Oh no. Oh no, oh no, oh no.

Tali leapt to her feet, crying out in pain as her injured leg connected hard with the wooden floor.

“Augh! I’m— Hudson, I’m here! I’m fine!” she shouted, starting to hobble toward the bedroom door, wincing with every step. A moment later he appeared in the doorway, breathless and panting, snow in his hair and on the shoulders of his thick jacket, all over his boots and shins.

She saw him shut his eyes briefly, an expression of total relief on his face.

He let out a heavy, shaking breath, and opened his eyes slowly. He looked down at her, and her cheeks grew hot as she realized how little she was wearing—just a tight white cami that was riding up on her belly and rose-patterned panties. She followed his gaze to Cole behind them, sitting up in his bed, stark naked except for the sheet that was pooling low around his crotch, his sublime Apollo’s belt on full display. The sheer, cringing embarrassment of it made her woozy.

“Oh my God,” she muttered, reaching toward Hudson, her expression horrified. “Hudson, I am so sorry. Everything happened so…so fast and I…I forgot—”

“You forgot,” he said.

A statement. Monotone, yet rife with disbelief.

Oh no. Oh no, no, no, no.

“I’m so sorry, Hudson. I’m— My phone, I dropped it in the snow and…and Cole was hurt bad and I just didn’t think and I’m so sorry,” she repeated, distraught.

“You’re alive,” he breathed, blinking down at her. “I was so sure you’d be...I came as fast as I could. I found your snowmobile smashed into the tree...realized I’d gone past you, turned around. Kept looking...drove up and down that road four times, just looking for any sign of you. I was sure I’d find you dead. Finally, I saw your glove lying in the snow. Got out, found your tracks. The wolf tracks. Blood everywhere. God, Tali, I thought you were fucking dead!” He shouted the last sentence at her, eyes wild, flashing green and gold.

“I know!” she said, reaching up again, clutching onto the front of his half-zipped jacket, stomach twisting in guilt. “I know. I’m so sorry, Hudson. I really fucked up and I’m so sorry, I know it’s no excuse but—”

“Your leg,” he interrupted, glancing down at her. “How is it?”

“It’s…it’s okay,” she said quietly. “Or it will be.”

“You need to get to a doctor,” he said flatly. “I don’t know what the hell you’re still doing up here. That’s a fucking wolf bite, Tali. You’re at severe risk of infection.”

“I know,” she said. “I will.”

She fell silent, not even able to think of anything to say. She was so exhausted, and so much had happened, but she still felt like a monster for not thinking of him when the last thing he’d heard was her telling him she was surrounded by wolves, when he was miles away. Cole had a phone. There had been time to call. Not much, but enough.

Of course, her brain had been a little fried by the revelation that her boyfriend was some kind of...werebear, but still.

Hudson looked like he’d been hit by a truck. Wild and frazzled. And hurt. Once again, she’d managed to hurt him, this time without even trying.

“Well,” he said, looking over her head again toward Cole. “It looks likes you’ve got it all figured out. You obviously don’t need me anymore. Go to a doctor.”

“Hudson, wait!” she cried, grabbing his shoulder when he started to turn away.

He spun around fast. “What for?” he asked, impatient. Cold.

“I...I don’t know,” she said helplessly. She didn’t know what to say, and simply cringed. What could she say to make up for putting him through that?

He shook his head, looked down at her in her barely-there clothing, then over at Cole again. She saw him frown. “Saw the other tracks too. Does she know?”

She snapped her head around toward Cole and saw him give a brief flicker of a nod.

“Wait, what?” she sputtered. “Do I know? Do I know what?” she asked, looking at Cole with her mouth hanging open. And then she remembered. There would have been three kinds of tracks in the snow. Wolf. Human. And bear... “Does he know?”

“Uh,” Cole said, looking deeply uncomfortable. “Yeah, he knows.”

She whipped her head back to Hudson, ogling him, then back to Cole again. And back to Hudson again. Then back to Cole. “Are you talking about… What? How does he know?”

Cole looked past her at Hudson, even more uncomfortable than before. She saw Hudson’s small nod in the periphery of her vision, and then Cole said, “‘Cause he’s one, too.”

“What?” she exploded. “He’s…” she spun around to face Hudson. “You’re a werebear? What the fuck, guys? Who else has been secretly a werebear the entire time I’ve known them? Mabel? Principal Waters? Reverend Porter? Is this just a whole fucking town of werebears? How’d I miss this memo?”

She was asking it of both of them, her head whipping back and forth like a cat watching a tennis match, though neither of them was making a move to speak. When she finished, Cole had the audacity to laugh, a little nervously. “Uh. No. Not the whole town. It’s...just us.”

“And uh, the term is shifters, technically,” Hudson added. “Not werebears.”

