The Pandora Curse (Greek Myth Series Book 4) (26 page)
Read The Pandora Curse (Greek Myth Series Book 4) Online
Authors: Elizabeth Rose
I hope you enjoyed Vara and Nikolai’s story. I’d have to say this is probably the favorite of all my Greek myths.
Vara the Conqueror is probably the most challenging heroine I’ve ever created. Like so many of us, she has flaws. But in the process of transformation, Vara is also the most changed character I’ve ever created.
The Furies, as told in the myths, were the voices in a person’s head that taunted them when they killed someone. Of course, in my story there is a little twist. The Furies, instead, are the voices in Vara’s head that make her give in to her vices.
I’d also have to say my favorite side-kick is Baruch. He gives this dark-toned story the comic relief that lets one breathe and laugh.
While
The Pandora Curse
deals with the ugliness and darkness sometimes present within us, it also confronts the power of love and the use of discernment to know when to push those nasty voices away and instead listen to the good ones. I wish you all the best in turning your own personal vices into glorious virtues.
Elizabeth Rose
You may also enjoy some of my other medieval series:
Elemental Series
:
The Dragon and the Dreamwalker
Book 1: Fire
The Duke and the Dryad
Book 2: Earth
The Sword and the Sylph
Book 3: Air
The Sheik and the Siren
Book 4: Water
Or you may want to try
Legacy of the Blade Series:
The books in the
Daughters of the Dagger Series
are:
Book Trailer
Ruby
– Book 1
Sapphire
– Book 2
Amber
– Book 3
Amethyst
– Book 4
This series is followed by my Scottish
Madman MacKeefe
series, with the first book being about the girls’ brother,
Onyx – Book 1
,
who they thought was dead.
Aidan – Book 2
is next,
followed by
Ian – Book 3.
Barons of the Cinque Ports Series
:
The Baron’s Quest
– Book 1
The Baron’s Bounty
– Book 2
The Baron’s Destiny
– Book 3
Tangled Tales Series:
Lady and the Wolf
(Riding Hood)
Just a Kiss
(Frog Prince)
Please be sure to visit my website at
Elizabethrosenovels.com
for more information on this series and to subscribe to my blog in order to receive updates about new releases. You can also read excerpts from any of my novels on my website as well as get sneak peeks at covers of upcoming books. And please remember that there are other authors by the same name, but my novels can be identified by the rose on every cover. Be sure to take a look at my new
book trailer videos
as well. And if you’d like to follow me on twitter, my handle is ElizRoseNovels, and my facebook is Elizabeth Rose – Author (don’t forget the dash.)
I have included some excerpts for your enjoyment. Thanks for your support!
Elizabeth Rose
Excerpt from
The Dragon and the Dreamwalker
:
Brynn spied the nighttime candle next to the bed and brought it to her. She held her hands over the fire to help regain her strength.
She took a moment to focus her vision in the semi-darkened room. Though she feared the man in the shadows, she still had the odd sensation of being comfortable with her surroundings.
She looked up to the velvet draperies that hung from iron rods around the bed. Her heart beat faster and she sat upright, barely breathing at all as she recognized the carved spindles at each corner. Her father had carved these spindles - engraving his love for his wife in the vines and faeries that wrapped around and around, climbing to the top and ending in a moon or star. She knew now why she felt at home. She
was
home. Resting in her parents’ bed.
“No!” she exclaimed, not wanting to believe it was true. She placed the candle on the bedside table. Her eyes shot to the wall looking frantically for her father’s banner - his crest of sword and shield, a mighty arm holding one, a feminine arm the other. But it was no surprise when she found it missing. Instead, a banner with a fierce fire-breathing red and black dragon consumed the spot.
“You act as if you’ve seen a ghost. As if my castle’s dwellings could speak to you.” He still stayed hidden in the shadows.
“Every stone in the walls, every rush on the floor - they cry with anguish for the lives that have been lost here recently. And if you are so bold as to call this your castle, then it can only be you who is responsible for the blood that’s been shed on these grounds.”
“I claim many a triumph of the men I’ve conquered or the fiefs I hold, but I cannot put my mark on the lives lost here. I claim the castle only.”
“’Twas you who killed my parents! ’Twas you who stole my family’s wealth.”
“You’re parents?” he asked, sounding bewildered. As if he didn’t know who she was when he saved her from the dragon only to claim her as his prize.
She grabbed the coverlet from the bed and wrapped it tightly around her, easing herself to the floor and hoping her father’s ivory-handled dagger still lay hidden under the loose floorboard. She would never be the spoils of war. She’d kill him before she lived at the side of the man who murdered her parents.
“I’ve heard it said that the former lord and lady of Thorndale Castle had a daughter. A daughter who befriends fire and has magical powers at her command,” he answered from the darkness.
