Dark Sword #1
St. Martin's Press
January 2010
On Sale: December 29, 2009
Featuring: Lucan MacLeod; Cara Sinclair
352 pages ISBN: 0312381220 EAN: 9780312381226 Mass Market Paperback Add to Wish List
Lucan and his brothers were dangerous. Not to themselves,
but to everyone else. There was great evil out there, and it
wanted to use them.
Three hundred years of confinement in the castle. But what
else was there? They couldn’t be seen, not as they were, the
monsters they had become. As the middle son, he had always
been there to make peace for his brothers. A rock, solid and
steady to keep them all together his mother had called him.
He didn’t allow himself to think what was becoming of him
and his soul.
Fallon had taken the role as heir to the clan seriously.
Everything he did, everything he thought about was their
clan. He hadn’t known what to do with himself when there was
no clan, and with the beast constantly hammering for control
and no way to reverse what had happened, he turned to the wine.
As for Quinn, they had nearly lost him to the beast. Lucan
snorted. Beast seemed such an understated name. There was no
monster inside them. It was a primeval god banished to the
pits of Hell. Apodatoo, the god of Revenge, was housed
within each of the MacLeod brothers. A god so ancient, there
were no records or tellings of him. And he was far worse
than any beast.
Whenever this despondent mood struck him, as if often did
when it rained, Lucan took himself off to his chamber away
from his brothers. They had their own worries. They didn’t
need to see him grappling with his inner demons. He could
wallow in his self-pity the rest of the day if he allowed
himself. But he couldn’t. His brothers needed him.
He took a deep breath and started to turn away from the
window when he something caught his eye. Lucan’s gaze
narrowed as he spotted a breathtaking vision. It was a
woman, a very young, shapely woman who had dared to come
close enough to the castle that he could see the comeliness
of her face heart-shaped face. He wished he could see the
color of her eyes, but it was enough that he saw her full
lips that begged to be kissed and her high cheek bones that
turned pink in the wind.
And the thick, dark braid that hung down her back to her
waist. What he wouldn’t do to see that hair unbound and
falling about her shoulders. He fisted his hands and he
imagined running his fingers through the tresses.
Her gown was plain and worn, but they didn’t disguise her
small waist and rounded breasts. She moved with a freedom of
one who enjoyed being outdoors, of one who reveled in the
beauty around her. The gentle curving of her lips as she
looked out at the sea tugged at something inside him. As if
she wanted the freedom to fly on the wind currents.
She picked the mushrooms with care, her fingers tender as
she placed them in the basket. When she stared at the
castle, she had looked as if it pained her, as if she had
known what had taken place.
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