Bard would be the first to admit, by nature, he was not a morning person, but wolves were nocturnal, dammit! Mornings were the invention of Loki, despite what the myths or science claimed. Fucking tricksters.

He had felt his mate pull out of his arms, and he seriously debated keeping her in bed for another go-round, but hearing her muffled groans as she stretched, he decided gallantry would best be served by him catching some more sleep.

Bard was considerate like that! His wolf would have snorted at that, but the lazy beast was sleeping too. See? Considerate! He was even letting his wolf rest!

Rolling over into her spot, smothering himself in her sweet scent, he let himself slip back into a contented doze.

Never in his life had he been so fucking content.

And once his mate returned his mark, and they were properly mated?

Yeah, there's many reasons why wolves howl at the moon, and Bard would quite happily climb to the top of tallest mountain in Colorado—which, granted, was Mount Elbert, just a little over a hundred miles away—and howl it to the world the moment she sealed the deal.

Grinning to himself at the thought, when he heard his mate tiptoe downstairs, he debated stirring once again.

Seriously! He did, for very long minutes.

Okay, so his brain hadn't come completely online yet, but that would require the elixir of life itself. Sweet, sweet coffee.

Mm. Coffee.

Moving on autopilot, Bard crawled out of the bed, dragging himself off the mattress that had been barely large enough to contain the two of them.

Padding unsteadily towards the kitchenette, he peered blearily at the counter.

Something was wrong. Terribly, terribly wrong.

Where is it? Maybe she keeps it downstairs?

Shuffling towards the stairs, he carefully, slowly stepped down each step, making sure he didn't take a headlong tumble. That would be uncool. Mustn't scare away the mate with being a klutz.

He found her in a small nook, sitting on a stool and leaning over her laptop. She had headphones in, listening to something.

Oblivious to his nudity, he stalked towards her. Placing a gentle hand on her shoulder, he barely blinked as she shrieked and startled, yanking out her earphones and turning to face him with her hands clutched to her chest.

Hm, maybe she does have banshee blood somewhere? She's got a great set of lungs. Bard thought to himself as he met her wide eyes.

"What the hell? You scared me!" Words. She was using words. In complete sentences.

'We should teach her to howl properly,' Bard's wolf grumped, reluctantly stirring within him.

"Coffee?" Bard asked, attempting to inject just how absolutely necessary the life-giving substance was.

"Hunh?"

Okay, so he failed. He tilted his head and tried to give her his patented puppy eyes, and tried again, saying it slower, just in case she wasn't a morning person either. "Coffee?"

"Um, sweetie," she said in the slow, careful tones one used to speak to a rabid dog. "I don't have any. I don't drink coffee that often. I'm more of a tea drinker."

The Fates were mocking him. Not only had they apparently paired him with a morning person, going by the fact that she was not only wide awake but capable of complete sentences without any coffee, but she also didn't need it as badly as he did.

Scrubbing his face, Bard tried to kick his brain into gear. What was he going to do without coffee? How could he be expected to function? To deal with people?

Wait.

Hank kept a coffee maker at the Forge, hidden up in the upstairs loft Hank used during the weekends. Hank would have coffee.

Genius. Problem solved!

Turning, he shuffled towards the door. He'd just go get some coffee, wake up, then give his mate a proper good morning kiss!

It was good to have a plan!

See? He could function without coffee!

His mate, apparently, thought otherwise.

"Baby," she gently wrapped her hands around his arm, "Go upstairs and go back to bed." She turned him, guiding him away from the door, and back towards the stairs upstairs, back towards the Hell of No Coffee Maker. He knew he was truly, madly, deeply in love with her, when he had no urge to resist her. It could also be because the bed was upstairs, and he may be able to talk her into returning to cuddling with him. That sounded like an excellent plan!

See? He was adaptable! He'd be a great mate!

"I'm sure there's some coffee here somewhere, so I'll go see if I can't hunt something up."

