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LB&LI: The Ten Commandments

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(Click the image to visit PBW for more great workshops!)

As a writer, I hate rules, especially Romancelandia Rules, like:

“The heroine and hero must meet in chapter one!” or “The heroine must be a virgin, a virgin widow, or has experienced nothing but horrid sex with any man except the hero!”

But let’s face it — as readers, we all have lines that we don’t want an author to cross, else their book may very well end up denting the wall. 

Here are a few commandments, either based on my personal reading tastes or something I’ve learned from my lovely talented evil editors!

 

  1. Thou shalt not lie to the reader and call it “a plot twist.”  Grrr, there’s a highly popular author to this day whom I refuse to read because of a little lie she told in a novella I happened to pick up.  I can’t stand “surprise twists” that are basically lies.  I feel totally betrayed when this happens.  (Not talking Sixth Sense sort of plot points here — which I loved — but deliberate lies told through the POV character and only revealed at the end with a flourish.)  For a twist, the little hints should be there for me to follow like a trail of bread crumbs.
  2. Thou shalt not beat the reader over the head with “foreshadowing.”  Personal taste, but I hate “Little did she know…” or “Unbeknownst to her…”  These are author intrusions and pull me immediately out of the story.
  3. Thou shalt not make the reader dizzy by headhopping.  As my dear friend Wanda said once, headhopping makes my skull crack open.  I just can’t tolerate blatant hops back and forth, paragraph to paragraph.  (Straightfoward shifts once or twice in a scene don’t bother me as much.)
  4. Thou shalt NEVER be kind and gentle to the characters.  Torture them!  Throw more rocks!  Put them in an untenable position, not once but over and over!
  5. Thou shalt not “lathe” any tender body parts.  See the Smart Bitches’ Crimes Against Woodworking for some laughs.
  6. Thy hero shalt not flex his “bicep.”  It’s biceps, even if the heroine is looking at a specific arm.
  7. Thou shalt not rely on “fateful” to describe a character’s day.  Lazy!  (I was guilty of this in Dear Sir, I’m Yours, until Angie got ahold of it.)
  8. Thou shalt not use the word “sag” anywhere near a sentence mentioning the heroine’s breasts.  This one was caught by the copyeditor.  I said her dress “sagged past her breasts” and this was his comment.  Totally cracked me up!  Changed it to “slid.”
  9. Thou shalt NEVER take the easy way out, especially in the climax!  And I mean that both ways.  *winks*
  10. No Romancelandia hero ever need Viagra. Obviously.  He’s also got the biggest tool in the shed, but that goes without saying, right?  :mrgreen:

So what are some of your commandments or readers’ peeves? 

Share them in comments (or simply throw your name in the hat) to be entered to win Patti O’Shea’s three Light Warriors books (unsigned), including In the Midnight Hour, In Twilight’s Shadow, and Edge of Dawn, and winner’s choice of any book from my backlist. 

As Lynn always says, anyone on the planet can enter, even if you’ve won something from me before.  I’ll accept comment entries through midnight CST Friday night, July 17th, on this post, or you can e-mail me ONCE (joely AT joelysueburkhart DOT com).  One of the monsters (my kids) will draw names on Sat. and I’ll post all winners then.

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Lessons in Photoshop

Or in other words, call upon the masters when you want it done right.

Instead of writing today, I decided I would try my hand at creating a flyer for The Rose of Shanhasson.  I’m lining up a bunch of promo mailings for the print release in December, and the deadlines are fast approaching.  Everything has to be done MONTHS in advance. 

Printing all this stuff ain’t cheap by a long shot, so to save some money, I thought I’d create one myself.  I had the VistaPrint template in hand, and I bought PhotoShop last year.  I didn’t have to “create” new graphics — which I already know I can’t do after my class last year — just use what I already had at hand.  And honestly, it wasn’t bad.  A little blocky and too symmetrical, but not bad.  I did a gradient in the background, added the cover, the DP logo, a few reviews…

But it didn’t have that magic I was hoping for.  Hey, this is my FIRST print release.  I want it done right.  So I sent it to Deena, the mastermind behind most of Drollerie’s incredibly unique and beautiful cover art.  Bless her creative little heart, she took the cover flat and whipped up a very attractive flyer.  It looks like art, not like an inexperienced person trying to use PhotoShop!  I hated adding another thing to her light-year-long list of to-dos, but wow, she does gorgeous work.

So the VistaPrint order has been placed for 100 flyers.  If I didn’t screw anything up in the upload and everything looks good, I’ll order a ton more and get ready for the first mailing.

