chapter TWELVE
Dee-Ann came down the stairs of the large house and went into the kitchen where Malone was.
“Looks like they’re gone.”
Malone grinned. “You’re gonna love this.” She suddenly tipped the kitchen table onto its side. Holstered guns and knives were duct taped to the underside.
“That seems like . . . a lot.”
“Ya think?” Malone laughed. “These are your kind of girls, Smith. They’ve got weapons”—she raised her hands, forefingers up, and made a circle in the air—“all over this house. In cabinets, behind doors, under beds, next to beds . . . in beds. I’m trying to figure out where they got all this shit.”
“We need to find these girls.”
Malone lifted her nose, sniffed the air, then opened her mouth wide, pulled back her lips, and stuck out her tongue.
She’d done it before when they were tracking. She called it a “flehmen response,” but Dee-Ann just called it nasty. Because that’s what it was. Just nasty!
Malone closed her mouth and made a smacking sound. “There were bears here,” she announced.
“There are bears everywhere. It’s a bear neighborhood, genius.”
“I mean there were bears here. In this space. And one of them was hot for one of those girls.”
“How do know that?”
“Pheromones.” She made that tongue sucking against the roof of her mouth sound again. “I can taste it in the back of my throat.”
Dee-Ann held up her hand and told Malone, “You cats are just plain nasty.”
Malone walked across the room and stared out the window. “If he likes her, he’ll want to protect her.”
“None of those girls need nobody protecting them.”
“You know how guys are, though. Especially bears.” She looked at Dee-Ann over her shoulder. “And there are two places they’d probably think of taking them. But one of those places, they can’t risk yet. So that leaves the other.” She nodded. “Yeah, I think I know where they took the girls.”
Malone was so cocky, Dee-Ann couldn’t help but ask, “What, Malone? You fuck a bear on the regular and you think you know what all other bears will do?”
Malone thought a moment before replying, “Yes. Yes, I do. And do you know why, Air Bud? Because I am awesome.” She giggled. “God, I love me. Don’t you love me?”
“No.”
* * *
“Go,” Berg said to Charlie from the front seat of Mrs. Fitzbaer’s Hummer. “We’ll park the car and be right in. Don’t talk to anybody or go anywhere. Just stay in the lobby. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Charlie opened the back door and climbed out of the enormous vehicle. Of course, after seeing the “elderly” sow who owned this behemoth, she understood why the woman needed it. She had to be nearly seven feet tall. Charlie had made the assumption she was a lonely old maid, but nope. She was a widow whose polar bear husband had been nearly eight feet tall, and together they’d had six giant children who were scattered all over the world trying to help with global warming to assist the full-blood polar bears trapped on melting ice caps.
She was really starting to find this shifter life interesting. Living with a Pack that barely noticed her, was terrified by Max, and a little freaked-out by Stevie hadn’t really shown Charlie the entire shifter world that existed out there. All this was new to her.
They made their way into the Sport Center’s main lobby. Kids with basketballs or ice skates pushed past Charlie and her sisters, all rushing to their practices. There were sports stores of all kinds and restaurants on the first floor. The ice rink was also on this floor, but the basketball courts, gymnastic practice rooms, and some admin offices were up on floors two through eighteen.
There was also a state-of-the-art, high-end gym that probably cost a small fortune to join, and a bunch of sports physicians and surgeons who probably only worked on Olympic athletes and pro ballers.
“Wow,” Stevie gasped, her gaze raised to the high ceiling. “All this for sports.”
“Sports is big business,” Charlie noted. “And this is what big business buys.”
“All this money, but scientists still have to beg for funds in the search to end cancer.” She shook her head, lips pursed. “Disgusting.”
Now that Stevie was back on her meds, she was once-again rational, if a little nervous.
Thankfully, Charlie wasn’t so easily spooked. She didn’t have time, always too busy keeping her sisters safe or stopping them from doing something stupid.
A group of laughing girls walked by, roller skates hanging from the bag one of them held.
“Hey, look,” Max pointed out. “Derby girls.”
“You want to play derby?” Charlie asked, surprised. Max was not exactly a team player.
“Oh, God, no. But I do love watching them beat the shit out of each other.” She began to follow. “Come on. Let’s see if we can find out if there are any bouts coming up.”
“We’re supposed to wait for the guys,” Stevie reminded her.
“We’ll be gone two minutes. Come on!”
They followed the fast-moving women expertly cutting through the crowd until they disappeared into a stairwell guarded by two security guards.
“Okay, we’re done,” Charlie said, grabbing Max’s arm and holding her back.
“Why?”
“Whatever is going on back there, I don’t want to know.”
Max pulled her arm away. “Don’t be such a drag.”
“How are we supposed to get past security?” Stevie asked.
“Leave it to me,” Max said with way more confidence than either of her sisters felt for her.
She sauntered up to the two guards and smiled. “Hey.”
The two men looked at her with no real expression. The nose of one twitched and he suddenly opened the door, holding it for them.
Max walked in and Charlie ran after her. Stevie slipped in right behind.
“What was that?” Charlie demanded, catching her sister’s arm.
“Apparently I’m really good at being sultry.”
Charlie stopped her sister and pulled her around to face her. “But, honey . . . you’re not good at being sultry.”
“She’s right,” Stevie agreed. “Actually, your sultry is almost threatening.”
“Gee . . . thanks,” Max muttered. She shook her head. “Look, let’s just go explore a little. It’ll take forever for the guys to find a parking spot around here. Five minutes.”
“I’m concerned the stairs only go down,” Stevie pointed out. “Are we going to a morgue?”
“Why would there be a morgue in a sports center?” Charlie asked.
