Pain bit into his back leg and Hunter roared. He spun on his three good paws and swiped at the black muzzle trying to eat him for breakfast. Alex snapped back with millimeters to spare and instantly dove in for more with a vicious snarl.

The scent of blood sent him spiraling back to his last night in Texas. The tang of it was as heavy in the air then as it was in his present. He wanted to rip and tear and destroy. At his past self mostly, but Alex was a damn fine substitute.

He needed someone to save him, but there was no one coming.

At least he wasn’t as bad off as Alex. Those glowing dead eyes stared at him with murder on the brain.

“I swear to fuck, if you don’t change back right now, neither of you will eat for a week!”

Their alpha’s words didn’t hold any weight of power, but the anger lacing them was enough to slow Hunter in his tracks.

Alex was another matter.

The brawny beast whirled on Ethan and lifted his lips in a growl.

Shit. Fuck.

Asshole for starting a brawl before breakfast, Hunter still couldn’t let Alex make a dumbass decision like challenging Ethan for the top position in the clan. He’d be hell on the rest of them, and even more of a prick than he was on a good day.

Ethan rolled his shoulders. Eyes gone silver stared unblinkingly in Alex’s direction.

Hunter swiped at Alex’s back leg and knocked him to the ground. They bit and clawed and rolled. Blood streaked across his blond fur and he was sure there was just as much hiding among the black of Alex’s, too.

“Enough,” Ethan growled. “Change back. Now!”

The shift ripped through them with painful precision. Muscles and bone didn’t reform in a logical order. Their bodies simply ceased to exist in one form and became the other.

It was as painful as getting knocked in the gonads by a bucking bull.

Hunter panted in the dirt and sank into the feeling of bruised joints and pulled muscles from the third shift in a day. His bear still wanted to claw something to shreds. Him, Alex, anyone who looked at him with narrowed eyes, it didn’t matter so long as the beast got a taste of blood.

“Good morning to you, darlin’,” he drawled once he made it to his feet. Blood dripped down his side from the wounds slowly closing. Too slow. He’d changed too much recently, trying to keep his shit together. The frequent shifts took a toll on a man.

“You’re insane,” Alex muttered.

Hunter threw his arms wide and grinned wildly. “Still puts me a dozen marbles up on you.”

Fury twisted Alex’s features and he dove for Hunter.

“Enough, I said.”

The alpha order cracked through the air between them and stopped them in their tracks.

Oh, Alex still glared murder at him. He was also certain Jesse twitched aside his curtains to watch the scene from the safety of his hut. Lorne stood nearby with his arms crossed, probably waiting to see if he could jump in for a tumble, too.

With a shrug, Hunter made his way back to his own door. He couldn’t even blame Alex. His own bear was full of pissed off anger that kept him awake at night. The brawls were just a release valve.

He quickly wiped down the still-healing wounds on his ribs and changed into another set of clothes. Then he was back out the door on his way to the main house. Work didn’t stop just because a brawl broke out before breakfast.

Hunter steeled himself with his hand on the knob to the kitchen door. The second was all he had with footsteps coming up behind him and happy murmurs on the other side of the wall. He could do this, he told himself. The day was like any other, fights and all.

“You going to stand there all morning?” Alex grumbled at his side.

“Just another day in paradise,” Hunter answered as lightly as possible. His bear growled at him.

Alex grunted in response and shouldered him aside. Hunter growled, Alex snarled, and Jesse grabbed them both by the back of their necks.

“Can you not last five fucking minutes without getting in a fight?” the clan’s second demanded. Jesse shook them roughly and stepped through the opening. The man was a piece of work until he had his first pot of coffee.

Hunter and Alex exchanged a long look and both rushed for the door at the same time. Hunter smirked when he reached it first and tried to slam it in Alex’s face as soon as he was through. The growl behind him almost raised his spirits.

