Vote for Harlan!
The publisher of my
Twelve Kingdoms and Uncharted Realms books is hosting their annual
Ultimate Hero Showdown. Harlan, the hunky and infinitely patient hero of THE TALON OF THE HAWK, has made it through two rounds so far.
(Mostly thanks to passionate fans who stayed up clicking away until midnight!)
Voting in round three starts at midnight, March 31 and goes until midnight - all U.S. Eastern Daylight Time. You can click as often as you like! (Hence the aforementioned Harlan fans clicking away.)
Harlan also appears in
THE PAGES OF THE MIND, out May 31 (finally!). So, to give you a little extra Harlan love, here's an excerpt from PAGES, which is in Dafne's point of view. Here he's helping Ursula teach Dafne self-defense.
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Ursula rolled her
head on her shoulders. “All right, librarian. We’ve no time to
teach you Danu’s forms, which would be the foundation of what you need to know
as a fighter. Instead we’re going to show you the tricks—all with the intent of
you gaining time to escape should you be attacked. For the most part, your aim
will not be to kill or permanently disable an attacker. You don’t want to be
that close for that long. Instead you will focus on hurting a person enough
that they can’t chase you. We’ll lay the groundwork this morning and then Jepp
will take over after you leave tomorrow, helping you refine the skills and
build on them. Does that make sense?”
“You’ve no time to
teach me the entire alphabet so you’re giving me the equivalent of
conversational phrases that I can practice and add to as I learn this
language.”
Her frown cracked
and she laughed. “Exactly. You’ll do just fine. I know you will.”
I knew she meant
more than just with knife work and I nodded, hoping to reassure her.
“The first thing
you’ll learn is what to do when someone grabs you. Jepp, demonstrate. Let Harlan
catch you, and break free.”
Jepp sauntered up
to Harlan and gave him a saucy grin of challenge. “Captain Harlan can catch me
anytime.” She turned her back, and he launched himself at her, dwarfing her
slim form, muscles bulging in his sleeveless shirt as they flexed to restrain
her. She seemed to fold in, then burst out, spinning in place and halting with
a sharp blade at his throat.
He grinned at her.
“Lucky indeed would be the man who could both catch and hold you.”
“Stop flirting,
you two,” Ursula said. “Now you try it, Dafne.”
“I can’t do that!”
“You can and you
will.” She pressed a short knife into my hand, much like the daggers she and
Jepp habitually carried, but made of wood with blunted edges. “Harlan?”
He advanced and I
took an automatic step back. “I can’t get away from a man that size!”
“You’re going to a
place where they are all that size,”
she emphasized. “Better to learn with someone you know and trust.”
“Maybe I should
start with Jepp?” I offered weakly, but Ursula shook her head, a determined set
to her jaw.
“Jepp is here to
see what we teach you. Today you’re working entirely against Harlan and me. You
have to experience what it’s like to be up against someone bigger and more
skilled.”
I wished for some
of the thrill I’d felt yesterday when I accepted this mission. Being called to
adventure turned out to involve a great deal of unpleasant challenges.
I nodded in
resignation and turned my back. Harlan’s big arms closed around me, trapping my
arms against my sides, sending a flutter of panic through me. Trapped in the dark. Unable to move. My
throat on fire. Can’t breathe. I whimpered and his arms loosened.
“Tighter than that,
Harlan. Don’t go easy on her,” Ursula’s voice whipped out.
“She’s afraid.”
His voice rumbled against my back, an oddly comforting sensation that worked
some to lessen my rising fear, but only a little. “She doesn’t like being
trapped.”
Of course he’d
remember, from that story I’d told him, of the fall of my family’s castle.
Ursula bent over so her eyes were level with mine, bright steel. “Use it,” she
commanded. “Everyone feels fear at some point. That’s healthy
self-preservation. It’s also the fuel that will drive you to survive. You’ve
called on it all these years. People underestimate you—use that, too. Now, let
him think he has you, collapse a little, like you’re fainting. He senses your
fear so he’ll believe it. Let your weight sag, so he’s forced to support you,
then call on that will to survive. Picture it like a sun burning in your heart.
Push up from the ground and rise. Burst up and out. Do it.”
It helped not to
fight the panic. Use it. I let myself
collapse as she said, feeling Harlan’s arms tighten to keep me upright. That
dark space. Trapped. The fear burned
like a sun indeed, and I wondered how Ursula knew. It wanted to break free, so
I let it. Harlan grunted, his hold breaking.
I’d done it!
“Good,” Ursula
said, “but don’t just stand there. Break, stab him with the knife, and run.
Hold her again.”
Ursula was a
relentless taskmaster. I’d seen her badgering Andi all those years to learn to
defend herself and also witnessed Andi’s wary attempts to avoid the lessons.
Ami had stubbornly refused and appealed to Uorsin, who had, of course, indulged
her. Which was no doubt why she found herself needing lessons from Ash so many
years later.
Over and over, Ursula
made me break free, showing me which vulnerable spots on Harlan were in easy
reach of my short blade. Due to my much smaller stature, that usually meant
somewhere in his groin area. Ursula made me put my hand up between Harlan’s
massive thighs, to feel for myself the hollows where the arteries ran shallow
and where his man jewels hung heavy and vulnerable. Harlan stoically endured it
all, but I blushed furiously.
“Get over it,”
Ursula ordered. “This isn’t about niceties. This is about saving your life. Now,
break away, and if your position is good, shove your blade as hard as you can
up into his balls.”
“I don’t want to
hurt him.”
Harlan gave me a
reassuring smile. “It won’t be the first time—and I’ve been hit there by people
much bigger than a nyrri.”
He called me that
deliberately, to make me mad, but it worked anyway. Experimentally, I called on
that, too. When I broke away, I did as Ursula bade me and brought the wooden
knife up hard between his thighs, slicing edge up.
To my shock,
Harlan dropped to his knees gasping out a Dasnarian curse. Ursula surveyed me
with a delighted grin. “Excellent! Imagine if that had been a sharp blade. He’d
be bleeding out. But you still forgot to run. Do it again.”
Harlan gave her a
sidelong look. “This time, I’m wearing protection.”
“I’m sorry,” I
told him.
“Don’t be.” He
held out a hand for me to help him to his feet. A gesture of courtesy, as he
surely didn’t need it. He inclined his head. “Be proud of besting me.”
BOOK THREE OF OTHERSELVES