“Because Soylent Green is people?”
“I am so sorry I let you see that movie,” Charlie sighed.
“Come on, come on.” Max started down the stairs and they followed.
“Aren’t you a little concerned,” Charlie asked, “that there was security at the door?”
“Why would I be? They were shifters.”
“They were?”
Max stopped and faced her. “I thought you got your allergy meds.”
“I did. And Stevie introduced me to a new nasal spray sent from those German doctors. So far it’s really good.”
“And yet you couldn’t smell—”
“I don’t go around smelling people, Max. Sometimes they smell funky.”
“You don’t go around smelling. It’s just . . . you just . . .”
Stevie walked past them and headed toward the door on the next floor. “She doesn’t get it, Maxie. I don’t know why you go on so about it.”
“But we’re shifters!”
“Would you stop screaming that,” Charlie snapped. “We don’t know who’s around here.”
“Hey, guys?” Stevie called out. She now stood in front of the open door, staring out at something. “You may want to check this out.”
Charlie went down the stairs and stopped behind Stevie. She was taller than her sister, so she could look over her head. It was another lobby. Like the one on the first floor. There were restaurants, stores, and people dressed for the sport of their choice.
But there was a distinct difference between this lobby and the one on the floor above. It was the energy. And it took a moment for her to understand what this all reminded her of, but then it hit her. Like a lightning bolt.
A watering hole in Africa. One where all the local animals had to go to get a drink. Lions, gazelles, giraffes, wild dogs. Predator and prey all meeting in the same place because they had no choice. And although these were all predators, many of them had their cubs and pups with them. The way the mothers watched out for their offspring—keeping them close; gazes darting around, searching out any danger, any risk; ready to attack at a second’s notice—reminded Charlie of going to the mall with her mother.
“They’re all shifters,” Stevie said, fascinated, her mouth slightly open. “All of them.”
“I’ve heard about places like this,” Max explained. “Been invited to a few, but never went.”
“Why?”
She shrugged. “Seems weird. Being around a bunch of people where the only thing you have in common is that you can shift into an animal.”
“I get the appeal,” Charlie said. “Kind of like that time I went with Gramps to that family reunion. Being around people who connect with you on a very specific level can be nice. Seeing all those different shades of brown in one place was very comforting, and none of them were shifters because it was my great grandmother’s side of the family. But I still felt . . . connected.”
“I go to Chinatown,” Max stated flatly, “and I don’t feel connected.”
“Awww, sweetie.” Charlie put her arm around Max’s shoulders. “That’s because you’re you.”
“Excuse me,” a low voice said from behind them.
Charlie and Max separated and three very large men walked by. One of them smiled at Charlie. “Hey, beautiful.”
“Hi,” she replied, unable to stop a surprised chuckle.
Max rolled her eyes. “Oh, my God. Really?”
“You can’t let me have that? Cute guys notice me and you can’t let me enjoy the moment?”
“Cute guys notice you all the time.”
“No. Short guys notice me. And guys who like big tits. Neither ever look me in the eye or call me beautiful. He did.”
“He’s seven feet tall. You could give him a blow job without getting on your knees.”
“The point is,” Stevie cut in, “that you already have a tall guy who thinks you’re beautiful.” Then she smiled. Weirdly.
Charlie stared at her baby sister. “What are you talking about?”
“You know.” Stevie fluttered her eyes . . . which was, again, weird.
“Sweetie, you don’t do coquettish well, so stop that.”
“Come on.” Max moved around them and out the doorway. “Let’s check this out.”
“We have to meet Berg and Dag,” Charlie reminded her.
“Five minutes.”
“No. Let’s just get back upstairs and—”
“There’s a Starbucks.”
“Ooh.” Charlie stepped past the doorway. “Coffee.”
Max pushed Charlie toward the very large Starbucks. “Go get us coffee and something with honey.”
“Cinnamon for me,” Stevie corrected.
Realizing she’d never get her sisters out of here anytime soon, Charlie went into the Starbucks and got in line. Might as well get herself a cup of coffee to soothe her nerves before she went to track down Berg and Dag. She didn’t want them to worry.
As it was, she couldn’t believe how amazing the Dunns were being. Going out of their way—constantly—to help her and her sisters. How was she ever going to pay them back? How was she ever going to pay back Berg? She’d never known a guy like him. He was just so . . . nice! And she really liked that. She liked how nice and responsible he was. Only her grandfather had ever been that responsible, but he was also grumpy. Sometimes very grumpy.
Not Berg, though. He was just a really nice guy. Who also happened to be really hot.
Charlie rubbed her forehead. She had to stop thinking about Berg that way. He deserved better than MacKilligan crazy in his life. He was too nice for her. What was she going to do with a nice guy but ruin his life?
The line grew even as she moved forward and it didn’t take her long to realize that the woman standing behind her was sniffing her.
Not enjoying that one bit, Charlie looked over her shoulder and asked, “Can I help you with something?”
The woman was black, long and lean, in a designer dress that looked perfect on her. She was beautiful but Charlie found her bright gold eyes disconcerting. Especially the way they were locked on her. And the way her nostrils flared as she leaned in to take another sniff did nothing but make Charlie want to slap the holy hell out of her.
“You’re bleeding,” the woman finally said.
“I’ve got my period,” she lied, hoping that would end the conversation. It didn’t.
“I’d believe that if I didn’t smell the gunpowder. When were you shot?”
Charlie glanced around but no one seemed to be paying much attention to their conversation.
“Don’t worry about it,” she insisted. “I got it handled.”
“Doubt it.” The woman suddenly grabbed her upper arm, and it took everything Charlie had in her not to pull her gun and shoot the female directly in the head. “Come on.”
