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  Amourisa Press and Kit Tunstall, writing as Kit Fawkes, reserve all rights to BEARLY BREATHING. This work may not be shared or reproduced in any fashion without permission of the publisher and/or author. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  © Kit Tunstall, 2015 Cover image: pressmaster; VolodymyrBur; m_m_a2012; luckybusiness; pljw1; yekophotostudio; artofphoto

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  Contents

  Bearly Breathing

  Polar Bond

  Bear’s Secret Baby

  One Night With A Bear

  Fighting For Her Bear

  Bonus Excerpt

  About Kit Fawkes

  Author Bio

  BEARLY BREATHING

  Shy socialite Breanna is used to being overlooked, minimized, and ignored. She’s grown up in the suffocating household of her old-money parents and done her best to please them. Even her musical talent failed to do that, so she agreed to marry a man of their choosing in a last desperate bid to win their approval. Just weeks before the wedding, she runs away, knowing she can’t marry someone she doesn’t love. As she flees to her friend in Canada, she wrecks her car in the mountains. Rafe, the man who rescues her, is a bear-shifter wintering in his cabin. Snowed in together, the passion flares between them, and he soon realizes she is his mate. To keep him, Breanna will have to accept all of him—and stand up for her right to make her own decisions.

  POLAR BOND

  In Seattle for her best friend’s wedding, curvy Grace is immediately attracted to the best man, Kingston Meade. He’s equally interested in her, especially since his bear insists she is their mate. The attraction is undeniable, but she still doesn’t know he’s a polar bear shifter. There’s also the added problem of leucistic panther-shifter Ashley, who is determined to get her claws into Kingston, and she’s willing to slash Grace out of his life to do it.

  BEAR’S SECRET BABY

  Shayla adopted her niece at birth when her sister turned her back on the baby without a real explanation, besides the “strangeness” of the father’s people. Aislinn is ill, and the doctors have given up hope, so she takes the girl to Bear Island, where her father and his people live, praying for a miracle. She finds truths she isn’t ready to face among a clan of bear-shifters. In Kade, she finds an angry bear denied the knowledge of his daughter’s existence. There is more beneath the anger, and when he looks at her, she knows he feels the pull between them too. Their attraction is as impossible as it is irresistible, but they must work together when an outside force tries to remove the baby from both of them.

  ONE NIGHT WITH A BEAR

  When Dr. Jade Barnes impulsively stops at a bar before leaving for a four-month archaeology dig, she spends a single night with a stranger, not even learning his last name. When she slips away the next morning, she doesn’t realize she isn’t leaving alone.

  When they meet again, Cody surprises her by how well he takes the news of impending fatherhood. There are further surprises awaiting, like the fact he’s a bear-shifter. Initially that terrifies her, but she soon appreciates his strength and protectiveness when someone targets her for an unknown, but nefarious, purpose.

  Cody can protect her body, but it’s her heart in danger when the stubborn bear-shifter makes it known he’s going to claim her as his mate, and he’s not above using every dirty trick he knows—including killer foot massages and kisses that make her whole body tingle.

  FIGHTING FOR HER BEAR

  When Maya investigates a tip about illegal bear fights on a private island, she doesn’t expect to discover the bears are actually bear-shifters being exploited for their genetic abilities and as entertainment to build a criminal’s gambling empire. Before she can do anything with the information, she’s captured and detained. As a veterinarian-in-training, she’s able to persuade them to let her work with the fighters instead of killing her. She immediately connects with one of the shifters, slowly winning Hale’s trust. When the scientist discovers she is Hale’s mate, he has plans to start a breeding program to replenish their supply of shifters. Hale and Maya face the toughest fight of their lives as they battle to regain their freedom and bring down the whole operation.

  BOUGHT BY A BEAR

  As the emcee of a charity auction for WishGranters Foundation, Olivia isn’t on the bidding list. That doesn’t stop billionaire Jensen Meade from offering six million dollars for an evening of her time. He’s a perfect gentleman, and they’re soon spending all their time together despite her wariness after a previous bad relationship. He knows she’s his mate, but she doesn’t yet know he’s a bear-shifter, and it seems like the wrong time to tell her when someone who’s been stalking him switches focus to Olivia instead.

  Bearly Breathing (Emerald Shifters, Book One)

  Kit Fawkes

  Blurb

  Shy socialite Breanna is used to being overlooked, minimized, and ignored. She’s grown up in the suffocating household of her old-money parents and done her best to please them. Even her musical talent failed to do that, so she agreed to marry a man of their choosing in a last desperate bid to win their approval. Just weeks before the wedding, she runs away, knowing she can’t marry someone she doesn’t love. As she flees to her friend in Canada, she wrecks her car in the mountains. Rafe, the man who rescues her, is a bear-shifter wintering in his cabin. Snowed in together, the passion flares between them, and he soon realizes she is his mate. To keep him, Breanna will have to accept all of him—and stand up for her right to make her own decisions.

