Free Between a Bear and a Hard Place (Alpha Werebear Romance) by Lynn Red

mouth.
    “We’re out of place. Don’t you feel it? Even you with your love for all things human and worldly, must feel at least a little tug on your heart?”
    “Well,” Rogue said, taking a sip of his own coffee, which was heavily laden with cream and not at all bitter, “some things, sure. I miss the quiet, I miss going out into the middle of nowhere and listening to the bats and the birds and the night-things go about their business. But what we gain from being here? I—”
    “I know,” King cut him off. “Jill, the cubs’ safety. I can’t help but feel though as if something’s missing. Some vital part of me is gone and quickly being forgotten. Things I don’t want forgotten.”
    There wasn’t much to say, at least not without really being irritating, so it was lucky for Rogue that right as the tension was starting to mount, the familiar rumble of Jill’s old Blazer turned both huge heads.
    “This is worth forgetting the traditions, don’t you think?” Rogue said. “Knowing that we’ll have a future?”
    As the back door swung open and slapped against the brick, King nodded. “It has to be,” he said with a half grin. “And I think it does.”
    “Slate! Arrow!” Jill barked at the two cubs. She still hadn’t let them live down their legendary hangovers. And, she still hadn’t gotten over calling Arrow “Grant”, which she happily admitted she probably never would. “Bring all that stuff inside. We’ll split it up in a little bit.”
    A heavy thump sounded from the kitchen, probably a hunk of beef, followed by the unmistakable sound of cans hitting the countertop a few seconds later. They always did this – she’d take the two biggest of the cubs along to whatever giant discount warehouse grocery store was two miles down the road. They’d buy a completely improbable amount of food, and split it between the four massive deep freezes – one for each house – that kept the bears fed.
    Once a month, this was the ritual. And this time, it sounded like they got more than they had previously.
    “Should we help?” Rogue asked King, happy for a moment’s distraction from the morning’s intensity. King, forgetting that he was wearing nothing but an open robe, didn’t bother to answer before he headed off to the kitchen.
    The whistle, followed by the laugh, and then the two cubs joined in, asking about where he bought the robe because they wanted one to wear to school when they started.
    Taking just a moment to himself, Rogue sipped his coffee, then finished off the steaming cup in one long swallow. He reached for King’s abandoned cup, plucked it up off the window sill where it was sitting, and stared into the murky depths.
    “Goodness,” Rogue said, slightly awed that there seemed to be either coffee grounds, or possibly an oil slick on top of the liquid, shimmering in the morning sun. “Well, I mean, it’s still coffee.”
    With a heavy sigh, he tilted the cup to his lips.
    The first swallow went down like a gob of castor oil. The second like a slightly smaller gob of castor oil. By the time he took the third gulp, then finished the cup, Rogue was... hooked? Something about the slightly slick, slightly greasy liquid did something strange to his mind, even as it was apparently doing something funny to his stomach.
    Rogue made a sour face, then belched into his closed mouth, frowned, and decided maybe it was time to help with the groceries, after all.
    *
    “Y ou’ve got a lot more pep than usual,” Jill remarked, as Rogue returned from the last of the four clan houses, sweat shimmering on his forehead, and a slightly crazed look in his eye. He looked at her for a second, his eyes slightly googly, as though he were trying to concentrate but couldn’t quite manage. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone haul two hundred pounds of beef with quite that much pizzazz before. You take speed or something?”
    Rogue quirked an eyebrow in her direction. “Speed? I dunno, but I don’t