Okay, so here’s the difference between an amatuer PhotoShopper (mine on the left) and a professional (Deena’s on the right). Click for larger version.

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Left Behind & Loving It Next Week

Don’t miss PBW’s awesome virtual workshop next week.  RWA Nationals may be in full swing, but those of us left behind will be having a blast, too.  I don’t know what I’ll talk about yet — if anyone has requests, please shout them out in comments or drop me an e-mail — but I do know what I’ll be giving away.

Patti O’Shea’s Light Warrior series, including: In the Midnight Hour, In Twilight’s Shadow, and Edge of Dawn.

Victoria Dahl’s Talk Me Down and Start Me Up.

A $30 gift certificate to any online book retailer of the winner’s choice.

I’ll probably break this up into three separate giveaways, with winner’s choice book from my backlist on each day included.  Now if I can only find three topics to talk about…

No geographical limits on shipping the dead tree books — I’ll ship them anywhere on the planet.  So spread the word and plan to stop by next week!

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Celebrate Chocolate Giveaway

Love chocolate?  Love a good book about chocolate?  Then you don’t want to miss Drollerie Press’s giveaway!  Cindy Lynn Speer’s delightful The Chocolatier’s Wife is on sale 20% off (check out our Book Chat posts to see how much I enjoyed her story), and you can enter to win a $25 gift certificate to Fanny Mae Chocolates!

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Drollerie Press Blog Tour

In honor of Father’s Day, this month’s theme is, of course, fathers!  Please welcome Angela Korra’ti, author of the fabulously fun Faerie Blood.  The links for the rest of this month’s posts can be found at Drollerie Press.

Faerie Blood

Every writer who’s strung together more than five words in a row knows the maxim “write what you know”. Given that my mother passed away when I was sixteen and that I saw very little of my father throughout my childhood and much of my adulthood before he too finally passed away, it’s therefore probably no surprise to anyone that a lot of my characters wind up with parental issues–if they have parents around on camera at all.
In Faerie Blood‘s cast alone, I’ve got a heroine whose parents are both dead, a hero with a dead mother and a father shattered by her death, and an antagonist who is himself a father with severe issues. And if I go and survey stories I haven’t sold yet, I’ve got an epic fantasy with three main characters whose fathers are all dead, a Greek-mythology-based urban fantasy which by definition has characters with father issues all over the place, and a couple of science fiction novels whose lead characters are decidedly father-deficient.

Are y’all sensing a pattern here?

And yet, I can’t say that I set out to work out my daddy issues through my characters. If anything, I’d say that I picked it up from all the books I’ve ever read in my life–since after all, you can’t swing a stick in a library without hitting a book that involves at least one character with major parental issues. It’s one of the most universal themes there is.

I can say this, though: that memory I have of writing the leprechaun story, the one where the girl gets swept off by the leprechauns to be their queen for a day? I remember telling my dad about that not long after I’d written it. I was riding somewhere with him in his big convertible car, and although I can barely remember the incident now, I’m pretty sure Dad was listening to me with that tolerantly interested way I’m thinking any parent reading this will recognize themselves having whenever their child starts telling them all about leprechaun stories they made up. It was my dad, too, who bought me my first typewriter, the one on which I typed up the very first manuscript I ever tried to professionally submit. So among all of my family members, my father’s still the one who gave me the most support.

Which means a lot to me, to this day.

I wish you could have gotten to see my first real novel come to life, Dad. I miss you. And if I ever sell Queen of Souls, for the record, none of the daddy issues in there came from you.

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Pulling Punches

So yesterday, I worked every free moment I had on the “final exam” of the Letters prequel.  It was exhausting.  I wrestled a paragraph and rested.  I wrote in the morning before work, over lunch, after work before dinner, and finally, stumbled over the finish line. 

After I tweeted about how exhausted I felt, May and Soleil kindly offered to read, and while I felt like I’d been rolling around in broken glass to finish it, I took them up on that offer.  The last thing I want to do is post something that’s not good, really good.

And darn it, May thought it had some problems.  Oh, it was written pretty well, I think, certainly overwritten–it needed to be trimmed and tightened–but there was a really big problem lurking in those pages.  Although it was pretty hot, it was too clean.  Too tidy.  Or in other words, it wasn’t rough enough.  Maybe that’s why I was so exhausted–I was fighting the story.

