Description: Romance lovers are falling for the Sons of Destiny "Enchantments, amusement, eight hunks, and one bewitching woman make for a fun romantic fantasy . . . humorous and magical. A delightful charmer." -- Midwest Book Review "A must-read for those who enjoy fantasy and romance. I so thoroughly enjoyed this wonderful . . . novel and eagerly look forward to each of the other brothers'' stories. Jean Johnson can''t write them fast enough for me!" -- The Best Reviews "I love this world and the heroes and heroines who reside there . . . a lively, wonderful, and oh-so-satisfying book. It is long, beautifully written, and entertaining. Light and dark magic are everywhere . . . fantasy romance at its best." -- Romance Reviews Today "A complex fantasy-romance series." -- Booklist "A fun story. I look forward to seeing how these alpha males find their soul mates in the remaining books." -- The Eternal Night "An intriguing world . . . an enjoyable hero . . . an enjoyable showcase for an inventive new author. Jean Johnson brings a welcome voice to the romance genre, and she''s assured of a warm welcome." -- The Romance Reader "An intriguing and entertaining tale of another dimension . . . quite entertaining. It will be fun to see how the prophecy turns out for the rest of the brothers." -- Fresh Fiction Sons of Destiny novels by Jean Johnson THE SWORD THE WOLF THE MASTER THE SONG JEAN JOHNSON Table of Contents ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank NotSoSaintly, Alexandra, and Stormi for their invaluable assistance in continuing to help me edit my writing; Alienor for allowing me to bounce ideas off her forehead like crumpled little wads of paper that my muse can then chase after like a cat; PiperKirby for being my cold-reader for this novel and waiting so patiently to actually get to read it; and of course the Mob of Irate Torch-Wielding Fans (this time around, it''s for putting up with my insistence that fruitcake not be used as any sort of a weapon, though stale baguettes are still fair game). A special mention also goes to: Dale, Janet, Betty, Ann, Adelaida, and Dr. Tuan, for allowing me to take over their break room at the dentist''s office on a quarterly basis; Yvonne at the Infusion Center, for letting me have a chair and something to prop my laptop on so that I may continue to write during each four-hour session; my father, for putting up with my lugging around said laptop to so many of his various appointments; and my mother, for taking him to some of his appointments, too, so I don''t have to deal with rush-hour traffic. Bleahhh. If anyone is interested in joining the Mob of Irate Torch-Wielding Fans (and is eighteen years or older; sorry, but you have to be an adult to join), you can visit us at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MoITWF. Or you can come visit my website at www.jeanjohnson.net, where all are welcome! Hugs, ~JEAN P.S. The teaser at the end is imperfect. Apologies! ONE The Third of Sons shall meet his match: Strong of will and strong of mind You seek she who is your kind Set your trap and be your fate When Lady is the Master''s mate Time passed strangely for Dominor of Nightfall. It came and went in muzzy bursts. He had vague, fleeting recollections of the things happening around him: wooden walls that creaked, the tang of the sea ever in his nostrils, voices muttering around him, hands forcing him to get up and walk around when he was too dizzy. He recalled how the floor was too uncertain underfoot for him to readily stand when he was made to do so, and of being fed minty-flavored food and drink that instinct said he shouldn''t eat, yet his captors forced upon him while he was too muddled to resist. And he had memories of eating that herbed food until the world swirled away once more. He remembered a familiar voice, its source strangely distant yet right there in his ear, desperate to reach him. The voice comforted him with its familiarity, though he couldn''t have said who even he himself was most of the time, let alone the name or the face that went with that voice. He was aware of the omnipresent chafe of chains at ankles, wrists, and throat, of a faint memory that he had once worn fine, tailored clothes, not the rough fabric rubbing against his flesh. He hadn''t always smelled of sweat and worse things, of unclean things, but that was due to the fact that he wasn''t allowed to bathe, nor allowed enough clarity in his wits to tend to himself. And then it happened. They didn''t come with the bitter-minty flavored food. The world rocked even more dizzily underneath Dom as he lay chained to his bed; his surroundings swayed and creaked dismally, slanting first this way, then that way at unnerving angles, while