Primal Temptation: a BBW Bear Shifter Paranormal Romance (Shadowlands Bear Shifters Book 4)

by Olivia Harp

“What the fuck?”

  He looked around, but heavy fob obscured his vision. Impossible. His bear growled inside, anger slowly building up in him.

  The Rot.

  The unnatural disease that seeped into this world from the Shadowlands. He couldn’t miss the bitter stench of it, or confuse it with anything else.

  His stomach felt hollow. It can’t be possible, not all the way up here.

  Fuck being careful. He had to know right now what was going on.

  The static. That’s why the radio is bust. The Rot is here.

  He jumped higher and higher, pulling himself up like an Olympian. He was fuming. This fucking thing tried to mess up with the network. He almost chuckled, but then it dawned on him.

  This wasn’t a random incident. This had something behind it. It had been smart.

  It was trying to destroy the way the clans communicated around the world.

  There it was, the top of the antenna. He almost gagged at the sight. It was covered in a cold, dark mucus that throbbed in the freezing wind.

  His bear raged inside, Kill! Kill! it raged, trying to come out.

  Franklin held it in. He climbed the last remaining steps up to the top, not caring if his suit got messed up with the substance.

  Right at the top of the structure, a soccer ball sized cyst beat like a heart. Its blackness and scaly exterior contrasted with the white fog surrounding it.

  It was a tumor. A cancerous threat to nature.

  It has been here for a while, but there is no life for it to keep it fed.

  He growled at it, took off his gloves and unzipped the upper part of his suit. The warmth of his bear poured out to the world, making him forget the deadly temperature he was exposing himself to.

  His hands began turning into paws, but he held the animal at bay. He didn’t want to shift so high on the structure. He’d have to do the job like this.

  He roared at the tumor and clawed at it. It was hard and cold, like hitting steel.

  Yeah, try to protect yourself, you piece of shit, it doesn’t matter.

  Little by little, the thing started to crack, and then is fingers started burrowing into the thing. It felt like burying your hands in a boiled egg. He pushed harder and harder until his whole hand was in it, his bear growled and he snapped the thing open, gagging at the sight and smell.

  A purulent mixture of grease and hair and black blood leaked down the antenna, while Franklin channeled his inner bear, opening his mouth so the warmth of its nature destroyed the thing.

  He felt the light fill him and saw the dark orb furiously fight back, but it was useless.

  The dark tendrils that came out of it died off as soon as the light coming from his pores reached them. The tumor itself withered and died, slowly turning into dry ash, along with all the purulent substance that surrounded the antenna from there down.

  He started climbing down quickly, when he saw a thin, dark thread that continued all the way into the building.

  It hadn’t turned into dust.

  He hadn’t defeated it yet. The tumor above him was just an extension of the heart of the Rot.

  He knew it. The building had been compromised.

  His stomach felt hollow. His bear roared one word, “mate.”

  It was taking too long to reach the ground. He took out a pocket knife and cut off the life line, leaned on both feet and jumped away as hard as he could, his bear came out roaring as he fell, ready for impact.

  Pain didn’t matter. His mate was in danger.

  Chapter 8

  Sophie read the numbers on the screen.

  “System reboot process: 87% done.”

  She sighed. How boring, just a simple reboot and she was done. Franklin probably didn’t even need her there, but hey, at least she was doing something.

  Something cracked behind her, it was just barely audible but she heard it.

  She turned around and saw the door she opened a few minutes earlier moving by itself. A shiver ran down her spine, her gut tightened.

  Right behind the door, a mess of goopy bubbles moved up the wall, like rain going in the wrong direction.

  The soft, electric light of the monitors gave barely enough light to see that just above her, a dark membrane covered the whole ceiling, pulsing and moving as if it was a blanket and small children played beneath it.

  Her heart sank.

  She snapped back, falling from the chair, her fright paralyzing her.

  She couldn’t think. She couldn’t move away. Her eyes were fixed on the hideous thing.

  Two needles started coming down from the alien thing. They grew in size, going at her.

  She heard a bear growl from outside the room. It was Franklin, he was coming to save her.

  But the thing was only angered, moving violently on the ceiling, more needles growing from it, the thick liquid shutting down the door.

  Franklin’s bear roared outside the room, sudden crashes and snarls came through the walls. He was fighting something out on the corridor.

  You have to fight back. You have to help him. She remembered his words. You’re strong. Don’t ever think otherwise.

  She roared harder than ever. She felt it. The animal urge. It was back. Each of her pores felt like fire, every muscle in her body grew, and she felt them turning hard as steel, her soft hands became big, sharp weapons of destruction.

  Her bear came out for the first time in years.

  The needles bolted at her, suddenly alive. She screamed at the burning pain of them sinking in her skin. But instead of crying in anguish, she felt only hatred.

  This thing deserved death. It was an affront to the natural order of the world, she knew it, somehow.

  Her animal burned with anger. Her skin grew thick, long fur. The black bear inside of her roared and suddenly she was only instinct.

