Make Mine a Marine Read online

  Make Mine a Marine

  Boxed Set

  Julie Miller

  Make Mine a Marine: Boxed Set

  Copyright 2014 Julie Miller

  Cover design by Sherry A. Siwinski

  Photo Copyright Oleksandr Petrunovsky, Sergey Kamshylin, 123RF.com

  Immortal Heart

  Copyright 1997, Revised 2011Julie Miller

  Cover design by Prairie Muse utilizing selected photos from Les3photo8 Dreamstime.com

  Shadow of the Hawk

  Copyright 1999, Revised 2011 Julie Miller

  Cover design by Prairie Muse utilizing selected photos from

  Markstout, Denis Kartavenko, Frenta Dreamstime.com

  Always Faithful

  Copyright 2000, Revised 2012 Julie Miller

  Cover design by Prairie Muse utilizing selected photos from

  Luis Francisco Cordero; Ekhphoto, Marianna Kosmina Dreamstime.com

  Formatted by IRONHORSE Formatting

  Smashwords Edition

  The individual titles in this boxed set were previously published and have been revised and updated from their original print versions.

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite e-book retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  ISBN: 978-0-9916513-0-6

  Table of Contents

  Immortal Heart

  Shadow of the Hawk

  Always Faithful

  About the Author

  Immortal Heart

  Julie Miller

  For Gran.

  Thanks to Mom and Dad for making me believe, and giving me the will to do it.

  Thanks to Scott and Ryne for their support, and doing the male bonding thing so I could get this done.

  And to the real Duke – you’ll always be my sweetheart.

  Prologue

  A remote corner of England, c. 1216

  Flames ripped through the night as another timber fell from the ceiling to the dungeon floor, casting an eerie phantasm of light over the clanging swords and thrusting, twisting bodies of men in combat.

  The rebels surged forward, sheer number giving them their only strength against their oppressors. The soldiers should have been easily taken, their cruel devices easily destroyed, but darker forces aided them. And the rebels had no such powers for themselves.

  Simple peasants, the rebels knew nothing of war. Nothing of magic spells. Nothing of combating tyranny and oppression. They fought against the minions of a former counselor to the crown, a high priest of mysterious power bent on securing the loyalty and tribute of the remote villagers.

  They faced an enemy, not of flesh and blood, but of shadows and evil. Soldiers could be gutted with a dagger or run through with a sword. But a sorcerer...

  It seemed no weapon could defeat him.

  Still, the peasants had a champion, an aging knight who had long stood against King John. He thought he had retired that day at Runnymede when he and other barons forced the king to sign the Magna Carta, putting into law the ideals of justice and honor he believed in.

  But when he had passed through the peasant villages and seen how their spirits were abused, how their backs were broken, and how their hopes were shattered, the mighty warrior took up his sword once more. Weary of battle, but never of the cause of justice, he rallied the peasants and urged them onward through the sorcerer's dungeon.

  He swung his heavy sword in a mighty arc, striking a guard in the neck and shoulder, felling him with the blow. Another uniformed opponent stepped out of the smoke. The warrior spun around, splitting the man in two with his knife.

  He surged forward, his pale eyes cutting through the haze of smoke to spot the sorcerer. The evil man's silvery-white robe, with an odd arrangement of stars and half-moons embroidered with iridescent gold threads, glowed like a beacon in the dimness of the burning castle above them.

  “Sorcerer!” he bellowed. The graying visage turned toward the challenge and the warrior strode onward. “These people are not yours to command and defile. Be gone from this place. Take your evil and suffering with you!”

  He tucked his dagger beneath his tunic and clasped the sword in both hands. All the while, the sorcerer fixed his eyes on him. Those eyes burned into the warrior's memory. He would never forget them. Dark and mocking. Devoid of humanity.

  “You threaten me?” The sorcerer laughed, not once flinching from the advancing warrior with his sword raised to kill. “Even now, your cowardly comrades flee. They run from what they cannot understand. They leave you to fight alone.”

  “I would die before I'd run from an evil being like you.”

  “If you wish.” The sorcerer flicked his hand into the air and the warrior's sword crashed to the stones at his feet. “Your puny rebellion does not amuse me. You shall pay the price.”

  “I swear I'll kill you with my bare hands.” He reached out but felt himself pushing against an invisible wall. Rage swelled within him. “Damn you!”

  “Father!” A third voice severed their duel. “Please, no more!”

  The warrior stumbled forward as the unseen wall crumbled with the sorcerer's distraction. A torch flared to life, illuminating the aura of dust and smoke engulfing him. Instead of closing his hands about the sorcerer's throat, he, too, turned.

  The maiden stood between two peasants, a captured prisoner. Her tearstained face trembled as one man clutched her tightly and held the point of his sword to her throat. A second spoke.

  “Release our village and farms from your spells. Take away your soldiers and return to the place from whence you came. Or else we'll slit your daughter's throat.”

