Three Backstories From By Blood or By Bond

To Save a LifeViggo Aulus Callias is a young legionnaire who is, in all truth, far from being the perfect Roman. He says what he means to everyone, and wishes for nothing but justice. When he and his brother, Flavius are invited to a part at the house of Tribune Laurus, Viggo foresees nothing more than three days of boredom and political speeches. But he makes the acquaintance of a young slave boy who, Hector, who has been cruelly beaten by the tribune. Viggo, having suffered at the hands of an abusive father, found he could not stand by and watch the boy's suffering continue, despite the consequences he knows will arise confronting the tribune. Soon the three days turn into a frantic count down for Viggo to figure out a way to save the life of a boy he is fast becoming to care for as a brother. But will he be able to after becoming enemies with the tribune's crafty nephew?Home Before the HarvestNow a centurion in the Roman army, Viggo Aulus Callias and now his younger foster brother, Hector, find themselves in Germania on duty. He's looking forward to his leave to go back to his wife and see his son for the first time that autumn, but that hope becomes more desperate when he finds that his old enemy, Tribune Amatus, is serving his military term in the same legion. Old rivalries spring up between them, even more deadly than they had been before, and with his and Hector's lives threatened by Amatus, Viggo begins to wonder whether he will make it back to Rome alive at all, let alone before the harvest.Wolf HuntCaolán is the son of a Celtic chieftain in ancient Britain, a warrior and a great hunter. One day, he gets the feeling that someone is watching him from the woods while he hunts and that night he dreams that his best friend and foster brother, Fáelan, is killed by a wolf. He can't shake the feeling that his dream might be a vision, knowing his mother possessed the Second Sight, and when wolf attacks begin happening around the village, he worries that Fáelan's life might be in danger. As a wolf hunt is organized, and Fáelan insists on going, Caolán must decide whether to follow his gut feeling or push it aside as superstition and coincidence.This novel contains three companion novellas to Hazel West's novel By Blood or By Bond as well as three mini stories and character sketches.