chapter EIGHT
Max gazed down at the kitchen table, which was covered in all sorts of baked goods. From simple sugar cookies to complicated breads and desserts. Her sister had been up all night making this food. Stevie tried meditation and yoga to relax. Max got into fights with bees. And Charlie baked.
“What are we supposed to do with all this?” Max asked Stevie. “I mean, I can pack it away, but even I can’t eat this much before it all goes bad.”
“I’m half Siberian tiger and I can’t eat all this.”
“What would normal people do with this much food?”
Stevie thought a moment. “Give it to friends and family.”
“We don’t speak to our family and we have very few friends.”
Charlie walked into the kitchen and held up her phone. “I’m going in!” she announced.
Max rolled her eyes. “Just ’cause that old bitch called doesn’t mean you need to call her back.”
“We need to know what she knows.”
“I doubt she knows much of anything. It’s not like the two sides of the family are chatty. Uncle Will is probably blaming the American side for what Freddy did.”
“Our state-side kin would have never helped him. Any more than we would.”
“Maybe she just wants information since Will won’t tell her anything.”
“Which is kind of rude,” Stevie complained, “coming to us for information when she didn’t even invite us to her daughter’s wedding.”
Charlie frowned. “Who’s getting married?”
“Uh . . . the youngest one. Carrie, I think. They’re in New York for the whole event right now. The future hubby is apparently very rich.”
Charlie smiled. “Then I’m sure Bernice wouldn’t want anything to fuck with her daughter’s perfect society wedding.”
“You mean like Dad showing up to start shit?” Max asked.
“That’s exactly what I mean.”
Charlie placed the phone on the table and hit redial, turning on the speaker. Then they all leaned in . . . and waited.
“So is your father dead or not?” their aunt asked without any preamble. Not even a hello.
“Nope,” Charlie replied. “Not dead. Very much alive from what we can tell.”
“Just great!” Bernice snarled. Max imagined her aunt pacing one of the grand rooms in her Rhode Island home. The wedding might be in Manhattan, but Bernice was one of the Rhode Island wealthy due to a very advantageous marriage in her youth. And that was the only way Max could visualize her. “Do you know where he is? Is he still in New York?”
“No idea,” Charlie said. Then, after glancing at her sisters, she added, “He could jump out at any time with one of his crazy schemes. Asking all your rich friends for money. When he’s not picking their pockets or stealing their jewelry off their necks in front of cameras. It will be fabulous! Is the New York Times going to report on it all for you? I’m sure they have access to Dad’s last sixteen mugshots from around the world.”
There was silence, then a muffled scream from the other end of the phone and, silently, Max and Stevie laughed hysterically. Stevie slid down the refrigerator until she sat on the floor, arms around her middle. Max leaned over the kitchen table, her head resting on the wood. Charlie, of course, stayed focused on the phone.
“He needs to be found,” her aunt finally stated.
“And I need smaller tits,” Charlie told her, “but we don’t always get what we want.”
“Do you know what’s going on right now, little miss?”
Charlie leaned in a little and said, “No. What could be going on right now?”
“My daughter is getting married—”
“Oh. A family wedding? But that can’t be . . . because we weren’t invited. And we are family. Right?”
Now Max was still on the table but on her back, her legs kicking out like a crazy toddler’s. She couldn’t help it. This was the best! Her sister was the absolute best!
“It was nothing personal,” Bernice lied. “We just don’t like any of you.”
Now all three sisters were laughing out loud. No longer bothering to hide it anymore. Because, although it was true that Bernice didn’t like any of them, they were also the only ones she could truly be herself with. The socialites never saw the true Bernice MacKilligan Andersen-Cummings.
Clearing her throat to stop the laughter, Charlie told her aunt, “My sisters and I are well aware of your feelings about us, so . . . good luck with my dad.” She reached down to disconnect the call.
“Don’t hang up!” Bernice ordered. Then, softly, she added, “Please.”
Charlie pulled her hand back and rested both arms on the table. “Yes?”
“Your father needs to be found. I can’t afford for him to just . . . show up at my daughter’s wedding. This is too important.”
“And what do you want from us?”
“For you to find him. For you to manage him.”
“We are not our father’s keeper,” Charlie stated with absolute conviction. “You’ll have to manage him on your own.”
“I don’t have time for that. Things here are a little bit . . . overwhelming at the moment. Adding your useless father to this situation . . .”
“Plus there’s the other problem.”
There was a long pause before Bernice asked, “What other problem?”
So Bernice didn’t know.
