In the end, Rowenna wished to survive and heal.
Sometimes Rolland would catch her with a wistful expression that was wounded at the edges and knew she thought of Clara, the babe now raised by another. That shadow of sadness would always linger.
Yet, as he looked at his mate now, Rolland thought that she could be happy again. Would be happy again.
He came to her, wrapping his strong arms around her swollen middle. He brushed his words of love against her temple, the warmth and natural chemistry between the pair causing her to shiver and he tightened his hold. He loved how she reacted to him.
Rolland would die to protect her. Her back was pressed against his chest and she wound her hands backwards into the thick mass of hair at his neck.
He kissed first one arm that lay beside his jaw then the other. Rowenna's words surprised him. “Thank you, Rolland.”
Rolland turned her in his arms, kissing each eyelid, then landing on her soft mouth. Her breath caught and he pressed forward, stealing it, their passion ignited.
“For what?” he breathed, trailing his lips from jaw to collarbone and she groaned in pleasure, the sounds she made worsening his desire instead of abating it.
“For my son,” she said in a tone of soft joy.
That caused Rolland's head to lift. “What say you?” he asked.
Her hands pressed against her distended belly. “It be a boy.”
He cocked a brow. “How would you know?” But a smile bloomed on his hard face, softening it into an expression he reserved for Rowenna alone.
“I just do. And I have a name for him,” she said with a thread of excitement.
“Aye?” He pushed her into the wall, gently pressing against her swollen stomach. “And tell me what you shall name our son?” he said without a trace of sarcasm.
“Maddoc. I wish to name him Maddoc.”
Rolland thought on the name and found he liked it. He grinned down at her. “Maddoc it is....” Then he gave Rowenna a curious look.
“What say you?” she laughed.
“What if it be a girl?” He watched the happiness fade from her face.
Dammit, he had reminded her of Clara. Fool, he chastised himself.
A shadow passed over her face but then like a wayward sun, it peeked out from behind the clouds and her smile was back with a smirk. “Well, it shall not be named Jocelyn!” Rowenna laughed.
“That is fine. I think it most excellent that the worst name be held by the worse female,” he said in a tone of confidence.
“Beatrice,” Rowenna hissed, thinking the babe stood no chance with her as parent.
Rolland pressed his fingers to her lips. “Let us not talk of that she-devil.”
Rowenna looked up into her mate's face of almost one and half years, his tender watch care after the death of Harland and Clara's absence having stolen much of her sadness. “What... shall we discuss?” Her words innocent, her eyes holding violet fire.
Rolland's eyelids slid almost shut at her soft utterance. He held her close and after nearly a full minute of silence replied, “Nothing.”
They did not speak, but much was said.
The End
Read on for the exciting first chapter of book #4, THE SAVAGE VENGEANCE....
The Savage Vengeance- Chapter 1
Book Four of the Savage Series
by Tamara Rose Blodgett
The Savage Vengeance
Book Four of the Savage Series
by Tamara Rose Blodgett
Copyright © 2011-2012 Tamara Rose Blodgett
http://tamararoseblodgett.blogspot.com
ISBN-10: 1470161044
ISBN-13: 978-1470161040
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
All rights are reserved. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to a legitimate retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
For~
My dad: for without his drive and discipline through example, none of this would have been possible.
Words are inadequate.
I love you, Dad~
June 6, 1930- March 22, 2012
A special thank you to reader, Kami Bravo, who graciously supplied the title for this work~
CHAPTER 1
“They have killed all the homing pigeons,” Rowenna mourned as Clara looked about her, the fragment having departed after their nefarious deed was executed with precision. The small bodies of the birds were strewn about the ground, their feathers like lonely pilgrims of purity amongst the graves that stood near at hand.
“Nay,” Bracus began, “we have one that lives at the clan.”
All eyes swept to him and he rolled his bulk into a shrug. “I had sent word but one day past, even now the homing pigeon returns.”
Clara breathed out a sigh of intense gratitude. “We will have an additional sentry stand guard at the portal, day and night. The assurance of which will be the aid that we may procure for this.”
“Methinks the other spheres may now lend an ear, Queen Clara,” Clarence said with surety, a small smile turning up the corners of his mouth.
Clara agreed. She thought it very likely that they might offer assistance. After all, to her knowledge, hers was the only sphere with an active alliance with the clan-dwellers. Of course, the spheres were more populated than the clans. Nonetheless, it would not be overly long before the fate of her sphere was joined by the remaining eighteen.
She would need to journey to her neighboring sphere and visit the king that presided thereof. King Otto.
What a joyous occasion that would be.
