Matt lifted himself up and stared into her eyes. Again she felt that connection. There was some humor left in his face, but there was some seriousness there, too.
“Jackie,” Matt said soberly, “when my bear growls about you he makes me sad.”
“Sad?” That scared her.
“He makes me realize I was sad. Before you came along. Before you, I’ve never connected with anyone outside my crew, not since I came back home from overseas. But as soon as you stepped into that bar, something changed …” He shook his head, as if at a loss.
She reached and stroked his jaw, then propped herself up and kissed him again.
Softly, she said, “It changed for me, too.”
“Really?”
“Really really. In fact—”
Clomp, clomp.
“Shitfire,” Matt said. “It’s one of them again.”
“What should we do?”
“Can your magic make us invisible again?”
“I think so,” she said. “But these golems are keeping us pinned down till Walsh arrives. He’ll be on his way, and when he arrives …”
“We’re screwed. And not in the good way.”
“We need to find Tannenbaum,” Jackie said. “Maybe working together, he and I can find a way out of this mess.”
Matt stood and helped her to her feet. Swiftly she began dressing. Matt, of course, was still as naked as the day he was born. It was a good look for him.
“I think my bear can come out to play now,” he said. “It’s had some time to rest. And you’ve given it new reason to fight.” He slapped Jackie’s butt as she buttoned her black jeans, and she stifled her laughter. “If I can get you to Tannenbaum, you think you can get us free?”
“I think so. Yes.”
Clomp, clomp. The sounds were closer.
“He said he was near water, right?” Matt mused.
“Yeah …”
“Well, why don’t we wait till this golem goes off, then scout around, see if we can hear water?”
It seemed as sensible as anything else. Certainly more sensible than hanging around in the playroom waiting for Walsh to show up. Though their time here had certainly been enjoyable.
“Okay,” Jackie said. She liked the confidence in Matt’s eyes. His years as a Navy SEAL really showed in his take-charge, can-do attitude. If she hadn’t already known he was the sexiest thing alive, that would’ve done the trick right there.
Clomp, clomp.
Jackie stiffened. The golem was almost to the suite of playrooms. She and Matt pressed tightly together as the creature stepped across the threshold and began touring the main room again; Jackie could hear its steps growing louder. Quickly she said a spell and darkened the air around them, and when the golem came abreast the doorway and scanned this side room it didn’t pause to inspect the room further but continued on its way. It finished the tour of the suite and left, but not before Jackie’s heart felt like it would stop from sheer terror.
“Those things are freaky,” she said when it was gone.
“Never come across one before?”
“Nope. Only the most powerful mages can use them. I guess it’s kind of like a magical artificial intelligence; you turn them on and set them to run and they can manage themselves for the most part. And the mage can see through their eyes whenever he wants, and take direct control of them on a moment’s notice. He would have needed help, though. Walsh must have had a man on the ground here to mix the clay for him and lay the initial spells that allowed Walsh to reach through the planes and activate it.”
Matt gave her a long look. “Okay.”
She smiled. “Don’t worry, I know what I’m talking about. But that man on the ground …” Suddenly she swore. “That guy at the bar! Damn!”
“What is it?”
“That skinny pale guy. He said Tannenbaum sent him, but it must have been Walsh. He was Walsh’s agent all along. Walsh had his spies out watching for me, and he had his ear to the ground enough to know that I might come here, but he wasn’t sure, so he sent that jerkwad in his place—to set the stage in case I did show up. Now that I have, Walsh will be on the way.”
“Doesn’t seem like he wants you alive,” Matt said grimly.
Jackie patted her purse, where the ring was. Where her fire was. It was crazy, after all these years, to finally have her fire back. So close, and yet so far. It was a part of her, her missing piece, and she was so close to having it restored.
“All he wants is this,” Jackie agreed. “If he can’t get it back …”
“What?” Matt said. “What’ll happen?”
“Well, if he can’t find another dragon to drain the fire from—and they’re pretty rare these days—then soon he’ll begin to age. Rapidly. Then die.”
Matt grunted. “No less than he deserves. Still, I hope I get the chance to rip him apart first. That would be way more satisfying.” He shook his head. “Come on, we’ve got to find Tannenbaum.” He flashed her a smile. “And get your fire back.”