Aw! She was the best mate ever! EVER!

Life was perfect.

Wait. He hesitated as his foot came down on the first step, tensing suddenly and canting his head.

Fuck. Fuckity fuck fuck fuck!

Want to know what the sound of a shoe dropping is?

It's the sound of your two older brothers banging loudly, rudely, at the door at the butt-crack of dawn on a Monday morning, when all you want is to either have a cup of coffee or crawl back into a warm bed with your mate.

Twisting his head, Bard glared, a growl escaping his chest as his wolf roused wide awake, just as enraged at the presence of two unmated male wolves banging at their mate's shoppe door as Bard was by being interrupted in his secret quest to get his mate to cuddle.

Cockblocking sons of a bitch!

Ever-so-delicately, Bard wrapped his hands around Harper's shoulders and traded positions with her, putting his body between her and the door before he turned and prepared to deal with the wolves’ intent on ruining on his morning.

"Darling, go upstairs. I'll deal with this," Bard knew his voice was leaning towards wolf more than human, but his wolf was pushing heavily against the constraints of his body, ready to face down the interlopers.

She slapped his shoulder. Hard enough to jerk him forward.

"Deal with what? What's going on, Bard? And don't you go getting all cave-wolf on me! I don't remember making any promises to obey. Hell, we haven't even gotten to the married part yet!"

Married? What? Mating was better than marriage! However, despite not having had his coffee yet, Bard knew that was not a discussion he wanted to engage in with a morning person. Not when he still had his family to deal with.

"Just..." He growled in frustration, feeling his chest expanding as his wolf pushed harder for release. "Please, let me handle this."

"Fine, handle it," Harper huffed. Then she surprised him. She wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed a gentle kiss against the back of his neck. "I've got your back, baby."

And his back had those full, luscious breasts pressing against it. Lucky back! Wait, brothers first, then breasts! Yes, breast time would be a happy compromise for the lack of coffee.

Focus! His wolf snapped, unamused at the wandering thoughts of his host.

Reluctantly, Bard stepped out of Harper's embrace and strode to the door.

"Wait! Aren't you going to put some clothes on?" Harper cried out from behind him.

"No," Bard said succinctly as he threw open the door, planting himself in the portal and glaring at two faces nearly identical to the one he looked at in the mirror every morning.

"What?"

Who said wolves couldn't roar as loud as lions could? Take that, felines!

Aksel and Donar stood outside, both looking a little startled at seeing their "little" brother standing there, not only naked, but half-shifted into his battle form, claws out, fangs out, and death glowing in his eyes.

"Dude, what the fuck, man?" Donar shook his head in bemusement. "No need to flaunt what we all got, we are identical triplets."

Aksel gave Donar a disgusted look. Always the most serious of the three, with the weight of being Alpha heavy on his shoulders and in the crow's feet and gray hairs already staking claim upon his features, he had little time for Donar's irreverent ways. Yet, the two made a formidable Alpha-Beta pair, and the fact both of them were there, outside his mate's door? Yeah, Bard was not a happy camper.

"Look, Bårdr," Aksel began, running a frustrated hand through his otherwise neatly trimmed hair. Probably more to keep from thwapping Donar than anything else. "Can we come inside and talk? We have some things to discuss."

When Bard didn't budge, Aksel sighed heavily, his shoulders slumping. "It's serious, brother mine. Our father and mother have stirred up the pack, but more than that, they've contacted the Council with a formal complaint."

"A complaint?" Bard growled, "And just what are our parents complaining about?"

"The fact that a Llewellyn Witch has cast a spell on you, in violation of the pact that forbids witches from forcibly binding shifters as their familiars," Aksel gritted out. Unfortunately, he made the mistake of glaring over towards Harper when he spoke.

