P.C. Cast - Time Raiders - The Avenger

Only they can cross the boundaries of time;

only they have the power to save humanity

Meet the team of Project Anasazi, a secret military unit

sent through time to save the world, as they discover

dark and dangerous new passions.

Available from Mills & Boon ®Nocturne™:

The Seekerby Lindsay McKenna 21st May

The Slayerby Cindy Dees 21st May

The Avengerby P.C. Cast 4th June

The Protectorby Merline Lovelace 18th June

Dear Reader,

One of the many reasons I enjoyed writing The Avenger so much was that the main setting, ancient Britain, 60AD, was a serendipitous research coincidence. Sounds weird, huh? Well, here’s what happened: at around the same time I was contacted about being involved in the RomVets Time Raiders project I was working on the first of my HOUSE OF NIGHT young adult books. In the HoN novels there is a school organisation called the Dark Daughters and this group figures predominately in the plot of the series. It’s supposed to be a club led by the best and the brightest of House of Night vampyre fledglings, young women who were being groomed to become high priestesses of the vampyre goddess, Nyx. So I needed to have a super-cool foundation for the group. I’m of Celtic descent and have always been fascinated by the history of my ancestors. Because of that I decided to give the Dark Daughters Celtic roots, which meant I needed to research exceptional women in the history of the Celts. That research led me to the Iceni queen, Boudicca. From the very beginning I was intrigued by her story – that her husband passed the torque of royalty to her at his death and that she was a well-respected leader. Then a Roman tax collector decided to flex his muscle and show Boudicca who was really in charge of the Iceni. He had her publicly whipped and ordered her two young daughters raped.

The story intrigued as well as horrified me.

I remember not being able to read fast enough to find out what happened to Boudicca and cheering as she united the Celts and actually kicked some Roman ass for a while.

History reports what happened to the queen of the Iceni and I’ll leave that story to my fictionalised, but basically historically accurate, rendering in The Avenger . What history isn’t as clear about is what happened to the queen’s two daughters. I decided they disappeared from human history because they were marked to begin the change that led them to be powerful vampyre high priestesses, so revered that they began an organisation that was to live long after they had passed to their goddess’s verdant meadows, the Dark Daughters.

And just as I decided that, Lindsay McKenna and Merline Lovelace contacted me with an interesting paranormal romance series idea…where military heroines have to go back in time to retrieve lost pieces of a medallion…to save the world…and out of the historical time-period choices I had to send my heroine back to was ancient Britain, 60 AD, and Queen Boudicca.

How could I say anything but yes! Yes! Yes!

Hope you enjoy the ride as much as I did.

Love

P. C. Cast

www.millsandboon.co.uk

P.C. Castwas born in Illinois and grew up being shuttled back and forth between there and Oklahoma, which is where she fell in love with quarter horses and mythology (at about the same time).

Five days after graduating from high school, she joined the United States Air Force, which is where she began speaking professionally. After her tours with the USAF, Ms Cast attended college as a literature major with a secondary education minor.

Her first novel, Goddess by Mistake , was published by a small press in 2001. Thoroughly shocking the author, it won a Prism, a Holt Medallion and a Laurel Wreath, and was a finalist for the National Readers’ Choice Award. Since then Ms Cast has gone on to win numerous writing awards. Ms Cast is thrilled that her work with her daughter, Kristin, in young adult fiction has won numerous placements on the New York Times and USA TODAY bestseller lists.

P.C. Cast lives and teaches in Oklahoma with her fabulous daughter, her spoiled cat and her Scotties – better known as the Scottinators. The daughter attends college. The cat refuses higher education. The Scottinators are as yet undecided about their future.

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This one is for the enlisted women in the USAF,

with a smile and a semi-insubordinate grin.

Enjoy!

The dead woman sighed. Her voice sounded wistful and more than a little nostalgic. “It’s pretty here, isn’t it? There is something restful about all this open space.”

“You’re dead, Andred. Isn’t everything restful to you?” Alex said, lifting a brow at the semitransparent woman who leaned against the low wooden fence beside her.

“Do not be so literal. I am quite certain you are very aware that just because one is dead doesn’t mean one is at rest.” The spirit paused and gave Alex a knowing, sidelong look. “Your fear of leaving here is irrational.”

Alex frowned. The two things that had surprised her most about ghosts when she first started seeing them the year she turned six were they were so damn nosy, which made them ubergossips, and they were so damn free with their advice. As if dying turned them into talk show hosts.

“Look, I’m not afraid of leaving here. I just don’t like to. Even you said how restful this place is, and I love Oklahoma’s Tallgrass Prairie. Not to mention my job’s here—why should I want to leave?”

“There is quite a difference between loving a place so you choose to stay, and staying in a place because you are too fearful to leave.”

“I said I’m not afraid to leave! I went to Flagstaff. I was gone for three whole days.”

“You hated every moment of it.”

“No, I did not. I loved seeing Tessa.” And I’m worried as hell about her. Alex closed her eyes for an instant and against her dark lids saw smoke and fire and smelled the acrid scent of computers frying in unbelievable heat. Professor Carswell had assured her that Tessa would be fine, but after the terrible accident she’d witnessed, Alex didn’t know how that could be true. But none of that is this damn nosy ghost’s business.

“You have not left the prairie once since you returned. You’ve even been giving your shopping list to Sam. Alexandra, when you resort to having a hired ranch hand buy tampons for you, I’d say you are turning into a hermit.”

“And what about you? Why are you still here? Hello! Aren’t you the pot calling the kettle black? How can you lecture me about being afraid to leave?” Alex glanced pointedly at the woman’s archaic looking outfit, which was little more than a brightly colored linen tunic, and leather sandals with straps that wrapped around her calves. “What kind of a name is Andred? How long ago did you die, anyway?”