“Look, lady—”
“I’m a doctor. We’ll get it cleaned out and wrapped up in a few minutes and you won’t get the fever.”
“I don’t get the fever.” Charlie knew about the fever. She’d been hearing about it ever since she’d moved in with the Pack. The fever that allowed shifters to heal themselves in about twenty-four hours. A fever that Charlie and her sisters didn’t get. Instead, they healed in their own . . . unique, individual ways. Ways she was not in the mood to discuss with this beautiful, lean woman who was making her insecure about her own looks.
“Sure you don’t.” The woman pulled and, gritting her teeth, Charlie let the stranger take her out of line. What was wrong with her? If this had happened among full-humans, Charlie would have just handled it. Like she handled everything else. Quickly. Brutally. And with no remorse. But she wasn’t doing that here. Maybe because a fellow shifter wouldn’t be so easily put off. She couldn’t scare this woman with a silent stare or a low-volume growl. And it wasn’t until this moment that Charlie realized how frustrating that was.
As the woman led her through the crowded lobby toward a set of elevators, Charlie glanced back in the hopes of spotting her sisters, but nope. They’d wandered off as she’d known they would. Like two exploring bear cubs wandering away from the mama bear. She expected no different from Max, but she often forgot Stevie’s problems with crowds . . . in that she had no problems with crowds. Her panic disorder reared up when she felt trapped and alone. But Stevie didn’t feel alone in crowds. In her mind, she could call for help and someone would come running to her aid. That’s what allowed her to play in front of vast crowds, to lead entire orchestras, to wander around Paris in the springtime while ignoring the beauty and the danger of the city all around her.
Once, Charlie and her sisters had been separated at a peace rally in England that turned violent. When the three sisters met again, Max had a bruised face and swollen knuckles. Charlie had a bruised throat and broken ribs. And Stevie was singing “Give peace a chance” with a bunch of hippies. Untouched. Unbruised. Happy as hell.
But one bear in the yard and Stevie was up a tree, screaming, and unable to breathe. Weird.
They stepped into the elevator and went down a few floors. The woman still had a grip on Charlie’s arm while she held her phone in her free hand and read emails.
“Look,” Charlie tried, “I appreciate—”
“Nope.”
“Nope what?”
“Just nope,” the woman said, not even looking up from her phone. “Whatever bullshit you’re about to tell me. Nope.”
The doors opened and they were moving again. Only this time, as they walked, people greeted the woman.
“Hey, doc.”
“Lookin’ good, doc.”
“Marry me!”
“I’ll be by around two, doc. My leg is acting up again.”
The woman nodded and smiled as shifters of varying sizes greeted her, but she never stopped and she never eased her hold on Charlie’s arm.
Well . . . at least she was a doctor. Of some kind.
The woman dragged Charlie into a very active medical facility, filled to the brim with shifters of varying sizes.
“Hey, doc,” the receptionist said. “Your one o’clock is here.”
“Ask them to wait, would you, Sal? I’ve got an emergency.”
“Yeah, but—”
The doctor didn’t wait for the receptionist to finish. She simply took Charlie into a room and over to an exam table.
She briefly left and returned a minute or two later wearing a lab coat with a stethoscope in the pocket and a blank chart. A nurse followed in behind her.
“Okay, hon,” the doc said, opening up the chart and beginning to fill it out. “Let’s get that stuff off and see what we’re dealing with.”
“I really can’t afford health care”—at least not health care here—“so I can just—”
“Move from that spot, and I’ll have Nurse Konami put you in a headlock that will make your eyes bleed.”
Charlie glanced over at the nurse. She wasn’t a particularly tall or brawny woman. Nothing too threatening.
“Uh-uh,” the doctor said, still not looking at her. “Nurse Konami may be full-human, but she is married to an Asian black bear and she deals with football and hockey players all day, every day. Men and women two to three times your size are terrified of her and for good reason. So if I were you, I’d take off your clothes, put on a gown, and shut up.”
Charlie knew she could still fight her way out of here. If nothing else, she was armed. But Berg had brought her here. He must have some connection to the place and she wasn’t about to embarrass him. So, as much as she didn’t want to, she’d suck it up for the very nice bear who’d been helping her and her sisters.
She pulled off her light jacket, T-shirt, and bra and sat there. Refusing to put on the robe. Partly because she hated those things, but also because she’d been busy putting her gun under her jacket so the two females wouldn’t see it.
“By the way, my name is Dr. Davis. And let’s get a look at—” She’d finally looked up from her paperwork and stopped when she saw Charlie sitting there, topless.
“So, you’re not shy,” she guessed.
“No.”
“Excellent.”
She walked over and carefully pulled off the gauze that Charlie had stuffed in and around the wounds on her back.
“Huh,” she heard the doctor say and Charlie looked at her over her shoulder.
The doctor’s expression changed a bit, her brow pulling down in concern and confusion. She wanted to step away and Charlie didn’t blame her.
“You really don’t have to do anything,” Charlie explained while the doctor stared. Or gawked. “It’ll work itself out.”
“My dear girl, this is not going to work itself out.”
“Actually, it will. You just have to wait a little bit. It’s in the final stages.”
“The final stages before your death?”
That made Charlie chuckle. “As if my life could ever be that simple.” She looked around the room. “Got a magazine I can look at while we’re waiting?”
* * *
Max put a baseball cap on Stevie’s head and stepped back.
“Perfect.”
Not really. The hat was way too big—it was apparently “bear sized”—and covered half of Stevie’s face. Embroidered on the hat was “The Carnivores,” which seemed really bold to Max. Just putting out there that they were all meat-eating predators and everything.