See, I’ve been working on a tricky balance in this Prequel.  It has to be good.  It has to be something people will read and want to continue reading Dear Sir, I’m Yours when it releases.  I mean, that’s the whole point, really, to hook people into buying it who may be on the fence.  However, the reality is that the upcoming final exam has to be so bad that it sends Rae running for five years.

Five years!

So you see my dilemma.  If my hero comes off as an asshole in the freebie prequel, who’s going to buy the book?   

Conn will be the first to admit that he can be an insufferable bastard on occasion.  This is one of those occasions.  Yet I realized that in trying to keep him from coming off as a total bastard, I’d made him a different kind of bastard all together.  I pulled his punches.  Hell, I even pulled Rae’s punches.  I cleaned them up and dressed them in their Sunday best and sat them all prim and proper to eat vanilla ice cream with his big desk between them, and they are both so pissed at me that Conn is contemplating throwing his biggest anthology at my head and Rae has the shotgun out that she reserves for her ex-husband.

Self-editing at its worst. 

I was afraid of what people would think.  I was afraid of the very characters that I’d created.  I was afraid to crack open that door to their darkest moment and let all that ugliness spill out.  I did the same thing with Gregar when he finally approached his heart’s desire.  I took away his ivory rahke and told him to go forth and be good, and he tried, bless his heart.  But it wasn’t him. 

I created a dark, larger than life character, and then in his spotlight in the darkest hour, I flinched.  I took away Dr. Connagher’s mask but slapped another one in its place.  I didn’t let the real Conn–who Rae loves and fears–show through.

So no snippet today and maybe tomorrow.  I need to rework what I have.  I need to let Rae begin with the power she thinks she has, and then bring her to the realization that she has none whatsoever.  And then  I need to let Conn get that pretty white skirt that she wore to tempt him just a little bit dirty.

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Summer Reading, Twittering, and iPhone

If you don’t follow me on Twitter, let me sum up (probably in a lot more than 140 characters).  For my birthday, I bought a refurbished iPhone.  I’d been coveting one for a long time, but was too worried about what it’d do to our already extensive cellular bill.  (That Man lives on his cell for work.)  However, after a talk with the nice lady at the AT&T store, she explained that the only change in my bill would be the $30 data plan, and I already had $10 data that would come off.  So for $20 more a month, I could go with the iPhone (assuming we don’t go over our minutes, which we have to watch anyway).

Now, a few weeks later, I can’t imagine life without it.  Last night while That Man dragged us all out to Princess Monster’s karate practice, I sat and read the first draft of Arcana without lugging the laptop into the car, while blocking out the monsters’ incessant bickering because I had my earplugs and tunes playing.

I also bought two great Spice Briefs–The Wicked West by Holly Summers (Victoria Dahl) and Second Time Around by Portia Da Costa–and devoured them, effortlessly, while waiting in the parking lot to pick up the monsters from the first day of summer school.

I can check my e-mail, and yes, I can Twitter so much easier!  I never really “got” Twitter until I had the iPhone.  It’s so much easier to simply type a short update of 140 characters or less and post it, than to pull up the blog and think of something coherent and detailed to say.  Plus, I’ve found so many cool people on Twitter.  I already blogged about how much I enjoyed Portia’s In Too Deep, so of course I’m following her Twitter updates.  She posted about Victoria Dahl’s new Spice Brief, so I picked it up, too, and WHOA, I loved it!

Lily is a submissive who knows exactly what she wants, and she wants her next door neighbor, Sheriff Hale.  Hale, on the other hand, is appalled when the delicate Englishwoman sees the truth that he’s been hiding.  He’s a very reluctant Dom, and Lily is an incredible sub without coming across as being weak or whiny at all.  In fact, she’s the opposite.  She has the power in the relationship, because she knows the truth and she’s isn’t afraid of it.  A fabulous hot read with wonderful characters and story, so check it out!

Speaking of reading, did you notice the Summer Reading Trail over in the sidebar —> below “My Books?”  If you click on it, you’ll be taken to the head of the trail at Viorey Linger’s blog with a whole list of free reads for your summer enjoyment, including my own The Shadowed Blood.  New freebies will be offered throughout the summer, so check back each month.  I plan to finish the Dear Sir, I’m Yours prequel short and offer it next month (but of course it’ll be available here on my Free Reads page as well).

So, what are you reading this summer?  Anything new and exciting that I can throw onto my iPhone?

