The Bride and the Brute by Laurel O'Donnell

Author:Laurel O'Donnell
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781465815743
Publisher: Laurel O'Donnell

THE ANGEL AND THE PRINCE

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Champion of the Heart - Prologue

England, 1323

Dark demons cast by the dying fire in the hearth danced over the cold stone walls of the solar room. Lord Frederick Mercer sat on the bed, lifting his arm to tighten the straps of his plate armor. Beside him, Michael shifted his position, bowing his blond head. Fox, five years older than Michael, paced the floor before the bed.

“I don’t understand, Father.” Fox Mercer looked at his father with confused eyes. He was thirteen, but today he had enough pain in his heart and enough torment in his soul for a man five times his age. “Just tell the king who did it.”

“I can’t, Fox,” Frederick Mercer said, bending to slip his booted foot into a spur. He was quiet for a moment, staring at his boot. “I can’t.” He reached for his other boot and slid it on.

Fox paced the drafty room, desperately searching for a way out of the terrifying predicament his father was in. For a brief, horrifying moment the shadows of the waning fire took on the shape of an executioner, his face masked in a dark hood, his thick arms clutching an enormous axe. Fox quickly looked away from the black silhouette on the wall. No one was worth this sort of protection, not with such disastrous consequences. Fox’s gaze fell on his younger brother. Michael sat on his father’s bed, his shoulders slumped, his head bowed. His brother’s blond hair hung forward to obscure his face. Michael had been quiet for days now, unnaturally silent.

The chink of chainmail made Fox turn back to his father. As he looked at the man who raised him, who gave him a home, who always gave him hope for the future, he clenched his teeth, making his jaw ache with the effort. His small fingers clenched into fists so hard it made his arms shake. Why would his father give up everything to keep the identity of a murderer secret? Fox began to pace again. He moved back and forth, back and forth, fighting to keep his emotions in check, fighting to remain calm just as his father had taught him.

But today this was a battle Fox would not win. He stopped and whirled to face his father. “Don’t you care about what happens to us?” he asked in agony.

Lord Mercer straightened in his chair. “Of course I do. I care...” He took a deep breath. “I would do anything to protect you and Michael. Anything.” He shook his head and resumed his preparations, standing and reaching for his belt. “I only wish I had killed the baron myself.” He lifted haunted eyes to stare at Fox. “He was a horrible man, Fox.” He turned to Michael on the bed beside him and tenderly stroked his hair. “A horrible man.”

Fox scowled. “But I don’t understand.”

“You don’t have to. We will not speak of it again.

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