Braving
Fate
The
Mythean Arcana
Book
1
Linsey
Hall
ASIN: B00O27QLAU
Word Count: 80K
Book Description:
As
chaos looms, a warrior queen is reborn
Bookish academic Diana
Laughton has been having terrible dreams. Dreams of battle, dreams of blood...
dreams so vivid she's living them day and night. When demons invade her quiet
life, she wonders if she's going mad. Or if perhaps she's remembering a past
life she had no idea existed...
In
the midst of betrayal, he must protect her
Mythean Guardian Cadan
Trinovante loved and betrayed Britain's warrior queen Boudica two millennia
ago. Now he's tasked with protecting mortals whose lives affect the fate of
humanity. His latest assignment is Boudica herself, reincarnated as a woman
with no idea of her past or her fated future. Though in the irresistible form
of Diana Laughton, it's possible Cadan has once again met his match...
To
succumb to seduction could prove fatal
Thrown together in a
shadowy world that exists alongside our own, Diana and Cadan must fight not
only the demonic forces that want Diana dead, but a past and a passion that
have lasted centuries. Their desire could be deadly. But as evil from the
underworld unites against them, their only hope could be each other.
Available at Amazon
Book 2 Soulceress
and
Book 3 Rogue Soul
Also Available on Amazon
Excerpt Prologue
Central
England, AD 60, eve of the Roman conquest of Britain
The
woman he loved lay dying in his arms. Blood spilled over her breast, trickling
from the dagger she’d sunk into her chest. Drops of blood hitting the dirt
floor of the stone roundhouse echoed hollowly in his ears, amplified by the
dawning knowledge of what he’d done. What she’d done. What they’d done.
“Why,
Boudica?” His heart and voice were breaking. “Why do this?”
She
shuddered in his arms, her broken body cold and fragile with looming death, but
no less fierce than when she’d fought on the field of battle the previous dawn.
She was their warrior queen, the force that had drawn thousands of British
Celts together to revolt against Roman occupation, and he her top general.
She
was his love. The one bright spot in the miserable spectacle of blood and death
his life had become.
Boudica
drew a harsh breath that rattled in her wounded chest and glared at him, her
eyes alight with hatred.
“Why?”
It was clear she would have screamed it if she could. Another faltering breath.
“After your betrayal, you ask me why?”
“Betrayal?
I did it for you.”
Her
bitter laugh died on a cough. “I thought you knew me. I was wrong. You only
know what you think me to be. I’m a warrior, the leader and symbol of our
beaten land. I led my people in battle for our lives, our homes, our freedom.”
She paused to catch her breath. “But we’ve lost. Irreparably.”
His
jaw clenched, his chest aching with the weight of their past and his future.
For she would die this night, her future forever erased. Because of him. Because
he hadn’t been able to protect her. As he hadn’t protected his village and
family before he’d joined her.
“The
Roman dogs are at our door.” She coughed. “My daughters dead at their hands.
Our lands stolen. Why would I live when capture is inevitable and my very life
will be used as leverage? My head will be on a pike in Rome before summer’s
end. More likely, they’ll use me against our people.” She raked him with a
scathing glance and coughed again. Blood marred her colorless lips. “What would
you do, O great warrior?”
“The
same.” His throat burned. Capture was inevitable. And unbearable. Now,
with the final battle lost and thousands of their families and allies dying in
the fields around them, the fate that awaited her at the hands of the Romans
would be worse than death, not only for her, but very likely for her people as
well.
He’d
tried to save her from this, but she hadn’t let him. He would have committed
any deed, no matter how terrible, to save the woman who’d changed his life when
he’d met her a year ago. But Boudica was a warrior first, his woman second. And
she would die believing he had betrayed her.
She
coughed, her pallor more pronounced. “And yet you would deny me my honorable
death?”
“I
love you. I’d do anything to save you.”
“And
I thought I loved you,” she whispered. And as her eyes closed, the enormous
life force that had propelled Boudica, Celtic Queen of the Iceni, evaporated.
The
crushing weight of grief squeezed the breath out of his lungs. Collapsing over
her, the black night swallowed his roar of pain. He would have vengeance.
Chapter 1
Cadan
Trinovante jerked awake, the sheets tangled in his fists. He ignored the
vibrating phone that had awakened him from the nightmare and stared at the wide
wooden rafters supporting the ceiling above him, struggling to catch his
breath. Of all the memories that had faded in his two thousand years of life,
the memory of Boudica’s death was the one that never had.
Guilt
tugged at him and he reached for the phone.
“Cadan,”
he said as he glanced at the clock on the bedside table. The gleam of
Edinburgh’s streetlights shone on hands pointing toward one a.m. The yells of
revelers stumbling from pub to pub filtered in through the open window.
“Cadan,
it’s Warren.”
Cadan
merely grunted in response and walked to the window. He listened with half an
ear as he stared out at the gothic spires of Edinburgh’s churches and the
soot-blackened stone of the surrounding buildings. They rose tall and narrow,
pressed cheek by jowl on either side of the sloping cobblestones of the city’s
oldest street. Cadan shut out the cool night air and the sound of fading
revelry.