“Dad stole money from Uncle Will.”
“Christ on a cross! How much money?”
Charlie scratched her forehead with her thumbnail. “A hundred million pounds.”
Bernice was silent for so long, Max was sure she’d disconnected the phone or passed out. But she hadn’t.
“He can’t be that stupid,” she said, her voice like a whisper.
“We both know he can be. He is that stupid.”
“And to steal from Will . . . what was he thinking?”
Charlie rolled her eyes. “I’m guessing he wasn’t.”
“They’ll be coming for you,” Bernice told Charlie.
“For what?” Charlie scoffed. “I don’t have a million pounds just lying around to fix my father’s fuckup. And Dad has never given a shit about his daughters, so threatening us won’t work either.”
“But you’re the only one, Charlie, who has ever been able to manage the stupid fuck. The Scots know that. They’ll use it. They’ll use your sisters.”
Charlie began to rub her forehead. “Can’t you talk to them?” she asked between clenched teeth. Charlie hated asking any of the family for anything. So she didn’t. Until now.
“Me? That won’t help you. Will and I are not exactly close. But if I were in your shoes, I’d let Will and all your Scottish uncles know, in very clear terms, that you and your sisters are not to be put into the mix when it comes to dealing with your father.”
Charlie exchanged confused glances with Max and Stevie.
“I’m not sure I know what that means,” Charlie finally admitted.
“Figure it out. We are on an open phone line. Until then, how about we meet for tea?”
Charlie hated tea. “Tea? Why?”
They could hear pages being flipped. “I have some time on Tuesday. Three o’clock. At the Kingston Arms. I’ll meet you at the front desk. Just you. And please . . . dress appropriately.”
The call ended and Charlie straightened up.
“You gonna go?” Max asked.
“Yeah.” Charlie began to pace the room and Max watched her closely.
“What are you thinking?” she asked her sister.
“I’m thinking about what she said. About dealing with Uncle Will.” Charlie abruptly stopped and focused on Max. “What do you think Uncle Will is planning, to get back his money, I mean?”
“Honestly?”
“Honestly.”
Max rubbed her nose. “I think he’s sent over a bunch of guys to kill one of us and take the other two hostage, hoping that’ll bring Dad out of the woodwork and get his money back, while showing the rest of the family that they risk their children when they fuck with him.”
“But Dad won’t care. He won’t care if Will kills all three of us.”
“I know.”
Charlie thought a moment. “Do you think Will was behind the attacks in Milan and Switzerland?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“That chopper. In Switzerland.”
“Are you going on again about that helicopter?”
“It was military grade,” Max insisted. “Uncle Will is not paying for that. The fucker’s too cheap. That’s why I know that with a hundred million in play, he’s gonna do something. Personally, I agree with Bernice. He’s gonna make a move.”
“Of course you agree with Bernice. Because she said we should strike first.”
“No, she said we should let Uncle Will and the others know that we’re not to be fucked with because of our father. I say we set up . . . an opportunity.”
“An opportunity to what? Fuck us over?”
“Can I make a suggestion?” Stevie asked.
Charlie let out a long sigh, but it didn’t relieve the tension in her shoulders. The strain on her face. “Of course,” she said to Stevie.
Their baby sister stood, smoothing down the front of her too-big sundress. “I say you call him up. Uncle Will. And tell him we want to talk to him. Some place private in the City.”
“And then?” Charlie asked.
Stevie shrugged her shoulders and lifted her hands, palms up. “If Uncle Will truly just wants to talk, then we talk, tell him we don’t know what Dad’s up to, and everybody goes their separate ways. But if Uncle Will intends to use us to get at Dad . . . then we do what we do. I mean, if they’re going to use us as an object lesson . . . maybe it’s time we make a lesson of them.”
Charlie studied her sister a moment. “It’ll get messy.”
“Anything involving Daddy gets messy. Call Uncle Will, Max,” she suggested while reaching into her oversized backpack, which was jammed with her notebooks, pencils, and pens. “Or his eldest son, Dougie. Pick an abandoned building and tell them we want to meet on Monday. Give it a sense of urgency so they don’t think we’re planning anything.” Stevie pulled out the SSRI antidepressants and antianxiety meds that she used to manage her panic disorder and placed them on the table. “You keep these for now. I’ll go back on them later.”
“Are you sure—”
“I’m sure.” Stevie nodded. “If they really want to hold our father against us . . . we’ll show them all—the entire family—what they’re really risking when they challenge the MacKilligan girls.”
Charlie reached over and pulled Stevie close, kissing her on the top of her head.
