“Bernie,” Tor said, reaching for her.

She leaned into his grasp and allowed herself to be drawn inside, as if some part of her had crumpled inwardly at the sympathetic touch. And Tor already had her inside before he remembered what she was going to see.

His brother and sister had frozen in mid-argument, both with handfuls of their dad’s fur as they tried to tug him back to wakefulness or at least out of the kitchen.

“Is that …?” Bernie began. She blinked and rubbed her eyes.

It was possible to pass off a werewolf as a dog, but there was absolutely no mistaking a polar bear for anything else.

There was a polar bear lying in the middle of the kitchen. A very large, very shaggy bear. And Tor’s brother and sister were both frozen in the act of trying to pick it up.

“Oh, hi!” Inga said, very brightly. She dropped her double handful of Stieg’s ruff, allowing his head to clunk to the floor—his tongue was lolling out now—and strode forward with a hand held out. There were long white strands of polar bear fur all over her shirt. “You must be Tor’s mate—uh—friend! Hi! I’m Tor’s sister. I’m Inga. What’s your name?”

Bernie kept trying to peer around her, where Eren had given up trying to shake the bear awake and instead delivered a swift kick to his backside. The bear grunted, rolled over, and started snoring.

“I, uh, I’m Bernie,” said Bernie. “Is your—um—is your bear all right?”

“He’s drunk,” Eren said darkly.

Tor could have pushed him through the trap door at that moment.

“Your … bear is drunk,” Bernie said.

Compared to this, even trying to deal with a demon cat destroying her curtains, her backseat, and everything else she owned seemed halfway normal.

Jump into a brand new series from Zoe Chant, featuring a beautiful, magical shifter town, a sexy, protective hero with a chaotic polar bear family, a tough heroine picking up the pieces of her shattered heart, a maybe-haunted lighthouse … and a cat only his owner could love.

Tor