Hi, there! Rebecca Hamilton here to tell you how SUPER excited we are to bring you this MEGA giveaway! First place prize is a $1,000 Amazon Gift Card, but we also have 12 runner up ebook and paperback prizes! Entering will connect you with 21 paranormal romance and urban fantasy authors for more great deals, freebies, and giveaway, so in a way, everyone wins!
Before you enter the giveaway, check out an excerpt of BEAR RUN by Belinda Meyers, one of the authors sponsoring the giveaway!
When dark came, a cold wind blew down from the peaks, and Alice shivered. They’d been walking for hours, and she was sore and tired and hungry. Worse, she couldn’t help but stare around them in the dimness, the hairs on the nape of her neck lifted. Were there others out there, watching them? Hunting them? Giant, malicious bears from a certain scary valley, maybe?
Taggart seemed to sense her unease. “Don’t worry about the Black Valley shifters,” he said. “I’ll protect you.”
Yeah, but who’ll protect YOU? she wanted to say, but didn’t. Male ego and hard truth didn’t always go well together. Besides, she knew the answer. I’ve got your back, Tag, she thought, gripping her rifle tight. Nobody better mess with you while I’m around.
She had to smile at her own protectiveness. It shocked her how close she felt to Taggart after only one day of knocking around the woods together. She sort of missed being able to see him clearly. See all of him clearly. The night cloaked him, darn it, save when the moon shone down between a copse of trees or Alice and Taggart pushed through a clearing. Usually they skirted the clearings, though, going around the edges. It wouldn’t do to be seen in the open.
“Can you smell them?” she said.
She thought he shook his head but couldn’t tell. “No,” he said, as if realizing she couldn’t see him. “But they could be downwind.”
“You can see, though, right?” she said.
She bumped into something—a fallen log, she thought—and flinched, a startled noise coming from her throat. Firm Taggart-y hands gently pulled her to the side and set her on the right path. Hopefully, anyway.
“I can see,” Taggart said. “Just follow me.”
“If I could see well enough to follow you, I wouldn’t need to follow you!”
He let out a breath, she thought of impatience, but instead of snapping at her he reached out a hand and grabbed her free hand, then tugged her along. The contact was warm and solid, but he didn’t squeeze her hard, and she liked the feel of his firm, calloused hands. Here was a man who had lived hard all his life, who was hard, in more ways than one. He was almost an elemental of the forest, she thought, an extension of it, a part of it. He was like some dashing forest god. How could she, an overly curvy girl from a nothing mountain town, have interested a guy like him?
Was he interested? She thought so, but there was something in him ... some reservation, she was sure.
It’s the same thing I feel, she realized. He’s been taught to hate outsiders, and here I am, the ultimate outsider, someone raised to hate people—beings—like him. It made her furious, the ways their families (if his clan could be called a family) had twisted each of them, if in different ways. It made her even more furious to think that it had worked.
Because she couldn’t deny that somewhere in the back of her mind was that silly, stupid, hateful voice that insisted, He’s an animal! A demon! He’ll turn on you! Don’t trust ‘im! It was her pa’s voice, of course, but somehow knowing that didn’t make it go away.
Be quiet! she scolded her inner Pa. Her inner Bradley just sneered and said, You know he’s right, you cow. She growled at him to shut up, but he only sneered wider.
I’m going insane, she thought. Talking to ghosts in my head.
“How much longer?” she asked Taggart, trying to keep her voice low. No telling who was out there listening.
“Not long,” he said. “I think we’re almost—”
He stopped suddenly, and she drew in a sharp breath. What had he seen? Was it Pa and Bradley? Was it Kane and his asshole bear shifters?
“Well?” she demanded, starting to raise her rifle.
There was a smile in Taggart’s voice. “We’re there,” he said, and she could hear the relief, the expectation. “I can see the cabin.”
A weird sort of glee rose in her. Hope. It fluttered up through her chest and expanded, filling her, lifting her up. She realized she was smiling, too.
“Well?” she said. “What are we waiting for? Let’s go!”
Don't forget to also check out the complete list of books included in this promotion! Some of the authors have even put their books on sale just for you! Click any book to check it out on Amazon!
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