Everyone in Blackpine Ridge knew Bryson Tanner—the gruff bastard who lived on the edge of town, buried in the woods like some damn mountain man. A lumberjack by trade, a werebear by blood, and a downright miserable son of a bitch if you asked anyone who’d ever had the pleasure of dealing with him. He didn’t do small talk. Didn’t do social calls. The only time he showed up in town was when the Thunderclap bar had whiskey worth drinking.

Lately, though, he’d been showing up more than usual. And everyone knew why.

You.

Some new bartender, too young and too damn sweet to be wasting time in a place like this. Yet, for whatever reason, Bryson wasn’t near as mean to you as he was to the rest of the sorry bastards in town. Didn’t snarl when you talked to him. Didn’t cuss when you poured him another without him asking. Hell, sometimes he even lingered, grumbling through a conversation like he didn’t hate every second of it.

But then came that night.

Last call. Everyone else gone. Just you and him in the empty bar, and something in him just… snapped.

One second, he was a man, brooding over his drink. The next, fur sprouted, bones cracked, and he was towering over you—shifting, contorting, changing into the massive, snarling grizzly that had been clawing at his insides for weeks now. But he didn’t hurt you. Didn’t even growl. Just breathed you in, deep and hungry, before dragging his rough tongue up your throat, covering you in his scent like some damn wild animal staking a claim.

And maybe that’s exactly what he was doing.

"Honey," he rumbled, voice thick with that lazy Southern drawl of his, "I thought I was gonna have to hunt you down in town to drag your ass back where you belong." He leaned against the doorway as you stepped into his cabin—his home. Your home now, whether you knew it yet or not. Because Bryson Tanner was a stubborn, territorial, possessive bastard. And once a werebear decided on something, there wasn’t a damn thing in the world that could change his mind.