This was meant to post last week, but I missed doing it. Things are progressing now though, so here we are.

I have the winners for the blog hop, and a sneak peek at what the prize will be, come on along inside….

Galleys Between

Christmas

© Jodi Lee 2013
All rights reserved.

We’d been searching for Nigel for five days. Gary slipped back and forth to get food from whichever side he could, and we slept whenever we found a room that was dark. There was no way we were going to do more than rest in the Galleys, not with the Sleepers being awake and sometimes violently active.

I was tired, and I was scared. I’d lost whatever courage I’d had that would have seen me through any battle with Maya. Maybe that courage was within Nigel himself, I don’t know. It hurt more to lose my friend, than anything else had for as long as I could remember; including my time in the hospital. Gary was doing his best to keep my spirits up, and I loved him even more for that. I couldn’t help but think things would have been better if Sana had been with me instead.

I missed her, too.

We’d been walking for hours, it seemed. Each Galley led to another, to another, and still yet to another. There were no doors. Both of us tried creating new doors, and whatever magic it took seemed to have disappeared as well. Finally, exhausted and nearing the end of our sanity, we turned down a darkened Galley, narrow and low enough that Gary was nearly stooped in half, and I was bent down quite a bit myself. I walked behind him; worried we were walking into a trap, he as much as pushed me back when I stepped forward ahead of him. “No, you can’t, it’s dangerous. Stay behind me, hold tight to my hand.”

This Galley was long, longer than most of those we’d been in before. I was starting to feel very claustrophobic; I could feel panic surging just below my rib cage. I tried pulling away from Gary, but he held tighter, nearly dragging me when my feet refused to take the steps.

And then, a door. We almost missed it, and would have, if not for a thin shine of light around the edges. Gary touched it, and it opened. The room beyond was sparkling with brilliant, ever so tiny fairy lights, each one glinting like a diamond in sunlight. A huge fireplace was filled with a crackling, warming fire. The mantel was decorated with boughs of evergreen and holly, little trays of cookies, and tiny elf figurines. Tables were covered in red and green cloth, stacked with plates filled with more cookies. One larger table held several bowls of punch and a creamy liquid that almost looked like milk. Egg nog?

We stopped, just past the threshold, and took it all in. Gary nudged me, pointing to the far corner. The largest, prettiest, most elaborate Christmas tree I’d ever seen was set up, with literally mounds of presents underneath and scattered around.

The penny dropped. Wherever we were, it was Christmas. There had to have been someone else to have gone to all this trouble. And there was.

And the winner of the blog hop draw is AnaGia Wright! She has named a character in the story Marishka, and wins all three Galleys Between novellas as well as the exclusive short story previewed above.

Dama Blythe and Shari Yetto each win a copy of Galleys Between – Recovery, the first in the Galleys Between series.

Congratulations, everyone!