Gryphon O'Connor is the only one of his kind and though he has protected and brought justice to his people as Druid warrior, he is ostracized and feared by those same people. When ancient Celtic power stones are stolen from a ransacked grave site, he is sent from his homeland to retrieve though re realizes he may not return. Unfortunately he is not in time to stop a murder being committed using the stones, which in turn puts the Order of mythical creatures in danger of discovery by the outside world.

His investigation leads him to a museum in New York and its here he discovers Heather. He finds a warm, compassionate heart in Heather, but enlisting her aid, much less telling her about the Order is a death sentence for them both and yet he can't seem to stop himself. She has touched something deep inside and awakened feelings long buried.

Heather can't quite believe what the gorgeous Gryphon O'Conner has told her about the theft of the stones. She believed the artifacts to be legitimately collected, but soon too many things happen, including another murder, that support his story, including locating and losing the 3 stones and a battle with an evil being who almost kills Gryphon.

Will the Gryphon be able to protect Heather from the very laws he upholds? Will Heather be able to let Gryphon go if it means he will live?

Ms Sams, has created strong, loving, selfless characters that simply worm their way into your heart and their love and poignant longing become your own in this powerfully written love story. Ms Sams also manages to make a social commentary on the error of judging someone simply by virtue of their differences. I will be eagerly awaiting the next book in what I certainly hope is an ongoing series.

Note: This book was previously released under another label.

Synopsis
For eight years, every Goblin child conceived has died immediately after birth. The Goblin leader, Tearach Bruce, is consumed with finding a way to save his race from almost certain extinction. When the Sorceress of the Ancients offers a possible solution to this terrible dilemma, her answer to the problem is too loathsome for the proud Goblin warrior to contemplate. She commands him to mate with a human woman—the very race that is responsible for his race's demise. Kathy Parker is a Paramedic whose father and fiancé were killed while fighting a fire. Trying to mend her broken heart, all she wants is to be left alone to get on with her life. She never counted on being kidnapped and designated as the one woman on Earth who can save a race of fairy tale creatures from extinction. Tearach and Kathy have no intention of allowing anyone to force them into a sexual relationship. They have absolutely nothing in common but their mutual disgust and anger with the Sorceress of the Ancients. The Sorceress' high-handed, unbelievably futile efforts to get them to lie together and conceive a child is absurd. Convinced that a baby from such a union won't survive anyhow, Tearach would almost rather die and let his people die with him than lie with a detestable human. During a passionate, unpredicted moment of lust, a baby is conceived. Still convinced that his child has no better chance of surviving than any of the other Goblin babies, Tearach secretly prepares to join his infant in death. The best he can hope for is that his baby girl lives long enough for him to hold her. But there are two things Tearach didn't count on...the love of a human mother for her half-Goblin baby, and the magic bestowed by a Gryphon's Quest.



Book Blurb
To save his race from extinction, the leader of the Goblins is ordered to kidnap and get a child by a human. For a proud Goblin warrior who remembers the horror mankind inflicted on his people, death would be preferable to lying with a woman from the outside world.

Come along with me as I tell the fourth Tale of the Order, Gryphon's Quest. Meet Tearach Bruce, the leader of the Goblin race. And meet Kathy Parker, the former paramedic he wants so desperately to hate. Is there any way possible for a man of myth to live with a woman from the outside world?



Short Excerpt
There were only forty-six of his kind left. Tearach Bruce paced the floor of his cottage and ran a shaking hand through his hair. For eight years, he'd racked his brain for a way out of this catastrophic dilemma. As leader of the Goblin faction, it fell to him to find a way to save his people. But how? It had been suggested that mating outside their own race, with other magical creatures of the Order, might be the answer. Not only had it proven futile, but it had resulted in tragedy. Within the last month, another Goblin woman died while attempting to give birth. And three more Goblin children had been stillborn. For eight years, the same sad tale repeated itself over and over. Nothing anyone tried had made the slightest difference. Some of the babies had lived the length of a day, but those instances had been rare.

He couldn't order his people to quit mating or take precautions to keep from bearing children. Swearing off women all together because of the infant mortality rate, he no longer took the sacred herbs preventing pregnancies himself. Some of his people believed one child might survive. And if that one babe lived, so might others. But the deaths were taking a toll on their morale. He might very well be the last leader of a race which was thousands of years old.