Free Bear Fire: Bear Shifter Paranormal Romance (BBW) (Pine Ridge BBW Bear Shifter Paranormal Romance Series Book 4) by Belinda Meyers Page A

his mouth.
If this was Tannenbaum, then that was probably to prevent him from speaking
spells. Huh, that was weird. Matt had already bought into this crazy new world
and was trying to fit his old skills into it, or maybe the other way around.
Well, he’d been trained to adapt quickly, so that shouldn’t surprise him,
really. Somehow it did, though. Wizards
and dragons—Matt old boy, what have you gotten yourself into?
    To Jackie, he said, “That
Tannenbaum?”
    “I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve
never seen a picture of him. It’s not Walsh or the creepy guy from the bar,
though. And he’s not using a glamour to disguise himself. So I think so. It’s
how he described himself.”
    The man in the chair tried to say
something around his gag, but the sounds came out muffled. Matt stepped forward
to unbind him. As he did, hairs prickled along his neck.
    He spun. Ducked—just in time. A
whip made of shadow flashed through the place where his head had just been. Crack! Matt could feel the awful power
of that blow and knew it would have killed him. That was no ordinary whip.
    The wielder of the surely magical
weapon, just now becoming visible, had evidently cloaked himself with some sort
of spell, but Matt had sensed the trap even as the asshat had sprung it. The
man was tall and pale, though clad in dark clothes. Wearing a sneer, he coiled
his shadow-whip back for another strike.
    Jackie flung some powder at him
from one of her pouches and spoke some words Matt didn’t understand. The asshat’s
whip-arm became encased in ice, stopping his next strike … but only for a
moment. The man uttered a word, and the ice shattered loudly.
    Jackie’s spell had given Matt all
the time he needed. He loosed his bear, and with a growl it exploded from him,
became him. Bounding across the floor toward the magic-user, Matt had time to
see the man’s eyes narrow in hate and the muscles in his whip-arm begin to
bunch for another blow. Matt was on him before he could lash the air again with
that devastating whip and tearing at him with fangs and claws.
    Matt slammed the guy over the head
with a paw, and the man collapsed seemingly unconscious.
    Matt paused, wondering if he should
just kill the dude.
    “Wait,” Jackie said.
    Matt slipped back into his human
form again. Panting, he turned to Jackie, afraid he would see revulsion in her
face—after all, he’d just attacked and nearly killed a man. He was just
following his soldier’s instincts and training, though. The whip-guy had been a
lethal threat and had had to be neutralized in whatever manner possible, and
Matt wasn’t exactly carrying a tazer. But Matt couldn’t have taken it if Jackie
had looked on him with loathing, and he felt dread rise up in him when he swung
his gaze to her.
    He blinked in surprise when she
threw herself against him and wrapped her arms around him. He hugged her back. Had
she been scared for him?
    “So what do we do with him?” Matt
said.
    “I don’t know, but I’ve heard there’s
a magical prison. A place for criminal wizards.”
    He laughed. “Like in Harry Potter!”
    She rolled her eyes. “I guess.
Maybe Tannenbaum will know how to get him there.”
    The man in the chair made more
muffled noises. Matt crossed to him and took off the gag, then started to untie
him.
    “Let me,” said the man, and said a
string of alien-sounding words. As if under their own power, the ropes popped
off and fell away. The man stood and rubbed his joints and flexed his limbs,
getting the circulation back in them. He was about fifty-ish and looked more
like a golf pro than a wizard, but whatever.
    “Tannenbaum?” Jackie said
cautiously, coming forward.
    “You can call me Bryan,” the man said.
He studied Matt, making an obvious effort not to look at Matt’s dong. “You must
be one of Pine Ridge’s famous bear shifters.”
    “I don’t know about famous,” Matt
said. “But yeah.”
    “Well, I thank you. Both of you.”
Tannenbaum looked to the