by Tessa Murran
‘So soon?’
‘Aye, wife, I am not as practised as I once was. I need to hone my skills on you.’
‘Your skills?’ she said, laughing.
‘Aye, stop wriggling so I can settle myself and get comfortable.'
He tried to kiss her again, but she was laughing too much.
‘Stop laughing, or you will unman me, Giselle.’
Her hand moved downwards and took hold of him. ‘I don’t think that is possible, Lyall Buchanan.’
He stopped and just stared at her, the blue eyes full of love and genuine happiness, the red hair like a fiery, silk river under his hands, her long pale legs wrapped around him. He found he did not have any words, but she did.
‘I love you, Lyall, so very much. Everything will be alright now, won’t it?’
‘Aye lass, it will.’ He put his head into her neck so she would not see his tears of happiness and relief. ‘Now, where was I?’ he whispered into her ear.
He had Giselle back, all of her, and although winter held the land outside in its iron grip, Lyall felt a future stretching before him, as bright and warm as the coming spring.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tessa Murran grew up in a mining community in the United Kingdom but currently lives a sun-soaked life of golden beaches and blue skies, with a husband, a daughter and a fat, greedy dog, at the edge of the Australian bush.
When her dark Celtic soul whispers to her of rain-lashed moors, wind-swept peaks and forbidding castles, she loves to conjure up dark-hearted romances. Tessa writes high- stakes love stories that live up to her motto of ‘wild and passionate historical romance.’ Tessa enjoys creating fierce heroes with a fire in their belly, and strong-willed, compelling heroines, and setting them on a rocky path to enduring love.
A keen reader of romance fiction since her teens, she also has a passion for the past and delights in creating stories set in a world of intrigue and conflict, at the turning points of history.
Tessa sincerely hopes you enjoy The Highlander’s War Prize.
To find out more about the Highland Warlords Series, and all of Tessa’s books, check out www.tessamurran.com or Twitter @tessamurran.
ALSO BY TESSA MURRAN
THE HIGHLAND WARLORDS SERIES
The Laird’s Bastard Daughter - Book 1 © 2019 Tessa Murran
Forced to choose between love and vengeance.
1314, and Scotland is facing a mortal struggle for independence against English tyranny. Stirling Castle is under siege by the Scots, and the English are coming to take it back.
Cormac Buchanan is over six foot of muscle and ferocity, a supreme warrior who has spent years fighting for Robert the Bruce, self-proclaimed King of Scotland. Cormac is battling not only the English invaders but also his clan’s sworn enemy, the Gowans. Having long since built a wall of ice around his heart, he is horrified at his king’s command to bury old enmities and unite with Clan Gowan, through marriage.
Cormac expects his bride to hate him, and he intends to put her aside and forget about her. What he does not expect, is Ravenna Gowan, a bastard, half low-born and fiercely defiant. He just wants her to obey, in bed and out of it, but with looks that would stir any man’s blood, this strange, hard girl wakes a savage need in him. Shame he can’t trust her, nor can he ever look favourably on any Gowan, after what they took from him.
Banished to a convent for the sin of forbidden love, Ravenna Gowan’s life seems over, until an English army heads north and her father has to sacrifice a daughter to the cause of King Robert the Bruce. Ravenna is about to become the glue that binds two clans together by wedding fearsome warrior Cormac Buchanan, but she refuses to be a helpless pawn in men’s power games. For Ravenna, this forced marriage holds no hope of love, nor is it about loyalty or duty - it is all about vengeance.
Can Ravenna survive her rough, angry husband who resents and mistrusts her? Or will her loyalties be tested and her life threatened, as she tries to deny their growing attraction.
Coming Soon
The Pirate Laird’s Hostage - Book 3 © 2019 Tessa Murran
THE HIGHLAND WOLF SERIES
The Black Wolf’s Captive - Book 1 © 2018 Tessa Murran
War has brought them together.