She felt her throat close up. Softly, she said, “Thank you, Matt.”
A strange look crossed his face. “Thank me? Darlin’, you don’t need to thank me for anything. This is just what mates do for each other.”
Mate. There it was again. The word staggered Jackie, and she felt suddenly dizzy, but in a good way. In a totally, totally good way.
She gave Matt a shaky smile and squeezed his tight bicep. She tried to form a sentence, but she couldn’t come up with one that made sense, and she didn’t think her constricted throat would let her speak anyway. Matt seemed to see it, and warmth spread across his features. He ducked in for a kiss, crushing his lips against hers, and she flattened her body against him, loving his hard ridges of muscle pressing against her softness. She could feel his heat and smell traces of musk and leather emanating from him. Could he really be … hers? It was a delirious and heady thought.
All of her life she’d hoped to retrieve her fire. It was the missing piece of herself she’d always wanted back. But now, suddenly, as if the world had turned upside down, she wondered if maybe … if maybe Matt were the missing piece she’d really been needing.
They separated. Taking her hand, Matt led her through the cluttered main room to the doorway, where he released her and poked his head out, looking this way and that. She could tell he’d done this or similar many times before, probably stalking terrorists through third-world apartments or in the open desert. Even though he was utterly naked and unarmed, he seemed very professional as he emerged into the hall and gestured, without glancing back at her, for her to follow. She did so.
He crept to the end of the wall, peeked out again, then ducked back quickly. He turned and mouthed It’s here.
She nodded back, silent.
He waited a moment, then looked out again, and when he turned back he gave her a thumbs up sign. This probably wasn’t one of his usual SEAL hand signals, but it was one she understood and she appreciated it.
He crept into the hall, going the opposite direction from the one he’d evidently seen the golem in, and Jackie inched along at his heels. Where were they going? Where could they find water in this mansion? The bathroom? That didn’t seem likely. The kitchen?
Suddenly something caught her eye and she stood stock-still. She touched Matt’s arm and he spun to see her pointing at the wall. He frowned.
She indicated again, gesturing at the large painting that had caught her attention, and slowly he began to smile. She did, too; he saw it. Good. The painting depicted a coastal town with a languid sea breaking along the cold-looking shore of black rocks in a chaos of foam. Because of the magic Tannenbaum used, or maybe because of some other power, the painting moved, and the sea actually appeared to surge against the rocks. Jackie could almost smell the salt.
This is it, she mouthed at Matt.
He rubbed his brow, then mouthed, You sure?
She nodded emphatically. Risking a whisper, she said, “I think I can get us in.”
<
br /> He rocked back on his heels. “You mean … into the painting?”
She almost laughed at his astonishment. He might be a shifter, but he was still a novice to the ways of magic. “Yeah.”
He seemed to accept this. “Okay. How?”
She wanted to kiss him again. Her bear, so brave, so smart. Willing to trust her even in an extreme situation, and not trust her in any light matter, either, but trust her with his very life. It made her love him even more.
Love? part of her thought. Can it really be?
Yes, another part fired back. I think it can.
She sorted through the pouches on the inside of her jacket, going quickly. She could distantly hear one of the golems coming from down the hall. It must have been the second one, because the one that Matt had seen just moments before wouldn’t have been able to complete its circuit of the mansion that quickly. If nothing else, the creatures were slow.
Clomp, clomp.
Jackie pulled out a glimmering purple crystal, held it up to the light for a moment, gathering her thoughts, then spoke a series of words. The world blurred around her and Matt, and she felt queasy in her belly.
“What the heck?” said Matt. He must be feeling it, too.
Clomp clomp.
Jackie felt the energies building in her. She grabbed Matt’s hand with one hand and pressed the other against the painting. Energies swirled around her, faster and faster, and she could hear the roar of wind in her ears. Beside her Matt cursed.
Clomp clo—
Suddenly the energy faded, and Jackie and Matt stood on a beach beneath a black sky while a majestic ocean pounded the rocky beach. Now Jackie really could smell the salt and feel the seaspray on her cheeks and neck. A quaint little town sprawled beside the shore, the same one from the painting, and up on a high ridge a lighthouse shone like a star.