Max placed the meds in a drawer for quick and easy access while Charlie examined the table filled with all her baking. “God, what are we going to do with all this food?”
Stevie leaned her head back and said, “I have an idea for that too.”
This time Charlie’s eyes narrowed. “What idea?”
* * *
Charlie picked up the plate with the honey-pineapple cake she’d baked and headed out toward Berg’s place. She wanted to let him and his siblings know how much she appreciated their recent help, and according to Stevie, they’d probably finish off the rest of the baked goods, too.
Besides, getting out of the house might ease Charlie’s anxiety. Her baby sister might have a panic disorder, freaking out at the slightest weird sound or fast-moving squirrel, but Charlie was all about what could possibly happen. That was what kept her up nights. Worrying about things she didn’t really have any control over, but knowing that didn’t mean she could stop worrying. Actually, she worried more.
But maybe she could distract herself. At least for a little while. That’s what the actual act of baking did for her. Distracted her. Calmed her. Now she was going to try doing the same thing by sharing her food with near-strangers. It was, to be honest, the first time she could think of when she’d known people not related by blood or Pack well enough to feel comfortable to offer them food.
Charlie came down the porch steps and reached the front gate. She’d just stepped through, closing it behind her, when the rumbling of a souped-up car had her turning. The car pulled into a spot not too far from her, and she waited to see who came out while sliding her hand around to grab the butt of the gun stuck into the back of her jeans under her T-shirt.
The driver door opened and she watched the man who stepped out, her eyes briefly closing. How could Max do it? Of all the people she could have called . . . why him?
And to bring him here? A bear-only neighborhood? Had she lost her mind?
When he saw her, he smiled and Charlie’s grip tightened on her gun. She could just drop him here. She really could. But she knew Max would never forgive her for that. It could be the one thing that would possibly break the bond between them. Or at the very least damage it so that it would take decades to repair.
He stopped just as he reached the trunk of his car. “Don’t shoot,” he said, still smiling. “I know you want to, but that’ll just bring out my sister and cousins . . . and I’m sure you remember what happened to the last girl that hurt my tender feelings.”
Using all her internal fortitude, Charlie released her gun and dropped her arm to her side.
He laughed and came over to her.
“Don’t—”
But it was too late. She was already enveloped in big arms and pressed against an excruciatingly large chest.
She held the plate with the cake away from her body, but she could already hear him sniffing, his body leaning over to take a ruthless bite.
“Touch that cake,” she warned, “and I’m taking your dick.”
Dutch Alexander pulled back. He was just six feet, but wide as a house. And all of it muscle and power.
“You never like to share, MacKilligan.”
“Not with weasels.”
“I think of you as a sister.”
“Shut up.”
“Is everything all right, Charlie?”
Their landlord, Tiny, stood behind her, eyeing Dutch.
“I’m fine.” She tried to pull away, but Dutch held her tightly. Why? Because he enjoyed irritating her. Always had. “Do you mind?”
“Can’t I show affection to my best friend’s beloved older sister?”
Charlie placed her hand underneath his jaw and unleashed her claws, making sure the middle one pressed against his jugular.
“I’ll take that as a no.” Dutch released her and stepped back, which was impressive because Dutch usually had no concept of personal space. He was a touchy-feely guy who loved hugs and affection, which many found surprising when they realized what he was. What he truly was.
But just in case Dutch tried to hug her again, Charlie took a step back as well, which was when Tiny took a big step forward. The six-foot-nine man thought to use his natural strength and size to intimidate the smaller but equally wide foe.
Before Tiny could even flex his muscles, though, Dutch was next to him. Against him. He sniffed his way up Tiny’s chest, looked at him, then abruptly huffed. Twice.
Shocked, Tiny took a startled step back and Dutch huffed again, moving closer. Huffed again, moved closer. Then he unleashed his fangs.
Fangs that could crush nearly anything.
The bear unleashed his claws, but Charlie quickly stepped between the two huffing males and snarled, “I am trying to be a good neighbor. I’m not sure how one does that, but I’m almost positive bloodshed is not involved!” She pointed her finger at Tiny. “So put those claws away.” She glared at Dutch. “And don’t you even think about doing anything involving your anal glands.”
Dutch grinned, his fangs still out. “Sweet talker.”
“Here, Tiny.” She handed Tiny the cake she’d been planning to give to the Dunns. “It’s honey-pineapple.”
“Oh. Uh . . . thanks.”
Tiny took the cake and turned to walk away, but he stopped, looked back at Dutch.
