Tor and Christina return to his fortress, and Christina throws herself into making a warm and inviting home, hoping to find love and romance. Angry at having been tricked, it is only after Tor negotiates other desirable alliances that he agrees to marry Christina as well as to train the new Highland Guard for three months. Christina never expects that a drowsy Tor will mistake her for a willing woman gifted to him by their host, and before she can explain or stop him, Tor has taken her virtue for real.

He promises he will “discover” the two in a compromising position before anything can happen to Christina, and that Tor will be honor-bound to marry her. Obsessed with gaining vengeance for the years he was held in an English prison, Andrew forces Christina to sneak into Tor’s bed by threatening to beat Beatrix. Despite the offer of a beautiful bride, he has no trouble turning down Robert Bruce’s request that Tor train and lead a band of highly skilled, specialized warriors to wage a guerilla war against England. But Tor, a renowned warrior dedicated only to the wellbeing of his own clan, wants nothing to do with mainland Scotland’s political turmoil. Specifically, Andrew Fraser plans to offer one of them to entice Chief Tormod “Tor” MacLeod of the Western Isles to join in Scotland’s fight against the tyrant English King Edward. Her father, however, has other more practical uses for the young girl and her frail sister, Beatrix.

And while The Chief, first of the Highland Guard novels, isn’t groundbreaking, it’s a solid beginning to a series where, I presume, each one of these warriors will have the chance to tell his tale.Īll Christina Fraser wants is a romance like the ones in her beloved tales of Sir Lancelot. You’d probably end up with the elite group of kilt-clad bad boys envisioned by Monica McCarty. Imagine if you crossed a group of Navy SEALs with Highland warriors from the early fourteenth century.

The hawk by monica mccarty