Bear Guards: A Paranormal Romance

by J. S. Striker

  He spread her legs, his mouth sliding down further in between. His tongue teased the material, and she writhed against him and slid her hands through his hair, tugging. Understanding what she wanted, he slid the material down and didn’t waste time, sliding his tongue against her slit and delving into her warm cavern. Her moans increased, filling the air and his soul, and he knew if he had all day, he would use it just to do this—to play with her and gobble her up until she was a mass of magic and pleasure.

  Instead, he took what he could. Thunder boomed louder than ever, and rain suddenly fell, so loud and insistent as it blocked the rest of the world. She whispered when she was close, and Adam surged up and crashed his mouth against hers in a desperate kiss as he slid his pants down and his hardness inside her in one smooth thrust.

  She gasped. Her gasp turned into a moan when he kept moving, and she wrapped her legs around him for better, tighter hold. He revelled in the feel of her tightness, revelled in the taste of her as he thrust and kissed and ravished, unable to get enough.

  His name came out of her mouth like a prayer, and that prayer was followed by soft moans. Then she was bucking and stretching, her muscles clamping on him like a vice as she found her release. He kissed her with everything he had, the knowledge of what they were only enhancing what this was.

  She kissed him back, and he felt everything in that, too. She stayed with him as he kept pounding inside her, the pleasure reaching a point of no return.

  The bliss found him. Adam groaned out her name.

  Then he emptied himself inside her and flew.

  *****

  It didn't end in the kitchen, as the ache for each other grew too much to bear.

  Once they got a little of their wind back, they were stumbling into her bedroom, where he proceeded to ravish her body, and she proceeded to drive him mad as her tongue came in contact with all his pleasure points. He found that her talent wasn't only in magic as her mouth found ways to make him groan out loud and call out her name.

  He found himself enjoying every bit of it.

  The rain kept on, turning into a storm that raged outside as they took each other all over again. Midnight came, and he'd have liked to make love to her some more. But he could feel her languid body sliding into tiredness beside his, her third orgasm taking a toll on her. His own muscles ached, and he knew it was time to rest.

  The third wave would be here soon.

  Chapter 13

  The third wave didn’t come as soon as they expected—something that only made Hazel tense as she went to work every day and tried to get by. She worked on autopilot with her mind preoccupied, and she could only be grateful that her workload wasn’t precise and needed minimal direction. Nobody was the wiser, as she tried her best to maintain her smile and be as efficient as possible.

  Adam’s two-week stint turned into three, then four. By the time the town deemed him safe and was finally willing to integrate him into the community—one that had gotten to know him thoroughly—she was up on ends trying to fight off the paranoia and re-fortifying the house practically every night. Adam was calmer, watching over it when he could, reminding her that they still had time to leave if she wanted.

  But Hazel refused to leave, not when this had been her home for a long time, and this was the only place she knew they could fight back properly. As long as the demons stayed on their property, they would be okay.

  They would weather this.

  The fourth week went, and the weekend brought on relief. Her muscles were tired from all the healing she had to do, but it was a good kind of tiredness, one that only made her ache for another thing. It had her grinning as she visited Adam at the local garage shop, where she found him helping Mr. Peterson out with some of the techniques he learned through all his moving.

  They walked on the way home and arrived just in time for dinner. Her ache grew as she watched Adam remove his coat, and it wasn’t long before she was jumping him. He didn’t complain. In fact, Adam loved it, and they found themselves only able to make it into the living room as they took each other on the rug and proceeded to burn their butts on it. That night was capped off with wine and good food as they found themselves relaxing on the same rug and talking about their pasts.

  “So you’ve never had a proper home since the demons came after you?”

  “No. I’ve had apartments.”

  “Apartments can be homes.”

  “They didn’t feel like home to me.”

  “What feels like home to you?”

  He tilted his head as if considering it. Then he looked at her. “Somewhere simple. Somewhere I can be with my mate and can shift in a large field whenever I want to. Fly when I want to. It’s freedom and bliss. A little garden in the backyard sounds great, too.”

  Her heart decidedly felt light at that, especially when she understood what he meant. She wanted to tell him so many things: how this could be his home, how this felt more like home since he got here, how everything they shared made it impossible for her to think about this place without him in it. It was scary how someone mattered to her too much in such a short amount of time. It made her feel like she was on thin ice.

  So despite the need to tell him all of it, Hazel clamped her mouth shut and kissed him instead, letting the passion simmering in that consume her whole.

  *****

  They came on a Sunday when she thought she could try her hand at baking on a cloudy afternoon. She felt the shuddering come first, stilling her body as she mixed cookies in a bowl and wondered how much more flour she was going to put in. She slowly turned her head and found one of the demons passing by her kitchen window before crawling up to her roof, where they all seemed to like to stay.

  She abandoned the bowl as she went to the living room, trying to be as calm as possible. Then she got her tablet out and typed something in, which allowed her to view a recording of the cameras Adam installed on top and around the area to give them a proper viewing without the magic. She was just counting to ten when Adam came down from the stairs, his face a mask of seriousness. There were none of the grins they shared just this morning, and now he looked as calm as a placid lake.

