Bear Mate: BBW Paranormal Shifter Romance

by Natalie Kristen

  Together, they plummeted through the shadowy, swirling Gateway.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Jasynta's scream was cut off as she found herself pressed against Blake's chest. He pulled her securely to him and held her, his arms wrapping protectively around her as they tumbled through the terrifying darkness and into a never ending chasm.

  Jasynta closed her eyes against the strange images and distorted faces pressing in all around them. The stench of blood, burning and brimstone rose higher, enveloping them until the stink and the burn seemed to cling to their skins, hot, bleeding and invading.

  When she whimpered, Blake clutched her even tighter, murmuring into her hair. She buried her face in his chest and listened to his strong, steady heartbeat. She clung to him and breathed against his skin. They might be in hell, but to her, he smelt like heaven. Even as scorching, towering flames circled them and imprisoned them, she felt strangely unafraid in his arms.

  With a start, she realized that he would always be her haven. Her safe port in the storm. She would always want to run home to him. To his arms, to his bed.

  Blake didn't give up on her, and she knew with every fiber of her being that he never would. He would never, ever leave her. He would always be with her, walk with her every step of the way, to the ends of the earth, and beyond. Even when she tumbled into hell, he followed her.

  No wonder Anita and Melynda had flashed giant, neon thumbs-up signs at her when they saw that Blake was to be her protector for her journey. They obviously approved of him, and liked him. And frankly, what's not to like?

  Blake tensed suddenly, and Jasynta gasped as they crashed onto a blackened, smoldering surface. Blake twisted around so that he took the impact and didn't crush her under his massive body.

  Jasynta landed against his chest, and she saw him grimace at what surely had to be a very painful landing.

  Immediately, she scrambled up and tried to help him up. “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah.” Blake dusted himself off and scanned her body for injuries. “Are you hurt?”

  “No. But...you are.” She winced at the welts and cuts on his arms and back.

  “I'm fine,” Blake growled and tucked her close to his side as he looked around. “Where in hell are we?”

  There was a step behind them. “Welcome to my parlor.”

  “...said the spider to the fly,” Jasynta swallowed and mumbled under her breath as they turned around.

  Blake seemed unfazed at the approach of the tall, red-skinned demon. The demon was as tall and broad as Blake. Horns curled out from the sides of his gold helmet, and he was dressed in a grand military uniform, replete with gold sashes and a red cloak that flowed thickly from his smoking shoulders like blood.

  The demon's red eyes glowed as he smiled at them. “This is my realm, the Third Kingdom of Chaos. I am Prince Deviazel. And you are...”

  “Leaving,” Blake answered tersely.

  Prince Deviazel laughed. His laughter sounded magnified and multiplied, like there were many others laughing with him. “You jest surely,” he said at last. “You've just arrived!”

  “We made a wrong turn. We apologize for intruding on your realm, but we really must go.” Blake gave a tight smile and took Jasynta's hand.

  Prince Deviazel walked towards them, his eyes fixed on Jasynta. He smiled down at her, and she heard his voice whispering all around her even though his lips didn't move. “Jasynta Morgan, witch of the third degree, welcome to my kingdom.”

  She gasped and stumbled back in shock. “How...did you know...?” she stammered.

  Prince Deviazel waved a clawed hand and an ornately furnished throne room materialized around them. The demon prince strolled up the gilded step and sat himself dramatically on a gleaming bone-white throne. Jasynta suspected that was exactly what the throne was made of—bones.

  “I know everything,” Deviazel said, making a show of moving his lips as he spoke. Jasynta knew that it was just an act. He could speak directly into their heads if he chose. He made a face. “Nah, not everything. Just everything I want to know. Knowing what I don't want to know gives me a headache.”

  Jasynta gulped too loudly. Why would a demon prince want to know about her?

  “Not many witches attain the third degree. You are a very hardworking witch, Jasynta. You work tirelessly towards expanding your horizons, your reach, your influence. Just like me! You and I—we are, what do you people call it?” Deviazel scratched the side of his face with a claw, igniting some sparks. “Like two peas in a pod! Yes, that's it.”