“Amazing,” Jackie said, and stuffed the crystal back in its pouch.
But when she turned to Matt, he wasn’t staring at the ocean or the town. He was watching her.
“No,” he said softly. “You’re amazing.”
She cleared her throat. “Okay, let’s find Tannenbaum, restore my fire and get out of here before Walsh comes. Or find some way to fight him.”
“I’m betting dragonfire would inconvenience him a bit.”
“Yeah, if he didn’t steal it from me again.”
“There is that.”
They were still holding hands, and she started toward town, tugging him along with her. She cast a glance back at him, enjoying the sight of the naked bear shifter mountain man SEAL hero framed against the raging ocean while the lighthouse blinked on its ridge above. It was a sight she knew she would never forget. And she’d been right about his manhood, too. Though it was even colder here than it had been in the mansion, his cock hadn’t shrunk at all. Mmm, it looked good.
Feeling her cheeks burn, she turned back around. Stumbled a bit, kept going. They entered the town. Old-fashioned stone buildings, most one story but a few two-story, loomed around them, and fog slithered over the cobblestone streets. Little if any sound came from the buildings.
“It’s like a ghost town,” Matt said, careful to keep his voice low.
“Well, no one actually lives here,” Jackie said. “It’s not even a real place. It’s like a little bubble reality, a sphere of existence that’s kind of tucked away in the bigger, realer world, if that makes any sense.”
“So how do we find Tannenbaum? He said he could hear water. Well, you can hear it all over town.”
“It’s not a very big town. I guess we just go house to house and see if there’s any noise or activity.”
He nodded. Once more, he took point, glancing around each corner they came to, then gesturing her forward when he judged the coast to be clear. They looked in the window of every house or business they passed. Finally they saw a light peering out of a structure ahead—what looked like a tavern. Approaching it warily, they attempted to peek in through the windows, but the drapes were drawn.
Matt looked at her sideways. “Are you ready to go in? Anything could be waiting for us in there.”
She straightened her back and stuck out her chin. “I’m ready.”
He grinned, wrapped his hand around the knob and shoved the door in.
Chapter 8
Matt’s grin turned into a scowl as he swept the chamber with his penetrating gaze. He’d been trained to spot and defeat ambushes, and he peered around him with an expert’s ability to foil attack.
It was a simple room with a bar along the back and a few chairs and tables that had been pushed to the edge of the chamber, leaving plenty of room for the centerpiece: in the middle of the room a thin man dressed in golf clothes sat strapped to a chair, ropes criss-crossing his chest, arms and legs. A gag had been placed over 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 crumpled form of the whip-wielder. The whip itself had vanished like smoke. “Jeremy there planned to torture me to death once Walsh was finished with you.” He said this last word with his attention on Jackie.
“‘Jeremy’,” Matt snorted, with a shake of his head. “I guess ‘Wormtongue’ was taken. Anyway, Jackie said something about a prison …”
Tannenbaum nodded. “Since he’s unconscious and unshielded, I will have no trouble transporting him.”
“To the prison?” Jackie said.
“Well, a holding cell to await trial. Then prison, yes.”
Tannenbaum clapped his hands and Jeremy, if that was his name, vanished. Matt whistled.
“Some trick,” he said.
Jackie sucked in a breath, and Matt could see that she was starting to get nervous. Her face had gone tense and her eyes were fixed on Tannenbaum. The mage raised his eyebrows in anticipation of what she would say, and Matt could see him start to brace himself. The time for the business of the day had come. The time to get what Jackie had come for.
In a strained voice—she was obviously having to force the words out—Jackie said, “I have the item. The ring. Do you still want to help me restore my fire?”
Tannenbaum patted the chair with long-fingered hand. “You mean, did my treatment under Jeremy’s care make me reconsider your request? No. No, it didn’t. If anything, it pissed me off and made me more likely to help you. In fact, I’ll cut my price in half. Just for you.”
Bear Fire: Bear Shifter Paranormal Romance (BBW) (Pine Ridge BBW Bear Shifter Paranormal Romance Series Book 4) Page 6