Excerpt & Giveaway: Beauty's Beast by Amanda Ashley
Beauty’s
Beast
By:
Amanda Ashley
Releasing
September 2nd,
2014
Zebra/Kensington
Blurb
Beauty
Fair
of face and figure, Kristine is young, innocent, pure. Yet she has
been condemned to the gallows for killing a man. The only one who can
save her is a lord so infamous that some say he is the son of the
Devil himself…
And
the Beast
Erik
Trevayne is called the Demon Lord of Hawksbridge Castle, but few know
of the curse he lives under. Or the terrifying changes slowly gnawing
away at his humanity. When he weds her, all he wants of Kristine is a
son. But when he beds her, a wild hope is born—that love that can
tame even the most monstrous of beasts...
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Excerpt
Erik
Trevayne, seventh lord of Hawksbridge Castle, stood at his wife’s
bedside. He watched in quiet
horror
as she strained to bring their firstborn child into the world.
His
wife’s mother, Charmion du Lac, the witch of Cimmerian Crag, stood
across from him, her gaze
fixed
on the midwife.
“Erik.”
Dominique reached for his hand, her body convulsing with pain as the
life slowly ebbed from
her
body. “Erik . . .”
The
sound of her anguished cries rose to a crescendo, slashing through
the dimly lit bedchamber like lightning through storm-ravaged clouds,
leaving a great gaping hole of silence when, with her last feeble
breath, she expelled the tiny wrinkled infant from her womb.
A
low moan, rife with a sorrow so deep it would never heal, issued from
Charmion’s lips. Stunned, he watched the tall, dark-haired woman
grasp her daughter’s limp hand as if, by the sheer force of her
indomitable will, she could restore Dominique’s life.
Erik’s
gaze moved to the midwife as she quickly cut the cord.
“The
child?” he asked hoarsely. “Does it live?”
Slowly,
the midwife shook her head. “I am truly sorry, my lord.” After
wrapping the infant’s body in a
piece
of sheeting, she placed it on the foot of the bed. “There’s
naught I can do.”
Bowing
to the lord of the manor, the midwife backed out of the chamber,
afraid, as were so many others, to turn her back on the witch.
Charmion
lifted her head to regard the man standing across from her. “I
warned you, Trevayne,” she said with quiet menace. “You should
have listened.”
“You
cannot blame me for this, Charmion.”
“I
can, and I do.”
“It
was not my fault!” He shook his head in denial even as he accepted
it for the lie it was.
“I
begged you not to marry my daughter. I warned you she was not strong
enough to give you an heir.” Charmion lifted the stillborn child
from the bed and cradled the shrouded infant in her arms. “But you
would not listen . . . you would not listen! And now my daughter is
dead, and her son with her.” She stroked the infant’s head. “You
should not have planted your seed within my daughter’s womb.”
“It
was what she wanted.”
“It
was what you wanted!”
“No.”
He had never wanted to marry, never wanted to be the lord of
Hawksbridge Castle. For as long as he could remember, he had dreamed
of dedicating his life to the priesthood, of losing himself in the
silence and serenity of cloistered walls. But then his brother,
Robert, the rightful heir to the estates, had been killed in a
hunting accident and the title had fallen to Erik. It had been his
father’s dying wish that Erik marry Dominique du Lac and sire an
heir to continue the family name. Stricken with grief, hoping at last
to win his sire’s favor, Erik had knelt at his father’s bedside
and sworn to do as he wished.
Charmion
had vigorously opposed the marriage, but for the first time in her
life, Dominique had defied her mother to marry the man she adored. At
Dominique’s sweet urging, they had been married in
secret.
She had conceived within the first month.
“Look
at me, Trevayne.”
Unable
to resist the power in Charmion’s voice, he looked up, felt himself
impaled by the hatred blazing in her witch-black eyes. Her heated
gaze trapped his, holding him immobile so he could neither move nor
look away.
“A
rutting beast you were, a beast you will become. Not all at once, my
selfish one. Day by day, the change will come upon you, until you
have suffered for every tear my daughter wept, for every drop of
blood she shed this day.”
“No!”
She
nodded once. “As I have said it, so it shall be.”
“Is
there to be no end? Your daughter’s pain is over, yet you would
condemn me to a lifetime of suffering.”
Charmion
placed the babe on its mother’s belly; then, sitting on the edge of
the bed, she drew mother and child into the cradle of her arms.
Bending, she kissed her daughter’s waxen cheek. “When Dominique
forgives
you, so shall I.”
“Charmion,
listen to me—”
But
it was too late. With a wave of her hand, the witch was gone,
Dominique and the babe with her, leaving him alone with his grief,
while the ominous portent of the witch’s last words rang like bells
of mourning in his ears.
Author
Info
Amanda
Ashley is one of those rare birds—a California native. She's lived
in Southern California her whole life and, except for the
earthquakes, she loves it. She shares a home with her husband, as
well as an adorable Pomeranian named Lady, a wild house sparrow named
Tweety, and a tortoise who remains nameless. Amanda and her alter
ego, Madeline, have written 60 books. Not bad for someone who started
writing just for the fun of it. Her books regularly appear on the New
York Times and USA Today bestseller lists.
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Oooh sounds interesting.
ReplyDeleteIt starts out so dark! Thanks for the Excerpt.
ReplyDelete