The Bargain

by Jess Mahler

Overview

It was supposed to be a straightforward sacrifice. After their mother was killed by Lord Oeloff, Mattin swore to do anything to protect his sister. When the fae lord came for her, Mattin traded his life and freedom to Oeloff's enemy for the promise of his sister's safety. He thought he was prepared for anything. Anything except what he actually found...

It was supposed to be a political gambit. Struggling against Oeloff's latest ploy, Jahlene found an unforeseen opening in the arrival of the bitter Mattin. Bringing the stranger into her household was a risk. Trusting him was a bigger one. To protect her family, Jahlene bargained with him. She never guessed how it would end...

Sometimes, what starts as a bargain, becomes something more.


The Bargain is a fantasy thriller exploring themes of family, betrayal, trauma, and sacrifice. It is an "own voices" book for polyamory, kink, and PTSD.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940158838910
Publisher:	Cuil Press
Publication date:	01/13/2018
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

As a child, Jess was taken from her family and turned into a marionette. Bluff, stubbornness, and Valdemar enabled her to survive long enough to eventually cut her strings and, like Pinocchio, set out into the world to discover what it meant to be human.

She discovered her family, polyamory, and eventually herself. Part of discovering herself was discovering that she had within her the wellsprings of fantasy that had once helped her survive. So she started writing. And soon her life filled with fae, werewolves, and TVtropes.

In the middle of inventing parallel worlds and fantastical beasts, she lost her family again, joined a polyam quad, watched it disintegrate around her ears, spent some time networking, fell in love with and subdued a disabled demon, partly raised four children, and wrote a surprisingly popular essay on the value of gold toe-socks in polyam relationships.

That essay was the springboard to start writing about polyamory regularly, and she turned her 10+ years of polyam relationships into fuel for a blog about pregnancy, mental illness, legal stuff, and other practicalities of polyamory.

Today she spends time frying sufganiyot to keep her demon lover appeased. She writes fantasy stories and polyam advice while the dough is rising.