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The Road to Shanhasson: Gregar

Out of the cast of a hundred of so characters in the Shanhasson trilogy, I get the most comments about Gregar, the Shadowed Blood.  I even wrote a prequel short story from his point of view (available here as a free read), and I often joked about The Road to Shanhasson being “Gregar’s Book.”  He’s my Muse; when I think of the “still silent voice” that helps me write, it’s his voice I hear.  Even when I’m writing something different, he touches my writing. 

Let’s just say, he’s been a very, very bad influence on me, in a very good way.

What’s funny is that I created him and the rest of the Shanhasson cast long before I knew anything about “proper” character development.  Which is maybe why he’s so very, very wicked. 

So with small excerpts from The Shadowed Blood (pdf), The Rose of Shanhasson, and The Road to Shanhasson as appropriate for illustration:

Top Ten Reasons Why Gregar Isn’t a Proper Romancelandia Hero

(See explanation of proper at the bottom of this post.)

10. He has a terrible, ribald sense of humor. 

 

“Will you let me claim you here and now?” Rhaekhar asked.

From the heated thickness in his voice, she dreaded asking for an explanation.  “Claim?”

“Gregar, what is the proper word?” 

“Marry, wed, consummate, pleasure, mate, copulate, tup,” the dark-haired warrior replied with a wicked smile of delight.

 

9. Gregar is famous on the Plains for “arse competitions.” 

 

“Since you’re new to the Plains, you might not know that Gregar is actually very famous.” Watching the red-haired young man, she narrowed her gaze, wary of his wide-eyed innocence. “You could always ask them for an arse competition.”

She spluttered. “What?”

Dharman groaned. “That isn’t appropriate for Khul’lanna’s claiming.”

“Why not?” Sal winked at her and whispered conspiratorially. “You must like their arses rather well.”

Face hot, she started walking toward the center of Camp. Dharman still held her upper arm, walking slightly behind her and close enough he would trip over her feet if he wasn’t careful.

The lad with the wretched sense of humor walked alongside her. “Don’t you?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“At the Kae’Khul, he made quite an impression on everyone. Alea still remarks about it sometimes.”

“Only when you’re up to mischief yourself,” Dharman retorted. “Leave Khul’lanna alone, Sal. She obviously doesn’t want to talk about arses, Gregar’s, Khul’s, or yours for that matter.”

“But Alea often mutters that I could give Gregar a hard gallop for his rahke. When I’m older, of course.”

A surge of what Shannari could only call jealousy burned in her stomach at the thought of the tall sun-kissed woman getting an eyeful of Gregar’s ass, delightful or not as it might be. Through his bond, she felt only a smug silence, which actually made her madder. “Tell me about the Kae’Khul. Is that when Rhaekhar became Khul?”

“Oh, aye, it was a glorious event,” Sal replied. “Gregar and Varne were at it as usual …”

“Wait. I thought they were friends, like you and Dharman.”

“Nay, Khul’lanna,” Dharman said. “Friends, true, but there has always been an edge between them. They aren’t friends like Sal and I. We have an understanding.”

“An understanding?”

“What’s mine is his; what’s his is mine. I lead; he follows. There are no questions or doubts between us.”

“Unless it comes to mischief.” Sal leaned in close to whisper. “Then I lead Dharman where he’d hesitate to go.”

“Aye, and have led me into more trouble than I care to admit.” Although grumbling, Dharman smiled at his friend. “I shall lead you to yet greater trouble soon enough.”

“I cannot wait,” Sal breathed, his face softening with something rather like reverence.

“Me, either, my friend. Me either.”

They both looked at her with expectation, hope, and a sort of worshipful awe that embarrassed her. If they knew even half of the darkness that she carried inside … The Lady’s Lake within her resonated with a deep humming echo of power. Uneasy, she changed the subject. “So did Khul compete in this arse competition at the Kae’Khul?”

“Nay, the competition was between Gregar and Varne. It started as a friendly bet, but I believe they came close to formal challenge. I always thought they disagreed over which would lead as nearest Blood to Khul, but now …” Dharman glanced at her, his gaze considering. “Whatever the disagreement, Gregar lightened the argument with a joke, dared Varne to an arse competition—”

“Which he won, of course,” Sal added helpfully.

“Aye, and gained legendary status as a result. I’ve heard he’s even been known to flip up his memsha at kae’don to infuriate his opponents.”

She could absolutely picture it: the dark-haired Blood, laughing and winking as he flipped up the short cloth about his hips. He’d probably shout a few obscenities, too, all to better rile his opponent.

:Kiss my arse works rather well.:

 

8. He used to be a Death Rider, an assassin dedicated to the Great Wind Stallion.

  

She pointed her sword at Gregar.  “Back off.”

