Return Warrior

by Macgregor Kinley

• ISBN13: 9780060565435
• ISBN10: 0060565438
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-10-01
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publications

Summary

Queen Adara of Taagaria is a woman with a mission. She has to find her wayward husband and either return home with him or return home pregnant. If she fails, her beloved country will be overrun by her husband's uncle who seeks to murder them and steal both their thrones. Christian of Acre has no desire to be king of anyone except himself. Nor is he aware that the paper he signed as a boy was a marriage contract and not a betrothal. He spent his childhood first imprisoned in a monastery by his uncle, then later in a Saracen prison. Now that he is free, he wants only to help those in need. The last thing he wants is to be tied to a wife. His allegiance is to the Brotherhood of the Sword, not to an unknown kingdom. But when the beautiful and alluring Adara appears unexepectedly in his room--naked--and informs him that not only is he her husband, but that he must perform his duty by her and give her an heir, Christian can't help but be intrigued by her most tempting proposition...

Excerpts

Return of the Warrior

Chapter One

Withernsea, England

Christian of Acre sat in the aleroom of the town's only inn, finishing his supper in solitude while the rest of the inn's occupants ate and drank noisily around him. It was dark inside, with most of the light coming from the fireplace, on the hearth, where a portly stout woman roastedvenison and pork.

He'd been here for the last four days, waiting for Pagan and Lochlan MacAllister to meet him. The plan was for them to join forces.

They were all on the trail of a friend's murderer who was said to have headed this way with his brothers. If Lysander's killer was anywherenearby, Christian would find him and make him pay for what he had taken from them. And if Lochlan happened to learn anything helpful about his missing brother Kieran MacAllister, then Christian would rejoice even more.

But at the end of the day, the only thing that mattered to him was putting Lysander's soul to rest. The man had been a good one, and as a member of the Brotherhood he had been invaluable. His murdersat ill with all of them. The Brotherhood members hadn't survived hell to return home and be slain over nothing more than sheer meanness.

Drinking the last of his ale, Christian left money on the table, then got up to go to his rented room.

Times like this, he almost hated that he traveled alone. Especially since Nassir and Zenobia were newly departed from his company. They had leftjust the day before, on their way back to Outremer.

But then, Christian had chosen of his own free will to live his life alone.

It was better this way.

He had lived for almost six years sequestered in a monastery cell where the brothers forbade any chatter at all. They had used their hands to speakto each other. Never their mouths. So silence and solitude were nothing new to him.

After living with the monks, Christian had spent another six years imprisoned in the squalid twenty-foot cell of his enemies. He had no desire to ever again be chained down by anyone or anything.

For the first time in his life he was free, and he fully intended to stay that way.

If solitude and loneliness were the price of his freedom, so be it. It was only a trifle compared to the blood and bone he'd paid for far lesser things.

Christian reached his room at the end of the hallway and pushed open the door. He pulled up short as he caught sight of the lone figure waitingthere beside a small table where an oil lamp flickered brightly.

Slight of stature, the unknown person was robed in a long black cloak that gave him no indication of gender or nationality.

"Did you perchance enter the wrong room?" he asked, thinking maybe it was another traveler who had lost his way.

The figure turned toward him.

"That depends," she said, her voice smooth and erotic, and tinged with an accent he couldn't place. "Are you Christian of Acre?"

He stiffened at the question, especially since he had recently come from Hexham, where assassins looking for him and his brothers-in-arms hadabounded.

And some of those assassins had been female ...

"Who seeks him?"

The woman moved forward and boldly pulled at the thin gold chain around Christian's neck where his mother's royal emblem had rested sincethe hour of his birth. She turned it over to see on the back another engraving of a crest of a kingdom he'd only visited once as a small child.

"Aye," she said, letting it fall back to his chest on the outside of his black monk's robes. "You are indeed the one I seek."

"And you are?"

Her elegant hands came out of the dark folds of her cloak to unclasp the catch. Before he could even draw a breath, she let the whole of it fall tothe floor with a rush of wind and a heavy thud.

Christian's jaw went slack as he saw her standing there with not a single stitch adorning her dark beauty. Long black hair cascaded over her shoulders, obscuring her breasts as the ends of it tickled the dark triangle at the juncture of her thighs.

She was beautiful and his body reacted wildly to her brash nudity.

"Who am I?" she asked in that wickedly erotic voice. "I'm your wife and I'm here to claim you."

Completely stunned by the unexpected words, Christian felt his jaw go slack as she reached for him.

He stepped back immediately. "I beg your pardon. I have no wife."

She stared up at him with dark soulful eyes from under her long black lashes. "How I wish it true, but alas, my lord, you most certainly do, andI have no intention of leaving your side."

Christian forced himself to close his gaping mouth. 'Twas obvious the woman was mad. He retrieved her cloak from the floor and quickly wrapped it around her nude body, even though part of him screamed out that he was an utter fool to turn her away.

How often did a man find a woman like this offering herself to him in such a bold manner?

It definitely wasn't often enough.

"My lady, you ap -- "

"Adara," she said, interrupting him. "Remember me now?"

Christian opened his mouth to deny it, but before he could, an image went through his mind of a young girl from his childhood. All he rememberedof her were two large brown eyes that had reminded him of a gentle fawn as they studied him with great curiosity. She'd been shy and quiet, certainly not the type who as a woman would bare herself to a complete stranger.

Return of the Warrior. Copyright © by Kinley MacGregor. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

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Excerpted from Return of the Warrior by Kinley MacGregor
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.