  The long, oozy needles tried to retract to the ceiling but her claws were much faster, ripping them apart, dropping them motionless to the ground.

  She roared again. It had been a long time since she felt like this. Powerful. Strong.

  Outside, Franklin kept on fighting, but he bellowed back, understanding what she’d done.

  She felt his pride. It made the muscles on her animal feel like steel, her claws deadly.

  She jumped on the desk and from there jumped to reach the thing on the ceiling. Her paws sliced the thick membrane like knives through butter.

  The door was still being held shut by a web of flesh, but she was no longer scared of it. It was something meant for destroying.

  She clawed at it and teared it apart in a flash of anger, the monster’s strength obliterated by her inner nature.

  She pushed the door away, taking it off the last remaining hinge, and ran outside, looking for Franklin.

  Her human spirit gasped at the sight, her bear filled with wrath.

  Franklin was covered in wounds, standing on his hind legs, fighting a giant creature covered with spikes. It looked like the trunk of a huge tree came to life, but its bark was made of putrid flesh and bone.

  It had a head and four extremities, like an aberration from another world.

  She roared but Franklin moved first and cut away the thorns. His snout snapped hard at the monster’s neck until it broke it.

  The thing kept moving, it’s blood stained the walls and ceiling.

  Sophie looked around. Every door was open, the whole base had been breached.

  Franklin finished off the horrid thing, its body dropped dead to the ground, his bear was satisfied, it walking over the dreadful thing, looking around for more, letting out a thunderous roar.

  She casted a glance at him, her eyes saying everything. It’s lost. The base is lost we need to burn it. But he circled around himself and stood up on his hind legs, growling furiously.

  Sophie felt a wave of warmth reach her body, as if she was being submerged in a bath, giving her hope, relaxing her.

  A faint, golden light filled the corridor. It took her a second to realize that Frank
lin was the source of it. He was doing something with his body, channeling a strange, wonderful force.

  The abomination at their feet and everywhere around started panicking. The creeping membrane that surrounded the walls receded into the rooms, trying to get away from the light, but it couldn’t.

  Nothing could run from it. It was the response to what it was.

  Her bear reveled on it. It was nature itself finding a way to fight this unnatural thing. Her animal knew what to do. She roared, louder than she ever had.

  The light was inside of her too, seeking a way out. It needed to fight whatever this thing was. Her insides burned like a hot coal, and she roared again, searching for the dark creature that hid in the shadows.

  And her light got it.

  Franklin joined her and in their cry, she saw the horrid, spikey thing at his legs dry up, its last remains slowly turning into dust.

  The light burned brighter, completely engulfing her until she had to close her eyes, they were one and the same, roaring in anger, in disgust... annihilating this dark enemy.

  Then everything was silent.

  She opened her eyes and there he was. Magnificent. A huge black bear, standing on all fours, looking at her. His gaze full of determination.

  He approached her, his eyes never leaving hers. This man had saved her. He fought these monsters, this beings that wanted to kill her, but much more importantly, he made her understand that she had the strength to do it on her own. To fight. To be strong. She had been part of something amazing.

  A strange emotion welled inside her. It was joy, mixed with sadness.

  A kind of pride that lets you know that everything has changed. That from here on, things will never be the same.

  ***

  The two black bears approached one another. Franklin touched her wet, cold snout with his own, and she could feel herself smiling.

  They caressed each other, enjoying the warmth of their fur, the roughness of their nature, the sense of freedom that came with their animal bodies.

  A moment later she was herself again, crying. Franklin held her. Their animal selves were gone, their humanity the only thing that remained.

  She sat on his legs, holding him.

  “It’s all right,” he whispered, “it’s all right.”

  The tears flowed incessantly.

  She understood what her purpose in the world was. This wasn’t a mere coincidence.

  It was fate.

  Chapter 9

  Sophia’s tears weighted heavily on Franklin’s heart. They hurt him more than any wound he had ever suffered. But he was glad for her. She finally released all of that frustration, anger, contempt... every bad choice she made in the past that simmered over the years.

  This was a kind of cleansing. His bear knew. She told him, even though she hadn’t said so out loud.

  He saw it in her eyes. A look meant much more than mere words.

  She trapped her bear deep inside, ashamed of what she had done. Or maybe it was the other way around. The bear forsook her. She let herself be controlled by scum.

  But she was strong.

  “I’m proud of you,” he said.

  She stopped crying, her gaze lost in the distance, thinking, warmed by his embrace.

  “All my life... I’ve done stupid things,” she whispered.

  “Look at me,” he said.

  She raised her head to him, her eyes red.

  “Everything that you’ve done, good and bad, led you to this moment. Nature chose you.”

  “I felt...”

  She choked up. The feeling was too strong.

  Franklin waited until she was ready to continue.

  “I felt like every living being in the world spoke to me, smiled at me. Gave me strength.”

  “It didn’t give you any more strength than you already have.”

  Her eyes locked with his.

  “My clan,” he continued, “the White Paws. We fight these things... these monsters.”

  “You knew what was happening.”