It was true that Max had had more interaction with shifters outside the Pack than Charlie or Stevie, but those shifters were Dutch and his family and their few friends. Wolverines. Like the honey badgers, the wolverines weren’t involved with the “shifter nation” as they called it. They preferred to be around full-humans or, even better, no one. They could be quite introverted. Not unpleasant, rarely rude, but introverted.
So seeing all these shifters in one place, hanging out, pretty much getting along was . . . unusual. Interesting, though.
“I can’t see,” Stevie complained.
“But you look adorable.” She took a picture with her phone and texted it to Charlie seconds before Stevie slapped the hat off her head.
Laughing, Max showed the picture to Stevie. “Adorable.”
“Do you ever get tired of mocking me?”
“No.”
“I’m going to look for a bookstore.”
“Why?”
Stevie patted her shoulder. “You make me sad. Do me a favor and keep an eye out for Charlie. If we go missing, she will flip out on us.”
“I know, I know.”
Max went through the sports store and found a few shirts and caps she wanted to buy, but it had been a while and she thought it was best to go track down Charlie before Charlie had to track down her and Stevie. Their big sister’s anxiety went through the roof when she couldn’t find them, and Max didn’t want to be responsible for the ulcer she was sure Charlie was going to get if she didn’t relax a little.
Max walked back to where she’d last seen her sister. She stood outside the Starbucks and, going up on her toes, she tried to look over the heads inside the open café. So many tall people.
Frowning when she didn’t see her sister, Max decided to go inside for a closer look. But as she began to move, she heard a screeched, “Livy!” And then something landed on her back.
Without thought, only instinct trained into her since the death of her adopted mother, Max reached behind her, grabbed hold of whatever had her, lifted up and over, and slammed the person onto the floor.
She rammed her foot against a chest to pin her prey to the ground and pulled out the blade holstered at the back of her jeans. She raised the blade over her head, about to drop onto the prey beneath her to keep it pinned in place. But a hand grabbed her wrist, halting the blade mid-attack and yanking her back and away.
The grip on her wrist was firm. So firm, Max knew she couldn’t break it. So she turned her body, dislocating her shoulder. She ignored the pain and unleashed the claws on her free hand, burying them deep into someone’s side.
She heard a grunt of pain and finally looked up—and holy shit! Up!—until she was gazing into bright blue eyes surrounded by white hair.
Max hissed, unleashing her fangs. In return, the man unleashed his own.
And when his two eyeteeth continued to grow until they reached past his square jaw, like a pair of tusks, Max decided . . . she was out. Fuck that shifter shit with their honorable “fang to fang, claw to claw” code that Dutch had always told her about.
Max yanked out her claws, causing blood to arc out of the male’s side and splatter several onlookers. She spun again, the pain in her shoulder very close to making her pass out. But she clenched her jaw, and when she faced the man again, she quickly sized him up before kicking him mid-chest. Shocked by the power of the blow, he finally released her, sending Max reeling. She hit the ground, rolled backward, and stood. By then she had blades in both hands. Her wounded shoulder couldn’t move much, but she could still have his eyes out and his throat cut before the pain got so bad she’d wish that someone would just kill her already.
She cracked her neck and started forward, but two adorable bookend bears slid to a stop in front of her, both with their big arms out, matching eyes wide in panic.
“No, Max!” Berg said. “Don’t do it.”
Max narrowed her eyes. Not because she was plotting something but because her shoulder was killing her. But the two males misinterpreted.
“You can’t do this,” Berg begged. “Please. Just walk away.”
“Max?”
Max looked away from the two bears and saw her cousin standing a few feet away.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Livy walked closer, shoving the two bears out of the way. “Starting shit again?” She growled before yelling, “Again?”
“It wasn’t me! It was—” Max started to point at the man who was behind the bears, bleeding from his side. He’d done the damage to her shoulder, but he hadn’t actually started anything.
Max looked over the crowd, finally pointing at a black woman in roller skates. “It was her.”
Livy turned and Max saw her cousin’s entire body go tense. “What did she do?”
“She hugged me from behind.”
Livy rested her hands on her hips. “I thought we talked about that sort of thing, Blayne.”
“Okay, this looks bad,” the woman called Blayne said, skating forward, focused on Livy. “But I thought it was you.”
Max stepped up beside her cousin. “Is that your excuse? That we all look alike?”
“What?” Blayne’s eyes widened in horror. “No! Of course not!”
“Really, Blayne?” Livy asked. “Because it sounds like you’re saying we all look alike.”
Of course, they were cousins and Blayne hadn’t actually seen Max from the front. She was just going on body size and the short hair. But that didn’t matter . . . because this chick was just too easy to fuck with. Hell! Max could do this all day!
“Because we’re Asian?” Max asked.
“Of course not! I mean, my husb—”
“What?” Max pushed. “You about to tell me that some of your best friends are Asian?”
“Actually, my best friend is . . . um . . . look, I’m just saying that . . . um . . .” Her brown eyes narrowed. “You two are fucking with me, aren’t you?”
Max started laughing. She couldn’t help it. Who was this little weirdo?
The big guy who’d gotten between Max’s blade and Blayne’s sternum stepped up beside Blayne and glowered down at Max.
“You tell ’em, honey,” Blayne said. “My husband.”
Max knew she was looking at a fellow half-Asian, so she was kind of expecting a “talking to” as Charlie liked to call her lectures. To be honest, looking at the size of the guy and seeing the blood dripping onto the floor from the side she’d ripped open with her claws, she’d gladly welcome a “talking to” rather than a “beating on.”
Still glowering, Blayne’s husband demanded, “Do you skate?”
