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May 1, 2017
Bear With Me
(The Blood Realm Series, #)by Jennifer Blackstream
Blurb:
Betrayal. Redemption. True love.
A beautiful bard looking for her voice
After witnessing her mother’s murder left her blind, Leta had to put away her sword and her dreams of becoming a bard. Now she is resigned to a calm life where the best she can hope for is a good marriage that will take the burden of her care from her father’s shoulders. When her father claims the gods have sent a man to be not just her husband, but perhaps her savior, Leta has to take a leap of faith…and hope she falls in love.
A handsome prince trapped in the body of a bear
Torben is a bear shifter struggling to pass a test laid on him by his power-hungry stepmother. Bound into his beast form during the day, able to be human only at night when the darkness hides him, he must find a wife. She can know him only as a bear and a bodiless voice in the night. For one year, she must let him keep his secrets, trust him as a wife should trust her husband. But what woman will climb into bed with a bear and trust it is a man waiting for her?
Even a blind woman can see when something is worth fighting for…
Available to
Excerpts
It was on the tip of Leta’s tongue to argue,
to tell her father what he could do with his suitor who thought he could fix
the poor little blind girl. But she bit it back. This was what they’d
hoped for, what they’d thought would be impossible. This was no time for her
battered pride to make a stand.
“I’ll
meet with him.” She took a deep breath and straightened her spine. “Perhaps you
could invite him to dinner this week?”
Her father cleared his throat. “He’s
here. Now.”
She slumped, hands going limp in her lap. “What?
What do you mean he’s here now?”
“He’s
here…for you.”
“He’s…”
Her voice was a pathetic squeak, and now it was her turn to clear her throat.
“Father…are you telling me you’ve already given him my hand?”
“I
signed the marriage contract five minutes ago.”
His voice was a whisper, so quiet she might
not have heard it two months ago, before she’d lost her vision, when her
other senses had not been quite so keen. She swayed and put a hand on the floor
to steady herself. She’d agreed to an arranged marriage, had given him her
blessing to find her a suitor. But…
“I
don’t understand. Why so quickly?”
“Leta,
it’s been two months. I’d hoped you would come through this on your own. I prayed
you would come through this
on your own. But you haven’t. I don’t know how to help you.
I…” His voice broke and he groped for her hands, took them in his trembling
fingers. “Leta, you need someone who will make you feel safe, who might be able
to bring you through—”
“And
what if there is no through this? What if this is who I am now, what
I am now?” Her muscles tingled with the urge to stand, to stalk away
from him, storm off in a healthy fit of justified indignation. “You couldn’t
let me have any dignity? Couldn’t let me go into this arranged marriage like
any other woman? You had to send me off to be fixed, as though I were a table
with a wobbly leg?”
Experience kept her kneeling on the floor. If
she tried to fly off in a rage, she would succeed only in humiliating herself.
High emotions flustered her, made it harder to remember where all the furniture
was, how far the wall was. A broken nose or bruised shins wouldn’t
help anyone, and it certainly wouldn’t do her wounded pride any good. And so
she sat there, a prisoner. Locked in a dark world.
“Well
then,” she said, her voice tight, “I suppose I’d better go meet the man who
will be my nursemaid from now on.”
“Leta—”
“Are
you going to escort me out, or would you like me to feel my way there, give him
a good idea of what he’s getting himself into?”
“Leta, please—”
“Very
well.” She was being childish now, but she didn’t care. She surged to her feet
and stuck her arms out in front of her, swinging them side to side as she took
small steps toward where she thought the doorway was. Her nerves screamed with
heightened awareness, bracing to be struck by something, as if the room were
suddenly full of stalactites. Ignoring her father’s protests, she shuffled
forward, feeling in front of her with the toes of each foot and the tips of her
fingers.
Her father tried to take her arm when she
reached the door, but she shrugged him off. Composing herself as best she
could, she groped along the wall of the hallway, inching closer and closer to
the main room of the house. She was grateful there were no stairs, and she was
able to make it to the sitting room attached to the foyer without falling or
striking anything.
It was hard to describe how she knew someone
was in the room, even though she couldn’t see. Something about the
hairs on the back of her neck, a tingle down her spine that screamed at her she
was being watched. She always knew when someone else was in the room with her,
but this time there was something more. A thrill that brushed her
fight-or-flight reflex, filled her with a strange, warbling anxiety. Someone
was watching her. Someone…big.
