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“Fuck the flowerbeds,” came the response.

“El.”

He kicked off his jeans and boxers, then glared at me, naked, from where he sat on the carpet. “Fuck. The. Flowerbeds,” he repeated.

“You’ll be pissed about it later.”

He grunted at me, which was about as close to agreement as I was going to get.

“You know I’m right.”

I was, too.

I also wasn’t as drunk as he was. He’d had several more shots than either Taavi or I. Justifiably.

Elliot chose to ignore me, turning instead to Taavi, who had sat up, as well, although he hadn’t moved or started removing any parts of his clothing.

“You shifting?” Elliot asked him.

Taavi shook his head.

“He doesn’t have fur, El,” I pointed out. Yeah, it was like thirty-seven, but thirty-seven is fucking cold if you don’t have fur or a goddamn coat.

Elliot grunted again, then pushed himself to his feet and left the room.

He never shifted in front of me.

I looked over at Taavi. “I could find you some—”

“No.”

I blinked. Taavi should have been even less drunk than I was, but his answer was unusually harsh.

“No, thank you,” he said softly, seemingly aware that his first answer had come out a little snippy.

“Okay,” was all I said.

I could hear Elliot’s low grunting groan from the bathroom off the kitchen as he shifted.

I wasn’t sure what to say to Taavi, so I just sat there, watching the play of emotions I didn’t understand across his sharp features.

Elliot waddled back into the living room like a giant fuzzy carpet, then grunted at us.

A little under five feet long, Elliot may have been on the small size for a shifter predator, but for a badger, he was fucking massive.

His body was heavily furred, long hair in mottled grey and brown, his face barred in black and tan with a bright white stripe down the center of his head from nose to crown. His legs were stocky, his body low to the ground, and his feet ended in massive four-inch claws that could easily take off a finger or rip your intestines out.

You don’t fuck with a badger shifter.

Elliot bared his teeth and let out a hiss.

Proportionally speaking, his fangs would give Doc’s a run for their money. Thank fucking God Elliot isn’t like six-seven.

A six-seven badger would be fucking terrifying.

“What?” I asked him in response to the hiss.

Elliot rolled his beady black shark-eyes at me.