His early morning grumpiness was no match for the picture-perfect couple inside the home. Ethan stepped up behind Tansey while she fiddled with something on the stove. He wrapped his arms around her waist and planted a kiss in the crook of her neck.

Hunter busied himself with pouring a mug of coffee. It was one thing to know they were wallowing in their happiness like pigs in mud, and another to stare it in the face while his bed stayed frigid.

He’d met Ethan years ago and knew within a few days the man was crushed under the weight he shouldered. Then Tansey rocked up at his gate with demands and war on her heels. She’d made Ethan share some of his burden with her and never once complained.

She was a hell of a cook, too. Hunter was fifty percent sure Ethan mated her for the food alone.

Hunter added an unhealthy amount of sugar and creamer to his mug while the others filled plates with bacon, eggs, sausage, and more. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Lorne and Alex reach for the last scoop of hash browns. Growls rose up from both men, which Jesse joined in a valiant effort to stop the fight before it happened.

The air thickened steadily until teeth were bared. The sawing growls ratcheted up until his own bear paced and snarled in the back of his head.

Someone snapped first, and the plate crashed to the floor. Shards of glass scattered over the wood and the spatula slid from one end of the counter to the other.

Alex slammed his plate to the countertop and threw his fist into Lorne’s side. Lorne jerked his elbow backward and connected with Alex’s navel. The two shoved and punched at each other away from the stove and into Hunter.

He stumbled against the counter. The creamy gold in his mug sloshed dangerously close to the rim. “Watch it, assholes,” he growled. “If one drop of this doesn’t make it to my mouth, I’ll bleed the fucker who caused it for the next month and a half.”

Alex. He bet ten dollars and a six-pack of beer it’d be Alex. Thank fuck for the half-crazed man. Hunter needed the constant fights to distract his bear from what they lacked.

From out of nowhere, the spatula appeared again and smacked any hand that could be reached. “Are you kidding me?” Tansey demanded. “I had another batch ready to go. Now, none of you assholes get any. Are you toddlers, or men?”

She grumbled as she pushed her way between them, nudging the bigger pieces of glass into a corner to pick up later. Disbelief scented the air when she pulled a pan from the stove and made eye contact while sliding the entire batch to her own plate.

More than one face shot betrayed looks at their alpha’s mate. Not Hunter. He directed all his anger at the fuckers who cost him hash browns.

“Business to attend,” Tansey announced to the noisy crowd once they found their ways to the table. “Sit down and shut up.”

When the noises didn’t die down, Ethan pounded his fist on the table. “Listen up, you miscreants.”

“Someone got a word of the day calendar,” Alex snarked.

Hunter leaned back in his chair and flashed him a thumbs up.

Alex frowned in his direction, but whatever. He could appreciate a good joke even if they were at each other’s throats ten minutes ago. Grudges were for the weak. He preferred to let life just roll off his shoulders.

Tansey fixed them all with a golden-eyed stare before pulling out a stack of purple folders from a drawer.

“I’m here for food, not homework,” Hunter complained.

She went on as if he hadn’t spoken at all. “As I told you last week, we have a last minute booking for a wedding. Apparently, these people met on a ride last year and want to do a destination ceremony here. Believe me, I asked why, too.”

She slid packets to each of them. Hunter flipped through his, then went back to shoveling food into his mouth as fast as possible. He wouldn’t put it past the others to try stealing from his plate.

“Our new chef will be here tomorrow afternoon, so please keep your dicks in your jeans. I will bleed the fucker who drives her off for the next month and a half.”

Shameless thief.

“Guests arrive the day after, but Ethan won’t let me claim all of your time. Something about having a ranch to run and cows to fondle. We’ve given you shifts to play nice with the guests and do real work.”

“Alex, you’re forbidden from showing your face for the next week,” Jesse joked.

“Fine by me. Have fun playing babysitter to a bunch of city cats. Maybe these ones won’t scream over a spider.”

“There are benefits to being a comforting figure after an ordeal like that,” Hunter deadpanned. “Jesse would know.”