  “No, she is an innocent!” The warrior's protest surprised them all.

  “Do you not stand with us?” the peasant demanded. “Do you not see this is the only power we have over him? Look how his spells are broken when he fears for her safety.”

  A shadow passed across the sorcerer's black eyes. “If you harm her, I will bring a wrath of destruction upon you that your descendants shall never forget.”

  “Father, no. Please. No more.”

  The girl's plea touched a chord in the warrior's heart. He'd seen too much killing in his time to stand by and watch the slaughter of an innocent, no matter where her allegiance lay. “Release her.”

  “You would betray our cause?” The peasant drew his knife and pointed it at the girl's stomach. In a brashness born of years of despair, he plunged the knife into the folds of her cloak.

  But the warrior knew more of fighting than did the peasant. He lunged forward and twisted the peasant's arm, sending the knife skittering into the darkness. He shoved the peasant with the sword aside, and position
ed himself beside the girl.

  “Betrayer!” The first peasant rushed at the warrior. “He'll kill us all!”

  The warrior pushed the girl toward her father and braced to face the angry peasant. In that same instant, the sorcerer flattened his palm and shoved it skyward, muttering a foreign incantation that sent the attacker flying through the air. The man landed in a heap, dead as though struck with a blow to the head.

  The peasant with the sword ran, but the sorcerer touched his ring. The man stumbled and fell, his neck broken.

  “No!” screamed the warrior. “She lives! Stop the killing!”

  Enraged by the senseless deaths, and knowing there would be countless others if the madman wasn't stopped, the warrior picked up the sword of the fallen peasant. He raised it above his head.

  The sorcerer didn't sense the attack until it was too late. He reached for his ring. But before he could utter one word, his daughter jumped into the path.

  “Not Father!”

  The mighty blade sailed through the air. The warrior cried out, powerless to stop its flight as it sliced through the only shield the sorcerer possessed.

  His daughter.

  The girl toppled to the floor, instantly dead. The sorcerer wailed unintelligibly and dropped beside her, cradling her spiritless body in his arms.

  Horrified by his deed, the warrior fell to his knees. He bowed his head and prayed for a forgiveness he could not give himself. “I didn't mean…Forgive me.…”

  He lifted his gaze to the sorcerer. There were no words he could say. He had slaughtered the very innocent he meant to protect.

  The sorcerer rose, removed his cloak, and draped the silver and gold shroud over the girl's body. “For this, they will all die.”

  “No!” The warrior shot his head up. “Take me instead! Punish me!”

  “I intend to.” The sorcerer's voice echoed with a hollowness that extended to another time. He turned, extending his hand toward the warrior. But it was not a gesture of conciliation. His eyes blazed with an eerie force before he spoke again. “You have taken the one thing that mattered to me in this world. My child. My future. You shall know the same anguish I know.”

  A chilling numbness crept into the warrior's limbs. He grew weaker, powerless to fight off the dizzying sensation.

  “My wife is long dead, and my daughter was all that remained of her. You, too, shall never know a woman's love. Nor shall you ever sire a child.”

  The warrior collapsed to the floor beside the dead girl. The smoke thickened. His lungs struggled to fill with air. The sorcerer was killing him. Through some evil power of the mind, he was killing him. Slowly, by degrees.

  The warrior's mouth went dry. “Spare the villagers. Punish me alone, I beg you.”

  “Punish you, I shall. I swear eternal vengeance upon your soul.”

  Smoke clouded the warrior's vision. He lay paralyzed on the cold stone floor.

  “Not until the one you love is willingly sacrificed in exchange for your life will you ever know peace.”

  Mist filled the warrior's head. The sorcerer's incantations made no sense. The sorcerer touched the warrior's chest, scorching his skin. “I mark you now. You are a visible tribute to this day's battle. You will bear witness to every battle you fight.

  “You wish to fight for a noble cause. You wish to give your life defending those weaker than you.” The sorcerer looked down on the warrior, laughing with a sound that haunted the warrior's soul. “I promise you will spend eternity doing just that.”

  The warrior's eyes shut and the last mortal gasp left his body.

  Chapter One

  The Present

  A monster of a man.

  Brodie Maxwell read the teenage boy's opinion of him as easily as he might read a road sign. He ignored the curious gawking. Other heads turned but quickly looked away. He knew what they were thinking. He banished mirrors in his house so he, himself, couldn't see the monster.

  He stood a shade over six-feet six and weighed in at 250 pounds, with impossibly broad shoulders, brawny arms, and legs like tree trunks. But the brutish appellation didn't stop with his size and dimension. Strands of silver sliced through his coffee-colored hair, which he wore cropped to a short length that emphasized the harsh angles of his face.

