A novel of love restored, revenge complete, a king laid low.Book 3 in medieval erotic romance, SWORDS OF PASSION series by Cerise DeLand.
Blurb:
Countess Katherine Harleigh knew her refusal to become King John's lover courted his punishment. But she never thought he'd try to starve her. Cast into a dungeon—widowed, alone and disgraced—Kat fears no one can save her. Not even the one knight who always promised to love and protect her.
Geoffrey St. Claire serves his Sire as loyally as a sane man can. But when John imprisons the one woman Geoff has always adored, he risks his lands and his life to ride to her rescue. Yet, he knows she will never welcome his aid. She hates him too much for deserting her years ago. But he will not leave her this time.
Excerpt:
She screamed,
the torment of being jostled gnawing at her bones and sending raw pain of a
thousand needles through her flesh. What hell was this?
She saw stars,
a velvet sky. Moonlight seared her eyes and she clamped them shut. Too long in
the dark. Too long without hope of light. What use to take her away if she
could not see? Or could not talk? Or, worse, had lost her mind?
Some strange
ties bound her arms. She struggled and stilled, knowing the fight useless.
Dreaming. I fantasise. I wish for release and find it only in my mind!
Did men
whisper? Aye, she heard footsteps. Boots, men’s boots tromped across sodden
grass, the sucking noises reminiscent of her watery cell. The clank of swords,
the stomping of horses’ hooves in that same wet earth that met her ears.
Someone manhandled her.
Christ, let me go! She tried to beat upon the broad chest that bound her tightly to a wall
of warm flesh. But she could not lift her hand and her head lolled back.
“She’s
fainted,” a man murmured.
No, no! She worked at words and found no sound possible.
“She drifts in
and out of her mind,” said another.
Was that the
same man who had spoken Latin? The same one who had urged her to speak?
“Here, hold her
while I mount.”
No. That is another man, his voice so familiar and so dear. So hated.
Geoffrey?
Bounced from
one tight embrace to another, she gritted her teeth to quell the pain. Let me die, she urged whoever was her
newest captor. Her limbs afire, her heart racing, she panted for breath. No more, she begged.
But whoever he
was, he did not listen. Instead, she felt herself passed from one set of bonds
up into the grasping arms of another. The first man who had held her, found her
and spoken to her in the dungeon held her again. Geoffrey? No. This cannot be he.
She dared to
lift her eyelids a fraction.
Dark hair,
shining oddly auburn in the moonlight. Hair, curling at his ears. The eyes, the
same soft solace as Geoffrey’s. His face, lined with years and worries.
Her heart
pounded with the similarities. Hope, so brittle, broke inside her, a hundred
fragments, sharp and small.
No, this is not he. Impossible for this man to be Geoffrey. He is an
angel of death, please be to God, come to claim me.
“To ride will
hurt like the hounds of hell, ma cherie,”
he told her, his lips to her ear, his arms like iron straps around her
shoulders and her knees. “A litter would slow us. We have no alternative.”
She felt a jolt
of his massive body. Envisioning a man who rode his horse like wind upon water,
she gazed at a man with tousled hair and a strong jaw. She felt the jolt as he dug his spurs into the
flanks of his stallion. And off she rode with him, clasped to him as if forged.
A thrust, a bolt, a gallop tore at her insides, yet she was clutched to him by
his rope-like arms while the ground thundered beneath his animal’s hooves.
The breeze was
raw, crisp in her hair and against her skin. She shivered, yet inhaled the
fresh air of night. The stars danced above her. The moon darted between
menacing clouds. The night stretched out around them, for indeed there were
more to this party than simply she and her abductor. The others were no
fantasy. She heard their mounts. The hooves as they struck the ground,
churning, clinking on stones. She heard the men. Their grunts as they dodged
tree limbs and shouted to their companions of dangers ahead. She felt the care
of the man who held her and above that pain that seared her mind, she
remembered one man who had held her so tightly, so dearly, so briefly. Strange.
He had felt the same as this man. And smelled the same as this man.
But he had not
cared for her as well as this man.
Copyright (c) 2013, Cerise DeLand, Excerpt, All Rights Reserved
To Purchase, visit TotalEBound
Bio:
What’s a gal to do to if she lives deep in the heart of Texas, travels often everywhere, and adores Paris, Florence, London, Tokyo and all points east and west?
Ah.
She becomes an author who can write about those romantic places. With a passion for cowboys, spies, rakes, knights in shining armor and their gutsy women, Cerise DeLand is an author who adores an alpha male with a tender heart and a need for a smoldering erotic love affair with the right woman!
Cerise is a Top 20 Best Selling author on Amazon with more than three dozen works published in erotic romance, and she is also an award-winning author of mystery, mainstream and romance with St. Martin’s Press, Pocket Books and Kensington. Her books are on numerous book clubs, including Featured Selections of The Mystery Guild, Doubleday and Rhapsody. And when she isn’t dreaming up fiction or traveling? Cerise is a fabulous cook and an avid history buff.
Busy lady. Happy writer.
Visit her websitehttp://cerisedeland.com/ for info on all her books.
Find her on Facebook
Go to her blog for headline news, ~ and email her at cerise.deland@ymail.com too! You can also follow Cerise on twitterhttps://twitter.com/cerisedeland
No comments:
Post a Comment