“Yeah!” Blayne agreed. “Do you . . .” She turned to her husband. “Does she skate?”
“We need a new enforcer. And she’s mean.”
Max grinned. “I am mean!”
“I think she’s a serial killer,” Livy added . . . for some reason. “Look at that smile,” she said flatly, pointing at Max. “That sick, disturbing smile.”
Max tilted her head to the side and tapped Livy on the elbow. “Thanks so much, cousin,” she said with as much sweetness as she could possibly manage.
Frowning, Livy stepped away from her. “See what I mean?”
“She was going to kill me,” Blayne accurately pointed out to her husband.
“She wouldn’t be the first.”
“Where’s your sister?” Berg asked Max.
“Which one?”
“Don’t play word games.”
“Excuse me, Britta,” Blayne’s husband interrupted, glaring at Berg. “I’m trying to have a conversation.”
Berg’s eyes briefly closed and he gave a short shake of his head while Dag smiled a little and looked away.
“I am not Britta, you Cro-Magnon. I’m Berg. That’s Dag.”
“Is there really a difference?”
“Yes!” Berg insisted. “Yes, there is.”
The man shrugged. “I don’t see it.”
Berg’s jaw tightened in frustration and Max wondered how many times he’d had this conversation with the tusk guy. Clearly more than once.
“Let’s get your sisters and go,” Berg finally said, focusing on Max.
Max shrugged. “I have no idea where they are. Go find them.”
“Max—”
“Yeah,” Blayne’s husband said, “go find them.” He reached out and grabbed Max’s wrist. “She’ll be at the training rink.”
“I can’t believe this!” Blayne nearly shouted. “She tried to kill me and now you’re going to test her out to be your enforcer?” Her big brown eyes welled with tears. “I am the mother of your children.”
He faced her, but still didn’t release Max. “I don’t understand the connection.”
“I should be more important to you than hockey.”
He looked off, blew out a breath. “You should . . .”
Max bit the inside of her cheek to stop from laughing.
Blayne stomped one skate-covered foot before skating off, a group of derby girls following her.
The giant glowered down at Max, but now she saw a hint of a smile around his eyes and at the corners of his mouth. “I’m going to pay for that later.”
* * *
Berg watched Max follow Bo “The Marauder” Novikov.
“Does he really not know that we aren’t Britta?” Dag asked. Again.
“If it doesn’t involve hockey or that one woman who tolerates him . . . I don’t think he notices anything.”
Livy tapped Berg’s arm. “So what has my cousin and her sisters gotten you two involved in? Are you in danger? Did you lose any money? Are you being followed by foreign interests?”
Berg frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“Look, as someone I don’t necessarily want wiped from the face of the planet—”
“Awwww. Thanks, Liv.”
Berg stared at his brother. “What’s wrong with you?”
“—be careful that you don’t get too involved with the MacKilligan sisters.”
“Why?”
“Well, according to my mother and aunts, they’re cursed.”
“Cursed,” Berg repeated. “Uh-huh.”
“By ghosts.”
Scratching his forehead, Berg gave himself a brief moment before asking Livy, “You believe they’re cursed by ghosts?”
“No. I don’t believe in ghosts.”
“So you just think they’re cursed in general?”
“Yeah. I definitely think they’re cursed. It’s their father’s fault, though. I think he pissed off a witch or something.”
“You don’t believe in ghosts . . . but you believe in witches?”
“Witches exist.”
Berg nodded. “Okay. I’m walking away now.”
He did, and Dag followed behind him.
“If I were you,” Livy called out, “I’d find the little sister before you go looking for the big one. If you don’t have the little one, the big one is going to flip the fuck out.”
Berg stopped walking and let out a sigh.
“Livy’s right, isn’t she?” Dag asked.
“Yeah.”
“But Stevie could be anywhere here.”
“Well . . . let’s try to think like her.”
Dag folded his arms over his chest and said in all seriousness, “So where would a former child prodigy and genius with an extreme panic disorder who is being hunted by all sorts of people go when in a shifter-filled sports center?”
Berg began scratching his forehead again. First with one hand, then the other. Until he finally just buried his face in both hands and let out a very large, very pained sigh.
* * *
There was a food court! And a shockingly large and well-stocked bookstore! She even found an entire store devoted just to honey! Honey! She’d gone in there, despite the large grizzly sow behind the counter who wouldn’t stop glowering at her. She’d started to panic a little but she swallowed it and put in a large order to be sent to the house for her sisters—she was actually not a fan of honey. Too sweet for her taste. But once the order was in the sow went from glowering to glowing. Suddenly she was more than happy to help Stevie even without knowing what the hell Stevie was. She kept sniffing. At one point, when Stevie was looking at a large display of chocolate-covered honeycombs—Max loved honeycombs—she felt the sow standing right behind her. And Stevie was almost positive that she sniffed the back of her neck.
Thankfully, her meds were working well and Stevie, after years of group and individual therapy, was able to “deep breathe” her way through the oncoming panic until the sow moved away from her.
After leaving that store, Stevie bought a large order of very crispy french fries, a large bottle of water, and asked for extra ketchup. Then she found a bench in the middle of a high-traffic area where she could comfortably people watch.
Everyone was going somewhere or coming from somewhere and didn’t notice her at all. She loved it.
Watching the movement of people, hearing their voices rise and fall, listening to the noises coming from the nearby food court made her think of music. Made her think of what she could do with these sounds. She could easily see trained dancers moving to what was playing in her head.
She smiled a little. It had been years since she’d had the time, energy, and emotional fortitude to allow herself to think about her own music. To let her easily stressed-out mind wander down those roads of emotion and art.
