Six paragraphs from
The Battle Lord's Lady.
This sneak peek is leading up to the August 7th release of
A Battle Lord's Heart, Book 3 of the Battle Lord Saga!
THE BATTLE LORD'S LADY
Book 1 of the Battle Lord Saga
A sensuous futuristic romance novel
Available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, All Romance eBooks, and BookStrand
http://lindamooney.com/BattleLord.htm
1.
That evening she walked about her old apartment and tried to figure out which items to keep and which to leave for the next tenant. There was so little that was personal enough to remind her of her parents and little sister. She packed all her clothes plus two of her mother’s sweaters that she’d always loved. Otherwise she left everything where it sat, including dirty utensils and bedding furs. In a world where lifetimes now were measured in years rather than decades or generations as they once had been, the luxury of owning property was almost nonexistent. A man owned what he could carry, which was usually the tools of his trade. A woman owned her personal skills, as her hands were usually full of children. The next abode would always contain a place to build a fire, a pot to cook in, and a bed to lie upon. One did not need to carry tables and chairs and other odd accouterments from apartment to apartment. Not only was it unthinkable, it was practically suicidal, especially when life hung in such a delicate balance.
2.
The first noticeable thing was the deep scar which ran down the right side of his face from his hairline near his temple to the tightly clenched jaws. It looked fresh and painful. Despite the injury, he had a strong face, the face of a man who bore the burden of leadership like pennants on a staff. His eyes were deep-set and dark. Atty wondered fleetingly if they were brown or blue. His hair was pulled back and tied, and what she could detect in the bad light was that it was orange-ish in color.
3.
When he bent over her wrists his head was turned away from her. She could see that she had been wrong about the color of his hair. It wasn’t orange-ish, but blond with red highlights, a shade she’d once heard referred to as strawberry blond. For a split second, before she could realize how perfectly she could slip a weapon into the back of his neck from this vantage, she wondered if anyone had brushed away the shoulder-length hair and dropped tiny kisses along the well-developed shoulder muscles.
4.
MaGrath couldn’t help but laugh—a short, humorless bark. “Oh, this gets better by the minute. A great and powerful Battle Lord who can no longer think for himself, who has severely underestimated the enemy, and a girl for that matter! Yulen, she killed sixteen of our best men! She faced down a bull ferret and lived! Not to mention pulled your fat out the fire. Do you honestly think she’s going to let a handful of our representatives stop her from returning to the only home she’s ever known? For once, get that sense of self-righteousness out of your butt where you’ve shoved it and start listening to your advisors. Screw them, listen to
me!”
5.
“My hatred for mutants was as great as anyone’s, or so I believed until I met Atty. That’s what hurts the most, I think. That you never took a single minute to sit and listen to her. That you never watched her and Yulen together, and never saw that incredible power that binds them. I can’t even call it love because it’s like the two of them together is greater than the two of them apart. Well, I saw it. I saw the change that came over Yulen. I saw that black, bitter hole that he had dug after his father’s death nearly swallow him, and I watched Atty fill it with her smile and her sass and her naiveté and her sincerity. And her love for your son. And I watched Yulen heal and change because of her. Think back, Madigan. Think of the way Yulen was before we left on that last crusade. Now think of these past few days and tell me...I dare you to tell me Atty’s not responsible for any of it.”
6.
“You told me to let her meet the people. You almost had me convinced they might accept her after they talked to her and got to see what she was like,” he said bitterly, directing his comments more toward himself than at MaGrath. “Well, you were wrong, weren’t you? She could spend the rest of her life protecting this compound, and for what? They’ll never accept her. They’ll never get to know who she is. They’ll only see what she is.” Ramming his sword back into the scabbard from where he’d half-way drawn it before Atty had stopped him, Yulen turned and headed for the main lodge.
*****
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