Unbreak My Heart_BWWM Romance

by Shanade White

  They lay side by side on the bed, too exhausted to move, the only connection between them their hands which were firmly gripped together. When he’d recovered enough, he rolled up onto his elbow and looked down at her. “Did I tell you that I love you?” he asked, a silly grin on his face.

  “I think you might have but it wouldn’t hurt me to hear it again,” she said, feeling equally silly.

  “I love you Heather,” he said, his face suddenly serious.

  Heather’s heart melted at the look in his eyes. “I love you too Brian.”

  They stared into each other’s eyes, too overwhelmed with what they were feeling to speak, but then Brian said, “You know when I came here I was a very sick man, and I don’t just mean the Malaria. But you cured me Heather, you showed me that there’s so much more to life than science and I hope that the three of us will have a long time to explore all that’s out there.”

  Heather smiled up at him and said, “It wasn’t me that cured you Brian, it was love. You’ve had love’s cure and I don’t think there’s a better one out there.”

  The end.

  There's Snow Love Like His

  Two Rival Clans, One Love

  A complete & forbidden romance, brought to you by best selling paranormal author Jane Rowe.

  Lion shifters and bear shifters have been mortal enemies for generations.

  So when the snow lion prince Ted falls for a polar bear, it does more than take him and his people aback.

  Betty is like no woman he's met before.

  Beautiful, curvy, and with an air of sexy confidence which he hasn't seen anywhere in his pride.

  Soon the two embark on a forbidden love, forsaking all rules meant to keep them apart.

  But when a game changing secret held by the polar bears is revealed to him, where will Ted's true loyalty lie?

  Find out in this thrilling yet sexy romance by best selling author Jane Rowe of Shifter Club (search us).

  Suitable for over 18s only due to sex scenes so hot, it'll melt your ice cap. ;)

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 1

  Caius paced back and forth outside of the huge entrance to the Egyptian’s treasure, where six other Roman soldiers were currently having a look around. Of course, since this activity was definitely not on the orders of Marc Antony, who was currently having a rather long chat with Queen Cleopatra, he was out there keeping an eye out for any other troops who would disagree with their current brand of entertainment.

  “Hey, Caius, come in here for a minute!” called Tolumus excitedly.

  Taking one last look around to make sure nobody was around, Caius stepped inside and quickly shut the door. What he saw inside was much less impressive than he’d expected, for the most part. Either most of the treasure was hidden elsewhere, or Egypt was much less wealthy than he had thought. Other than a smallish statue of a strangely misshapen bird, there was little else to be seen.

  “Are you sure we’ve found the right place?” he asked Festus as he approached the rest of the group.

  “Obviously not,” said Lepidus as he rolled his eyes. “This is clearly not the treasure room. However, I believe there may be very great value in what we’ve found. Mephestilus, show Caius what you have discovered.”

  Caius blinked in total amazement as Mephestilus suddenly transformed from a mere man into a rather large white lion with a pale blue mane. He stumbled backwards when the others also transformed right after him.

  “What manner of magic is this?” he demanded as he rubbed at his eyes.

  “The best kind, I think,” said Festus excitedly. “We should take this statue for ourselves.”

  Tolumus said, “If we did that, we’d have to run away with it somewhere, Festus. There’s no way we’d be able to steal the spoils meant for Rome and be able to return home with them.”

  “Rome already owns half the world as it is,” Caius pointed out sagely. “We couldn’t go south, and both east and west and a great deal of the north are also a part of the Empire. Where do you think we could go?”

  “Even farther north, I’d imagine,” said Lepidus. “I have heard tales of a far off, frozen land that even Rome would not care to conquer.”

  “I’d hate to go to such a far off land without even a woman to keep me warm,” pointed out Festus. “Handsome as you men might be, you’re just not the kind of company I want in my bed.”

  Caius smirked then. “But, is there not an Egyptian ship laden with treasure and slave women as we speak? Perhaps we could simply steal the boat, sail out into the sea, and cross over to the other continent. From there, we could take what we wanted, sell a bit of it to buy transportation, and head as far north as fast as we can.”

  “We can’t possibly take a hundred slave women with us there,” protested Lepidus. “I don’t believe we could feed more than one each once we get to where we are going. We shall probably have to hunt and fish for our food.”

  “Perhaps, but with our new ability, that shouldn’t be nearly as hard as it sounds,” Tolumus reminded them as he finally returned to his human form.

  “Doesn’t anyone want to know what this strange statue is, or where it has come from?” Festus wanted to know. “There could be a heavy price to pay for making use of it. And what was it doing just lying here anyway?”

  “Never mind that,” Lepidus said. “Caius has not yet joined the party. Will you touch it, Caius?”

  “I will,” he agreed, and reached out to do just that.

  With a strange flash of golden light, he too was given the strange gift. Then, as one, the seven men carried the bird right out to the boat, seized control of it by force, and began to sail up the Nile. Since nobody was aware they weren’t supposed to be sailing, they easily made it out of the harbor, up the river, and out onto the open sea.