his mind slowly woke. The cloud obscuring his senses eased enough that he could hear the shouts and the snapping riggings, smell the rain and the sea, and the captive mage knew he was on board a ship on the ocean. Dominor remembered the Mandarites and their falomel -laced food. He remembered the oddly dressed, arrogantly opinioned Lord and his two duplicitous sons. And he remembered that he was captive on a ship that, from the sound and feel and smell of it, was caught in a bad summer storm, one that seemed to go on and on. Long enough that the last of the mage-confusing drug wore off. As the minutes turned into hours, Dominor became increasingly, uncomfortably aware of how filthy he was, how hungry and thirsty, and most of all how angry he was. When Dominor realized that, when his head was clear enough to think, he tested the chains keeping him bound more or less in place on his thin-palleted bunk while the ship surged with each hill-like wave. The chains were padlocked to thick iron staples set too firmly in the bulkhead walls for him to dislodge physically in his drug-weakened state. He tried a simple unlocking spell next, but the energy just glowed briefly for a moment, then sank into the manacles clamped at neck, hands, and feet. He tried a more complex spell, one that lit up the small cabin he was in, showing the walls, sea-damp from water seeping through the decks because of the storm. Symbols on the stout, silvered metal simply absorbed it. As they did so, the metal clamped around his wrists, ankles, and throat warmed briefly. Warningly. He didn''t know those symbols--magical languages were among the very few things that just didn''t translate well without intense study, not even with the aid of the Ultra Tongue spell--but he recognized their effect. They were absorbing his energies. If he threw all of his power at them, they might overload and break . . . and most probably burn off the flesh attached to them. Or, if they were forged with the right sort of enchantments, they could latch onto his powers and drain him to a lifeless husk. An unpleasant thought. Then again, so was the possibility of starving to death. Or rather, dying of thirst. That would happen first. His mouth felt like it had been scrubbed with sand, then powdered with dust. The heaving of the ship around him didn''t help; it reminded him of the liquid that lay beyond the hull. It was too salty to drink, of course, but it was a form of water, and he wanted water. Preferably without any mind-and-power stealing falomel in it. Odds are, they''ll try to keep me drugged until we reach landfall . . . unless I can talk them out of it , Dominor offered to himself. It was a slim hope, but not an impossible one. They''re so full of themselves and their males-are-superior attitude that if I pretended to listen and pretended to convert to their ways, they''d probably decide to trust me. Not too quickly, of course , he reminded himself. His mind was finally clear enough to have the room for cunning, for plotting and laying out his strategies. They''d not believe a sudden conversion. Not when they''ve kept me chained like an animal. They''ll expect some initial rage--and I have plenty of that! But if I ask the right questions, I can steer the conversation toward the idea of converting-the-prisoner. Like the question of what could they possibly offer me as an enticement to stay, when I''m Her Majesty''s Lord Chancellor. His mouth twisted wryly. Kelly of Doyle, the woman his eldest brother had married, had made that outrageous claim. The redheaded outworlder had proclaimed herself Queen of Nightfall, the island where he and his seven brothers had lived for three years after being exiled from their homeland, Katan. Her arrival and subsequent romance with his eldest brother, Saber, had fulfilled a prophecy spoken in verse by a woman born a thousand years before. The Seer Draganna had predicted the birth of four sets of twins, all of them mages, all of them with unique Destinies. One of those Prophetic Destinies had been the warning that some unspecified disaster would occur if the eldest ever bedded a virgin. The Council of Mages of Katan, in their so-called wisdom, had exiled Dom and his brothers to Nightfall to prevent them from meeting any women; if they were the Sons of Destiny, then all of them had to be removed, supposedly "for the greater good of Katan." The Council hadn''t accounted for the meddling of the youngest of them, Morganen, whose predicted Destiny was to match-make all of his siblings. He had hauled in a woman from another universe entirely to argue with, be courted by, and eventually marry the eldest of them. Even if it mean

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