She stared at both of them in disbelief. “Oh. Right. Shifters. My apologies for fucking up the semantics. I did, after all, just learn shifters existed about thirty minutes ago,” she sputtered, aware that she was sounding hysterical. She shook her head. “This is…this is weird, guys. This is really fucking weird.”

“Right,” Hudson said. “Yeah. It is. But he’s obviously got explanations covered so, I’ll get going. Go to a doctor,” he repeated to Tali, and then walked out. She was too stunned by the new information to stop him this time, and just watched him go in silence.

When she heard the front door shut behind him, she turned back to Cole. She staggered across the room and flopped onto the bed on her knees, resting her forehead against his, exhausted. “What is going on?” she muttered, and his hand came up to stroke the hair at the back of her head.

She sagged forward and murmured, “Move over. I’m freezing.”

“Of course you are,” he said, and lifted the sheet for her to crawl in beside him. She reached down and grabbed the blankets pooled at the bottom of the bed.

“So Hudson Quinlan is also a wereb—a shifter? My brain hurts,” she said, mumbling it against the soft curls of his chest.

“Uh, yeah.”

“I don’t understand. So are there shifters like...everywhere in the world? People who can do what you do?”

“Pretty much,” he said. “I don’t know a lot about it. My clan has always been here, but yes, shifters are everywhere. Different clans. Different places. Different animals.”

“But you and Hudson are both…?”

“Brown bears, yeah.”

She bit her lip, trying to piece the puzzle together. “Are you...are you from the...”

“Yeah,” he nodded. “We’re from the same clan. He left before I did.”

She frowned, trying to piece the timeline together. He’d said Ronin arrived...thirteen years ago? And Hudson was what, thirty-three? Thirty-four, maybe?

“Wait. Cole. Is Hudson... You talked about the son of your old Alpha? The one who would have been next, if Ronin hadn’t… are you…is Hudson—?”

“Yeah,” he said gruffly. “Look, Tali, I wasn’t planning on getting into that part. Out of respect for you. I know he’s a part of your life and I don’t want to make things difficult or say anything that might…” he shook his head, seemingly giving up on that train of thought. “But yes. That’s who he is.”

“And he was supposed to take over? You said your elders were thinking of trying to bend the rules but it didn’t work out?” she asked, her brain struggling to process where this all fit.

“It didn’t. He turned his back on us before they could get it figured out. He left instead. Abandoned his people and never looked back. I love you, Tali, but I don’t want to say any more about it, okay? It’s...I don’t know his reasons. I don’t much care,” he said, eyes dark and angry. “Maybe he’ll tell you about it sometime, if you ask. For my part, I’d rather not discuss it any more than we have. It’s a sore subject. You obviously care about him, but I can’t stand the sight of him. Let’s just leave it, okay?”

“Okay,” she said, though she was still burning with questions and curiosity. He’d told her so much today, things she knew he hadn’t spoken about in a decade. She could give him space.

“Anyway, he was right about one thing,” Cole said. “You do need to get to a doctor. That salve is good, but I’ve only ever seen it used on shifters. We naturally heal faster than humans do.”

“But I’m so warm,” she mumbled, already feeling sleepy.

“I know. But you’ve got to go. You can take my truck.”

“No,” she said, suddenly sitting up and giving him a wide-eyed look.

“What?” he asked.

“I’ve got an idea,” she finished for him, smiling. “Get up.”

“What are you doing?”

“I am taking your truck, Cole. But you’re coming with me. And I’m going into the hospital and I’m going to tell that doctor that I was almost mauled to death by wolves, and I will show him my mangled leg and tell him how if my amazing, courageous boyfriend hadn’t risked his life to save me, I would be dead!”

She smiled wide at him, and frowned when he didn’t smile back.

“Tali,” he said, shaking his head. “I can see what you have in mind, but—”

“But what, Cole? I know what you did, and I know why you did it. I want to go yell in all their faces that they don’t have it right to judge you, and that some of their loved ones could very well be dead if not for you, but I obviously can’t do that. But I know the truth, and I’m standing by you. Nothing will change that.

“People believe the worst of you. It’s not fair, but it’s true. And I’m part of this town now, and I’m in charge of caring for a little girl who lives here. This might at least offer us a chance to show them that you’re not what they think.”

“Tali, I’m… I think you’re being a little optimistic.”

“Maybe,” she said, folding her arms. “Maybe I am. But you did save me, Cole. You almost died doing it. That’s the truth, and it’s what I am going to tell anyone who will listen to me. Leaving out, obviously, the fact that you did it as a ten-foot-tall bear. But still. You lied to me for five weeks, sunshine,” she said, tapping him lightly on the face. “You kinda owe me one. We’re doing this.”

He looked up at her, resignation in his eyes, and she grinned, picking up a pair of his pants and throwing them at him. “Get dressed.”