  *****

  Doctor Allie Dennison and her team of archaeologists had been working in the cave in the Brooks Range just outside of Wainwright for about four months now. Now that it was November, however, they had begun innovating ways to keep warm. Even inside the cave, the chill arctic winds tended to find their way down into the site, making it difficult to get much digging done on any given day.

  But, maybe because the group of scientific students that she’d brought along on the job was mostly women, the fifteen people seemed to be a much more persistent lot than most. If anybody was going to find clues to Alaska’s past inside these cold caves, it was them. They’d already begun to find arrowheads and stone hammers and other tools, but they had yet to find any significant bones. So far, all that could be proven was the presence of intermittent activities within the walls of the cave, but no actual pre-historic permanent residents of a human nature.

  Because it was so cold, they had erected a large shield-like barrier to house the ten women, while four of the men were sleeping in a smaller version of the same thing. However, a newlywed couple who had not wanted to sleep separately had brought along a small thermal tent of their own. Sally and Cooper Cummings kept pretty much to themselves whenever work wasn’t going on, but Allie sometimes thought they might be her favorite members of the current team.

  Cooper was strong and intelligent, and Sally was fun and talkative and productive. They usually tended to work near each other while everyone was digging, and Sally often would tell stories about previous sites she’d worked or memories of her childhood. Allie always told her she ought to write a book.

  Anyway, today Allie really felt like something important was about to happen. She didn’t know why, but she just couldn’t seem to shake the feeling no matter what she did. They had been digging for about three hours now, and she kept stopping periodically to see what everyone was pulling out of the ground. So far, it seemed to be the same things they’d found alre
ady. The suspense was as powerful as the intuition, and it was really starting to wear on her nerves.

  “Hey, Allie,” Sally called out to her. “I just dropped a rock that looked like it was probably a hammer, and it rolled down that incline somewhere. Do you want me to go get it back?”

  “Hold on, Sally, I should probably go with you,” Allie replied. “You know the rule, never go anywhere by yourself. Otherwise, nobody would have a clue where to look if something bad happened.”

  “Somehow that doesn’t sound very comforting,” said the petite black woman with a bit of a shudder. “But I’d rather not go down that hole by myself in any case.”

  Allie grabbed one of the torches they were using to light the large cavern where the dig was being conducted, and the two of them began to trace the path of the stone that had gotten away. It had apparently rolled all the way down the slope and rested in some as yet seen position at the bottom.

  “Say, Allie, I meant to let you know,” said Sally. “Cooper and I think I might be pregnant, but of course it shouldn't make any difference at all for at least the foreseeable future.”

  “Yeah, I wouldn’t think so,” Allie agreed. “If Eskimos can give birth to their babies while they’re living inside igloos, and they turn out all right, I hardly think you being here a few months into your pregnancy will be harmful. How far along do you suppose you are?”

  “At least two months, I think,” she said. “I suppose I could head over to Wainwright to see one of the doctors to make sure, but it’s so damned cold outside. I suppose it would be better to just stay in here until a sunny minute returns.”

  “You’d never get to town before the next sunset if you did,” Allie chuckled. “No, you know very well we’re dug into this place until at least January, and even then we’ll have to break out dog sleds and parkas to get out of this place. No, you’re in for at least two months, and there’s no questioning that.”

  “Yes, I pretty much expected you’d say that,” Sally agreed. “Oh, we seem to have reached the bottom. What on earth is that?”

  Several yards down another corridor within the cave, they could see candlelight. Casting each other curious looks, they began to edge closer to find out what could possibly be going on.

  Skirting along the wall as they went, the two stopped behind a large boulder when they spotted a group of about twenty men. Upon closer inspection, most of them seemed to be around the age of twelve, with only two adults among them. The women exchanged a confused look. Sally shook her head and Allie shrugged.

  In a language that sounded strangely familiar to Allie, though she couldn’t quite place it just now, they conducted some strange ceremony. Each of the boys set down their candle a short distance from a birdlike statue, and then all ten of them ranged around the thing, staring at it reverently. As one, at the instruction of the man who was conducting the event, the boys reached out and touched the statue.

  A blinding light shone, and then each of the ten boys transformed into huge, snow white lions. Allie and Sally grabbed onto each other, trembling in fear. Allie found herself praying to a God she didn’t even believe in that they wouldn’t realize the two of them were there. After a few minutes, each boy returned to human form and picked up his candle again. Then, as one, all of the men left again, going out an exit somewhere on the other side of the cavern.

  The two let go of each other, embarrassed to have been clinging together to begin with, and then stood up again. Sally started to leave the way they had come until she noticed that Allie was staring in the other direction.

  “That is the most amazing statue,” she whispered as she eased toward it instead.

  “What are you, crazy?” Sally hissed. “Those lion-guys could come back at any time. We got to get out of here and plug up the hole that brought us here, and we got to do it right now!”

  “Not until I get that statue first,” Allie insisted. “I want to know more about it.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sakes,” Sally complained.

