Barrett Arthur was in all his fuzzy glory, standing on his hind legs, clawing at a tree, and roaring into the night sky. A noise caught his attention, and he whipped his gigantic head around, letting out a roar that made the tree limbs above him rattle and had every night bird nearby taking wing.

“Jesus, you love all of this king of the mountain shit!”

Recognizing his baby brother’s voice, Barrett growled again, but dropped to all fours and allowed his body to shift, letting the bear recede until the human form could take over. He wasn’t like Logan or Sam. For them, the human was dominant and the bear the secondary part of their nature. For him, the bear was always present, always demanding to be freed. It was a battle every day to keep it hidden.

Standing up, naked and completely uncaring, he faced Logan and said, “What the hell are you doing up here? Who’s watching the lodge?”

Logan covered his eyes and tossed a pair of sweat pants to him. “Christ almighty! You could put someone’s eye out with that thing. I’d like to gouge my own eyes out, now! Put on the damn pants, Barrett. I’d prefer not to have any closer acquaintance with your pecker!”

Barrett took the pants and stepped into them. Getting a raging hard-on from shifting one form to another was just part of it. Maybe it was the fact that he was somehow less human than his siblings, but he’d never been embarrassed by any aspect of his body. “You’re worse than an old woman. You can open your virgin eyes now, asshole!”

Logan did that and then uttered the most dreaded words in the English language. “We need to talk.”

“No. You need to talk. And one of the things you need to tell me is who the hell is watching the lodge?”

“We have a grand total of five guests right now. It’s the middle of the damn week, Barrett. You know we’re good until Thursday. And this is important,” Logan protested.

Irritated with his brother for interrupting him, irritated with himself for once more being more comfortable as a bear than a man, Barrett growled. “Fine. Spill your guts then. Between you and Sam, it’s like a damned episode of Dr. Phil!”

Logan dropped his hand and uttered a phrase that left them both stunned. “I’ve found my mate, but she’s a little skittish. If I don’t go back and tell her everything about us, I’ll lose her forever.”

Mates were serious business and something they never joked about, but so was exposing their secret to someone who might tell the world. “You might tell her and then lose her anyway because of it,” Barrett pointed out. “Not all women are cut out to be with shifters, Logan. You know that as well as I do. That’s why we all had different mothers. That son of a bitch couldn’t keep it in his pants long enough to figure out if one would stick before he’d knock her up!”

It was the truth, but he could tell by his brother’s face that Logan didn’t want to be reminded. While there were only a handful of women that any shifter could mate with, their physical compatibility and ability to breed with a shifter didn’t mean they’d be able to mentally or emotionally cope with having everything they thought they knew about the world turned on its end. He didn’t remember his own mother leaving. He’d been too little. But he remembered Sam’s walking out, and he sure as hell remembered the horrified expression when Logan’s mother had dropped him at the Lodge and told them to take him because she wanted no part of him.

“She’s not like that… I don’t think. Regardless, I have to try. If I tell her and she leaves, so be it. But if I don’t tell her and she leaves, then it’s on me. And I won’t be a coward like that,” Logan said firmly.

It was blind hope. They both knew it. In that moment, all Barrett could see was his brother being hurt. Because there was nothing that would fell a shifter like losing a mate. It made him mad, mad enough to lash out. “So this wasn’t really about you asking me,” Barrett snarked. “This was about you telling me what you’re going to do.”

“I know you’re the head of our clan, Barrett, but you’ve not met your mate yet. You don’t know what this feels like!”

God that pissed him off. No, he didn’t know what it felt like, and he probably never would. Shifters like him, those who were more animal than human, rarely ever found mates, and even if they did, they were rarely able to keep them. Their father had been proof of that.

“Fine. Do whatever the hell you want. You always have anyway!” Barrett shouted.

Logan put his hands on his hips. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means that you don’t have any respect for how all this is supposed to work, for the traditions of asking your clan leader’s permission before courting a mate! We do things a certain way for a reason, but you’ve always been such a hot head, we spend more time cleaning up your messes than making the clan better!”

He was being a dick and he knew it. He also knew that most of it was prompted by fear for his baby brother, and he if were totally honest, a fair amount of jealousy. But he couldn’t hold it back. He wanted to meet his own mate, he wanted to feel the human part of himself as much as the bear for a change. He wanted to not be the monster that Logan’s mother had accused them all of.

Logan didn’t take the bait though. He didn’t give Barrett the fight he was looking for. Instead, he threw his hands up in the air and said, “Fine. When Zoe leaves here, if she’ll have me, I’ll leave with her.”

Barrett watched his younger brother walk away. He wanted to go after him, wanted to apologize, wanted to take it all back. But when he opened his mouth, only an angry roar emerged and he once again shifted into bear form. His last completely human thought before the animal instincts took over entirely was that it was the form he belonged in. Words never did anything but fuck it all up anyway.

* * *

Logan didn’t run back down the mountain to Zoe. He walked, giving himself time to cool down, time to let his hurt pride and his hurt feelings settle. Barrett had said ugly things, but none of them had been untrue. That was why they stung so fiercely. He’d lived in the human world, grew up in it, playing video games and skateboarding and being the same kind of standard little shit most pre-teen boys were until the night it all changed. He hadn’t known, hadn’t understood. Alone in his bedroom, playing a damn stupid ass video game and losing. He’d gotten so frustrated his temper had won out. It had started with just throwing things, but that had only fueled it. Then everything had gone black.

It wasn’t until hours later that he’d slowly come to himself, buck ass naked and laying in the middle of his destroyed bedroom with his mother crying in fear that he’d had any clue. She’d packed up everything that wasn’t wrecked, drove him two hours to Pigeon Forge, and dropped him in his father’s lap. It was the last time he’d ever seen or heard from her.

When he finally reached his cabin, he took another deep, deep breath and prepared himself for what he was about to do. He’d never intentionally exposed their secret to anyone. He’d never shifted in front of anyone but his brothers. What if he tried and it didn’t happen? What if she passed out again? What if she went completely hysterical? What if she left him?

Opening the door, he stepped inside and stopped cold. Zoe was still there, but so was his brother. Sam had come back from Knoxville earlier and he was in full on bear mode at having caught a stranger in their house.

“Don’t move,” Zoe whispered, clearly terrified. “He might charge you.”

Logan was counting on it. He didn’t even strip, just let the change take him, seams popping and ripping as he dropped to all fours and let the bear have free rein.