“And I’ve heard it said that the man who leads the Klarens into battle, killing and ransacking everything in sight is a black-hearted man who gains his power at the hands of others’ misfortunes. His reputation is known throughout the hills of Lornoon. He’s the one mothers warn their daughters about. He’s the one they mention to threaten their children when they’re bad. Yet his name is never spoken aloud, for fear the darkness that possesses this man’s soul may follow his name, striking down dead the one who spoke it.”
It was then he stepped slowly out of the shadows and into the soft light of the fire that flickered from the bedside candle. The glow encompassed him as his dark eyes bore into her. One fist gripped a tankard of ale in front of him. He was tall, handsome, foreboding and carried his body frame straight and proud as he strolled toward her. His chest was bare - wide and sturdy. Every muscled ripple showed in his physique. His arms were huge in a strong sort of way, empowering the rest of his warrior body. And like a warrior, he still carried a weapon though he was half-clothed.
His gaze penetrating, she felt a slight hesitation in his action as he stopped in front of her with his free hand hovering above the sword strapped at his side. Almost as if she’d called him a traitor or insulted him by saying the legends of his name aloud. He was the most dangerous man alive. And she was alone with him in the dark, with only a coverlet between them.
“’Tis true. It is you,” she said barely above a whisper. “I’ve heard of your crest described by the bards. You are Drake of Dunsbard, are you not?”
“You so daringly let my name slip past your noble lips. Aren’t you afraid you’ll drop dead at my feet for such carelessness?”
“I’d welcome death to the alternative of what you’ll do to me.”
“So sure are you that I’m that dangerous?”
“You are a Pendragon!” she cried. “You’re the one they call the
Dragon’s Son
. You are the devil and you’ve come to claim my soul.”
He put the tankard on the bedside table and stared down at her. All the way to her soul. She knew she should look away, but stubbornness made her match his glare. It was said that the son of the dragon could turn one to mere ashes just by fixing his gaze on a person. But it mattered not to her. She had an ally in fire, and his dangerous stare could not harm her. She’d be protected from the fires of hell.
He chuckled softly, his lips turning up into a lopsided grin that only made the indention in the cleft of his chin more pronounced. His ebony eyes sported a glimmer as he seemed to find amusement in her words. Then the glimmer was gone and the danger was back. He took a step closer, so close that she could feel his breath on her face when he spoke, though he did not touch her.
“You’re only partially correct with your legends.”
She didn’t trust him so close to her and knew she needed protection. She needed her father’s dagger, but it was hidden under the floor on the far side of the bed. She scooted away from him, never turning her back to him, and shifted around the foot of the bed.
“I am a Pendragon,” he admitted, “’tis true. And I am the one they call the
Dragon’s Son
. But I am not the devil and I want nothing to do with your soul.”
He made his way toward her, and she darted around the back side of the bed, holding her coverlet tightly in the process.
“I don’t believe you.” From the corner of her eye she looked to the floor, trying to remember which board the dagger was under. Then her toe caught on a loose end and she knew she’d found it.
He took another step toward her, this time with more definition. It was all she needed to see. The look in his eyes said he knew she was about to deceive him. She had to move fast. She dove to the floor, dropping the coverlet that concealed her nudity and tore at the floorboard, groping inside for the weapon.
His boot heels clicked on the floor and stopped in front of her face. She grabbed for the dagger in one final attempt to protect herself from him, but to her horror, she found the hiding place empty. She stiffened when she felt his hand on her arm. Her breathing labored as he pulled her to her feet, her body trembling from his mere presence. He pulled her closer, her hips grazing the flat end of the sword at his waist.
“Looking for this?” Still holding her arm, he raised his other hand and displayed her father’s ivory-handled dagger in the air.
Excerpt from
Ruby
– Book 1,
(Daughter of the Daggers Series)
Lady Ruby de Burgh of Blackpool steadied her lance - the old handle off a worn broom - and rode her mare full force toward the roughly made quintain she’d constructed. Leftover broken lances she’d scavenged off the knight’s practice field were put to good use by her creative abilities. She’d constructed her own quintain of a tall post mounted on a wide base, anchored down with boulders. Atop it sat a crossarm that swiveled when she hit it.
The moist earth flew in all directions as her horse thundered over the ground, bringing her closer to her target. She raised the stick, fastened her sight on the center of the painted red and white broken shield, and pulled her arm back, ready to hit it dead center.
“Ruby!” came her father’s voice from somewhere behind her. It was enough to distract her and cause her to miss her mark. The broom handle smashed into the wooden arm of the quintain instead of the shield, and she lost speed. The sandbag on the opposite side of the crossbar swung around, hitting her in the center of her back.
