Hot and Badgered. Shelly Laurenston

To kill the man who could out her as a shifter, he guessed. Not having had time to process that he was one, too. Plus, he had a gun, which wouldn’t help his cause any.

      “It’s okay,” Berg said quickly, re-holstering his weapon. “It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you.”

      “Yeah,” Coop said from behind him. “We just want to help.”

      Berg let out a frustrated breath. “I thought I told you to get into the bathroom.”

      “I wanted to see what’s going on.”

      Coop moved to Berg’s side. “We’re shifters, too,” he said, using that goddamn charming smile. Like this was the time for any of that!

      But this woman rolled her eyes in silent exasperation and came fully into the room. She walked right by Berg and Coop and to the bedroom door.

      “Wait,” Berg called out. When she turned to face him, one brow raised in question, he reminded her, “You’re naked.”

      He went to his already packed travel bag and pulled out a black T-shirt.

      “Here,” he said, handing it to her.

      She pulled the shirt on and he saw that he’d given her one of his favorite band shirts from a Fishbone concert he’d seen years ago with his parents and siblings.

      “Your shoulder,” Berg prompted, deciding not to obsess over the shirt. Especially when she looked so cute in it.

      She shook her head at his prompt and again started toward the door. But a crash from the suite living room had Berg grabbing the woman’s arm with one hand and shoving Coop across the bedroom and into the bathroom with the other.

      Berg faced the intruder, pulling the woman in behind his body.

      Two gunshots hit Berg in the lower chest—the man had pulled the trigger without actually seeing all of Berg, but expecting a more normal-sized human.

      Which meant a few things to Berg. That he was dealing with a full-human. An expertly trained full-human. An ex-soldier probably.

      An ex-soldier with a kill order.

      Because if he’d been trying to kidnap the woman, he would have made damn sure he knew who or what was on the other end before he pulled that trigger. But he didn’t know. He didn’t check because he didn’t care. Everyone in the room had to die.

      And knowing that—understanding that—did nothing but piss Berg off.

      Who just ran around trying to kill a naked, unarmed woman? his analytical side wanted to know.

      The grizzly part of him, though, didn’t care about any of that. All it knew was that it had been shot. And shooting a grizzly but not killing it immediately . . . always an exceptionally bad move.

      The snarl snaked out of Berg’s throat and the muscles between his shoulders grew into a healthy grizzly hump. He barely managed to keep from shifting completely, but his grizzly bear rage exploded and his roar rattled the windows. The bathroom door behind him slammed shut, the jackal having the sense to now go into hiding.

      The intruder quickly backed up, knowing something wasn’t right, but not fully understanding, which was why he didn’t run.

      He should have run.

      With a step, Berg was right in front of him, grabbing the gun from his hand and spinning the man around so that he had him by the throat. He did this because two more men in tactical gear were coming into the suite through the front door they’d taken down moments before.

      Using the man’s weapon, Berg shot each man twice in the chest. They both had on body armor so he wasn’t worried he’d killed them.

      With both attackers down, Berg refocused on the man he held captive. He spun him around, because he wanted to ask him a few questions about what the hell was going on. He was calmer now. He could be rational.

      But when the man again faced him, Berg felt a little twinge in his side. He slowly looked down . . . and found a combat blade sticking out.

      First he’d been shot. Now stabbed.

      His grizzly rage soared once again and, as the intruder—quickly recognizing his error—attempted to fight his way out of Berg’s grasp, desperately begging for his life, Berg grabbed each side of his attacker’s face and squeezed with both hands . . . until the man’s head popped like a zit.

      It was the blood and bone hitting him in the face that snapped Berg back into the moment, and he gazed down at his brain-covered hands.

      “Oh, shit,” he muttered. “Shit, shit, shit.”

      The other intruders, ignoring the pain from the shots, scrambled up and out of the suite. As far away from Berg as they could get.

      Someone touched his arm and he half-turned to see the woman. She raised her hands and rewarded him with a soft smile.

      That’s when he calmed down. “Shit,” he said again, holding out his hands to her.

      She stepped close, held his wrists, studied the blade still sticking out of his side. She then examined the wounds in his chest. Unlike the intruders, he hadn’t been wearing body armor. The bullets had hit him, had entered his body, but he was grizzly. Even as a human, you had to bring bigger weapons if you wanted to take down one of his kind with one or two shots.

      Berg knew, just watching her, that she was going to help him. She was going to try. But she was in more danger than he was, and she needed to get out of here.

      “Go,” he told her and she frowned. “Seriously. Go.”

      He pulled away from her, went to his travel bag, paused to wipe the blood off his hands on a nearby towel, and took out a .45 Ruger, handing it to her. “Take this.”

      Her eyes narrowed again as she stared up at him.

      “I get the feeling you need it more than me,” he pushed. “Just go.”

      She took the weapon, dropped the magazine, cleared the gun with one hand before shoving the loaded mag back in and putting a round in the chamber.

      Yeah. The woman knew how to handle his .45. Maybe better than he did.

      She pressed her free hand against his forearm and, with a nod, slipped out the door and out of the suite.

      “Can I come out now?” Coop asked from the bathroom. But before Berg could tell him no the jackal was already standing behind him.

      “Well . . .” Coop said, “that was interesting.”

      “You could say that.”

      “You’re bleeding.”

      “Yes. And please stop playing with the knife.”

      Coop pulled his hand away from the blade handle and attempted to look contrite. “Sorry. Does it hurt?”

      Berg frowned at him and Coop nodded. “I’ll take that glare as a yes. Maybe I should call the front desk.” He started toward the phone on the side table by the bed.

      “Think we’ll make our train?” the jackal asked.

      Slowly, Berg faced Coop and noted, “You’re not used to real life, are you?”

      “Not really. Why?”

      “This is going to be big.” When Coop’s head tipped to the side like a confused schnauzer, he added, “The hotel room of some big-time penis was just violently invaded.”

      “It’s pianist.”

      “Yeah. I said that.” No. He hadn’t. “Anyway, we’ll have to get our stories straight. And we should leave out the girl.”

      “Oh.” Coop thought a moment, the receiver held loosely in his hand. Finally, he said, “I’ll call my sister first.”

      “Why?”

      “If