With a snarl, Bard snapped, lunging forward to deal with the implied threat towards his mate. He was in full battle form, his body erupting into a terrifying mix, half-man, half-wolf. A dense pelt of snow-white fur shivered over his upper body, his face extending and twisting into that of a giant wolf with blazing blue eyes, muzzle gaping open wide with ivory fangs gleaming, thirsting for the blood of his enemy.

"Bard, you quit that right now," Harper called out, yanking on his arm and preventing him from meeting out the appropriate justice.

Reluctantly, and quite probably pouting, Bard let his mate draw him back into the shoppe and shove him back. Placing her back against his chest, she turned to glare at his brothers.

"And you two idiots, get inside before some poor Mortal sees a werewolf brawl in the middle of the street," Harper ordered, adopting her best lawyer guise as adeptly as he apparently transformed into a wolf.

Were lawyer-shifters a thing? He knew there were shark-shifters, though he'd never met one. Apparently, before now.

A sudden elbow met his gut, and he looked down to meet the glare of his beautiful mate. "I heard that thought, mister. Now put those fangs away before I show you just how big a shark I can be when I'm upset."

Uh oh, apparently, the mate bond was settling in already, despite the fact they hadn't actually completed it.

While his idiot brothers hesitantly stepped into the shoppe, being careful to close the door, Bard reluctantly let his shift ease back.

"There, that's better," Harper said with a nod. Pointing up the stairs, she ordered, "Now, go put some pants on at least, then we can talk with your brothers and figure out just what the hell is going on."

Giving his brothers a pointed glare, Bard huffed, "Fine. Don't let those assholes steal you away. Or charm you. Or bite you." He gave them another pointed glare, "And you assholes, be nice to my mate, or I will destroy you."

Feeling that his threat was given and met with the appropriate amount of gravity, given the fact both his older brothers actually paled a bit, Bard nodded once in satisfaction, snarled to reinforce his point, then stomped upstairs to quickly grab his pants.

He moved swiftly, unwilling to leave his delicate mate alone too long with the brutes, but he lost precious moments struggling with his jeans, trying to shove his legs in the tangled, resisting fabric. Finding that he had broken the snap when he tore them off the night before, he left them undone and stomped back downstairs, barefoot and growling.

He emerged to find Donar gone and Aksel actually lifting a crate with exaggerated care as Harper directed him with the imperious eye of a five-star general.

Quietly coming up behind her, he murmured, "Um, darling? What's going on?"

Turning, she gave him a small, smug grin, accompanied by a lift of that eyebrow he adored. "I sent Donar to go get you some coffee and some breakfast. Apparently, there's a café already operating full-tilt." She gently patted his chest, "I'm sorry, baby, I didn't realize you were a coffee person."

Blinking, a bit taken aback, Bard wrapped his hands around her waist and pulled her close, leaning down to press his forehead against hers. Seeing that she was safe, that his brothers hadn't done anything in his absence, he and his wolf settled a bit. "And the other one?"

"He generously offered to help move some crates out of the way for me," Harper explained, sliding her hands in slow, soothing circles over his bare chest in a way that almost had him purring like a damned cat. "I explained that I'm a glass artist, and if you three broke anything while wrasslin' around like a bunch of idiots, that I'd have to take it out of his hide. Particularly, since he's the eldest and should be providing a better example for his younger brothers instead of acting like some uncouth hooligan."

Manfully fighting the urge to laugh, Bard brushed his lips briefly against hers. "Darling, we're descended from Vikings and are literally wolves. By definition, we are uncouth hooligans."

Sniffing, Harper slapped his chest, then pressed a quick kiss against the spot, "Yes, well, not in my shoppe you're not. You all can brawl over in your forge."

"Do you two mind?" Aksel said, in his typically droll, even tone. "We have serious matters to discuss, and you two making out like you're in a John Hughes movie is kind of creeping me out."

Bard flashed his brother a middle finger behind Harper's back, while he focused on giving her a proper, and extremely thorough, good morning kiss that they hadn't yet had a chance to have, dammit!

A man and a wolf had to have priorities!