The Red Lion
The Highland Warriors of Munro #1
By: Kathryn Le Veque
Genre: Medieval Romance
Release Date: October 3rd, 2016
Publisher: Dragonblade Publishing
Blurb:
1288 A.D. - Sir Jamison Munro is a Highland
warrior known as The Red Lion. Big and burly, with a crown of wavy red hair, as
the son of the chief of Clan Munro, Jamison's path in life was more
unconventional than those of his clansmen. His father is a progressive thinker,
knowing that in order to survive his clan must become allied with the English.
When Jamison is involved in an offense against a neighboring clan, George Munro
has no choice but to send his greatest son south into England to protect him.
Jamison finds himself serving the House of
de Lohr, old allies of his father. When the call goes out to defend a de Lohr garrison against a Welsh attack, Jamison rides to the siege
and finds himself caught up in a nasty battle. With the gatehouse breached, he
charges in to defend the occupants only to be attacked by one occupant in
particular. What he first believes to be a small and slender knight, he soon
finds out differently. He is met with ferocity by a skilled lady warrior.
Lady Havilland de Llion is the daughter of
the lord of Four Crosses Castle. Part-Welsh, her family is nonetheless loyal to
the English and to de Lohr. When she sees the big Scotsman, she assumes he is
siding with the Welsh and goes after him with a vengeance. Even upon
discovering his loyalties, she doesn't believe him and their fight goes on long
after the battle itself is finished. But soon enough, the contention between
them turns to something else.
Politics, battles, loyalties, and roaring
passions play out in a story of high emotion and high adventure. To the big
Scots knight known as The Red Lion, nearly everything in his life has come at a
price, but in the battle for Havilland's affections, there is no price too high
that he will not pay.
*
EXCERPT
The portcullises began to grind open,
chains groaning under the substantial weight. Jamison was in the process of
calling his men back to the walls when he caught movement out of the corner of
his eye. By the time he turned around, he caught the glint of a blade and
something moving very quickly down near the ground. It took him a moment to
realize the woman had slid underneath the lifting portcullises and was very
close to him with a sword in her hand. He barely had a chance to jump back as
she took a very swift strike at his head.
Jamison couldn’t believe it. She’d actually
come quite close to his face with the swing of that blade and he instantly
unsheathed his broadsword, a weapon that was far bigger than hers. But she was
fast, this one, and she was angry, which made her both determined and slightly
reckless. As the de Lohr troops watched with some amusement and, truthfully,
some horror, the woman charged Jamison with her small but well-made sword. When
he lifted his weapon to fend off her attack, she fell to her knees, sliding in
the mud with her momentum, and brought her sword up underneath him. Only
Jamison’s lightning-fast reflexes prevented her from making contact with his
ankles.
It was actually an impressive tactic; she
had been aiming for his Achilles’ heel. When Jamison realized that she was
genuinely trying to hurt him, he took the offensive. He had little choice
unless he was prepared to willingly submit to her aggression. The woman was
just regaining her feet as he came down upon her, hard, in a broadsword stroke
that would have been difficult for a strong man to handle much less a woman.
She lifted her sword, preventing he blow from cutting through her midsection,
but the power behind the strike was much more forceful than anything she had
ever experienced. The blow sent her onto her back and she had to roll out of
the way, quick as a flash, to prevent him from seriously injuring her when he
brought down a second strike.
Unfortunately for the woman, Jamison didn’t
give her time to recover. If she was going to try to hurt him, then he was
going to disable her before she had the chance. So he went after her in full
battle mode, preventing her from gaining her footing, watching her as she
rolled and crawled through the mud, now struggling to avoid his blade.
But avoid she did, at least for a few
minutes as he clearly tried to kill her, but that grace period soon ended. At
one point, the woman’s hair became untangled from her mail and as she tried to
get away from Jamison, her braid dragged in the mud. Jamison seized on the
opportunity and stepped on her hair, bringing her to an instant halt as she
screamed in pain. Reaching down a massive hand, he grabbed her by the hair on
her scalp, yanking her head back as he brought the sword down, aiming it right
for her neck. He stopped short of cutting her head off, however, as the blade
rested on her pale, dirty skin.