To this day, she still got emails from fans. Her work was still discussed in music schools and prestigious university music programs. Some classical orchestras still attempted to play her beloved but most-complicated symphonies to sold-out audiences. At one time, she had been the one conducting those orchestras even though she’d only been about seven and had to have a specially made podium in order to see and be seen by the orchestra and audience. She was ten when she’d walked away from all of it. She’d hit a creative and emotional wall that had her—literally—hanging from the ceiling by her newly formed claws, unable to breathe, unable to think, unable to do anything but cry and hyperventilate until they started her on medication.
Medication, though, hadn’t been an easy fix for Stevie. The first reason was because she was a shifter. Shifters had very amped up internal systems that allowed them to heal quickly without medication, which was great for physical ailments but a real problem when one had mental issues. Then add in that Stevie was also half honey badger. Medications and poisons were easily absorbed and then pissed out by honey badger shifters. Sixteen-year-old Max had once tried vodka infused with the venom of the black mamba snake. She was in a coma for an entire day before she snapped awake, hungry and smiling. Smiling until a livid Charlie punched Max in the face, breaking their sister’s nose and cheekbone as she screamed, “Never do anything that goddamn stupid again!”
And even though Stevie and Charlie were only half badger, with what Charlie insisted on calling “our dad’s fucked up genes,” they still had to manage their medications differently from nearly everyone else in the world. So it took years before Stevie and her team of psychiatrists and therapists and German physicians found the right combination of talk therapy and meds. In that time, she’d not only walked away from her brilliant music career, she’d run. Screaming.
Most of the prodigies Stevie had known when she was growing up had parents who would have never let them quit what had been a substantial, worldwide career. Especially considering the money she’d brought in. But Stevie’s mother had abandoned her to Charlie’s mom for reasons still unknown to her. When Charlie’s mom had been killed and the three of them had gone to live with the Pack in Wisconsin, the Pack left decisions about Max and Stevie up to Charlie’s grandfather and, eventually, Charlie.
When Stevie said she didn’t want to write, play, or even think about music anymore, Charlie had only asked, “Then what are you going to do? Because you’ll need to do something, and we both know it.”
As always, Charlie had been right. If Stevie didn’t occupy her mind, things would get bad for everyone. So . . . Stevie focused on physics and math. She liked equations and science and behind it all, she’d always found a certain level of music. Of art. It turned out she’d been a prodigy in that, too, which meant all her scholastic financial needs were met by other people. Important since financially her father had eventually ruined what was left of her music career. Universities, labs, and some rich people liked being a benefactor to a child who tested out of high school by the time she was eleven.
The thing was . . . life wasn’t exactly great now. They were being hunted. So what made Stevie feel comfortable bringing music back into her life? Why did she feel calmer than she had in a long while?
It could have been shifting to her animal form earlier in the day. She didn’t do that often, which wasn’t surprising. She kind of terrified everyone when she became a giant, tiger-striped honey badger bigger than even the polar bears and grizzlies.
Yet Stevie was starting to think it was being around her sisters that was doing her the most good. Yeah, Charlie’s anxiety and obsessive baking could be trying, and Max never stopped fucking with Stevie, no matter how many times Stevie punched her in the throat. But at the end of the day, knowing they were there for her . . .
“Hello.”
Stevie heard the voice. Someone was talking to her. Crunching on a french fry, she looked up. The handsome man appeared vaguely familiar but . . .
“Still don’t remember me, huh?” he guessed with a smile.
“Should I?”
“We saw each other at Livy Kowalski’s apartment . . . you were hanging from the ceiling before passing out from lithium. I’m Cooper.”
Stevie picked up another fry, put it in her mouth, chewed . . . and stared.
“Still nothing?” When she continued to silently stare and eat, he said. “Maybe you remember my sister.” But Stevie doubted it.
He turned, called out, “Cherise! Come here.”
A pretty young woman walked over and Stevie sized her up instantly. This woman did not like being out in public. She did not like being around crowds. Stevie was guessing that if she had even one more minor trauma, she’d end up going full agoraphobic if her family didn’t keep an eye on her. But other than that unsolicited psychological diagnosis . . . nope. Stevie had no idea who this woman was either.
“Wow. Stevie. Look at you!” Cherise said. “You look amazing.”
“Thanks . . . you.”
“She doesn’t remember you. Or me. Or anyone.”
“It’s nothing personal.”
“Really?” the male called Cooper said. “Because it feels personal.”
“I have a lot of knowledge in my head. If something isn’t important, I just get rid of it.”
“How is that not personal?” Cherise softly asked.
“I get rid of a lot people in my head. I don’t do it to be vicious. Or because I hate you. You’re just not important to me. It’s like clearing off a hard drive. All those songs you never listen to or out-of-focus pictures that are useless . . . you just wipe it off the drive. I mean, why would you keep that stuff?”
“Again, not seeing how this isn’t personal.”
“Well, to be blunt—”
The male raised a brow. “You mean you weren’t being blunt before?”
“—my brain is important. I refuse to fill it up with meaningless crap. I really don’t know what else to . . . oh, my God.” Stevie put her fries aside and stood. “Kyle?” she asked the tall young man walking toward their small group, smiling at her. “Oh, my God! Kyle!”
Stevie ran into the open arms of Kyle Jean-Louis Parker, hugging him tightly. Behind her, she heard, “Him, you remember?”
“Of course, I remember Kyle,” she said, keeping one arm around his waist while Kyle’s arm curled around her shoulder. “He’s Kyle.”
Kyle nodded. “Exactly. But you do remember these guys, Stevie.” He pointed at Cooper. “Mr. Needy.” Cherise. “Pathologically shy.” He gestured to the young woman walking up behind them. “Genetic freak.”