Clara looked around her, the afternoon sun of Outside beating down mercilessly against her unprotected skin. But that is not what gave Clara pause. It was the pock-marking of her sphere that stilled the breath in her throat. Clara took in the damage caused by the fragment but one day past and guilt seized her in its iron grip. Had Bracus not just discussed with her a preemptive strike against the very ones that had now peppered the sphere with weapons of salt? Pellets that once launched, burrowed an insidious pathway through the permeable walls of her home.
Damn them.
Clarence shattered the stream of her thoughts like a hammer to glass. “Queen Clara,” he began, nervously wringing his hands together, “let us send word to King Otto that we must call a Gathering.”
To think of being in the presence of that odious man galled Clara. Especially given what had transpired due to the wretchedness of the man.
However, it could not be avoided. She would bring the glad tidings of Prince Frederic's demise. A petty smile, not usually at home on her face, sprung to life and flourished.
“Yes, I do say that shall be a fine idea,” Clara said, lifting her long skirt just enough to clear the grass that rustled in the thin breeze of early winter. The air had bite and she shivered. A hand at her back told her Matthew stood behind her, and she turned as that palm burned its imprint at the base of her spine.
“You are cold. Let us go inside the sphere,” he said, his blue eyes flashing in a face like a berry kissed by summer.
Clara smiled at him, her heart instantly warm, despite a future that held uncertainty and danger. She looked at the Band standing beside her, the dead birds and graves standing sentinel around them. It was portentous. She studied the Band which remained and thought of what she must do, her gaze settling on Rowenna.
Rowenna nodded. “I see the mirror of my feelings upon your countenance, daughter.”
/> She knew her too well already. Clara dipped her head briefly then met her mother's gaze. “Aye, you speak true.” Clara's eyes traveled the group, all in attendance, even Charles. “We must warn our neighboring sphere.” She looked at Rowenna and held her gaze. “We must also bring assistance from the Bands of the sea.”
“President Bowen must be informed. His Band would fight beside ours. Without question. This affects the mid-western Bands directly,” Matthew said. Bracus nodded in agreement but Maddoc and Edwin looked confounded.
“Who might this fellow be? This Bowen?” Edwin queried.
“He is the president of the mid-western clans,” Charles answered, keeping a civil tongue for once.
Maddoc paced, narrowly missing the graves which lay but four horse lengths from the brass portal that entered the sphere tunnel. He was obviously deep in thought but Rowenna had tarried enough. “Maddoc, do stop strutting about like a nervous Peacock and tell us what you are about.”
He swung on his heel and drilled Clara with his sea colored eyes. “Sister?” His hand palmed his chin thoughtfully as he strode toward her.
“Yes?” Clara asked, puzzled.
“How many spheres are there?”
Clara answered automatically, “There be nineteen in all.”
He laughed and Clara frowned. “Do you not see, we will meet the fragment in battle head-on. Sheer numbers will impel our victory. They cannot stand against us.”
Clara saw his passionate youth, and realized he was but one year younger than she. Maddoc, her half-brother, had seen battle, fought beside warriors without compare, but in life she felt that perhaps he had not the lessons meted out that she had been exposed to. Clara chose her words with caution.
“Maddoc, the people of the spheres do not understand war as the clan-dwellers and obviously, the people of the fragment.”
“That moniker is too generous by far, Clara,” Edwin snorted and she inclined her head in his direction. With the exception of Daniel, she had not encountered one of the fragment that had a good intention. Nary a one.
“Let us get ourselves in the comfort of the sphere,” Charles said, his expression anxious. His look took in the openness of the Outside with distrust.
Clara watched the eyes of the assembled group train on the sphere, the holes in its porous shell widened slightly, even from one day past, when the fragment had started the beginning of the end of the only way of life Clara had ever known. She had much to fight for, she realized. Though it would be fundamentally impossible to gather a resistance between sphere-dwellers and clan-dwellers in a way to cause them to unify against the fragment, she realized it could be their only hope. Of course, that supposition was in place only so long as the dreaded Travelers elected not to reappear at a critical moment and interrupt their lives irretrievably yet again.
Matthew clasped her hand, feeling its iciness and kissed the delicate skin of her wrist where blue veins ran like exquisite lace, intersecting with her palm. His eyes met hers. “Nothing will be fixed Outside with the dead. Let us retreat inside, where the living breathe. We will formulate a plan of victory.”
“Matthew speaks true,” Edwin said and Bracus nodded.
“I'm game,” Daniel said and the groups' brows drew together in confusion. He laughed from his belly. “I am willing to attempt a war in unity so that we may prevail.”
Ah! Clara thought, giving him a rueful smile, his strange speech so much a part of who he was. It seemed most odd to hear him mimic the speech of the sphere.