  With a monster underneath.

  “How many?” he asked quietly.

  “Ten,” she replied. She looked back on the screen, felt him looking over her shoulder. “Well, eleven now. We just need to wait for fifteen.”

  “We’ll wait,” he confirmed.

  They sat side by side on the couch, waiting as patiently as they could. But patience had never been her strong suit when it came to anything that didn’t involve healing, and she found her body vibrating as she tried to bank her nerves down. She didn’t want to let Adam feel it, because she wanted to be strong for him.

  A hand fell on her shoulder and massaged it in comfort.

  “We can do this,” he whispered, kissing her chin. Oddly enough, the action brought comfort.

  Hazel decided to think of all her magic attack spells in store to distract herself as they counted the minutes and counted the demons outside. Twelve. Thirteen.

  She looked at Adam, who’d gone into the kitchen to get some coffee. She shot up and took the cup he offered.

  “Thanks.”

  “We both could use it,” he muttered. “We don’t know how long this wave will last.”

  “Hmm.” Because they were stronger. Smarter.

  Deadlier.

  Hazel tried not to think about that and let a few more minutes pass as she finished her coffee. Then she got back to the tablet, ready to count again. She blinked.

  Alarm filled her at what she was seeing.

  “Adam.”

  “Want another cup?”

  “Adam.”

  The tone had him rushing towards her. They stared at the screen, which showed no demons on her roof or in her backyard. The recorder caught the tails of the demons as they headed to the fields—

  Adam drew in a sharp breath, followed by a curse. “They’re headed towards town.”
>
  Dread replaced the alarm. “I thought they wouldn’t…”

  “I thought they wouldn’t, too.” Adam’s gaze bored into hers. “I’m sorry, Hazel. Damn it. They don’t usually do this.”

  “You said they’re smarter. This is them being smart.” She stood up, and so did he. “We need to do something.”

  He looked at her again, his expression hardening. She didn’t like where that expression went, but she had no choice.

  “Yes, Hazel. We will.”

  *****

  They planned on the spot and implemented it immediately—her hurrying to the council, which was having its meeting right now, and him to track the demons and try to lure them away. Her heart thudded in her chest as she called the sheriff and told him to assemble his men, leaving him with no explanation other than that he needed to be at the town hall immediately, too. Her mind went to Adam and the dangers this posed.

  He was alone, and she knew his stubborn ass wouldn’t shift fully just to make sure no other demons came and brought more harm to the townspeople.

  Nikolai was already there when she walked in the hall, and he blocked her before she could head inside the meeting room.

  “They’re having a meeting about the appointment of a new vampire council member. What’s this about?”

  “There’s trouble. We need to interrupt the meeting.”

  “Hazel, you know that doesn’t happen.”

  “Well, it has to happen now! This is a matter of life and death!”

  “Did that asshole hurt you?”

  “No, that asshole is my mate. And he needs our help.”

  His gaze hardened at that—and if anything, he only seemed to tower over her as he gave her a stubborn look. Hazel wanted to scream in frustration.

  “You’d better explain everything to me, Hazel.”

  She ended up biting the sound down and blurting out everything instead.

  Nikolai took it all in with his cop face, calm and no-nonsense. But she could see the tick on his jaw as she went on, particularly when she explained that the third wave involved smarter and stronger demons that have figured out a way to lure Adam out. She waited, impatience snapping her bones as she expected him to fight her because he obviously disliked Adam so much.

  Instead, he nodded his head and stepped aside.

  “Go. Tell them what you told me. I’ll have the force ready.”

  “You can shift. You can all shift and help. It’s only his energy when he shifts that will lure them.”

  “Got it.”

  “Thank you so much, Nikolai—”

  The words died in her throat as images flashed in her head, one after another—the sequence so fast that she staggered. She felt a hand on her elbow but ignored it as shock spread through her body at the sight she was seeing. When more images flashed, she gripped the hand back to steady herself as her knees suddenly went weak.

  “Hazel?”

  Her breath hitched. “Why am I seeing Adam getting attacked by the demons in the woods?”

  She locked gazes with Nikolai, whose eyes widened.

  “Because you’re mates. You can sense when he’s in danger, and it’s happening now.”

  Hazel gasped, the dread turning to horror. She gripped Nikolai’s hand tighter, pleading with her gaze.

  “Please. Tell the council everything. And send help if you can. Adam’s in vampire territory. The demons have gotten there first.”

  Then she was running out of the hall as fast as her feet could carry her.

  Chapter 14

  Adam had managed to kill two of the demons successfully before things took an awry turn—awry in the sense that he didn’t prepare for this scenario at all, as he thought the town center would be where those creatures would head to first.

  Instead, they headed to vampire territory, where shifters like him weren’t supposed to go to.

  And they raised hell.

  Shifters weren’t supposed to enter, especially him, since he was a newbie and most of them disliked shifters by policy. But Adam left all that protocol out the window as he crossed it, anyway, running as fast as his feet could carry him and leaping for the first demon he spotted.