“Ohhhhh! Of course! Your siblings!”
“Seriously?” Cooper demanded.
“I’m leaving,” Cherise quietly announced, before doing just that.
And, “Fuck you,” from the sister that Stevie now remembered was a prima ballerina in an important ballet company . . . somewhere in America.
“See?” Kyle pointed out. “The genetic freak is sad because her brain can only do so much.”
“That’s it. I’m out.” The genetic freak walked away, her middle finger held high in the air.
“Wait,” Cooper called out. “Toni is coming to meet us here with . . . okay, well, she’s gone.”
“That restrictive diet sure does make her cranky,” Kyle observed.
“Why do you do this?” his brother asked.
“You’ll have to be much more specific.” But before his brother could bother, he turned to Stevie. “So what are you doing in New York?”
“Running for my life.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Your father again?”
“Of course.”
“Peruvian drug lords?”
“Who knows. My sisters are here, though.”
“Oooh. The infamous Charlie and Max. I have been dying to meet them for years.”
“Well, now you can. I told them all about you. So what are you doing in the City?”
“He was kicked out of another art school.”
“I was not kicked out,” Kyle argued. “I was asked to leave because some people can’t handle criticism. Or the suggestion that they might have a borderline personality disorder that should get treated.”
“Borderline or bipolar?” Stevie asked. “People often get those two confused.”
“Definitely borderline. She came at me with a knife. Nearly took my eye out.”
“That actually could have been anybody, with or without a disorder,” Cooper muttered.
Kyle glanced at his brother before admitting to Stevie, “He’s so jealous of me, he doesn’t know what to do with himself.”
“Jealous?” Cooper asked. “Of you?”
“You wish you had as much talent as me and my dear sweet Stevie.”
“I do have as much talent as your dear sweet Stevie. And God knows, I’m better than you.”
“See?” Kyle said to Stevie. “How he lives in his sad fantasy world?”
“Although Stevie doesn’t remember it and it was at different times, we were both trained by the same maestro. We even played together at one point.”
“But did you ever conduct the St. Petersburg Orchestra in a symphony you wrote . . . when you were nine? Didn’t think so,” Kyle said before his brother could reply.
“Hey, Coop.”
Cooper turned and waved at a woman walking toward them, with a large male behind her.
As soon as Stevie saw him, she recognized that mane of hair. Stevie immediately moved behind Kyle, using his tall frame to block her.
It had been so long ago. And she’d been so young. Too young. Not even seventeen. He’d come into her life, trying to get her back into music. Trying to drag her back to a world she’d willingly left. But she’d listened to his pitch because he was a cat shifter and Stevie had stupidly thought he was like her. Would understand her. She’d assumed that it had all been about money for him, and to a point it was.
But that day he’d backed her into a corner in her lab, saying things to her that made her uncomfortable, but making her feel like she couldn’t leave. That she had to listen. That she somehow owed him something.
Of course, those had been the days when her sisters had kept a much closer eye on her. They couldn’t afford to go to college themselves, but they liked hanging out at her campus.
So, when her sisters had walked in to Stevie’s lab, things had spiraled out of control quickly. After that there were cops and lawsuits and more threats—until it all disappeared. Stevie still didn’t know how or why; she’d just been grateful.
But seeing him again. Even after all these years. All these changes in her life . . .
Stevie turned her back and prayed neither of her sisters suddenly appeared.
* * *
Coop saw Stevie move away as soon as Toni walked up with that lion male she was considering as an agent for Cherise and Oriana. He apparently specialized in representing artists and was known for making them very profitable deals. But the way Stevie reacted to the sight of the man . . .
Kyle, who rarely cared about anyone but himself, moved in front of her, helping to block her from the cat’s sight.
Stevie was older than Kyle by a few years, but Kyle always got along better with adults than kids his own age. He didn’t know how to talk to them. He did, however, know how to emotionally torture them, which was another reason he didn’t spend a lot of time with kids his own age. Their parents wouldn’t allow it.
Coop thought back and remembered some news, many years ago, about the possibility that Stevie MacKilligan would be reentering the music business. She’d apparently found an agent who’d convinced her that the world was at a loss without her music and passion. Then, just as suddenly as the rumor started, it stopped. There was no comeback. She stayed with science and moved through that difficult profession like a house on fire. But Coop also remembered reading a small story in a German paper about the “sisters of Maestro Stevie MacKilligan being investigated by American authorities” for a brutal assault. Since Coop hadn’t really known Stevie’s siblings, he hadn’t paid much attention. He had his own psychotic siblings to worry about. He was just grateful none had ended up in the crime section of the paper . . . yet.
Now Coop studied the man with Toni. Another arrogant lion wearing a tailored suit—necessary for males that size—who couldn’t seem to control his hair.
“Where are Cherise and Oriana?” Toni asked. “I told them to meet us here.”
“Well . . . Kyle—”
“Okay. Enough said.” Toni had been more on edge since Kyle had come back to the States. Add in the attack on Coop’s hotel room and his sister was, to put it mildly, less patient than usual. “Any idea where they went?”
“I don’t know about Cherise. But Oriana likes to watch the hockey players, and your mate’s brother invited her to check out practice.”
Toni’s eyes narrowed. “Is she dating one of those idiots?”
“She hasn’t told me anything. Kyle?”
“I don’t care.”
Coop sighed. “And Kyle doesn’t care.”
“We’ll walk over to the practice rink. See if you can track down Cherise, please.”
“If she hasn’t already gone home. Why don’t you just call Oriana? Or text her?”
Toni moved past Coop, lovingly bumping her shoulder against his as she went by. Letting him know her terseness had nothing to do with him. A gesture he appreciated at the moment.