The Blood took a step closer, pressing the sword tip into his body.  Her jaw tightened with determination and she pushed a little harder, puncturing his chest.  Smiling with anticipation, Gregar pushed back.  A little closer, a little more steel pressing into his body.

She shifted her grip on the hilt, fully prepared to skewer him.  A coldness settled on her features that told Rhaekhar she’d killed before and often.  Very impressive.  He liked a hint of danger in a woman. 

Evidently, so did Gregar.  “Go ahead,” he taunted, his low voice echoing with amusement and his trademark wickedness.  Shannari shivered and her eyes widened.  “Run me through.  I shall greatly enjoy it.”

Her gaze flickered to the smaller wound she dealt to Rhaekhar’s neck earlier.  “Are you all crazy?”

“Gregar is… special.  He used to be a Death Rider.”  At the blank look on her face, Rhaekhar added, “An assassin.  Death Riders delight in sacrificing blood to the Great Wind Stallion.  Blood sacrifice is a very great honor among us.”

She jerked her sword away.  Gregar wiped his hand across his chest and licked the blood from his fingers.  “Would you like a taste?”

 

7. As a Death Rider, he can wrap himself in Shadows and disappear, lying in wait until his mark comes close enough to sacrifice. 

She stared at the feathered arrow sticking out of her shoulder. How could she have forgotten the archer? She fell to her knees and used the tall grass to shield herself, but it might not be enough.

“Khul’lanna!” Gregar roared with fury that another had hurt her. Only the Shadowed Blood was allowed that privilege. Shadow swallowed him, engulfing him whole, and Death came like a killing frost up the hill toward her.

 

 

6. He’s arguably one of the best rahke fighters on the Plains and is never without his ivory knife that he earned as a Death Rider.  Just don’t ask what the “ivory” hilt is made out of if you don’t really want to know.

“This one is Gregar, my shadowed Blood who used to be a Death Rider.”

So cold.  She opened her mouth to ask where he was, her teeth chattering harder.  A blade touched her neck and she froze.  Blessed Lady, the Blood was close enough to hold a knife to her throat while she sat here, oblivious until he touched her with steel.  As always when threatened from her blind spot, terror screamed through her body.  Muscles bunched, her fingers locking on the hilt, her heart thundering in her ribcage.  Her fear only intensified the sense of bone-chilling cold rolling off the Blood. 

Varne removed his hand from hers and stood at Rhaekhar’s side protectively.  Automatically, she started to draw the sword.  Helpless with a knife at her throat, she couldn’t just sit here and—

The wickedly sharp blade lifted her chin higher and the sudden press of bare flesh against her back scalded her.  The Blood whispered against her ear.  “Shall I draw a bit more of your sweet blood for Khul?”

 

#

 

Gregar hovered against her back, barely visible in thick, black shadows.  As a Death Rider, he could wrap the cold Shadow of Death about himself and disappear.  He could slit Shannari’s throat before she even knew he was there, and the knowledge shook her to the core.  Silently, Rhaekhar waited for her to look to him for assistance.

The Blood whispered something to her too low for him to hear.  Her jaw clenched and she stiffened, her fingers tight on the sword’s hilt.  Shadows draped across her shoulders, darkening her face.

Rhaekhar felt a sudden and irrational urge to drag her away from the Blood.  In his heart he knew the Blood would never hurt her, but he couldn’t ease the trepidation.  The shadows wanted to suck her down and drown her in a sea of blood and agony. 

Gregar raised his head, his dark eyes glittering like black ice in the shadows.  At his familiar smirk, Rhaekhar loosened the tension straining his shoulders. 

“Or perhaps I shall draw Khul’s blood for you.”

Her gaze leaped to Rhaekhar’s face, her eyes wide with fear and reluctant desire.  The surge of hunger through their na’lanna bond at the thought of tasting his blood very nearly sent him plunging over the cliff into raging, uncontrollable lust.  Why did she fear his disgust when he would like nothing better than to give his blood to her?

“Leave us,” he ordered, his voice thick and heavy to his own ears. 

Gregar drew his rahke up her neck, trailing the blade across her cheek in an odd, dangerous caress, but he stood and backed away.

 

5. Before Gregar became Blood, he very nearly assassinated the main hero of the Shanhasson trilogy.

Rhaekhar dropped his voice to a fervent whisper.  “The Rose will be mine, a love like no other.”

Those words rocked Gregar to his heels and the Shadowed Call thundered louder.

Kill him, kill him, KILL HIM!