  He half-shifted. He kept the rest of the energy inside as he wrestled one by one with the demons, who were too scattered in the place to come for him at once. He kept a silent count in his head, hanging on to his calculated accuracy and never letting the panic in. Two demons dead became four, and he stumbled out of that forest area and into a field that led to a row of houses—big, beautiful houses, owned by vampire businessmen in this town.

  A blur appeared on his right, and hissing zoomed by his ears. He turned just in time to dodge the sharp nails headed for his neck and jumped back as a vampire he didn’t recognize stood with her fangs out. She was pale and slender, her eyes angry and hostile.

  “I’m not here to cause trouble—”

  The vampire swiped again, and he dodged and inwardly cursed. Just as the vampire was about to leap at him, another blur charged for it, and Adam watched as the demon tried to rip the vampire’s throat off.

  Then Adam was leaping for them and trying to wrestle the demon off.

  The struggle was longer this time as he tried to pry the demon off the vampire without tearing the vampire’s skin off. The vampire was paralyzed with shock at first—then, as if a fog had cleared, she launched herself on the demon’s back, avoiding the spikes enough to sink her fangs into soft skin. She latched on while Adam took hold of the jaws, ripping the creature apart.

  Once it evaporated, the vampire turned to Adam with a hiss.

  Then the fangs receded.

  “What was that and why are you here?” she asked.

  “That is in your territory, and I’m here to help you kill them,” Adam responded. “They’re demons. Don’t attack me anymore, okay?”

  He didn’t wait, instead running off when he spotted another demon slinking towards a porch. The vampire didn’t follow, running in the other direction as if she’d seen someone. That was the last interaction Adam got with them as he killed the next demon and went to the center of that house-filled area.

  Most of the vampires were still awake, and he could hear several screams in different directions. Fire started out on his right, and he watched blurs trickle away and figured that was better than the vampires being trapped. It was self-preservation at its finest, and he didn’t know anyone to give a heads-up to without getting attacked first.

  Most of the vampires were gone, and there was nothing he could do about the fire that was now spreading. He could hear a commotion in the forest area nearby and was just about to head in that direction to help when he heard it—screams that weren’t from the adult vampires, followed by the shriek of a few demons.

  Children.

  It had come from the burning area.

  He froze. Then he was changing gears and running in that direction, tuning his ears to find the actual source. The fire crackled and spit heat, and the smoke coated the air like an omen. He finally heard the noise again to his right and slipped inside the smoke, holding his breath when he got in the thickness of it and reaching an area where there was a mansion starting to burn down.

  The noise came from the second floor.

  Adam tried to look around and finally found a spot not touched by the fire yet—a trellis made of metal with vines all over it. He climbed in that area to the roof, then walked to the other side to climb down a window and inside.

  Smoke filled his eyes right away, making them water. He blinked repeatedly to get rid of it, then navigated his way inside the room into the shouts, which came from the adjacent one.

  There were two kids—vampire kids, probably not more than ten, with their fangs out and back towards each other. His heart skipped a beat at the sight of the terror on their faces, barely covered by fierce expressions as they hissed and screamed.

  One of the demons reached for the boy’s leg and dragged him to the floor.

  Fury snapped in Ad
am before he was lunging forward and shifting more, protecting them with his scales. His tail wrapped around them as his body expanded, destroying the room’s walls. He lunged for the two demons with his jaws and snapped their bones in a crunch, destroying them completely. Then he pawed the other two flat on the floor before shifting right back into human form and barking at the kids to get out.

  He followed them, making sure they wouldn’t be attacked on the way out. They kept running, but Adam went to the backyard when he heard other noises. There was a dog stuck chained, and he cursed at the irresponsibility of some owners before going over to free the dog.

  It ran off, but it didn’t get to escape. A demon went on to attack it, and the yelp that followed was brutal. Adam shifted his hands to claws again to jump the demon—

  Blurs came for him, and he felt pain hit his shoulder. Then more pain came as demon after demon came at him, jumping on his body in droves. He shifted to his full dragon form, his scales an armor, but it was too late as most of them already got a hold of his skin beneath.

  They pulled. Pain jolted him to the ground, where more demons crawled all over him even while he tried to roll around. He kicked and clawed, snapping at those he could, but the backyard was too constricting despite the huge lawn. Too late, he realized his energy had released more, and now they were forming around him and watching those latched on to him with a hunger and fervor that spoke of what they were planning to do.

  They were waiting for the latched demons to weaken him first. Then they were going to kill him.

  Adam gritted his teeth, taking it all in. Then he shook them off and ran for the trees, ramming into them and out in the field and taking all the demons with him. He ran away from the burning area, away from vampire territory as he lured them all away and tried to fight at the same time. He killed them slowly, one by one, still counting them all in his head. He’d killed more than fifteen now, but there were more.

  Something hit his head, and pain exploded. The excruciating feeling determined that they all piled up there, and he roared and tried to claw them off. But they chose that moment to gang up on him, blurring all at once to leap and bite whatever they could. He could feel his energy feeding them, could feel his strength waning. Blood seeped out, and they sucked on it hungrily—gleefully, sustaining them. He kept flattening them, but it was like they multiplied whenever he did.