Hot and Badgered (Honey Badger Chronicles, #1)

by Shelly Laurenston

beat the shit out of a Smith recently. That was fun.

Berg didn’t know what to say when the lion male began the conga line. Mostly because he never thought he’d see bears actually join a conga line. But there they were, bears conga-ing around Charlie’s yard.

Berg went off to find Charlie. He didn’t have to look far, though. She was sitting on the trunk of one of the weasel cars—they really had a thing for seventies American muscle cars—drinking a beer and using her bare feet to pet his dog’s back.

“This thing with the Guerra twins and your dad all gets resolved, say, tomorrow . . . you’re out of here?” “I don’t know. I hadn’t really thought about it. I kind of like it here. Except for the weird demands for baked goods. But then again . . . the bears do give me ovens. So that seems fair.” “I don’t want you to go,” he admitted. “I’m not going anywhere. Yet. And this seems like a really intense conversation for two people who’ve known each other for a very short amount of time.”

Charlie jumped off the trunk and faced Berg head-on. “Dude,” she practically snarled, “you can shift into a fifteen-hundred-pound bear! How fucking boring can you be?” Berg gave a little shrug. “Polars shift into fifteen hundred pounds. I only shift to a thousand.” Charlie threw up her hands. “Oh! Well, then.”