Golden Surrender

by GRAHAM, HEATHER

• ISBN13: 9780440129738
• ISBN10: 0440129737
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1993-09-01
• Publisher: Dell

Summary

TWO BOLD WARRIORS, TWO PROUD LANDS, UNITED BY PASSIONAND REVENGE. . . . PRINCE OLAF OF NORWAYLord of the Wolves, the golden Viking warrior who came in his dragon ship to forge a great kingdom in the Emerald Isle. PRINCESS ERINDaughter of the Irish High King, the ebony-haired beauty who swore bitter vengeance on the legendary Norseman who had brought death and destruction to her beloved homeland. Yet, in the great Norse and Irish alliance against the invading Danes, it was her own father who gave her in marriage to her most hated enemy. Bewitched by Olaf's massive strength, seduced by his power, still Erin vowed that neither the wrath of his sword nor the fire of his kiss would sway the allegiance of her proud and passionate heart.

Author Biography

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Heather Graham has written over one hundred novels and novellas including category, romantic suspense, historical romance, and paranormal. Married since high school graduation and the mother of five, her greatest love in life remains her family, but she also believes her career has been an incredible gift. Romance Writers of America presented Heather with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003.

Excerpts

Chapter One


A.D. 852

From a window in the Grianan, the women's sun house, Erin mac Aed stared out upon the graceful wooden buildings and rolling slopes of Tara, the ancient and traditional home of the Ard-Righ, or High King of the Irish. Not long ago the meeting in the great banqueting hall had ended, and her mother had been called from the Grianan by her father. Since then Erin had kept her vigil by the window, for she desperately wanted to seek out her father.

She chewed upon her lower lip as she waited impatiently to see her parents return from their walk. It was a beautiful scene she stared upon. The verdant green grass dazzled beneath the sun until it appeared as a field of glistening emeralds, and in the distance the little brook that rounded the southernmost dun took on the hue of sapphires. Geese ambled about the brook, and cows and horses grazed lazily upon the hills.

Yet today Erin could not focus on the beauty and peace spread before her. She stared upon the grass and sky feeling as if the world spun. She could not help being haunted by memories. Visions of the past took precedence over reality, and although she swallowed furiously and blinked, the memories remained of fire, of blood, and the trample of horses' hooves that was like a thunderous beat. . . .

Mist seemed to settle over the sunblaze of the golden afternoon, and she saw herself too clearly, two years past, as she sat with her aunt, Bridget of Clonntairth, in the garden. Bridget, sweet, beautiful Bridget, had been laughing so gaily. But then the alarm had come and Bridget had forced Erin to flee. Erin had turned back in time to see Bridget burying her small pearl-handled dagger deep into her own heart in terror of the Norsemen coming. Then high-pitched screams had risen and risen to vie with the terrible drum-beat of the Norsemen's horses as they bore down upon her uncle's kingdom of Clonntairth.

Even now Erin could hear the bloodcurdling war cries of the Norsemen, the shrill wailing of the unprepared Irish. Even now she could smell the fire, hear the earth itself tremble with thunder. . . .

Erin blinked and forced herself to dispel the image. She drew in a deep breath and exhaled shakily, her excitement suddenly growing as she saw that her parents were at long last returning from the copse by the brook. She had sat with her eyes unwaveringly fixed on those trees since Maeve had been summoned, her fingers pulling knots in the threads of the robe she mended. In the two years since Clonntairth, she had tried to settle into living again. She had tried to enjoy being a princess of Tara, and she had tried very hard to convince her father and gentle mother that she had been able to put Clonntairth in the past, but she had never fogotten, and she never, never would.

She knew that today the kings and princes of Eire met to discuss their stand in the coming battle between the Danes and the Norwegians. And though she hated the Danes, she despised the Norwegians–and one in particular: Olaf the White.

Just thinking his name made her palms grow damp, her body flush and tremble with fury and loathing.

Erin desperately wanted to know if the Irish chiefs who had debated all morning in the great banqueting hall would take a side; if they did, she prayed that they would not decide the Norwegians were the lesser of two evils.

"If you paid attention to your work, sister," Gwynn said sourly, interrupting her vigil, "your stitches would be small and neat. You should bring your head in from the window anyway. It hardly befits a princess to stare out with the ill-concealed nosiness of a farm wife!"

Erin started and drew her gaze from the window to glance at her older sister with a sigh of resignation. Gwynn had been picking at her all day, but Erin could feel no rancor in return. She knew that Gwynn was terribly unhappy.

Her marriage had been a dynastic

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Excerpted from Golden Surrender by Heather Graham
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