Don’t be ridiculous. You can’t possibly
feel size, her mind chastised her. Still, her senses stubbornly refused
to admit any doubt. Whoever was watching her had a weight to his presence, and
she could feel it. She blinked and moved her eyes around, trying to see
something, anything, a slice of shadow or light that would give her a clue. But
the darkness remained as thick as it always was, silent and impenetrable.
A strange scent wafted past her nose. Musk
and the crisp scent of the wind off the mountains to the north. The faintest
hint of sea air. The floor creaked as someone shifted their weight. Her heart
skipped a beat and her instincts crowed in vindication. There was definite
weight to that sound.
If that was her husband, he was not a small
man.
“Are
you really going to let the blind woman stand here wondering if she’s alone in
the room?”
“You
seem very aware that you are not alone.”
The voice was masculine, and so deep that it
vibrated things low in her body, quickened the pulse in her neck. She angled
her ear toward that voice, forming a mental picture of the room and her visitor’s
location based on where his voice had come from. It was lower than she’d
expected, as though he were sitting down.
“Leta,
this is Torben Biorna. Torben,
this is my daughter Leta.”
“I
understand I’m your wife now.”
She threw the words down like a gauntlet,
using her tone to make it clear what she thought of such things being settled
without her presence, let alone input. The floor creaked again, and somewhere
underneath that was a different sound that she wasn’t
familiar with. Something hard sliding against the wood. It was brief, too brief
for her to consider it closely. She frowned and tilted her head a little more,
waiting to hear if it would happen again.
“Yes,
you are my wife.”
Again his voice did strange and wonderful
things to her body, teasing sensations from her with that hint of promise, that
faint brush of heat. Warmth washed over her cheeks, and she was horrified to
realize she was blushing.
If he noticed her embarrassing reaction, he
kept it from his voice. “Things progressed quickly, and I
don’t blame you for being displeased at your lack of participation. It is not
how I would have liked to begin our relationship, but I hope you’ll give me a chance
to make it up to you.”
She groped for her temper, needing it to
bolster her defenses against that voice. “My father says you think you
can fix me.”
“Leta,”
her father warned.
“No,
it’s all right. I would be offended too, were I in her place.”
Another creak of the floorboards, followed by
that same sound. Leta leaned forward, and it stopped immediately.
“You
do not need to be fixed, Leta. You are not broken.”
Her father had spoken those same words to
her, more times than she could count. But they were different coming from this
man. He spoke with a definite authority, an unwavering confidence that said he
knew he was right. It touched something inside her, something frightened. A
tiny knot of tension she hadn’t been aware of relaxed.
“Torben
was a solider.” Her father’s voice was gentle now, encouraging. “He’s known a
lot of men who had very strong reactions after witnessing horrible things. He’s
helped them.”
“Your
father told me what happened to your mother,” Torben said quietly. “I’m sorry
for your loss.”
Echoes of her mother’s
screams filled Leta’s ears. Her chest rose and fell more rapidly, her breaths
sharper, painful. Ice water trickled through her veins, chasing away the warm
feeling Torben had summoned with his words, his voice. The knot of tension
returned, trailing a string of others until she stood hunched in on herself,
falling into an all-too-familiar nightmare.
“I
don’t want to talk about it.” Her voice was weak, strangled by the memory
peeking out at her like a monster from the mouth of a cave. She held her hands
out, feeling around herself for orientation.
“Leta,
here, come sit down.”
Her father took her arm, and she wilted with
relief and let him lead her to a chair. Sitting calmed her, took away the awful
feeling of disorientation that struck her when her emotions overwhelmed her
spatial sense. She fought her way out of the panic, tried to reorient herself,
remember where her husband was.
“We
don’t have to talk about it.” He spoke as if he’d sensed her discomfort, her
need to know where he was. “Know only that I am here to listen if you change
your mind.”
She bobbed her head, grateful for his
willingness to let it go. “You’re going to stay with us for a
while, then?”
Awkward silence billowed into the room like
dense fog.
“Leta…he’s your husband.” Her father shifted on his chair,
his discomfort announced by every squeak of the wood. “You’re leaving with
him.”
Leta went still, her request for Torben to
describe the room to her dying on her tongue. Her body remained blessedly calm,
soaked in a well of magic tea, but her thoughts benefited from no such aid.