“Ooomph!” Her breath was forced from her as the sandbag continued its revolution, but not before unseating her from her horse and landing her in the center of a huge mud puddle.
“Lady Ruby, how many times do I have to tell you to stop acting like a man!” Her father, Talbot, Earl of Blackpool, stood just outside the wooden rail of the lists. Beside him stood his steward, Severin, and also a tall handsome man she’d never seen before.
Ruby flipped her muddy, long blond braid over her shoulder and proudly got to her feet in ankle-deep mud.
“Papa, I am not acting like a man.” She smoothed down her crumpled, torn and dirty gown, and tried to sound more mature than her age of twenty years.
“Then what do you call this nonsense? Riding a horse astride and performing feats of knights?”
She knew her father was only upholding his image in front of the other men, as he’d seen her practice her version of jousting many times before and had never reprimanded her. But she’d obviously embarrassed him now at a most inappropriate moment. She knew she should act the ever-obedient daughter of an earl as was proper, but the burning desire within her to act of her own accord made her speak boldly.
“The quintain is an extraordinary device that can quicken one’s reflexes and sharpen the senses. I don’t see why women aren’t allowed to use it too.”
The deep laugh of the man standing next to her father only rattled her nerves. She didn’t see what was so amusing. Being one of four daughters of an earl was hard enough, not to mention eyebrows always lifting because of her attraction to unladylike activities. But she’d spent most her time as a child sneaking away to the armory to look at the weapons, or in the stable coaxing the stablemaster to let her ride the warhorses mounted in a man’s saddle.
She’d even cut short all her hair when she was ten and dressed like a page, joining a hunting party of men off in the woods for days. That, she had to admit was a mistake. Not only had she worried as well as infuriated her father, but she’d learned more about men’s desires and fantasies of coupling with a woman than she ever wanted to know. That alone was enough to scare her into never wanting a man as long as she lived.
Most girls in her position were betrothed at an early age and already married, or even fostered out to help assure alliances with other holdings. With four girls in the family, the ability to supply decent dowries - even for an earl - became quite costly.
By right, one or two of her sisters or even she, should have been sent to a convent. But luckily her father decided against it. He’d never remarried after the death of his wife, and he’d been so heartbroken to have lost her in childbirth as well as his only son, that he wanted to keep his daughters with him as long as possible to help him ease the pain. And he’d made a promise to his wife on her deathbed not to betroth any of his daughters but to allow them to find their own true loves instead. ’Twas certainly an uncommon promise for such a powerful man to make, but then again, there was nothing common about Ruby’s late mother either.
When her mother was alive, she’d seen something special in Ruby, and told her that she had a good heart. She’d also told her she was the strongest of all her sisters and needed to watch over all of them and help protect them as well. Ruby had also always been her father’s favorite child. And because of this, she had never been disciplined with a heavy arm.
Since her mother’s death when Ruby was only five, she tried harder than ever to make her father happy again. She’d promised her mother on her deathbed that she would always be there for her father. And she would keep that promise, and be near her father’s side always, as she never planned on leaving.
“Ruby, come here. I’d like you to meet Lord Nyle Dacre of Sheffield.”
Ruby picked up her soggy skirts and sloshed her mud-soaked slippers across the damp earth till she met her father and his guest at the rail.
“You’re Lord Sheffield?” she asked cocking her head, squinting from the sun breaking through the clouds. The summer breeze blew a loose strand of hair over her face and she swept it away with a muddy finger, leaving her cheek smudged in the process.
“You’re Lady Ruby, first-born daughter of the earl of Blackpool?” he rallied.
“Father, what is the meaning of this?” she asked, feeling a sinking sensation in her chest. Sheffield’s castle was far down south and far from the coast as well. He had to have travelled at least several days in order to get here, so he wasn’t here on a social visit. She was sure that she wasn’t going to like the reason behind his arrival, as she could feel it in her bones that it wasn’t good.
“Surely you’ve heard of Lord Sheffield?” asked Severin, her father’s steward who had a reputation for a wagging tongue. He’d been so quiet, Ruby almost forgot he was there. But if it wasn’t for Severin, she wouldn’t have known all the horror stories about the infamous Lord Sheffield. Severin had been telling her tales of warriors for years - her idea of a good bedtime story. That is, unless she actually had to meet one of the men of these horrific tales. This in itself was a scary feat.
“Yes, I’ve heard of you,” she answered directly to Lord Sheffield, ignoring Severin altogether.
“And what, my lady, have you heard?” Lord Sheffield was chuckling lowly again, his dark arrogant head cocked in amusement. His long oaken hair was well past his shoulders, and the breeze lifted it gently around his sculpted face. His eyes were a dark steel grey, and though he was grinning she couldn’t help but feel the danger that lie beneath his controlled gestures.