Save the World - Kill the Warrior!

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Former soldier Erik Harrison is a dead man walking. The sole survivor of an ambush, the guilt of losing his friends is crushing. He questions his own sanity, remembering the vision he saw as he was dying –– a battle angel come to collect his friends' souls. 

Valkyrie Brenna Lund doesn't know why she failed in her duty to reap Erik's soul on the battlefield. He deserves his place with the other mighty warriors in Valhalla, and if she wants to return home, she has to kill him. 

There are consequences for betraying the gods. But the closer Brenna and Erik become, the more they both want to risk everything for a future together. If only an immortal hunter weren’t sent to kill them both.

Excerpt:

Freyja spied into your heart and knew you wouldn't be able to do it. She knew even before you did.

It should have been easy to take a tired, weary warrior. Even one like Erik.

The question now was why? This was the second time failing in her duty and she was no closer to finding out why.

She rubbed her face with her palm.

Brenna got to her feet and walked toward the bathroom.

Maybe there was some sort of clue about him, something she could pick up. Her only memory of him before tonight had been almost a year ago and under very different circumstances.

The door was ajar, the water running. She edged close enough to look in.

The breath caught in her throat as she gazed at Erik Harrison, his bare torso gleaming with sweat in the dim light. The shredded remains of his shirt lay on the floor along with his jeans and shoes, kicked to the side in a jumbled heap. He wore only a pair of tight boxer briefs riding low on his hips.

It wasn't like she didn't know what a naked man looked like. Berserkers donned a scrap of bear fur as armor as they charged into battle, racing to a glorious death. Armored knights rode, encased in metal charging onto the battlefield. Soldiers from all times and places sat together in the Halls, fought every day and celebrated all night. She'd seen them all.

Including Erik, in the cage only a few hours ago, facing his opponent and going down to defeat wearing much the same as he had on now.

But this... this was different.

He wasn't perfect, far from it. Erik's chest was dotted with white puckered scars, some the size of nickels and others as short slashes. As he turned she saw his back and other, older marks showing previous battles. Yet it didn't seem to detract from the power coming off him in waves, the silent strength evident with every move, every shift of his body. The muscles were tight and well-defined, not an inch of fat on his frame.

He winced as he pressed a damp cloth to the mottled bruises over his left rib cage. Matty had focused in on that during the fight and it showed. The swollen cut over his eye had stopped bleeding and was already going down but it still warranted a cleaning and a fresh bandage.

She couldn't take her eyes off him. The toned muscles seemed to be calling to her urging her to soothe his distress with her touch, offer to take the pain away somehow. Images flashed through her mind of the couples she'd seen in the shadows of the Great Halls, lovers stealing away for some private time before the never-ending battles started at dawn.

Brenna clenched her fingers, digging her nails into the skin to stay still. A flash of heat between her legs shocked her and she pressed her knees together, cursing in silence.

What is this madness?

***

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From Slave to Leader: Choices Are What Makes Dinah Free

Freedom is never simple.

It's not just a matter of  escaping a tyrannical master, starting over, or even grabbing enough power so that no one can control you. It's also about changing outlooks and seeing that with freedom comes an ever-increasing array of choices, some of which affect other people's lives.

In Dinah of Seneca, my heroine is Dinah. She's a former Roman slave trained as a spy and assassin, and has traveled to a new world across the ocean to start a new life.

But she finds out her bonds aren't easily shed. She's still constrained by Roman society and set at the lower rung. She's also under obligation to the man who freed her, Roman Commander Tabor, and owes him allegiance, even if it means sacrificing herself.

What I loved about writing Dinah's journey is that she moves from seeing freedom as moving up the rungs of Roman society to finding true freedom by breaking from Roman society altogether.

At one point in the story, Dinah feels as if she's been trapped in figurative chains as her new circumstances, including a marriage of convenience to a former enemy, make her feel boxed in and helpless. Tabor points out to her that she still has choices, if she's willing to take on the consequences of those choices.

Tabor says Dinah could run and abandon them all. She could break from her new marriage and leave her new husband and his people vulnerable to destruction. Such a choice will also mean the end of the Roman community as well.

But she could survive fine on her own. It's her choice, Tabor says, to stay and try to help or leave and serve only herself.

Tabor's words changes Dinah's perspective. He's right. She could run or stay. Her choice.  And when she stays with her new husband, and finally agrees to participate in a religious ritual that requires a sexual sacrifice, she knows she's not boxed in.

She can run. She simply chooses not to.

And having decided that, she feels free, even with the burdens and obligations she has to assume on behalf of her husband and his people. Even when all seems lost, even when she's injured and all she tried to protect seems destroyed, it's worth it to her.

She's free.

Of course, Dinah receives some <g> compensation for her marriage of convenience. She receives the home she's always longed for, a position of respect and authority and the absolute, unswerving allegiance of her warrior Viking husband.

It's not the position in Roman society she dreamed about when she was freed by Tabor.

It's better.

Curiosity Made an Author

I’m insatiably curious. Before the advent of cable TV and the internet that character trait got me into all kinds of trouble because reading the books available to me (including the encyclopedia) wasn’t enough. I used to try and get into people’s business. I wanted to know everything and sometimes the only way to understand was to boldly go where most others had sense not to venture. Now people reveal the most intimate details online, even stuff I’d hesitate to talk to my husband about.

Yeah. The interwebs is my friend. It provides me with more fodder than I could ever use. My ‘favorites’ folder is filled with sites that provide obscure information about a huge variety of subjects but, strangely enough, I rarely turn to it for inspiration. Instead, it’s actually a by-product of roaming the internet researching an idea, hoping to find something to fill it out. The inspiration itself comes from that basic part of my character, which hasn’t changed with age—I’m still horribly curious.

I’ll hear a passing comment on the bus, see a picture on TV, read an article in the newspaper or online, and something in my brain goes, “TWANG! What was that???” It can be one little thing, one little detail, and I’m all over it like a cheap suit. Richard the Lionheart spent very little of his reign in England. Remains of red-haired Caucasians were found in ancient Chinese tombs. Vikings blanketed the known world during their heyday. The ancient Romans had dildos. Ballroom floors were chalked, sometimes with elaborate murals done by talented artists, before balls.

Any tiny snippet of information can set me off and the next thing I know, I’m researching and then weaving a story—usually either in the shower or in bed, as I drift to sleep. Often the storyline starts with, “Suppose…” or “What if…”. Sometimes the evolving story doesn’t even include the piece of information I started out with, but without that kernel, that catalyst, the story wouldn’t have come into being at all.

So, if we happen to meet in person and are talking, and I suddenly look as though I’m in a trance, you’ve probably said something to get my twisty, turny brain whirling. But don’t worry, I change all the names in my stories to protect both the innocent and the guilty! J