Scent of a Man   (eBook - Adobe PDF) (eBook)

Scent of a Man eBook Description

"Scent Of A Man: Joseph Godwin is a virgin, for amongst Anglian nobility chastity is prized and harshly enforced by the all-powerful Council and their clerics. Tomorrow, when he reaches his majority, he will claim his birthright and take a virtuous young woman to wife. Overnight he transforms into a Scentinel, a creature exuding powerful sexual pheromones which make him irresistible to women -- all women, even his mother and sisters. To the fanatically religious Anglians, Joseph is now a godforsaken monster who should be executed on sight. He's on the run, starving and desperate. He has nothing more to lose -- or so he believes. Liliana is Europan and she's a creature even rarer than Joseph, a Null who can neutralize the insidiously compelling scent that Scentinel’s exude. Because of her unique ability, in truth she has even less freedom that the oppressed Anglian women she so pities. She will never be allowed to live a normal life. She is a pawn -- a tool to be used as Empress Vashti sees fit. Liliana’s mission is to rescue Joseph and bring him to Europa. There, he'll join the Empress's elite band of Scentinel spies--provided he survives his training with his sanity intact and learns how to suppress his pheromones at will. Joseph’s appalled to discover his rescuer is a woman disguised as a man. Worse, Liliana is a morally corrupt Europan who, among other things, is immodest, scandalously outspoken and refuses to show him the respect he’s due. She’s the complete opposite of the meek, obedient Anglian females he’s known. And she’s the most fascinating woman he’s ever met. He’s forced to accept that until he’s taught to control the insidious scent he exudes, he’s helpless without her. And if he’s to have any kind of life at all, he must accompany her to Europa. During the perilous journey, growing mutual respect turns to love. But when they reach Europan shores, Liliana rejects him and convinces him she was only acting as any red-blooded Europan female would do--using him to satisfy her sexual appetites. When Joseph is presented to Empress Vashti and finally learns the truth about what’s expected of him, he vows he’ll never forgive Liliana for using and betraying him. By the time Joseph completes his training and ascends the ranks to become Europa's top Scentinel operative, he’s become a cold-hearted, ruthless man, dedicated to the Europan cause. Liliana knows she did the right thing by pretending she felt nothing for him--the cost of loving him was too high. Even so, she blames herself for the man he’s become. Then she and Joseph are dispatched on a joint mission to assassinate Joseph's father, the Anglian Council Leader, and bring an end to his cruel regime. Empress Vashti is delighted by the irony of the son Lord Godwin disowned and rejected being used as the instrument of his destruction. And when Liliana discovers the horrifying truth of Joseph's parentage, she jeopardizes the mission by revealing the true extent of the Empress's duplicity. Joseph must now choose which cause to champion: Europan or Anglian. Either way, the lives of his mother, his sisters, and Liliana, the woman he still secretly loves, are at stake.

Excerpts:
Excerpt from SCENT OF A MAN:
His father emerged from the empty stall where Joseph’s groom bedded down. Joseph schooled his features to nonchalance while his guts churned and his heart thumped fit to burst. “Have you come to wish me happy Birthing Day, Father?” Lord Godwin bent to dust chaff from his boots with his kerchief, and discarded the filthy linen square as he straightened. Only once satisfied that his gloves were clean did he approach Joseph. “You know why I am here, boy.” “Oh?” Joseph feigned ignorance. His father couldn’t possibly have discovered— Lord Godwin spat with unerring accuracy. His self-satisfied, expectant expression, that same expression he assumed whilst awaiting the accolades he considered his due, made Joseph follow his father’s gaze downward. Thus he spied the fat globule of phlegm that had landed atop one of his boots. He glanced up again, paled at the pure disgust twisting his father’s face. It was an expression he had often seen on Lord Godwin’s face but never before directed at him. It was too late to dissemble, Joseph knew it the moment that Mallothi emerged from the shadows to stand beside his father’s side. He knew it, too, when three of his father’s most trusted footmen appeared, one of them hauling Bashima along with his hand clamped firmly over her mouth. He recognized the instant she scented him, for she ceased struggling and stilled, quivering like a captured bird. Her panic faded as she breathed him in, her eyelids drifting down to half-close over slumberous eyes. He wrenched his gaze from hers and squeezed his eyes tightly shut. Divine Spirit, I beg you, please do not subject this innocent to my corrupting influence. Is it not enough for you that I am to be punished for my sins? Let that be enough, please! He opened his eyes just as the man holding Bashima relaxed his grip. She wrenched herself away, lunging for Joseph, prostrating herself at his feet and wrapping her arms around his legs. It took two men to drag her back from him and subdue her. “Joseph,” she said, eyes and body entreating, conveying to everyone present how desperate she was to touch him. Lord Godwin stepped forward. “Silence, trollop!” He drew back his gloved hand and slapped her face. “You will not sully yourself by touching such filth.” And a second time. “Lay your hands upon this abomination again and I will have them both severed from your arms.” And a third. “Do you hear me, girl?” Bashima dangled helplessly between the two men. Her head lolled toward Joseph. He recognized lust—how could he not, when he had so recently been ensnared in its insidious web? But there, etched on her face for him, and him alone, to see, was guilt and misery. Forgive me, she mouthed. And the fragile hope that he might bluff his way out of this dire mess died. Oh yes, his father knew what had transpired in his chamber that morning. Lord Godwin might not have witnessed Joseph’s struggle to suppress his base desires, but he would condemn him just the same. Joseph was a Scentinel. One of Satan’s get. Evil personified. And Lord Godwin would do whatever needed to be done to wipe such evil from the face of the earth. Joseph’s gaze lit on his groom, a man he had considered a friend. The hatred and fear etching Mallothi’s weather-beaten face cut him to the quick. And the man’s switch of allegiance, his betrayal, was still more devastating.

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