  Chapter One

  The snow had definitely gotten heavier in the last hour. Breanna Dawson had prepared abstractly for the concept that driving up to Canada in December would be mean driving through snowy mountains, but having lived all her life in southern California, it was a new experience. At first, it had been an enchanting experience. She had even stopped her car on the side of the road at the nearest turn-out, gotten out of the little hatchback, and walked over to the side of the road to scoop up a handful.

  It was kind of silly, considering she had been on skiing vacations with her parents to such idyllic places as Vail, Colorado and the Matterhorn in Switzerland. Still, there was something touching and innocent about the first snowfall during her reckless flight from her fiancé.

  Her enchantment had faded as the snow had deepened, falling from the sky heavily now. Breanna was nervous, both in her lack of driving skills on snow and ice, and by the amount of snow piling up outside. She was also concerned Richard might be following her, though she couldn’t fathom that really happening.

  He was such a cold man that he would likely shrug off the news of the broken engagement with little more emotion than he would show for a downward turn in the stock market report. No, she decided with the twitch of her lips, he would greet the downturn with more visible upset than he would losing her as a fiancée.

  It wasn’t as though he loved her, and she certainly didn’t love him. It was simply parental machinations and Richard’s desire to marry into the old money and higher echelons of a southern California society couple that had forged their tepid union. She didn’t see anything besides his ambition when he looked at her. There was no passion in his eyes, and his kisses were cold as ice.

  She couldn’t blame him, she supposed. Not because she was curvy, with generous hips, a rounded butt, and nice breasts. No, it was simply because she didn’t feel a spark for him either. As she’d examined the relationship on the three-day dri
ve leading her toward Canada, she had found herself wondering how she had acquiesced to the arrangement to start with.

  It came down to weakness. Or perhaps apathy. Either way, she had wanted to please her parents, a task which she should know by now was impossible. Nothing she had ever done had pleased them, including her prodigious music musical talent with the piano. When her stage fright had stifled her ability to perform, and the music had dried up, they had lost even the slightest hint of pride in her.

  It stung, and though intellectually she knew a twenty-four-year-old woman didn’t need her parents’ approval, it was still difficult to get by without it. When her father had suggested the marriage as a way to bring a cash infusion into his company, while adding to Richard Greyes’s prestige, she hadn’t objected overtly.

  As the snow continued falling, Breanna almost giggled, though it was a bitter sound rather than one of amusement. At first, she had assumed Richard would see her curvy frame and decide she wasn’t the girl for him. That hadn’t deterred him, and he had shown no signs of calling off the wedding. Like an automaton, she had gone along with the whole idea, but her anxiety had increased daily.

  Three days ago, when she had fallen to her floor in the midst of a panic attack, unable to breathe with the weight of dread stifling her, she had known it was time to draw an end to the farce—something she should have done weeks ago, before invitations went out and preparations were well underway.

  There was no way she could walk down the aisle in three weeks to be a Christmas bride. The thought of marrying Richard, of lying in bed with him and bearing his children, had left her physically ill. Just imagining sex with him had triggered another round of anxiety and gasping for breath. Her maid had found her, sitting with her until Breanna managed to finally calm down and breathe deeply. Lupita had offered a tissue, along with some unsolicited advice that had changed her life.

  “It is wonderful to please your parents, Miss Dawson, but it is even more important to please yourself. If you do not want to marry Mr. Greyes, you must tell him now.”

  Breanna had nodded, her inherent shyness keeping her from hugging the younger woman, though she had wanted to. Fearing Lupita’s reaction, she’d held back, but had uttered a sincere thanks.

  As soon as the maid left, she had packed her bags and taken the hatchback that was intended for the staff from the garage. Her parents were less likely to notice it was missing to start with, and she figured she had several days’ head-start before anyone discovered her absence.

  After all, there were no dress fittings scheduled for five more days, and that was about the only time she saw her mother. She had certainly not been offered much input into the wedding choices, but perhaps that was because her mother had realized Breanna didn’t really care what color the napkins were, or which flowers appeared in the centerpieces. She had just wanted to grit her teeth, get through it, and pretend it wasn’t happening.

  Breanna had impressed herself with her strength when she had walked away, though she knew if she had a scrap of real courage, she would have stayed to face her parents and Richard directly. Instead, she had chosen the cowardly way of sending her ex-fiancé an email, and she had set an automatic email to go to her parents the night before the next dress fitting. Sure, they lived in the same house, but they might as well be a thousand miles apart for all the daily interaction they shared.

  Now, less than two hundred miles from the Canadian border, in the middle of Nowheresville, Idaho, she was questioning her decision. Not the resolve to avoid marriage to Richard, but simply her vague plan to drive north to see if she could find her friend from college.

  Grace had been her best friend ever, but they had drifted apart after graduation, both returning to their homes. She knew her friend lived in Calgary, but beyond that, she was clueless. With the potential of being stuck in a blizzard, and the possibility of freezing to death, Breanna realized just how impulsive and stupid this plan had been. At the very least, she should have taken a hotel room and spent some time tracking down Grace before she just fled blindly into terrain with which she was unfamiliar.

