothing more than a cluster of neatly thatched roofs threaded with winding paths, the colorful splash of a garden here or there, and large, square patches of farm fields. But this was Wales. The village that sat there so innocently was surrounded by rolling hills and thick, dark woods. Above it stood a plateau, where a ring of giant blue stones had towered over the whole valley for as long as anyone could remember. If the superstitious villagers happened to look up and see a young woman walking toward that huge and eerie stone ring, they would cross themselves and mutter the names of all the saints, for that was the place, they whispered, where Teleri of the Woods conjured up her evil magic. Did you know she could call down healing powers the same way witches called down the moon? Aye, she could. She had claimed it was the stones, but they, the villagers, knew better. Wicked, that's what she was. Some of the villagers had threatened to stone her, because they sought to kill anything that was different. Others didn't threaten; they did throw stones. Whenever the wild young woman named Teleri looked at her reflection in the water of the brook or in a glassy forest pond, she saw a small, star-shaped scar just below her right eye where a sharp rock had struck her. It was a scar that went so much deeper than