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

gave a little laugh. “ That’s a broad question.”
    “Well, let’s start with a name.
What’s your last name?”
    “Johnson.”
    She almost laughed. “Really? Like—”
Her gaze flicked down to his member, which was still somewhat stiff and
gleaming with their juices “—like a johnson?”
    A smile played at the corners of
his lips. “If you like.”
    “Are you from Pine Ridge?”
    He nodded. “I was born here, but I
spent many years away.”
    “Why?”
    “Navy,” he said. “I signed up when
I was eighteen, got sent overseas. Eventually I became a SEAL.”
    Her eyes widened. “You were a Navy
SEAL? But you’re a bear!” She giggled. “A bear-seal. I’ve heard of lion seals,
but never a bear seal.”
    “Believe it or not, but that’s how
I became a bear shifter,” he said. "I wasn't a shifter at the time."
    "Tell me."
    “It was during combat. I was
wounded and would have died. But one of my squad-mates, a good friend of mine,
wouldn’t let me go. He shocked the hell out of me when he bent over and bit me,
deep. There I was, bleeding to death in some godforsaken Middle East ruin, and
my best friend bites me! Hard!”
    “You must have been freaked.”
    “I was. And this was before
shifters came out of the den, too, so I had no idea what the hell was going on.
He said, ‘This will save you’. I was dizzy and had lost a lot of blood, but I
know I must have looked at him like he was a madman.” A sad look crossed Matt’s
face. “Paul,” he said, softly. “His name was Paul Harkness.”
    Jackie swallowed. “What happened to
him?”
    “Well, I was wounded, but the
battle was still going on. He went off to join it while I waited for a medic.”
Matt’s lips quirked grimly. “He never came back.”
    “I’m so sorry.”
    He inclined his head in a nod. “He
was a good man. He saved my life. Even before the medic showed up, I could feel
myself healing. My flesh and bones knitting back together. And I was ravenous.
Hungrier than I could ever remember being. They brought me back on board the
ship to the medical bay and worked on me for awhile, and I was able to eat.
That shocked them. They said I should rest, not eat. But I was starved. I felt
a strange, primal anger well up inside me, and before I knew it I was a bear.”
    “Damn! A bear on a Navy ship?! What
did they do?”
    “Well, they screamed a lot. They
shot me a few times. Then I got into the food supplies and started chowing
down. When I was distracted, a soldier was able to shoot me with a tranquilizer
dart. I was brought to a different ship and woke up with a slew of new faces
before me.”
    “Let me guess,” Jackie said. “This
wasn’t the first shifter the commanders had seen.”
    “Nope. In fact they had a whole,
secret division devoted to shifters. And of turning soldiers who were shifters
into soldier shifters. Trained bears attacking enemies on the front lines! Think
of how shocked the bad guys were.”
    “I can imagine. What did you say?”
    “At first I said yes. What else was
I going to do? I was a solider, and these guys in the Division were teaching me
about what I was. Who I was. Who I’d become. But slowly I realized that they
twisted the truth, that they were only trying to use me. They told me that my
bear craved violence, that it needed to sate itself with blood in order to be
at peace. They tried to brainwash me into being their killer. When I realized
that, I told them to fuck off. I wanted out.”
    “Jeeze. What did they do?”
    Matt grinned, a hard, confident
grin. “What else could they do? I didn’t give them much choice. And we do live
in America. Land of the free. They couldn’t make me do it if I didn’t want to. As soon as I could, I turned in my papers and got
out of the Navy for good.” He touched an anchor tattoo on his arm, and Jackie
traced it with her finger. “I still love the Navy and consider myself a loyal
soldier, but the Special Projects Division can kiss my ass.”
    She kissed the