  “It looks just big enough it would need both of us to carry it,” she added, casting Sally a glance she knew all too well.

  “Fine, let’s hurry up and do this,” she complained. “But if you take that thing out of here, we definitely gotta plug up that hole. Those things are sure to come looking for it, and I don’t want to be on the receiving end of their ire when they do.”

  They ran quickly over and each grabbed a wing, and the instant they touched it, a bright light flared. Each woman transformed, but not into a lion as the boys had done before. Each of them were now polar bears instead. They both stared at one another for a moment, and then as one they turned human again.

  Not bothering to take any time right then to discuss their newfound gift, they hefted the statue and carried it away. They went fast, and soon had the statue up the incline and carried it over to the women’s shelter.

  “Okay crew, would you all come over here please?” Allie called as she stuck her head out the flap for a moment. “We need to talk.”

  Four men and nine women all stopped what they were doing—not that they’d been doing much of anything for the last three minutes since Allie and Sally had shown up with a three-foot-tall bird statue to begin with—and came to the tent as requested.

  “Okay, no time for questions,” she said. “I want all of you to touch this bird right now.”

  “What? How stupid is that?” complained Mark Tucker.

  “Just do it,” Cooper suggested. “You don’t want to hear her bitch for three weeks if you don’t. Or have you forgotten the last time?”

  “Ugh! Don’t remind me,” he shuddered. Then he stepped forward and rubbed the statue briefly. Nothing happened.

  “That’s not right,” Allie said with a frown. “Meredith, you touch it.”

  Meredith stepped over and touched the statue. A bright light flared, and a polar bear stood in her place. Seeing this, the rest of the crew surged forward excitedly and touched it as well. For some reason, only the women transformed.

  “But that’s totally weird,” said Sally. “Shouldn’t the men have at least become lions or something?”

  “Why would we have become lions, sweetheart?” Cooper wanted to know.

  “That’s what the boys did, down in the cavern,” she replied.

  “There’s people down there?” he clarified. “And you two just took their bird? Do you have any idea what you might have just done?”

  “Of course I know, idiot,” Allie snapped. “Why the hell do you think I told you all to touch the thing without any questions. Now start packing up the gear. I’m pretty sure now is a good time to get out of here.”

  “Yes, Allie,” the others chimed, and they scrambled to pack up everything and put it into the snowmobiles waiting near the entrance. They were almost finished when they heard angry roars coming from the hole.

  “Allie, what do we do?”

  “The men can’t fight,” she decided. “You guys each take a snowmobile. Cooper, bring the statue with you. Do not let anyone take it away. Get back to my cabin in Wainwright and go down into the cellar. Do not fail me. Understand?”

  “I’m gone,” he agreed, grabbing the heavy statue and tossing it into one of the snowmobiles, then gunning it, shooting out into the snowy landscape and making a hard right.

  “The rest of you men, each take a different route so they don’t know who to follow,” she said. “Go now!”

  All of the women transformed into polar bears and began to attack, keeping the lions from following as the other three men each rode out as well. Even though there were more lions than bears, the eleven women were larger, and they fought with a fierce resolve, eventually beating the lions back down into their caves. Allie used the weight of her enlarged body to cause a rock to roll into place, effectively locking them inside.

  Human again, the women ran over to the remaining snowmobiles. Four of them had to walk, but they weren’t overly concerned. After all, they could now become polar bears most of t
he way there.

  *****

  Betty Cummings was about ready to head back to the Raven Research compound, situated a few miles outside of Barrow, Alaska, where her clan made their home. Raven, which was a scientific research facility founded twenty-four years ago, was the only home she’d known until she got sent to the university a few years ago. Now she only ever left the place to go work as a waitress in a small pub in the heart of town.

  The job was really just something to bring in a bit of money to keep the bills paid, since Raven was mostly self-sufficient. More importantly, it had a very huge secret of which she was a part. Thanks to a very special artifact, which they’d been studying for as long as Betty could remember, the women of her clan had a very special ability. All of them, including herself, could shape-shift into polar bears.

  “Well, sir, I guess it’s about time to lock the door,” she told the lone customer who was still sitting inside Allie’s Pub. “I hope you have some idea where you’re headed now that you’ve gotten your bearings.”

  Smiling warmly at Betty, the man flashed his pearly-whites yet again. She’d been having a difficult time ignoring how attractive the guy was, and now with the smile, which reached his unusually green eyes, and coupled with the thick black hair, she thought she might just be hooked. Too bad he was a stranger to these parts, and therefore unlikely to be there long, or she’d definitely want to know more.

  “Oh, no worries, little lady,” he chuckled. “Actually, I’m here in Barrow to stay, at least for the foreseeable future. I’m here as a new employee at the general store. My father recently moved out here and bought a house, so I’m headed there now. But I’d really like to talk to you again sometime. What days do you usually work here?”

  “Oh, most days I guess, unless it’s too cold to come,” she said. “I have to get here by sled from my home a few miles outside of town.”

  “Sled?” he asked curiously. “You mean you use dogs? Why not just come in by snowmobile?”