The fight was over as swiftly as it had
begun. Jamison stared down into her face, seeing that her eyes were a deep
shade of green, with long dark lashes all around. Her beauty was without
compare but he refused to think such thoughts of this woman who had tried to
hurt him. He glared at her, his jaw flexing furiously.
“Now,” he growled, “ye attacked me and
failed. Tell me why I shouldna end yer life right now.”
The woman was breathing heavily but, to her
credit, there was no fear in her eyes. She gazed back at him with defiance. “I
cannot give you a reason,” she said, her voice hoarse because he had her head
pulled back so far and there was a strain on her neck. “Do as you must.”
Jamison didn’t want to kill her; he really
didn’t. He was just trying to scare her because she had been bold and reckless.
But he was coming to think that she couldn’t be scared. He could see it in her
expression, in everything about her. She was brave, this one. A seedling of
respect grew.
“Do ye want tae die, then?” he asked.
Something in her eyes flickered, a whisper
of fear, perhaps. “Of course not,” she said. “But I lost the fight. It is your
right to do to me as you will.”
His red eyebrows drew together; he couldn’t
help it. “How would ye know about the rules of engagement?” he asked.
“Moreover, why do ye dress as a warrior? Does yer husband allow such things?”
She swallowed, hard. “I am not married.”
“Then yer father allows this?”
She didn’t respond right away, trying to
lower her gaze but unable to for the way he was holding her. “My father has no
say in what I do,” she said. “This is my home. I defend it as necessary, any
way I deem necessary.”
Jamison was feeling some exasperation. “I
told ye I am with de Lohr,” he said. “I am here tae help ye. Do ye not
understand that, lass?”
Something in her eyes flared as she looked
at him. “Do not call me a lass!”
“I would call ye by yer name but I dunna
know it.”
“And I’ll not tell you.”
He cocked his head. “Ye have an unruly
mouth in the face of a man holding a sword tae yer neck,” he said. “Are ye
truly so foolish? For certain, that is all I have seen from ye since the
beginning.”
She sighed, the frown returning to her
features. “If you are going to kill me, then get on with it.”
Jamison stared at her a moment longer.
Then, he swiftly removed his sword and dropped it to the earth. Before the
woman could utter a word of protest, he went down on one knee and, still
holding on to her hair, put her straight across his thigh. Letting go of her
hair, he held her down with that arm across her back as the other arm extended
and, without hesitation, proceeded to spank her. His big hand against her
backside resounded off of the stone walls. The woman began to howl.
“Beast!” she screamed, fighting and
twisting. “How dare you take a hand to me! You will be punished for this –
ouch!”
Jamison whaled on her buttocks, through the
mail coat and through the breeches she was wearing. It probably hurt his hand
more than it hurt her backside, but that wasn’t the point. She was terribly
mannered and it was clear no one had ever disciplined her. He was, therefore,
pleased to be the first. It gave him a fiendish satisfaction to do so. He
whacked her a few more times before pushing her off his knee, straight into the
mud.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
KATHRYN LE VEQUE is a USA TODAY Bestselling
author, an Amazon All-Star author, and a #1 bestselling, award-winning,
multi-published author in Medieval Historical Romance and Historical Fiction.
She has been featured in the NEW YORK TIMES and on USA TODAY's HEA blog. In
March 2015, Kathryn was the featured cover story for the March issue of
InD'Tale Magazine, the premier Indie author magazine. She is also quintuple
nominee (a record!) for the prestigious RONE awards for 2016.
Kathryn's Medieval Romance novels have been
called 'detailed', 'highly romantic', and 'character-rich'. She crafts great
adventures of love, battles, passion, and romance in the High Middle Ages. More
than that, she writes for both women AND men - an unusual crossover for a
romance author - and Kathryn has many male readers who enjoy her stories
because of the male perspective, the action, and the adventure.
On October 29, 2015, Amazon launched
Kathryn's Kindle Worlds Fan Fiction site WORLD OF DE WOLFE PACK. Please visit
Kindle Worlds for Kathryn Le Veque's World of de Wolfe Pack and find many
action-packed adventures written by some of the top authors in their genre
using Kathryn's characters from the de Wolfe Pack series. As Kindle World's
FIRST Historical Romance fan fiction world, Kathryn Le Veque's World of de
Wolfe Pack will contain all of the great story-telling you have come to expect.
Kathryn loves to hear from her readers.
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