Ailsa MacLeod rebels against the prospect of an arranged marriage. She knows it will bring an important alliance for her clan, but she strives to be mistress of her own destiny. A brutal clan war brings upheaval and uncertainty into her world and Ailsa finds herself humiliated and at the mercy of wild and handsome rival clansman Duncan Campbell, who would bend her to his will and claim her for his own. Ailsa must pretend to submit to him as she fights to win her freedom. But can her growing attraction to him be conquered or does danger still lurk where she least expects it?
Duncan Campbell is a fierce man with a dark and troubled past. A consummate survivor, he moves in a world of intrigue and violence and when the Highlands explode into armed conflict he finds himself in possession of the spoils of war, defiant beauty Ailsa MacLeod, who utterly hates him. Duncan must do battle once more against the hunger that starts to grow in him. Does he want to protect her or possess her? Ailsa is his to do with as he pleases, though a bitter upbringing and the brutality of the life he is forced to lead have closed his heart to love. As he forces her into submission, Duncan begins to realise that love is something earned not taken and if he is to hold this prize he must fight one last battle against enemies who would tear down everything he holds dear.
The Lone Wolf’s Bride - Book 2 © 2018 Tessa Murran
Is he her road to hell or her path to redemption?
Ilene Campbell is poised on the brink of getting her heart’s desire. As the daughter of powerful Laird Duncan Campbell, she has the world at her feet. But when her hopes for the future are cruelly dashed and her heart broken, she has no choice but to seek the protection of her wild and rugged adopted brother Murray, returned from war and scarred by the life he has led, inside and out. He wants her, but can she ever find happiness with him, especially as an awful betrayal opens up a gulf between them. Ilene must earn his trust if she is ever to bind this hard, uncompromising highlander to her forever.
Murray Campbell has led a brutal life, enriching himself on the battlefields of Europe. Returning to his home of Cailleach after years of exile he finds Scotland on the brink of a civil war. Much has changed in his absence, not least his adopted sister Ilene, now a captivating young woman, pretty and free-spirited. She appears too good for the likes of him until an abrupt change of fortune places her within his grasp. But the beautiful stranger he takes to his bed has hopes and dreams of her own, and a terrible secret. Murray must find some warmth and forgiveness in his shrivelled heart if he is to claim the prize forever just beyond his reach.
The Dark Wolf’s Deliverance - Book 3 © 2019 Tessa Murran
He must gain her trust. His life depends on it.
Kenna Moncur longs to escape her life at remote Sgathach Dun Castle where few folk venture close, wary of rumours that an evil spirit lurks within its walls and fearful of her father’s reputation as a villainous laird. But when Kenna meets Conall Campbell, son of a powerful man, a whole new world opens up before her. Locked in Sgathach Dun’s grim dungeon, Conall faces a terrible fate and Kenna takes pity on him, trying to keep him alive, and risking all to do so, while dark forces move against his clan. Does he return the feelings she starts to have about him or is he just using her to escape Sgathach Dun’s horrors? If she frees him will it be the beginning of a new life or will an old curse stalking the Moncur family bring her new love crashing down?
Wild and handsome Conall Campbell has been sent to live at Dunslair Castle with his father’s best friend, Rory Mor Campbell, in an effort to curb his wild ways. He is expected to relinquish his dissolute lifestyle and become a man of stature like his father, Laird Duncan Campbell. But there is a darkness within Conall, and he is at war with himself and the future laid out before him. With his clan still rebuilding from a fearsome bat
tle with a rival clan some years earlier, these are dangerous times for the Campbells.
When Conall disappears, Rory begins a desperate search while trying to deal with his growing attraction to a mysterious woman he has sworn to protect from a charge of witchcraft.
Taken prisoner by the Moncur clan, Conall must surrender his pride in favour of survival and his captor’s daughter, pretty, trusting Kenna Moncur might just be his means of escape. Will her budding love for him break against the darkness within him or can she lead him to the light? And in tying her fate to his Conall could be leading her into danger, because someone, somewhere, is out to destroy him.
The Dark Wolf’s Deliverance takes the reader on a desperate flight across the Highlands, and into a deadly rivalry over the love of a beautiful and vulnerable young woman, all set against the backdrop of a murderous witch hunt engulfing Scotland.
