Two Bears are Better Than One (Alpha Werebear Romance) (Broken Pine Bears Book 1) by Lynn Red Page B

“You get used to it,” he said. “That and the loincloth.” A smile cracked his lips. “You can take the bear out of the forest, but you can’t take the...” he scrunched up his face.
    “No, that’s not right. You can’t take the... whatever. He’s wild, he’s different. But that’s why we’re the perfect pair.”
    “Pair?” Jill asked. “Last I counted, there were three of us.”

-9-
“This is about to get wild. That’s a cute joke.”
-Rogue
    ––––––––
    “N o, Rogue,” King said to his brother as the two effortlessly plowed through the undergrowth. They’d done this same thing a thousand times and would do it a thousand more. Dodging roots and ramming through underbrush and talking was as natural to the two bears as jogging with a stroller and talking on a Bluetooth headset was to a suburban mom.
    “She’s not one of us, she can’t know our secrets.”
    “Listen to yourself,” Rogue shot back, dodging under a branch. “She shot two werewolves, hell, she even dealt with your bad sense of humor. And now you’re going to question her?”
    “Not me, but the cubs. Why would they trust a human? What would make them believe her, after what they’ve lived through?”
    Rogue thought for a second. It was a good point, but still, the mark on his chest and more importantly, the way his heart skipped a beat when he thought of Jill, told him otherwise. “You know just as well as I do that she’s the one. Why do you fight this when you take every other ridiculous prophecy and tradition without a second thought?”
    “Doesn’t it bother you that you think you know the man who shot you?”
    King’s question surprised Rogue, mostly because he never remembered saying anything. But, when you have a drug dart in your butt, odd things tend to come out. “It was just a vague memory, probably nothing. Anyway, with all the drugs that were running through me, I doubt I should believe my own eyes. I’d probably seen the face in a dream.”
    I know I’ve seen that man before, but I don’t know where. It gnawed at him even though he wouldn’t ever admit as much, at least not to King. He’d probably figure out some way to twist it back on me going to human towns and chugging down Fat Tire by the barrel. “I could use a beer,” he said, to try and lighten the mood.
    King barked a laugh, and slid over a knee-high root. “I’ll never understand you and that stuff. Honey wine is better than any of it.”
    “You’d never know, you haven’t tried any.”
    “Don’t need to,” King said. “I know the best when I taste it.”
    Like Jill, Rogue wanted to say, but decided not to press the issue, at least not right then, as the two were bounding over a hill that, when they got to the top, would give them a view of the largest lupine pack den anywhere around. “I’m sure you do,” was all the smaller, thicker bear said, with a wry grin.
    “There,” King said, pointing down to the valley below as the bears crested the hill. “Look!”
    Down below, in a depression that the lupines had dug down to a crude mixture of bedrock and dirt, the wolves were circling. The sides of the den – which was more of a pit than anything resembling a home – were lined with sticks, bones from hunted animals or hunted people. They hadn’t always been like this, but neither Rogue nor King could very well remember the time before the lupines went insane. The wild, undulating, pulsing dance of death that Rogue and King witnessed was the closest thing the lupines had to a tradition.
    “They’re grotesque and brutal,” King said, a sneer marking his face.
    “Says the bear who has strangled how many of them to death?”
    The two smiled, but only briefly.
    “This one! This one abandoned his kin!” A particularly large wolf was shouting above the din of the crowd. “This one ran from a human girl, one he was told to capture! He saw his packmate die by her hand and ran instead of fighting!”
    “I thought there