They screamed inside her head like a chaotic whirlwind, dragging up memories of
awkward conversations with her mother and aunt over the duties she would have
as a wife someday.
She was still trying to decide how she felt,
a surprisingly challenging task without her body’s reaction to guide her,
when Torben spoke.
“It’s
been a trying day and we’ve traveled a good distance. You must be tired. Get
some sleep and I will see you in the morning.”
His hand tugged on her, pulling away, and
without meaning to, Leta tightened her grip. “You’re leaving?”
There was a humiliating tone in her voice, a
twisted combination of shock and wounded pride. She let go of Torben’s
hand, jerking away and then going completely still, unwilling to add to her
embarrassment by falling over a piece of furniture. The tea in her system
soured, taxed by strong emotion. The magic held. Barely.
“I
have some things to do before I sleep, and I don’t want to keep you up,” he
said finally. “I don’t mean to upset you. Do you want me to stay?”
Disappointment swelled inside her, and Leta
didn’t
bother to fight it. The fact that he could so easily leave her on their wedding
night, that he so obviously had no desire to stay with her… It was just one
more blow to her pride.
“Is
this to be the nature of our marriage, then?” she asked quietly. “Are we
married in name only?”
“What?”
He sounded surprised, completely taken aback.
It was a small comfort.
“I’ve
not been at my best today, and I know that. But this has been an exception to
the rule. I don’t have panic attacks so often—everything doesn’t scare me.” She took a deep
breath and turned to face him, reaching out, trusting her senses that he hadn’t
gone far. Her fingertips found the warm, bare flesh of his stomach, and she
pressed her hands against him, feeling the sculpted muscle of his human form. “You don’t scare me.”
He was so still that she thought he might
have turned into a statue. Only the heartbeat beneath her palm, solid and
beating faster with every pulse, told her he was still very much alive. His
chest rose with a deep breath, and then the weight of his hands settled on her
waist. His fingers met on either side of her body, and she marveled at the size
of his hands. The size of him. His bear form was impressive enough, but somehow
his human form was even more so. A fierce protector indeed.
“What
do you feel when I touch you?”
His voice was gruff, roughened by what she
dared to hope was desire. The question caught her off guard, should have made
her blush. “Calm,” she said firmly. She raised her chin, daring him to
argue with her.
“You
shouldn’t feel calm.”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
He knelt before her, forcing her to slide her
hands up his chest to his shoulders or else pull away. His fingers flexed
around her waist. “The magic is strong in your system. It’s a blessing that it
keeps your body from responding to fear, but it also keeps you from responding
to…other things.” He brushed her hair back from her face. “When I come to bed
with you, I don’t want you to feel nothing. I don’t want you calm.”
The Blood Realm Series
About The Author
Jennifer Blackstream is a USA Today bestselling author of fantasy/paranormal romance. Urban Fantasy will soon be joining her repertoire, and if she doesn’t get hold of the insidious roving gang of plot bunnies, there’s going to be steampunk sprinkled in there too…
To date, Jennifer has two series:
BLOOD PRINCE SERIES (COMPLETE):
Book 1 – Before Midnight
Book 2 – One Bite
Book 3 – Golden Stair
Book 4 – Divine Scales
Book 5 – Beautiful Salvation
Bonus Adventures in the Blood Prince World:
Book 2.5 – What Big Teeth You Have (free when you sign up for mailing list mentioned below)
Book 4.5 – The Pirate’s Witch
Book 5.5 – Dead to Begin With (available only between Thanksgiving and whenever Jennifer takes her Christmas tree down)
BLOOD REALM SERIES (IN PROGRESS SPIN-OFF OF BLOOD PRINCE SERIES):
Book 1 – All for a Rose
Book 2 – Blue Voodoo
Book 3 – The Archer
For news, new releases, and a free copy of What Big Teeth You Have, sign up for Jennifer’s mailing list.
Jennifer has unfailing affection for the authors who have influenced her, including Laurell K. Hamilton, Jim Butcher, and the sorely missed Sir Terry Pratchett. Her books include humor, romance, and action, with enough darkness to keep things very interesting.
When Jennifer isn’t writing, she can be found re-watching Boondock Saints, Noises Off, or Gross Pointe Blank. With one of those classics in the background, she might also be searching Amazon for something she wants, but doesn’t need (Is there any such thing as a kitchen gadget that isn’t an absolute necessity? And don’t even get me started on office supplies…).
You can find Jennifer at
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