“You’ve
a new assignment,” Warren said. “Can you be here in an hour?”
Finally. He needed something to keep
his mind off the past. The damn dreams had been hounding him more often lately
and he was ready to forget, to slip back into work.
“Aye,
I’ll see you by two,” he said.
Damn
it. He could still hear the revelers below. Living for so long was wearying,
but listening to others take such joy in life was just salt in the wound.
In less than an hour, he strode through
the great iron-sheathed wooden doors of a building on the campus of the
Immortal University. The eyes of the eerie stone gargoyles who guarded the
entrance followed him as he entered the cool halls of the Praesidium, named
over a thousand years ago when Latin was still the language of education.
Fucking Latin. Fucking Romans.
He dragged a hand through his hair. The
short drive to the outskirts of Edinburgh where the university was located
hadn’t fully banished his dreams.
His
footsteps were soundless on the marble floor of the wide, familiar hallway. It
was a habit he’d never broken, though there was no need for stealth here.
Terrible, unforgivable things happened when you let your guard down. But this
was the safest place for a Mythean in Edinburgh since it was hidden from the
prying eyes of mortals, who shouldn’t know of the existence of the supernatural
beings who walked among them.
He
pushed open the old oak door at the end of the hall and entered his friend’s
office, a book-filled room lit by a small fire that smelled of autumn. Warren
looked up from his cluttered desk and leaned back in his chair.
“Cadan,
thanks for coming in so early.”
“No’ a problem,” Cadan said. He sank into
an old leather chair across from Warren’s desk. “Who’s it this time?”
As one of the few Mythean Guardians in
the world, it had been Cadan’s responsibility for nearly two millennia to
protect those mortal or supernatural beings deemed important to the fate of
humanity.
Warren
glanced down at a rumpled piece of paper. “Looks like a Celtic warrior.”
Interesting—a
man who’d been alive for as long as he. “Why’s the bloke need protecting if
he’s made it this long? Destiny just revealed to him?”
And
why haven’t I met him before? Though he didn’t get out much, Cadan knew, or knew of,
nearly all the Mytheans in Great Britain. The ones who hadn’t gone rogue, at
least.
“Well,
that’s where it gets a little strange. The warrior hasn’t been alive. The soul
has just been reborn.”
“A
reincarnate? They’re damn rare. Doona think I’ve ever actually met one.”
“It
doesn’t happen very often,” Warren said, picking up the Slinky on his desk and
fiddling with it.
Why
wouldn’t Warren meet his eyes? The claws of nerves crawled up Cadan’s back,
little pinpricks sinking into his skin that wouldn’t shake loose. It took him
off guard; he hadn’t felt that in centuries.
“I’ve
spoken briefly to Aerten about it.” Warren finally glanced at him, but looked
away almost immediately.
Shite.
“What
does the goddess of fate have to say about it?” He hadn’t seen her in ages.
Hell, he’d only seen her a few times since she’d offered him a spot in the
Praesidium. Whether he should thank her or curse her was something he hadn’t
figured out yet.
“That
only select souls are reborn. Those who were so strong in life that their souls
never left this plane.” Warren set the Slinky down. “Their souls wait in stasis
until humanity needs them. At that point, they’re brought back to perform a
task that only they can accomplish.”
“So,
I’m going to be protecting a child who will save the world?” A cold sweat broke
out on his skin. Killing and guarding adults—no’ a problem. But dealing with
children was something he was entirely unqualified for after being alone for
two thousand years. Fuck, what a mess.
“No’
exactly,” Warren hedged. “Apparently with Druidic reincarnation, the soul is
reborn in another person, but the person doesn’t become conscious of their
previous life until they reach the approximate age at which they died
originally.”
“Shite,
they develop split personalities?”
“Ah,
no’ exactly.” He paused, seemingly unaware that he’d grabbed the Slinky again
and was juggling it faster and faster. “They doona survive that long. Once they
remember who they are and complete their fated task, they die.”
“Die?
That’s some shite luck.”
“Aye.
The tragedy that took the soul too early the first time follows it. History is
destined to repeat itself, after all. You need to protect the reincarnate until
the fated task is complete, longer if you can.”
That
would be a challenge, but then, he liked a challenge. “Do we know what this
guy’s task will be, once he regains his memory? And where is he, anyway?”
“Doona
know the task, but Aerten has prophesied that a catalyzing event will spur the
memory of the reincarnate and lead them to Arthur’s Seat, likely today or
tomorrow. That’s where you’ll meet.” Warren hesitated before continuing,
finally meeting Cadan’s eyes. “And the warrior isn’t a man.”
Cadan’s
breath stuck in his throat and a chill broke out on his skin. Nay, it couldn’t
be. “Who is it, Warren?”
“It’s
Boudica.”
About
the Author:
Linsey Hall is the
author of the Mythean Arcana, a sexy paranormal romance series. Before becoming
a romance novelist, Linsey was an underwater archaeologist who studied
shipwrecks in all kinds of water, from the tropics to muddy rivers (and she has
a distinct preference for one over the other). Her books draw upon her love of
history, travel, and the paranormal elements that she can't help but include.
Several of her books may
or may not feature her cats.
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