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

a sling. His left hand was laden
down with fancy rings, all with gleaming jewels in them. It was night, but the
outside lights were on—my parents had left them on for me—so I could see
everything.”
    Matt could see the memory of her
fear in Jackie’s face; it had gone still and pale, and moisture gathered at the
corners of her eyes. He reached out and held her hand. She surprised him by
gripping his back fiercely.
    “Go on,” he prompted gently. “What
happened next?”
    Jackie nodded, gathering her
strength, and said, “He held up his hand and spoke a word—a single word. That’s
all it took. I knew what he was trying to do and started to Shift. My wings
popped out on my back, totally shredding the cute dress I’d bought just for the
date, and I began to gather my fire inside my chest. If I could just burn him
to a cinder before he could cast that spell …” She let out a ragged breath.
“But of course he was too fast, too powerful. The air blurred around his hand,
and the blur moved forward and grew larger. It folded around me and tightened.
Like it was strangling me. At first I thought I couldn’t breathe, but then I
realized it wasn’t my breath he was stealing.”
    “It was your fire.”
    She nodded. “Yeah. He drew it out
of me, and as he did one of his rings began to glow—a dark gem in a gold band.
I let out a terrible scream and crumpled to the ground. My parents burst out of
the house and saw Walsh there, all triumphant and evil and me weeping on the
ground, my wings gone, my fire gone … half
of me gone … and my dad went nuts. He leapt at Walsh, fists flying. Walsh
could have simply vanished, or he could have frozen my dad in time or
something, but he was—is—an utter evil bastard. He used my own fire, which
still glowed in that gem on his finger, to kill my dad. I saw the ring glow
bright, and then the brightness came over my dad. Flames consumed him in a
heartbeat. Only then did Walsh utter a spell and flicker out of existence.”
    Rage boiled inside Matt, a furious,
protective anger that someone could have done this to anyone, let alone someone,
he realized, almost to his shock, that he was beginning to care for deeply.
    “Damn it all,” Matt said. “He stole
your fire and killed your dad.”
    Jackie nodded, her chin trembling,
and tears streamed from her eyes. Matt couldn’t take the pain he saw in her
face, but he wouldn’t let himself look away. He let that pain bore into him and
lodge deep inside. One day , he thought, I’ll give that pain an outlet. I’ll
unleash it on Walsh just like he unleashed Jackie’s fire on her dad.
    Jackie’s hand squeezed Matt’s even
tighter, so tight it was painful, but he only gripped hers more firmly in
return, letting her know that he could take it, that he was there for her.
    “My mom and I were devastated,”
Jackie said. “She mourned for a long time, and so did I. But we were somehow
separated. The tragedy should have brought us together, but it only drove us
apart. I was in my own little world, a sphere of pain and isolation, and my mom
was in her own place, too. It was like the pain built walls around us. I would
have turned to my grandmother, but she had set off on a mission of revenge to
kill Walsh for slaying her son and stealing my fire. She never did return, and
I learned later that he killed her, too.”
    “God damn.”
    Jackie sniffed wetly. “I’d had big
plans. College. A career. A huge life I’d planned out for myself. But after
that … I just didn’t have the heart for it. I started wearing dark clothes,
listening to death metal. I guess I kind of went goth. And all the while hate
festered in me, and I knew I had to give it some release. I had to strike back
somehow, if you know what I mean.”
    “I get it,” Matt said, nodding.
    “I hated Walsh for abusing his
magical abilities like he did. So when I learned of a shifter who was using a
magic amulet to make himself stronger and using that against others, I made