“Honey badger?” he guessed.
“Hardly,” Dutch said, his voice full of that ridiculous pride, his fang-filled grin widening even more. “Wolverine.”
Frowning, Tiny focused on Charlie. “I didn’t know you’d be bringing wolverines here.”
“Racist.”
Charlie slapped her hand over Dutch’s face, knowing that would do little to keep his big mouth shut, but she had to try.
“He’s just here to see my sister. I promise he won’t cause any trouble.”
Tiny grunted and again started toward his house a few doors down. But as he walked away, he muttered, “And I’m not racist. Wolverine is not a race. Honey badger is not a race. It’s a species.”
Dutch retracted his fangs and asked Charlie, “You’re blaming me for this, aren’t you?”
In answer, Charlie reached up and slapped the back of Dutch’s head. Just like she did to her sister. Just like she’d been doing to both of them since the first day Max had brought the little shit to the Pack house. The wolves had not been happy, but the pair had only been twelve and the adults were just glad Max actually had a friend. Any friend. But, as always, it had fallen on Charlie to keep the pair in line. A job she did not enjoy.
The front door to their rental house opened and Max stepped onto the porch.
She threw her arms up and cheered, “Dutchy!”
“Maxie!”
Max ran down the steps and Dutch leaped over the gate. They met somewhere in the middle, the pair ramming into each other, before air-kissing and twirling around each other with their arms spread wide.
It was quite the display. But nothing Charlie hadn’t seen before. Over and over and over again. But at least Max had friends. Annoying friends, but friends.
Charlie turned to go back to the house and get something else she could give to the Dunns. Maybe the cinnamon rolls would be a good choice. But a banging door had her looking over her shoulder to see the Dunns’ front screen door on the ground and a wet, small bear charging across the street.
A few seconds later, Berg Dunn came running after it, his arms and T-shirt dripping wet and covered with soapsuds.
“Get back here! Bastard!”
The bear leaped over Charlie’s low fence and disappeared around the back of the house. Berg stumbled to a stop beside Charlie.
“It’s legal to have full-blood bears in this town?” she asked.
Berg’s head cocked to the side, brows pulling low in confusion. “That wasn’t a bear. That’s my dog.”
“That thing was a dog?”
“Yes,” he replied, sounding indignant. “A Caucasian Shepherd Dog. My parents breed them.”
“Never heard of them.”
“They’re from Russia. They’re trained to protect livestock from bears, wolves, and jackals.” After a moment of silence, he added, “He doesn’t like getting a bath. But he smelled.”
“Now you both do.”
Berg nodded toward a laughing Max and Dutch. “Who’s the dude?”
“That’s Dutch. Max’s friend.”
He sniffed the air. Sniffed it again. Leaned in and sniffed again.
“He’s a wolverine,” she told him when she couldn’t stand that noise another second.
“Oh.” Berg blinked. “Wow. Really? I’ve never met one.”
“They mostly live their lives among full-humans. Fewer fights. Speaking of which, I was going to bring you a cake.”
“You were?”
“I had to give it to Tiny. He was about to get into a fight with Dutch, and that wouldn’t have ended well for either of them.”
“Well . . . thanks anyway.”
“I have some other stuff. You want to check it out?”
“Sure.”
“We better get you in there before Dutch sees it.” She opened the front gate. “He can put away more food than seems humanly possible. He’s like a vacuum.”
The front door to the house slammed open and, screaming, Stevie ran down the porch stairs, across the yard, and over the fence without even a pause.
Shocked, Charlie yelled after her, “It was just a dog!” But her reasoning didn’t stop an already panicked Stevie. She focused on Max. “Well, go get her!”
“Why do I always have to—oh, fuck it!”
Max charged off after their sister and Charlie headed into the house with Berg behind her.
“Let’s get your dog and . . .” Charlie stopped, her gaze locked on the living room window. “Isn’t that your dog?” she asked, pointing at the enormous animal wiggling on his back in the middle of the grass.
“It is.”
But if her sister had seen the dog in the yard, she wouldn’t have run out of the house, leaving the safety of closed doors. So Stevie had reacted to something inside the house.
Charlie reached under the coffee table and grabbed the .45 Max had holstered under there, putting a round in the chamber. Berg’s “Whoa!” barely registered before she went through the house, her weapon clasped in both hands, her elbows out at her sides. She never held the gun far from her body. That would make it easy for someone to knock it out of her hands when she went around a blind corner.
She stopped a few feet from the kitchen and glanced back at Berg. “What are those sounds?”