  Jasynta saw a muscle tick violently in Blake's jaw. Likening his mate to a pea in a pod with a demon was clearly not sitting well with him.

  “You worked hard, you studied hard, you improved yourself. I like that,” Deviazel went on blithely. “I work hard too, you know. I fight hard, I kill hard, I improve myself. My kingdom is going to be the biggest and baddest of all the demon kingdoms! I've already taken over most of the smaller surrounding demon kingdoms. I just need to defeat Zorath's army, and I'm going to do that—with your help.” He leaned forward and bared his fangs in a wide smile.

  “No!”

  “Yes.”

  Jasynta clenched her teeth and her fists. “I'll never help you!”

  “Oh? I believe that your vocation as a healer binds you to your oath to save lives. Will you stand and watch twelve innocent witches be slaughtered, when it is in your power to save them?” Deviazel snapped his fingers, and a flaming curtain parted. Two demon guards walked in, pulling a long chain between them.

  Jasynta let out a cry when she saw the witches shackled to the chain. Some of them were still in their office attire, in skirts, tailored slacks, jackets, or in uniforms bearing their company's logo. They had evidently been taken on their way to or from work. Others were in their nightdress, snatched from their own homes. A couple of them were dressed in slinky cocktail dresses, taken on their night about town.

  All of them looked disorientated and drained. Their faces were covered with bruises and their eyes were wide and glazed. There were ugly burn marks and whip marks on their arms and legs. When the witches saw Blake and Jasynta, some of them jerked against their shackles, their bloodshot eyes widening with hope—or was it hopelessness?

  Jasynta swallowed. Deviazel couldn't be serious. He couldn't just slaughter all these helpless witches. He wouldn't. He wouldn't dare!

  She balled her fists and pivoted to face him. Deviazel was looking at her smugly, his claws steepled in front of him.

  Just as he stood up, a tall demon burst through the curtain of flames and marched hurriedly to the throne. From the fresh blood and ashes smoldering on his armor, this warrior demon had apparently just returned from battle. The two demon guards yanked the chain of witches tighter between them and snapped to attention. “General Bedeus!” The guards saluted their general smartly.

  Prince Deviazel waved his hand and his general rose from his knees. “I hope you bring me good news, General Bedeus.”

  The demon general stood tall, and Jasynta saw that the armored plates seemed to have been molded or welded into his corded limbs. The metal plates were shaped perfectly over his muscular legs and arms, and a spiked golden plate was embedded in his wide chest. His back and buttocks were left bare, making Jasynta wonder if demons refrained from stabbing one another in the back and backside on the battlefield. Somehow she didn't think so.

  General Bedeus hesitated a beat before answering, “My lord, Prince Zorath has pushed our forces back and secured his capital. We are unable to...”

  Deviazel let out a thunderous roar, and the entire throne room blazed with his fury. The curtain of flames around them burned higher and hotter, leaning menacingly nearer towards the cowering witches. Lightning speared through the flames and demonic screams could be heard behind the flames. As the fires flickered over his visage, Deviazel shapeshifted into all his forms, his shape blurring and contorting into his human, animal, demon and shadow forms.

  Jasynta stare
d at the raging demon, his wrath making his facade melt and run like mascara on a hot day and unleashing his true forms. She saw wolf, snake, hawk, ice, fire and fog. She saw a leering human face over the head of a monster. She saw forked tongues and dripping fangs, spiked tails, lashing entrails and barbed phalli.

  It was a horrible sight, but Jasynta couldn't look away.

  She watched all his forms come together as he let out a ferocious bellow. Animal, human, demon, fire and smoke were swallowed up into his burning red skin. His cloak whipped up behind him as if he was standing in the midst of a gale, but the air all around them was stagnant and sweltering.

  Jasynta sniffed and almost gagged. There was an overpowering smell of blood and decay. Blake steadied her as she staggered back.

  Prince Deviazel was pointing a jagged sword at his general, and slowly dragging the blade across General Bedeus's face. Black blood oozed from the cut, and worms wriggled out of the wound, slithering down the general's body.