  He nodded, “you didn’t, and still fought back. There’s only a handful of shifters able to hurt those things.”

  “I just... I was scared, then I heard you roar and everything changed.”

  “You were picked to fight the Shadowlands.”

  He kissed her on the cheek.

  “Even if you didn’t know it. Even if you can’t believe it, you were chosen because of your strength.”

  “What do you mean? How do you know all this?”

  He looked at her, he had to tell her the truth.

  do.”

  She chuckled.

  “Is it bad if that doesn’t scare me?”

  “Yes.”

  She laughed again, “Why?”

  “Because it means you’re meant to fight them too, if you choose to.”

  She went silent and nodded. An electronic, intermittent beep came from the Control Room.

  “What’s that?” Franklin asked.

  “The reboot is done.”

  He smiled. Yeah, the reboot. That’s why they’d come here. And they found something they never expected.

  He found her.

  And she found her true self.

  ***

  The equipment on the Control Room was filled with the ashy particles of the thing they just destroyed.

  She sat down and quickly dusted the keyboard and switchboards, then the monitors.

  She then realized she was naked. Franklin too. They destroyed their clothes when they shifted to their animals. A soft, cold breeze grazed her skin, but Sophie did not feel cold at all.

  Her inner bear gave her warmth. She just had to embrace it, to accept who she was. She understood how Franklin could step outside the other night.

  She was powerful, just like him.

  She pressed some keys and re-ran the code, just to make sure she wasn’t missing anything.

  “Everything looks perfect,” Franklin said.

  “Told you.”

  He laughed, “I concede, you’re absolutely amazing.”

  “’Course I am.”

  “I’ll call HQ and tell them we’re done, they’ll have to send people to clean up the mess, though.”

  She turned around, “wait.”

  His stomach tightened, she found a problem?

  “I could make the system do a triple check so next time an antenna goes offline, we know if it’s a hardware problem, a server side issue, or a God-forsaken monster infesting the location.”

  “Can you do that? Won’t it just go offline? We can bring in sensors.”

  She started typing, weird words upon weird words on an IDE, a programmer’s development screen.

  Each sentence was short and full of math stuff he didn’t quite understand.

  “I’m almost done,” she said.

  She’d written forty-eight lines in less than a minute.

  “But how are you going to...”

  “This,” she said, the mouse selecting a string of words on the screen above them, “I’ll update the software of every Antenna in the country. I’ll make them send hardware information every sixty seconds. If a tower goes offline, all others will check if it’s a generalized Internet failure on the position. If it isn’t, they’ll alert HQ. That way—”

  “That way if this ever happens again, we will know the minute it happens. And they can scramble a team if something’s out of the ordinary.”

  She smiled, “easy, right?”

  “Easy? Are you kidding me? You’re a genius.”

  “No, I’m not, it’s just a little upgrade.”

  “Girl, you did it in forty-eight lines. It would’ve taken me, I don’t know, six months and a thousand of them to approach what you just did.”

  She shrugged, “you just need more practice.”

  “No. I won’t let you say that. You’re like, the Albert Einstein of software developers.”

  “No...” she said, blushing.

  “The Leonardo DaVinci of computers
.”

  “Shut up,” she said, trying to smack him on the butt, but missing.

  “Like the Genghis Khan of coding.”

  “Enough!” she said, she was embarrassed, laughing at his silliness, but she needed to hear it. She was the best. He wasn’t going to let her think otherwise.

  “So, how do we implement it?” Franklin asked.

  “What?”

  “The code, how do we set it up everywhere? The suits over in Washington are going to love this.”

  “I’ve already done it.”

  His jaw dropped, “what?”

  “It’s already done, every mainframe in the country’s updated.”

  She turned him on. Her intelligence, her humbleness, everything about her.

  “Look what you done,” he said, still stunned, unable to keep himself from kissing her, his cock stiffening harder than ever.

  “Oh, come on...” she said blushing.

  His bear roared “mate!” inside of him, but he held back. He wouldn’t impose himself on her. She was free now.

  Her kiss was soft and deep and wet. It was the best kiss of his life. Every time he touched her was like fulfilling his destiny.

  He understood what the crew back on the Mountain said. He had never been much of a believer in fated mates, but this was undeniable.

  Her eyes, her lips, her curves, her freakin’ intelligence and charisma.

  She had it all.

  It was too much for him. He never thought he would find someone like her.

  Then it hit him. In a few hours, they’d say good-bye to each other and all of this would be gone.

  Chapter 10

  It was time to go. Franklin found a couple of blankets in a closet and gave them to Sophie, she tried to let him keep one but he opposed.

  “Don’t worry, I won’t get sick,” he said smiling.

  Both of them knew shifters were immune to disease. She wouldn’t get sick either, it was a matter of comfort.

  He wrapped some of their ripped clothes around his waist and swaggered out.

  The drive back to the station was slow and careful.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  She took a deep breath, “honestly, I don’t know.”

  He didn’t reply, just nodded. She needed someone who listened, after all these years.

  “I think... I mean, I feel good, you know? Better than I’ve ever felt before.”