  Up ahead, something caught her attention. Breanna tapped the brake pedal lightly, and the car started to slow. As she drew closer to the object near the edge of the road, she gasped and instinctively turned the wheel, though she wasn’t even close to hitting the large bear.

  Holy crap. She was in grizzly territory. Or maybe it was a black bear. She couldn’t be sure, never having seen one in person and having gotten only a brief glimpse of the animal in question.

  As she started to pull over to the side of the road to take a deep breath and regain control, the car hit an icy patch. Breanna whimpered as the steering well spun in her hand, and the car began to spin. The car turned almost three-quarters of a full circle, sending her off the road, and the passenger side careening into a large tree. The impact pushed the car away, and she sideswiped another tree before crumpling her hood into a final large trunk.

  The airbag deployed to prevent her slamming into the windshield, but she still experienced a huge jolt through her body. As the car shuddered to a halt, her head slammed sideways into the window. Hot blood immediately flooded the area, pouring down her face.

  Breanna cried out with genuine fear as she tried to lift her arm to see the damage. She couldn’t move, because the door had crumpled around her. She was pinned in the car, and her head was bleeding profusely. Dizziness swept over her, and though she tried to fight the urge to close her eyes, she couldn’t seem to resist.

  Pain flared in her head, and she blinked her eyes in an attempt to fight back the urge to seek unconsciousness. A shrill scream escaped her at the sight of the large bear sprawling across the front of her car, standing on its hind legs and supporting itself against the car frame with its front legs.

  It was a huge specimen, but with arresting green eyes the color of pine trees. She’d never seen anything like it, but it was amazing. It was also the last thing she saw before she surrendered to the wave of blackness sweeping over her.

  Chapter Two

  Damn, it was cold. Rafe Cabello didn’t like the winter much anyway, since it was more natural for his kind to hibernate away. That was impractical with a modern lifestyle, so he compromised by wintering in his cabin sheltered deep in the Coeur d’Alene Mountains. It was den-like and cozy, but his bear had been restless, so he’d gone for a run. Rafe had left his clothes folded neatly on the front step before transforming to his ursine side and loping through the woods.

  The car had been unexpected, but he had been nowhere near it. The idiot driver had clearly overcompensated at the sight of him, and now the little hatchback was twisted into a tree.

  He had the curmudgeonly urge to turn around and go back to his cabin, but surprisingly, his bear was urging him forward. He didn’t know what had made that side of him so social or concerned with others, but he grudgingly surrendered and walked across the road to the site of the accident.

  He couldn’t see anything with the snow and angle of the car, so he walked around to the side, and then the front. Reluctantly, Rafe clambered to the top of the car, standing up to his full bear height. It was an uncomfortable position, but he maintained it by supporting his paws against the car’s roof.

  He drew in a ragged breath at his first glimpse of the woman behind the wheel. It was difficult to make out much of her with the airbag obscuring his vision, but the blood trailing down her face alarmed him.

  Her eyes appeared closed, so he risked changing in front of her. In less than a second, he shed his ursine form and was back to a human male. He reached for the door and handle, grunting with the effort to open it. The metal had twisted with the impact, and though he was a strong man, he couldn’t tear the distorted metal from the frame.

  However, his bear was more than capable of doing so. Rafe went to the back of her vehicle, thankful the hatchback wasn’t locked. There was a jumble of suitcases in the back, and he sorted through until he found something useful. He did
n’t know the bungee cord’s original purpose, but he hoped it would work to help open the door. After closing the hatchback, he ran back to the door, shivering as the snow struck his bare skin. He didn’t notice it too badly with his bear form, because of his thick layer of fur, but in just his skin, he was colder than hell.

  He could only imagine how the driver was faring, so he made quick work of fastening the bungee cord around the handle several times. Then he shifted back to his bear, grasping the bungee cord between his teeth. As he pried at the door with his claws while tugging on the cord with all his strength, the creak of metal signaled he was accomplishing something. With another vigorous tug and an extra surge of effort, the door popped open, hanging oddly.

  As quickly as possible, Rafe was once again human and went to the car and knelt down to check the accident victim. There was no one else inside the car, for which he was grateful. The way the passenger door had slammed against the tree, whoever was on that side wouldn’t have made it.

  Fortunately, the door seemed to have done nothing more to the driver than rip a long abrasion down her arm. He spent a moment foraging through her things in search of something to use as a makeshift bandage, settling for a plain white camisole. The cotton yielded easily to his tears, and it was absorbent when he wrapped it around the wound.

  His unconscious patient whimpered as he tied off the strip of cloth, which he took as a good sign. He’d been half afraid she was deeply unconscious, judging by the amount of blood pouring down her face. However, he knew head wounds could bleed profusely, no matter how minor. This appeared to be on the moderate side, though concussion was a real possibility.

  It took some maneuvering, but he was able to get her out of the car without brushing her lush body against the mangled metal that had been the door. When he stood up, she curved against him, sighing softly.