  “That wasn't good news, General Bedeus,” Deviazel said, his sword sliding down the side of the demon general's neck. Thick worms plopped onto the blade with a sickening wet sound, and wiggled frantically on the slippery blade, slicing themselves in two on the sharp blade.

  “No, my Lord,” General Bedeus grated, as Deviazel forced his face to the side with his sword.

  He slapped his general's face resoundingly with the flat of the blade. “In fact, that is very bad news. Very bad news indeed, won't you say?”

  “Yes, my Lord.”

  “Well, bad news must be shot. You!” Prince Deviazel pointed at one of the demon guards. “Bring me my bow!”

  The guard saluted and ran through the flames. Before Jasynta could blink, the guard had returned, carrying a black bow covered with intricate carvings of contorted, tortured figures. The figures were writhing and crawling all over the bow, like they were alive. Alive and trapped.

  Blake stepped in front of Jasynta to shield her from what was to come. But her eyes were wide open and unblinking as she clutched Blake's arm and stood stubbornly at his side.

  With a flick of his wrist, Deviazel spun his sword in the air, and it whirled in a blur. When he caught it again, what lay in his hand was not a sword, but a long arrow with a large, lethal arrowhead.

  He shook his head regretfully at his general and notched his arrow. “Now, where shall I shoot the bad news? In the head? The neck? The gut?” He pointed his arrow lower. “Or the cock?”

  Jasynta saw the metal plate over the general's crotch jerk at the threat. But the general didn't flinch. The demon general held himself upright, wounded but unbowed, ready to receive the shot.

  Prince Deviazel let his flaming red eyes roam over the line of frightened witches, smirking as their shackles shook and clanged noisily. Terror soothed his savage beast.

  Violence calmed him.

  Smiling, he released his arrow.

  Like a streak of lightning, the arrow shot towards General Bedeus, and burrowed into his exposed belly. The spinning arrow had struck with such speed and force that it pierced right through the demon's huge body, shooting out of his back. As the arrow flew out of the general's body, it dragged what looked like long, twisted, bloody ropes along with it. Jasynta stifled a scream when she realized that those were the demon's intestines. They were coiled around the arrow, and writhing and jerking on the floor as the arrow pulled them out through the demon's back.

  The demon's entrails jerked and slithered along the floor with a hissing, bubbling sound. The slimy, wrinkled surface was rippling and moving, making the intestines smoke and swell. There was a tearing sound, and the long, bloody intestines ripped open, releasing hundreds and thousands of leeches.

  Hungry, bloodsucking leeches were all over the floor, sliding and falling out of the demon's entrails in a black wave.

  The witches screamed and struggled to get away, jerking violently against their shackles and chains.

  In a flash, Blake shoved Jasynta behind him and shifted into bear form. The massive bear reared up and attacked the leeches without mercy. Teeth, claws, paws, everything was used to slice and stomp those leeches to a blood red pulp.

  Jasynta saw the leeches swarm over Blake, burrowing into his golden fur. His beautiful, pure, blond fur was now covered with ugly, dirty blood.

  Fighting not to retch at the overwhelming stench, Jasynta forced herself to recite a spell out loud. Chanting clearly, she felt the stinging cold build up at her fingertips and she swept her hand over the sea of disgusting, squirming leeches which were going after the hapless witches and rushing towards her. A blast of ice blanketed the leeches, freezing them instantly. Blake leaped out of the way just in time as she blasted the leeches under his feet. When she pointed her fingers at him, the great bear shook its head and held up its big paws.

  Ah, right. She had just locked him up in a block of ice earlier this evening. She grimaced as she glanced between his legs. Did she do any irrevocable damage with her magick?

  “Blake! Turn around. I'll freeze those leeches off your back!” she shouted.

  The bear squinted at her, then jerked suddenly in pain and tried to reach back to swipe a handful of leeches off. Reluctantly, the bear turned around and presented Jasynta with its leech-covered back.

  She heard a gulp.

  “I'll be careful,” she assured Blake, before yelling out her spell.

  In the blink of an eye, she had him covered in ice—again.

  Blake was motionless, seemingly frozen. But a second later, his body twitched and he shifted back to human form.

  As he straightened up, the sheet of ice slid off his back, taking all the frozen leeches with it.