“Apparently,” she explained as she moved, the lion walking beside her, “she’s blocked me on her phone. The little cow.”
Coop smiled and waited for the pair to turn the corner before he walked past Kyle and stood in front of Stevie. She wouldn’t look at him. The confident artist and scientist who couldn’t be bothered to remember Coop’s name suddenly appeared as painfully shy as Cherise.
It was clear she didn’t want to talk about any of this, but he still had to know. He decided to go with the direct but noninvasive approach.
“If you had a little sister,” he asked Stevie, “would you hire him?”
Kyle put his arm around Stevie’s shoulders. A form of protection he didn’t even bother to show his own sisters.
“If I had a little sister,” Stevie said, her arms wrapped around her waist, “I’d keep her as far away from that fucker as humanly possible.” She leaned against Kyle and added, “And he’d better pray that my sisters don’t spot him.”
* * *
Jai Davis watched, mesmerized, as the bullets that had been pumped into the hybrid female sitting on her examination table began to pop out of the wound on her shoulder.
According to Charlie MacKilligan, this was what her body did. The wound began to heal from the inside, without stitches, without surgery. At first, infected fluid poured from the wound while Charlie sat and read a three-year-old Vogue. So much fluid that Jai was surprised the girl didn’t have a brutal, possibly fatal fever. Then, some blood.
At that point, Charlie said, “Almost done.”
It was clear the hybrid was used to this. She didn’t even have to look at the wound to know what stage it was in. She was still reading a magazine.
Jai and Ellen waited and thirty minutes later . . . bullets.
“That is fascinating.”
“Is it?” Charlie asked.
“Not for you, I’m assuming. How often has this happened?”
“A few times over the years.”
“You’ve been shot a few times?”
“Not just shot. There were a couple of knife fights, bar fights. Fight with a pit bull once, but she started it.”
“Sure she did.”
Pieces of the third bullet slid out and once out, the skin began to knit shut on its own.
“Amazing.” Jai straightened up and walked around until she stood in front of Charlie. “Really amazing. When you shift, do you heal faster?”
“I don’t shift.”
Jai was surprised. She’d heard about a few shifters who refused to shift. Religious zealots from every branch who thought being a shifter was evil. Was this female one of those? “Is that a moral choice?”
Charlie looked at Jai, frowning. “Huh?”
“Is it a moral choice that you don’t shift?”
“Why would that be a moral choice? There’s nothing morally wrong with shifting.” She leaned away slightly. “Are you one of those weird, crazy religious people?”
“No, no.” Jai chuckled. “I’m actually a Buddhist. But you said you don’t shift.”
“Oh. Well, let me rephrase. I can’t shift.”
Jai folded her arms over her chest. “You can’t?”
“Nope.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. My sisters started shifting very early, but me? I just didn’t. And my grandfather’s entire Pack worked with me for years after I hit puberty. But other than claws and fangs . . .” She shrugged. “I don’t shift.”
“Are you . . . okay with that?”
“Well . . .” She thought a moment. “I heal really well. Have bones like iron. And my inability to shift is just more proof that my father can’t get anything right. So I’m all good.”
Jai laughed. She liked Charlie. She was . . . unusual. Although she’d never met a shifter who couldn’t shift. She’d met a few who didn’t know they were shifters. Who’d lived their lives as full-human and, when puberty hit, hadn’t gone through that quintessential moment of shifting back and forth to human. It was rare, but it did happen.
But that wasn’t Charlie’s story at all. She had to be the strangest hybrid Jai had ever met, and she’d met quite a few. There was a large and still-growing group of hybrids in the tri-state area, yet Charlie now stood out among them—and apart from them.
At least Charlie had a sense of humor about it. Nothing would be worse than if she was a whiny mess about herself. Jai hated people like that. The always-victim, she liked to call them.
Jai’s cell phone vibrated in her coat and she took a quick glance. Slipping it back into her pocket, she moved forward and took another look at Charlie’s wound. The scar was ugly but Jai couldn’t see any lingering evidence of infection or internal damage.
“Get dressed,” she ordered, “and I’ll be right back.”
Jai went down the hallway toward the large glass windows that separated the exam rooms from the waiting room. She saw her best friend standing among all the chairs. Sadly, though, Cella Malone was not by herself. She had that hillbilly hound dog with her.
Jai opened the thick glass door and went into the waiting room. “Hey, what’s up?”
Cella jerked her head toward the exam rooms. “Do you have Charlie MacKilligan in there?”
It was true, Jai loved her best friend. She wasn’t just a best friend. She was family. Their daughters—conceived before either was even seventeen—were like close cousins. But as much as Jai loved Marcella Malone, she didn’t lie to herself about Marcella Malone.
“You know I can’t tell you that,” Jai replied. “Doctor-patient privilege.”
“For shifters?”
“For everyone, dumb ass. You know that.”
“Look,” Cella went on, “I can’t get into detail—”
“I don’t want to hear it.”
“—but we really need to—”
“Don’t wanna hear it.”
“—talk to the kid.”
“Go away, Cella.”
Jai heard the glass door close and she turned to see that some male had slipped past her into the exam room hallway.
“Cella, what have you done?”
“Trust me. Just give him five minutes.”
Jai faced her friend, eyes wide. She was horrified. She knew what her friend did for a living. Had heard what her hound dog companion was known for. Knew the kind of people Cella hung around when she wasn’t hanging around Jai and the Malone family.
Jai turned to run back into the exam room, to help her patient, but Cella grabbed her arm, held her in place.
“Five minutes,” she said, calmly and coldly. Just the way Cella killed.