Deborah Macgillivray, Author: RavenHawke, Book Two of the Dragons of Challon

RavenHawke
Dragons of Challon ™

Book Two

Lovers in a Dream . . .

. . . Damian St. Giles has awoken with a sore head from too much drink before; only imbibing in Pictish Mead proves to be a different experience. Once he comes to, he finds himself naked and leg-shackled to a bed post, and no idea where he is or how he got there. When the flame-haired beauty comes to him in the moonlight, he hardly knows if she is real, or a fantasy born of his deepest desires.

Be Careful What You Wish For . . .

Lady Aithinne Ogilvie has an urgent need to get with child to protect her lands from the greedy King Edward. So she sends forth her brothers to fetch her a man—one to do the deed. Instead of finding some common serf, they abduct the cousin of the feared Black Dragon—Julian Challon! Now, she has more troubles than she can handle. She knows she must treat this handsome stranger as little more than a stud. Yet, she cannot deny the instant bond between them—one that speaks to her heart.

“Like a bard of old, Macgillivray spins a tale of myth and magic, sexual tension and classic captive/captor romance.” —The Romantic Times

“Deborah Macgillivray enchants romance fans and Medieval enthusiasts alike. As readers, watching this series unfold in the Dragons of Challon and the Ogilvie figures, we see the birth of a Medieval legend being created in today's world.” — Medieval Book Reviews

A scream split the storm-darkened landscape. He turned the corner, hand going to the hilt of his sword. His eyes looked out over the wall trying to see where the call of distress came from. Only silence greeted him. Just as he began to wonder if he dreamt it, the plaintive squeal suddenly rose again.

Only this time, his mind experienced some sort of slippage. He had heard the same screams before. Only when? Where?

One of the guards on regular patrol came around the opposite corner. He nodded in deference. “Good eve, my lord. ’Tis only the Peacocks. Fool birds sound like a woman being strangled.”

Damian finally spied the ridiculous peafowl streaking across the pale after the peahen. As he stood watching, the landscape from this angle evoked a familiar chord within him. The soldier moved on, but Damian paid little heed as he pinpointed how the scenery was different, why this should seem so memorable when he had never seen it before. Feeling as if it were part of a dream, he spun around and looked upward behind him. The North Tower dominated the fortress, a giant sentinel of the glen. Anyone approaching Lyonglen could be easily spotted from up there.

He leaned his hips back against the crenellations, then stretched out his legs, crossing them at the ankles. His right hand rubbed the back of his neck as he contemplated the tower.

Not sure why he felt compelled to it, he pushed off the wall and started into the fortress as lightning cracked, followed by the deep roll of thunder.

His mood almost summoning the storm to break overhead.

Rounding the turn of the first floor, he hesitated at the stairs curving upward. Damian was unsure what drew him. Nothing familiar about the winding staircase. Nothing causing that echo in his memory as the view from outside had. Urgency to see the tower drew him forward, propelled him to take the stairs two at a time.

At the pinnacle he came to a stop, facing the long hallway that ended in the huge black-oak door. Closed. His hand on the latch, he could almost envision the room in his mind’s eye. Without bothering to knock, he shoved it open.

Mixed emotions filled him as he stood, his eyes taking in the richly furnished room. A fire burned lowly in the huge fireplace, with bearskin rugs before it and again on the floor by the bed. The large wood-canopied bed had plaid curtains of red, which were tied back, long drapes nearly covering the heavy, ornate bedposts. A wolf-pelt cover was folded cross the foot of the thick mattress. A bed fit for a king. The sense of disquiet rising, he leaned against the post, trying to isolate images crowding in on his mind. This room seemed so familiar, yet different.

Going to the large fireplace, he plucked a long straw from the broom propped there and lit the tip from the flames of the peat fire. He walked back to the table by bedside, and used the straw on the wick of the candles. Once there was more light, he studied the bed more closely. Her bed.

On impulse he knelt by the foot post, running his fingers over the base. A shiver crawled up his spine as he felt the gashes in the wood. Marks gouged all around the circular post.

“One thing for certain, I am not dreaming these.”