(I got left off the rotation list last week {I'm putting it down to wind chill!}, so I'm rerunning this post to keep up with the series order.)
I don’t like to play favorites, but I have to admit, Cale Terriot, the strutty, tattooed, rock and roll, bad-boy prince with his scars and attitude, is mine. Give me the thug over a pretty face any day. Keep your Jude Laws and Ryan Goslings. I’ll take the intense and brutish Clive Owens, Jeremy Renners, and Jason Stathams! And there’s something about a tough guy being humbled by the powerful love of one woman that’s hard to resist.
As one of twelve brothers vying for their despot father’s place, there’s only one thing more motivating for Cale than leading his clan away from the old brutish ways of his king, and Cale is willing to do whatever it takes to attain his goal. It’s not the crown he’s after—it’s his childhood love whose family had been branded as traitors to their clan, a gentle female held hostage in a deadly play for power. Kendra Terriot’s only means of survival for herself and her family is to play to a careful courtship game. The one she chooses from their clan’s dangerous heirs will inherit the coveted crown, keeping her their prisoner forever . . . unless she can retain her virtue until rescue arrives. Here’s a taste of their first private meeting as adults . . .
I don’t like to play favorites, but I have to admit, Cale Terriot, the strutty, tattooed, rock and roll, bad-boy prince with his scars and attitude, is mine. Give me the thug over a pretty face any day. Keep your Jude Laws and Ryan Goslings. I’ll take the intense and brutish Clive Owens, Jeremy Renners, and Jason Stathams! And there’s something about a tough guy being humbled by the powerful love of one woman that’s hard to resist.
As one of twelve brothers vying for their despot father’s place, there’s only one thing more motivating for Cale than leading his clan away from the old brutish ways of his king, and Cale is willing to do whatever it takes to attain his goal. It’s not the crown he’s after—it’s his childhood love whose family had been branded as traitors to their clan, a gentle female held hostage in a deadly play for power. Kendra Terriot’s only means of survival for herself and her family is to play to a careful courtship game. The one she chooses from their clan’s dangerous heirs will inherit the coveted crown, keeping her their prisoner forever . . . unless she can retain her virtue until rescue arrives. Here’s a taste of their first private meeting as adults . . .
“Did you ever think of me?” he asked at last, his tone quiet.
At one time, she’d dreamed of saying so much to him, but Kendra’s answer was clipped and truthful, “Not in ways that would flatter you.”
He studied her, his emotions masked, then came the surprise of his unfurling smile as he confessed, “Everything I’ve done has been for you, to make you my queen.”
“I trusted you.” She turned away from the sight of him, her eyes flooding with pain as she demanded, “Were you there when my father died?”
“I was,” Cale confessed, then when she shuddered and covered her face with her hands to shut out the horror of what he’d become in her eyes, he added in a tight throated whisper, “but I didn’t agree. I would never hurt you, Kendra.”
“You don’t think my parents dying hurt me?”
“I was eleven years old. . . what was I supposed to do,” he asked, his words vulnerable and searching, “die with them?”
She closed her eyes and saw him clearly standing in the carnage of the MacCreedy living room, a soulless reflection of his own father as he watched her being led past him without a flicker of response, and her answer was a wooden, “Yes.”
With Kendra at his side, Cale knows he can become the kind of ruler his clan needs, but first he must learn how to become the kind of mate she desires by proving he’s not the beast his beauty fears . . . especially once her unrequited love (and his fierce rival) returns to free her. The only way to win her respect could mean surrendering his throne. The only way to win her heart could mean letting her go . . . even if she no longer wants to be saved.
Next week, it’s back to Max Savoie (the returning hero in my WIP) in my first self-pubbed book, REMEMBERED BY MOONLIGHT.
If you have the inclination, jump over to visit me at Paranormal Romantics where I’m talking back to basics in Kicking it Old School.
A 1-degree visit for an oil change certainly got my weekend going! Stay warm, fellow Warriors!
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