"A Tattoo and Destiny"

A young woman, Cheyenne, experiences a wild, violent storm after which she awakens in a strange land. She quickly realizes that she is surrounded by a band of some type of warriors, one especially who dazzles her with his good looks and piercing, mesmerizing gaze. But he and his band have a highly threatening appearance as well, and so Cheyenne attempts to escape in a heavily wooded, haunted forest.

Athletic as she is, Cheyenne is captured and extra efforts are made to see that she does not escape again, extra efforts that only increase as the band members gradually come to realize that she bears a particular mark that bodes the fulfillment of a prophecy.

Before that knowledge reaches everyone's attention, however, it seems each member of the band is out to seduce Cheyenne, since the law of their land allows permits such sexual dalliance with a single, unknown female. They are all out for a shock, however, as Cheyenne has both fear of and deeply growing romantic feelings toward Lord Darian Andreas. While he is also attracted to her, he has only sexual dalliance in mind as he is riddled with hurting memories of his own, from a former lover and brother and from the mixture of that history with the mission he knows he must fulfill by bearing her to the completion of the prophecy. Complex, indeed, is this tale, although it doesn't move so quickly initially.

Cheyenne has not discovered how much she should fear but is about to do so.

Can the prophecy be fulfilled without the intrusive possessiveness, garish brutality and determined grasping for power of Lord Darian's brother and his twisted accomplice?

What future and power awaits the Lady Cheyenne and how will these grasping but withdrawing characters fit into that plan? Is Cheyenne to remain in this foreign kingdom, never to return to her beloved America?

Although this story moves rather slowly in the middle of the novel, it quickly picks up and provides an intriguing adventurous, romantic read that will engage all lovers of mystery and passion!

Reviewed by Viviane Crystal
Courtesy Crystal Reviews
Posted April 29, 2005

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Summary

According to ancient prophecy, a woman would come from Earth to bear a child who would end the warring between the Ramekah and Andreas clans that has plagued the hold folk of Zandar for hundreds of years. On the tail of a magical zephyr, Cheyenne, a young Native American woman, is swept through the doorway of an interplanetary portal and whisked away from Earth in a dazing blur of motion. She's deposited, alone and half-naked, in a valley between the grassy knolls of the Rhian Mountains and the dreaded Goetic forest, just inside the boundaries of Andreas Territory. It's there Lord Darian Andreas, ruler of the mighty Andreas Clan and master of the powerful Andreas Territory, finds her. Although Darian is a just man who exercises kindness and incorporates mercy into his method of rule—which, in the barbaric world of Zandar, are rare qualities for a man—he's also used to getting what he wants, one way or another. From the moment Darian lays eyes on the dark skinned beauty, he knows she's meant to be his. And if the Gods are willing, he'll make it so.