Venture on a Mystical Journey through Time and Secrets Past.
Book #5 in the OF WAR Series spans four generations of women in Alena's family from her great-grandmother, Shar Draiocht the last known Queen of the Dark Kingdom to her tortured daughter Morrowind, to Maven Alena's free-spirited mother and through the lonely life of Alena MacLeod ending where "The Heart of War" begins with the night Alena washes up on Ares' shore. With intensity, lust, fear, and strength these Women of War make their way in the world revealing the hidden truths of the past and Ares true connection to his beloved Wife, Alena.
Excerpt
Sitting in the dank cell hour after hour and day after day, time lost all meaning. Not even the rancid food came to him on anything that resembled a steady basis. All Ares knew for sure was that one moment he'd been doing his best to sleep on the tilting cot with his knees hanging over the foot of it when the cell door burst open and a full battalion of the Queen's Guard rushed him. Wrestling him to the ground, they clasped him in chains and dragged him to the center of their little underground village. The whole town gathered to witness, torches, staffs, and readily available throwing items in hand. They hissed at him, cursed him, and tossed their stones while guards led him up to a round platform with a pillar of granite jutting out of the middle. Ares needed no introduction to the structure or to learn its intended purpose, after all he invented the whipping post.
Understanding their intention, Ares fought as mightily as he could with his ankles and wrists bound together. "I'm a GOD! How dare you try to whip me?" he railed as he threw off the guards to deliver double axe handle blows upon them, but they were so damn small and agile that he kept missing them. This infuriated him mostly because he was so large they couldn't help but land their return blows on his half-naked frame. It wasn't long before the Queen's Guards knocked his legs out from under him with a heavy blow of a study staff. Once on his knees, blows landed on his head, shoulders, and jaw. Ares discovered that tiny fists hurt a great deal. Bloody and dazed, they shoved him down on all fours and attached the chains on his wrists to the post.
Looking out at the crowd with seething eyes, he cursed them. "You're going to regret this."
"I think not," replied a soft but stern voice from behind him.
Ares looked back over his shoulder to see Shar Draiocht standing there, whip in hand, ready to dole out the punishment they thought he so rightly deserved. "Unusual for a Queen to get her hands so dirty," he snarled.
"It's a special occasion," she hissed back as she brought the whip forward with a practiced wrist. It licked between his shoulder blades and split open a wide swatch of his olive flesh.
Each time the whip sliced through his perfect flesh, Ares snarled, "You bitch!"
With every crack of the whip the crowd shouted out, "Hazzar!" They raised their staffs in victory.
Queen Shar gave Ares God of War fifty lashes before she dropped it to the floor and took her leave in silence. The guards left him tied to the post, sweating, bleeding and in agony for the next five days.
Nobleman's son, Todd Ramble, returns home after years abroad and finds himself falling in love with his step-sister, who was now a grown woman. Unfortunately their love is brutally challenged by his tyrannical father.
Blending Southern Gothic mystery romance, fantasy, theater, dance, music, and flashes of humor, tells the story of a pair of lovers in two separate time periods who find themselves battling an evil fifty years apart.