Matthew dragged her gently behind him while Daniel and Edwin fell in line beside them. When they reached the portal and the four of the Band began to open it, Clara glanced behind her at the Great Forest as she felt the creeping of eyes upon her. She shivered and Matthew pulled her in beside him as they crossed the threshold into the sphere.
*
fragment
Tucker took the magnifiers he had stolen during a raid and let them fall against his thigh from slim cords of leather, the cold stinging his hands like biting ants. He had the young queen in his sights. He growled low in his throat, lightly slapping the apparatus against his leg. He would have her, and it didn't matter how many of the Band protected her. His reconnaissance spoke perfectly for him. And he had his directive: destroy the spheres, all nineteen. But nothing beyond that. He didn't care that the Travelers hadn't explained why the spheres must be eradicated, only that they be destroyed. He was very much about that. And the fiery queen would be at his mercy.
He felt the presence of another and reluctantly moved deeper into the forest border, obscuring the view of Clara as she turned and looked directly at him before being herded inside the sphere.
The sphere which had the disease of salt he'd laid on it. His smile widened as he turned and faced the one of the fragment that was as cunning as he.
Lyle jerked his head in the direction of the sphere. “How long before the salt works on the walls of that?” he asked, absently picking at a scab that had filth surrounding it. Tucker looked at him with distaste. He certainly understood the lack of easy bathing areas but Lyle of the fragment gave unclean a new meaning. He schooled his expression and responded, “maybe a few weeks. Not long. Even now the Band think they might ready an offensive,” he scoffed. Let them try. There were too few and if he understood the Band (and he thought he had their mindset down to a Science), they would try and communicate covertly with neighboring Bands. At which point they would prepare an alliance of sorts.
Leaving their precious clans without proper numbers.
The fragment would sweep through, burning the great borders of wooden pickets that defended their perimeter. Once inside... well, Tucker grinned with true joy, thinking of the spoils that he and his men could partake in.
“What's the happy face for?” Lyle asked.
“I have a plan that is foolproof. I'll outline it shortly. For now, I need a man to stand guard at this very spot.” Lyle gave a quizzical look but turned to fetch one of his men.
“Wait!” Tucker called out in a low voice. Lyle turned expectantly.
“Make it someone who is as dull as a blade we eat with.”
Lyle grinned. Someone expendable. He understood and had someone in mind.
“Got the perfect person.”
Tucker nodded and turned his back on Lyle. His eyes took in the sphere, lit like a soft beacon as twilight edged around the graceful lines of the dome. His smile returned as pinpricks of lights dotted the surface, the light from inside, leaking out of the holes the battery of salt quartz had made.
Tucker was happy.
#
Book #4, THE SAVAGE VENGEANCE ,available now!
A Love Letter to My Readers:
As of March 31, 2011, it's been almost two years now since my first book, Death Whispers, was published. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of you that has supported my writing. Without my readers, I would not have an audience for my work. Many of your emails, support via recommendation, encouragement and critical feedback/reviews have allowed my improvement as a writer and as a human being. Words are an inadequate thanks for the depth of my gratitude to you. Please know how much your support has meant, and will continue to mean in the future to come.
Thank you, from the bottom of my heart~
*
If you enjoyed this book, please support the author by posting your review on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and iBookstore.
Please also consider recommending or reviewing the book on your blog, Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads.
Acknowledgments:
You- my reader.
Danny, who went along with my crazy ideas like a true partner in crime.
Stephanie T. Lott, my copy editor.
Shana, from A Book Vacation, an early Death supporter (and supporter of all my works).
AB, who slogged through the terrain of my American slang and didn't complain....
Bodacious Betas (and now my friends):
Beth and Dianne. Y
ou guys make me a better writer, I love ya~
Lori, whose unshakable faith has improved my life.
Books available now:
Death Whispers (Death Series, #1)
Death Speaks (#2)
Death Inception (#3)
Death Screams (#4)
Death Weeps (#5)
Unrequited Death (#6)**
The Pearl Savage (Savage Series, #1)
The Savage Blood (#2)**
The Savage Principle (#3)**
The Savage Vengeance (#4)**
Blood Singers (Blood Series, #1)
Blood Song (#2)**
Future Titles 2013:
**The Savage Protector (#5)
**Blood Chosen, (#3)
**The Reflective, (Reflection Series, #1)
2014:
Savage #6
**new adult fiction, recommended reading ages 17+
Connect with Me Online:
Blog
Twitter
Facebook
Smashwords
goodreads
Shelfari
The SAVAGE Series, Books 1-3: The Pearl Savage, The Savage Blood and The Savage Principle Page 64