  He turned around and gave Jasynta a grin.

  Her breath hitched at his devastating grin. Even in the midst of the most bloody, hellish nightmare, he was a dream. His blue eyes shone with love and pride, without the slightest hint of recrimination even though she was sure that the memory and sensation of being encased in a freezing block of ice was still fresh in his mind. Being blasted with ice once again in such a short span of time, by the same, scheming witch no less, must have been testing for him, to say the least. Yet, he seemed to have shaken off his ordeal together with the ice on his back without a second thought.

  Blake Madden was a big man, with a big heart.

  His smile, his handsome face, his strong, steady presence was all that mattered in that timeless moment. Everything around them just seemed to fade away.

  Jasynta smiled back shyly, and her eyes trailed from his face, down his powerful body, and further down.

  Mmm, he was a big man, in all ways that mattered...

  Hey, get your mind out of the gutter and your eyes up from his groin! Her halo-wearing self snapped impatient fingers at her right ear.

  Ooh, it seems our ice cube didn't do any damage to his package. No shrinking in size at all. Big is best. Her horned, horny self chuckled and purred in satisfaction in her left ear. And there is no doubt that Blake is the best. Even the demons can't compare to him!

  Mortified at her inner tramp, Jasynta slapped her hand over the left side of her neck, as if trying to squash a pest buzzing incessantly and irritatingly at her ear.

  When Blake arched a brow at her, she hurriedly pretended to be scratching an itch at her neck.

  Shrugging, Blake gave her the thumbs-up sign and turned away. Only when his eyes released her did all hell break loose and come screeching back to her senses.

  The demon guards were raising their batons and beating the sobbing witches indiscriminately. General Bedeus had unsheathed his sword and hacked his writhing entrails away from his body. More demon guards had rushed into the throne room to set fire to the ice and burn the dead leeches to ashes.

  Watching the whole grisly scene from atop his throne was Prince Deviazel. The demon prince was lazily stroking his horns as a sage might stroke his beard in contentment and contemplation.

  Jasynta heard the witches' cries of pain and horror. The sharp sla
p of the sizzling batons sounded all too clearly even through the deafening, demonic symphony of nauseating, gruesome noises.

  “Stop,” she said breathlessly.

  No one did. Nobody heard her.

  Or perhaps someone did.

  Prince Deviazel swiveled his eyes in her direction. Raising one hand, he motioned for her to carry on, while his other hand waved fluidly at the macabre mayhem before him. Both his hands moved in harmony like he was conducting a rousing, moving symphony, the grisly sounds of violence and torture being music to his ears.

  “Stop!” Jasynta shrieked at the top of her lungs. “Stop it!”

  Everyone stopped and turned around. The demon guards stared at her, panting with their forked tongues hanging out. General Bedeus cursed as he accidentally lopped off a part of his spleen together with his intestines. The witches quietened down to muffled whimpers and stifled groans. Blake stared at her, his huge hand tightly wrapped around a demon guard's throat. The demon guard's clawed feet were dangling in the air, but even he stopped struggling and kicking, and simply gaped at Jasynta.

  Jasynta stared at Deviazel, who was still waving his hands in time to a harrowing melody only he could hear.

  He had made his point with his general and his guards. Disembowelment was a slap on the wrist for his general. No such mercy and leniency would be shown to the witches.

  Jasynta saw the burn marks and whip marks on their necks, arms and legs. Their faces were pale, bruised and their eyes showed too much terror and pain.

  “I'll do it.”

  Deviazel cupped a hand to his ear and looked around. “What? Did someone say something? I can't hear...”

  “I said I'll do it! I will do...whatever you want, on one condition.” Jasynta said in a strong, clear voice.

  “A condition? Bargaining with a demon?” Deviazel looked amused. “You scratch my back and I scratch yours.” He leaned forward to leer at Jasynta's lush figure. “I think I'll like to do more than scratch,” he mewed.

  At a menacing growl and movement from Blake, Deviazel coughed and leaned back on his throne, resuming his air of nonchalance. “Well, let's hear it, witch.” He waved a clawed hand in the air. “Your condition.”