Devil In A Kilt–A Devilish Hero…and a fantastic prize!
Posted in Romance on July 10th, 2009 by Cynthia Eden
Update: Thanks for all the wonderful comments!!! Nicole picked her winner and the prize goes to…Edie! Congrats, Edie!!!
Hi, everyone! For the next few days, I’ve lined up some fabulous guest authors–I hope you enjoy their posts!
First up is the amazingly talented Nicole North–she’s got a great new novella out from Red Sage. Nicole, welcome!
I know your thirty days of demons are over, Cynthia. But your June theme inspired me because the title of my story in Secrets Volume 27 Untamed Pleasures is Devil in a Kilt. What manner of devil is this? Not a literal devil, but a Highland chief of the 17th century who’s had a curse placed on him by a witch of the Dark Arts. Gavin MacTavish’s clan believes he is possessed by the devil and most of them have fled in terror. This devastates Gavin because he simply wants to be a great leader for his people.
But even before the curse, folks had nicknamed him MacDeevil, partly because of his incredible skill in battle, and partly because of his wicked eyes–pale blue with a darker rim around the outside of the iris. When he gives people the evil-eye or a vicious glare, it’s extremely intimidating. But he doesn’t scare the heroine.
Gavin is gorgeous with dark hair, but he received an injury in battle and has a straight slash scar down one side of his face. Even this injury didn’t frighten the ladies away, before the curse. But after the curse, when he started shape shifting into a hawk at dawn and back into a man at dusk, the women and most everyone abandoned him. Surely he was evil if he could change form, they thought. But Gavin isn’t evil, just misunderstood and lonely. He would give almost anything to break the curse, become a normal man again, and have his clan return home.
But he has a few obstacles to overcome first. One of which is that the dark witch who cursed Gavin may want to punish him, but after seeing him in action, she might like to capture him as her sex slave too.
Even cursed, bad boy warriors in kilts need love…
Excerpt:
Gavin glanced out the window at the Highlands and the first faint trace of dawn peeking over the eastern mountains.
It won’t be long.
A yell echoed from down the corridor, the ravings of a madman. His father. One day that would be Gavin, talking to ghosts and shadows. But likely when he sank to that level, he would have no roof over his head. Or else his sparse clan would lock him in the dungeon to die alone. Since he had no heir, his greedy, grasping cousin would become laird. His clan would rejoice when their devil laird was dead.
“Damnation! Alpin willna unseat me. The craven whoreson.” Draping his plaid around his waist and holding it in place, Gavin strode from the bedchamber and down the corridor toward his father’s room.
“There ye are, lad,” Crocker said, his sparse gray hair sticking out in all directions. “Thanks be to God. He’s a right lunatic this morn. Asking for ye, he is.”
“What the devil is wrong with him?” Gavin stepped inside the chamber.
“I dinna ken.”
“Gavin! Gavin!” his father screeched from the four-poster bed as his body writhed, his long gray hair tangled. “The lass. Ye must look for the lass. Ye must marry. For the sake of the clan. For the sake of yer very soul.”
“What lass?” No lass for miles around would so much as glance in his direction. He used to have to drag them from his bed and send them on their way. Now, he couldn’t pay one to give him an hour’s pleasure.
He would like as not turn them to stone, or they would end up possessed by the devil, as he was thought to be.
Gavin waited for his father to tell him which lass he referred to, but the older man now lay still with his eyes closed, apparently asleep. Mayhap he’d meant the lass from Gavin’s arousing dreams. But she wasn’t real, and he’d never seen her face.
Fingers of dawn light gleamed over the mountains and Gavin’s animal nature surged forth, beyond his control.
“Damnation! When will it end?”
He moved toward the open window, helpless to resist the call. Just as he reached it, a moment of pain sliced through him. His body transformed, and great glossy-black wings appeared where once he had arms, and talons on his feet.
Taking flight from the window, he became one with the wind, the Highlands and the bright colors of dawn.
***
Devil in a Kilt, Red Sage Secrets Volume 27 Untamed Pleasures July ’09
Blurb: A trip to the Highland Games turns into a trip to the past when modern day psychology professor Shauna MacRae touches Gavin MacTavish’s four-hundred-year-old claymore. What she finds is a Devil In a Kilt she’s had erotic fantasies about for months. Can Shauna break the curse imprisoning this shape shifting laird and his clan before an evil witch sends Shauna back to her time?
***
Which is your favorite kind of hero and why? A bad boy, a demon, a Highlander, a cop, a cowboy, a vampire or something else? Do you like a hero who is really dark or who has a sense of humor? I’ll choose a winner from the comments to win an autographed copy of Secrets Volume 27 Untamed Pleasures.
Bio: Nicole North writes sensual and erotic romance novels and novellas. She is the author of paranormal erotic romance novellas Devil in a Kilt, Red Sage Secrets Volume 27 Untamed Pleasures, July 2009; Beast in a Kilt, Red Sage Secrets Volume 29; and (contemporary) Kilted Lover. She lives with her husband in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains, but wishes she lived in the Scottish Highlands at least half the year. Though she holds a degree in psychology, writing romance is her first love. Visit her at www.nicolenorth.com
Secrets Vol. 27 Untamed Pleasures book trailer video
http://www.nicolenorth.com
http://fierceromance.blogspot.com/