This warrior would be Khul, any Death Rider’s greatest mark.  Nay, the woman, his woman, would be Khul’lanna, his greatest mark, his most secret heart’s desire, and Rhaekhar would take her as his own.

Gregar held himself very still, but inside, his heart raged, his stomach rebelled, and his very blood boiled in his veins in denial.  The ivory rahke came into his hand eagerly, hungry for this warrior’s blood.

 

4. He knows he’s going to die, and soon.  Surely that makes him poor romance hero material, right?

“While I live, no one will touch you with steel or blade again.  As long as you let me stay close, at your back, like this.”

“I can’t love again.”

“You already do.”

Gregar spoke so matter-of-factly, so calmly, while she wanted to hack and slash all about her with a sword.  “Even if I do, I can’t stay.  I know my destiny, Gregar.  I must return to the Green Lands.”

“Eventually.”  He rubbed his cheek against hers and then released her.  “I know my destiny, too, and Khul’s.  Your priest is not the only one who has premonitions.  I’ve seen the day of my death.  I’ve seen the years of happiness it will buy you with Khul.  And it’s worth the sacrifice.”

 

3. He loves Shannari, but she’s also his greatest mark as a Death Rider.  e.g. the temptation to kill her rides him hard.

 

Midnight eyes pooled with tears, she lay beneath him, trembling as his life’s blood poured out on her skin.  She had not come easily to his embrace.  She never did.  Fighting for her life, she’d enjoyed wounding him as much as he’d relished her pain.

 She fed his darkness like no other. 

“I love you.”

“Aye,” he whispered, smoothing his thumb over the pulse thumping frantically in her throat.  “My heart is yours, na’lanna.” 

My beloved.

And he buried the ivory rahke in her heart.

 

2. Pain and blood only turn him on.  

Shannari took a long, shuddering breath.  Her eyes flew open.  And with a low, vicious cry, she buried the rahke in Gregar’s chest. 

The dark-haired Blood with the wicked smile fell forward slowly, the knife in his chest still in her hand.  Horrified, Shannari tried to pull back, but his hands gripped hers in a vise, pressing the blade deeper.

He fell on her, staring into her eyes.  No surprise, no reprisals, no pain.  His gaze was heavy lidded, smoldering with desire, pleasure, raw hunger, death.  Blood gushed from the wound, searing her skin.

“Thank you,” Gregar whispered, his voice thick.  “You honor me.”

 

1. He has no limits. 

Her voice flat and cold, she admitted the atrocity of her Dream. “I let you hurt me, and I enjoyed it. I enjoyed hurting Khul by letting you hurt me. And then I killed you.”

“Shadow lies to you again, Shannari.” Gregar unsheathed the ivory rahke and laid it on the tent floor before him. “I’m tainted with Shadow, this we all know. However, my heart’s desire is not to die in your embrace.” He forced the words from his throat, and ice fisted Rhaekhar’s heart with each word. “My most secret heart’s desire is for you to die in my embrace. It’s what I dreamed for years before I became Blood. I killed you a thousand times before I ever knew your name.”

“You would enjoy hurting me,” she whispered, a question not an accusation. “You would enjoy killing me.”

“I have no limits,” Gregar replied, his voice cracking with strain. “I warned you, and I warned Khul. That’s why I refuse to participate in your claiming and why I didn’t push for you to admit your love for me. Aye, I would hurt you and enjoy it. I would kill you and enjoy it, even while I raged at myself for ending your life. I love you too much to risk you.”

 

Despite knowing he’ll die, that he will kill her if given half a chance, Shannari still loves him.  And yeah, so do I.

And here’s the explanation about why Gregar always puts special emphasis on proper.

“Are you up for a kae’rahke this night, Gregar?”

The two warriors rode ahead, leaving Shannari staring after them with dread pounding in her veins. A kae’rahke? Challenge? Sometimes they fought to the death.

“Aye, I’m up for many things, Khul.”

Rhaekhar laughed, a dark masculine sound of arrogance that made her grind her teeth together. “I bet you are. Good. I’ll declare you co-mate before the claiming. What do you want for terms?”

Groaning, Shannari tried to think of a way to distract them. Short of ripping her armor and clothes off, she didn’t think much would distract them from their goal of blood.

Gregar winked at her. “I would certainly enjoy another kiss. This time, I want a proper kiss.”

“Oh, aye,” Rhaekhar replied, giving her a smoldering look over his shoulder. “Do you want her tongue in your mouth, or yours in hers?”

“Preferably both.”