  That face, an unforgiving landscape, reflected the horrors of his existence. His once-aquiline nose bent at two separate spots, reminders of a couple of lucky punches. Mottled ridges of a grayish-white scar filled the hollow beneath his left cheekbone and zigzagged into the corner of his mouth. The inflexible tissue pulled his face into a grotesque grimace whenever he smiled.

  Long ago he had learned not to smile. Not even with his eyes. His steel gray gaze scanned his surroundings at the LadyTech headquarters building in Kansas City. He routinely memorized the number of people, their positions, the accessible exits. The icy eyes missed nothing of the chaotic, cluttered environment around him, just as they revealed nothing about the man inside.

  Another old habit.

  No one had ever called him handsome. His driver's license said he was forty, but life- experience beyond his years had taken his ugliness and shaped it into something more than physical. It shrouded him like a tangible thing, a shield he wore to keep all but the bravest and most foolish at a distance.

  Brodie liked it that way.

  Once he was familiar with the layout of the first floor, Brodie strode from the entryway. Judging by the bustle of activity and torn-up work stations, some major redecorating was going on. He crossed to a makeshift table with a sign marked Reception. But the chair behind it sat vacant.

  The high school-aged boy, carrying a stack of boxes, stopped several feet away. Brodie felt his stare, curious, fascinated, repelled. Brodie turned his head and nailed the boy with a piercing look. Startled and ashamed of being caught, the boy lowered his gaze to a point about equal with Brodie's collar. He cleared his throat awkwardly, “We're getting ready for our open house, sir. The receptionist is…I'll see if I can find someone to help you.”

  The boy tucked in his chin and scooted past Brodie. Most people did that to him. Too lazy to strain their neck muscles, or too afraid of what they might see—strangers rarely made eye contact with him. Brodie didn't mind their rudeness. That way he didn't have to see their shock and revulsion when they got a good look at his face.

  “Hey, you, punch up the con panel and see if the screen lights up.”

  Brodie's gaze shot around the foyer again, scanning for the source of the disembodied female voice. It made him edgy to think he had missed accounting for everyone in the area. It wasn't like him to make that kind of mistake.

  “Hit any button on the keyboard.” The voice drizzled into his eardrums a second time. From the vicinity of his feet.

  A woman's hand popped out from under the table and groped at the toe of Brodie's snakeskin boot.

  “Yoo-hoo, out there, can you help me?”

  Brodie stared at the hand, an ordinary left hand, without a fancy manicure or jewels to adorn it.

  “Yes,” he finally replied when the hand refused to let go of his foot. The woman couldn't see the whole package, he thought, or else she wouldn't be so relentless in asking for his help. Her voice sounded warm, like honey and laughter. Not at all the sort of tone one used with a stranger.

  Or a monster.

  “It's okay if you don't understand computers. Just hand me one of the remotes. I can get it online from down here.”

  Brodie bit back the cutting remark that would have straightened out the woman's misconception. He was a creature of duty and chivalry. If a woman requested a favor, he felt honor bound to help. That was the only reason he'd agreed to this meeting in the first place. Because the widow of an old friend had asked for his help in finding out who was pirating creative designs from the LadyTech Software Communications Corporation.

  Dutifully, Brodie searched the tabletop and picked up a small black box with a series of buttons on one side. He bent over and placed the remo
te in the palm of her outstretched hand. He lowered the bulk of his body, casting his shadow across the hand and darkening the opening beneath the table.

  “Hey, who turned out the lights?”

  Once, he would have bristled at the remark. Now he accepted it without comment.

  Seconds later, a company logo flashed to life on the computer screen. “It's on,” he rumbled, reporting reluctantly.

  “Piece of cake.”

  A body materialized at Brodie's feet.

  BJ Kincaid scooted out on her backside, the remote clutched in one hand, a tray of tools in the other. She paused a moment, leaning back on her elbows to look up at her unwilling assistant.

  “Whoa.” Land of the Giants, she thought to herself.

  BJ's gaze started at the booted ankles and travelled up a pair of jeans that fitted over the longest, sturdiest legs she had ever seen, past a black suede bomber's jacket, beyond an outdated necktie, over a vicious network of scars, all the way up to the stark gray eyes of the man who towered above her. It was a long trip. From her perspective, his spiky, military-short hair seemed to brush the ceiling.

  A living mountain. A dark, battered, unsmiling mountain.

  An image from a Frankenstein movie leapt to mind. Immediately, she shook off the comparison, ashamed of even thinking it. BJ knew better than most what it was like to be different from mainstream society. She should be the last person to judge someone else by a first impression.

  Hoping she hadn't revealed her uncharitable thoughts, she scrambled to her feet. She dropped her tools on the table and brushed at the untucked hem of her Kansas City Royals baseball jersey. Standing eliminated only part of the distance between them. He still stood chest, shoulders, and head above her five-feet, five-inch frame.

  She stuck out her hand and looked him squarely in the eye. “Thanks for your help. I'm BJ Kincaid.”