“Can’t wag your dicks around if you get them chopped off,” Tansey threatened casually and without taking her eyes off her place in her notes.

Nearly everyone around the table winced; Ethan snorted and gave her an indulgent smile.

She tapped a finger against her next point. “The group has signed up for an overnight camping trip. Jesse, Hunter, that’s on you to manage. Please don’t lose them in the middle of the night.”

Jesse groaned, but Hunter stayed silent. A day or two out on the trail, keeping tourists from getting kicked in the balls by a horse or gored by a bull sounded like an ideal time away from the ranch house. He loved the clan and Tansey made an excellent addition, but fuck. He needed to clear his head.

Ethan reached forward, eyes still scanning over Tansey’s plan, and squeezed her hand.

They made Hunter’s heart hurt. He wanted that unconscious desire for touch. More than that, he wanted everything that came with claiming a mate.

He’d been raised in a home filled with dopey happiness. From a young age, he knew he wanted the exact joy he saw between his parents. He went into every relationship expecting that happy ending and received a train wreck instead.

He had an easier time accepting what he lacked when the clan remained unmated. With his alpha paired up, though, he couldn’t ignore his heart aching enough to send him to his knees or his bear clawing him to pieces. He’d made mistakes—many, many mistakes—and those past choices mocked him.

He didn’t have love. He didn’t have cubs on the way. He’d even had to stay clear of his own mother’s funeral because he was a wanted man.

Seemed he was cursed to go all in, but never find the forever sort of girl. And when he thought he was close, his life blew up in his face. Every damn time.

A choked sound from the end of the table jerked all their attention to Lorne. The usually quiet man’s eyes bugged out of his face as he shook the newspaper at them. “Hunter—you didn’t.”

“Didn’t what?”

Ethan dragged the paper toward him. Disbelief colored his scent. “Joyce. No. Even you aren’t that stupid.”

“What?” he demanded again. He couldn’t very well deny something if he didn’t know the accusation. “You know I’m done with her.”

Cheater. He’d turned a blind eye to most of it and cracked a few skulls when she’d gotten too blatant in her wandering. He’d left her more than once and still found his way back when she swore up and down she’d changed and wanted to settle. And like an idiot, he believed her too many times to count.

Wanting forever made a person stupid and see it where it didn’t exist. Still didn’t stop him falling fast and hard for the wrong women.

The paper continued to be passed down the table boggling the minds of all who read it.

“Holy fuck,” Alex cursed.

“It can’t be true,” Jesse added.

Hunter grabbed the paper and smoothed it out in front of him to figure out the shocking news.

Hunter Shaw and Joss Warren are to be wed in a private ceremony on the twenty-sixth of this month.

“What the shit?” He scanned the words twice before they registered in his brain.

Tansey reached for it, but he’d already ripped the pages to shreds. She narrowed her eyes for denying her the gossip and stalked back into the kitchen.

Whatever. Like her mate wouldn’t fill her in on the details. Nothing remained secret between them.

Just one more difference between them and him.

The paper had gotten Joyce’s name wrong, but who else could it be? Phone calls and dirty pictures hadn’t gotten his attention. Neither had flaunting her latest conquests in his face. He’d moved on from Joyce, but she was determined to cause him strife.

“Not a word. Not a single, fucking word,” he warned the clan.

His name. That was what she threatened with her little stunt. He’d already had his sullied once before and took years to find himself at ease. He couldn’t let her take his name from him again. He wouldn’t have anyone think him the cheater the next time he talked a woman up at the bar.

Damn her. He’d made it clear what he wanted and she couldn’t provide.

“I’ll be late.” Hunter shoved to his feet. He felt like his bear had wrapped himself around his brain like a big ball and gnawed on him like a melon. “I need to take care of this.”

Fuck. If the newspaper wouldn’t retract, he’d spend every last penny buying up ad space declaring how utterly done he was with Joyce’s bullshit.