Free Be Were (Southern Shifters) by Eliza Gayle

chuffed.
    "What the fuck, Dean?" Niki did not sound happy.
    Dean ignored her for now and stood his ground. "Who the hell is this?" He sniffed the air.
    "Is he a—?
    "Yes, he is. Why is everyone so damned shocked? Plus he's one of my guys. Newest one in fact."
    Dean stared at his brother as if he'd gone insane. He'd brought a full-blooded bear into his clubhouse? "Are you crazy?"
    "Not the last time I checked."
    Niki shoved at his arm and he growled in response.
    "Don't growl at me. You do not shove me around like some simpering female who needs your protection." She pushed hard and against his better judgment he let go. She stepped around him and faced the bear.
    "Sorry, Calder. Dean here is obviously an idiot."
    "What happened to you?" the bear asked.
    "Stupid dream. I fell out of bed." Her voice changed and he realized she was talking to him like he was her friend. In fact, all of them were staring pretty dumbfounded at the exchange between her and this stranger.
    The bear named Calder came forward and approached Dean's mate. The hair on his nape stood on end in alarm.
    "That's not exactly what I meant."
    The giant of a man continued to advance and the unease he felt before ratcheted twenty times higher. His claws extended and fur began to push through his skin.
    "Easy, Dean. Calder's a good guy."
    The bear must have heard something in Bhric's warning. He stopped moving toward Niki and took a sharp left behind the bar instead.
    "Dean." Niki's call to him grabbed his attention and he turned back to her. "What is wrong with you?"
    "Oh I don't know. In the course of twenty-four hours, I've had to rescue my pregnant mate from some backwater wolves clear across another state. I find out you've been shacked up here with an assortment of unmated males, including my brother, who probably do not remember the last time they had good intentions, and now you're making soft eyes at him." He hooked his thumb in the direction of the bear. "Do you even understand how dangerous that is?"
    "Do you even understand how dangerous I am?" She stalked closer and the pit in his stomach grew to epic proportions. The rage in her almost white eyes sparked and aimed in his direction threatened to take him to his knees. Okay, maybe he'd gone a little too far.
    Niki drew a tight breath through clenched teeth. "You call me mate one more time and I'll be borrowing a knife from Calder over there to slice off your balls." She poked a finger into his chest. "My clan has trained the finest of warriors, doctors and scientists this species has ever seen." She pulled her lips back and revealed the extra row of razor sharp teeth of her feline. "And some of us have been trained to kill without ever being seen. So. Back. The. Hell. Off."
    Damn.
    Dean ignored a couple of the snickers coming from behind him and maintained his focus on the glorious woman in front of him. Part of him wanted to drag her off and fuck till they both passed out and the other half of him—pretty much the same thing. Thank the Goddess the human part of him enabled him to think with his brain under the most critical of circumstances.
    He broke into a sweat despite the fact they were in a drafty old building in the dead of winter. Niki still held a defiant look stamped across her face, but he couldn't focus anywhere except her enticing mouth. He started to take a step forward and crush her to him when Bhric shoved his arm between them.
    "Here," he said, holding out a small towel filled with ice. "She needs this first."
    #
    Niki glared at Dean and tried not to think about the heat gathering between her thighs. Damn him. No man had a right to make possessiveness look so damned good. Nor did it seem right that his he-man attitude had turned her on. She hated his interference that implied she couldn't survive without him defending her against unwanted attention. Niki scoffed in her head. She hadn't been here long enough to get to know these men very well, but she damn well knew she didn't need