He paused a moment, then rolled his eyes. He walked over to the swinging door and pushed it open. With the gun still in front of her, Charlie moved closer but immediately lowered the weapon when she saw a group of what she assumed were her neighbors sitting at her kitchen table or leaning against the counter and devouring her food.
“I see your mistake,” Berg explained, moving into the kitchen. The neighbors barely noticed him. “You left the window open.”
“We smelled all this a block away,” a sow said between bites of lemon cookies.
“Did Tiny give you the right garbage cans?” a male bear asked, remnants of raspberry Danish in the corners of his mouth.
“The right garbage cans?”
“Yeah,” Berg explained. “Bear proof.”
Charlie felt her left eye twitch. “I need bear-proof garbage cans?”
“Some of us get hungry at night when we’re roaming around,” another sow explained. “But we’re usually too lazy to shift back to human to get the garbage cans open.”
“When we do get the garbage cans open, most of us are quite neat about it,” the first sow explained as she reached for the ginger cookies. “We put back in the cans what we don’t eat. But some people—”
“Like the Hendersons, three doors down.”
“—aren’t so polite. But if you bear-proof, you’ll be fine.”
Charlie nodded a silent thank-you to the intruders before glancing at Berg and growling, “Can I speak to you outside?”
* * *
Berg followed Charlie into the backyard, but he was a little surprised when she suddenly spun toward him, an angry finger pointing at his chest.
“You said we’d be safe here!”
“You are.”
“How can you”—she stepped back to allow a hysterically screaming Stevie to run past her; a snarling Max followed close behind with Berg’s ridiculously happy dog after both of them—“say that when there are bears in my kitchen?”
Berg didn’t answer her right away. He was too busy watching Stevie leap up and over the two-car garage behind the house. Max and the dog, sadly, had to run around the garage to get to her.
“Wow. She cleared that easy.”
“Pay attention to me!” she ordered. And when she had his attention, she said again, “There are bears in my kitchen!”
“Yeah . . . so?”
She threw up her hands. “In what world is that safe?”
“Let’s start with . . . how about no yelling? And you couldn’t be safer than with bears in your kitchen.”
“Explain that to me,” she managed to say without raising her voice.
“You’re worried about strange guys coming into your house, killing you and Max, and kidnapping Stevie, right?”
“That would be the most likely scenario.”
“How are they going to get past a bunch of hungry bears in your kitchen?”
She opened her mouth to reply, closed it, opened it, then demanded, “What?”
“We scented that weasel long before he ever hit our street. My sister had binoculars on him as soon as his car rumbled around the corner. We are very protective of our neighborhood. We have to be. We’ve got a huge lion pride that way”—he pointed south, then east—“and three wolf Packs that way.”
Charlie suddenly glanced off. “I did hear roaring last night. I thought I was just really tired.”
“That was Craig. Old lion male. Retired Navy man. Super cranky. He roars every night to let us all know where his territory begins and ends. And when the full moon comes, you get the howling. Unless the wolves have had tequila. Tequila nights are noisy nights.”
Charlie folded her arms across her chest and asked, “You don’t find that . . . weird?”
“Find what weird?”
“Being surrounded by lions and wolves and . . . bears in my kitchen. That seems really weird to me.”
“Not to me, but I grew up in an all-bear neighborhood in Seattle. Lots of hippy bears. Lots of honey and pot.” He motioned to her. “You weren’t raised by badgers at all? Because they usually keep close to their own.”
She snorted. “We’re not considered ‘their own.’ After my mom died, we lived with my grandfather’s Pack. They protected us, but they didn’t really”—she briefly struggled for the right words—“teach us. That’s not right either. They taught us stuff . . . just not shifter stuff.”
“What did they teach you?”
“They taught me and Max how to drive . . . of course, that was so we could chauffer Stevie around to all her college classes and private lessons.”
“Oh.”
“The shifter stuff they taught their pups, but they didn’t consider us their pups. They just made sure we were fed and kept alive. And my grandfather was busy running the Pack. I think he thought his Packmates were helping us more . . . but they really weren’t. Still, they didn’t try to kill us either or chase us off before we were eighteen, so I considered that a win.”
“I guess. So, in other words, you don’t spend a lot of time around other shifters.”
“I don’t. And Stevie doesn’t. Max has a bunch of friends through—”
“The weasel?”
She smirked. “He’s the brawniest member of the badger family. I would suggest you not fuck with him.”
Berg suddenly heard crunching sounds behind him and turned to see that the weasel was standing behind him, biting off chunks of meat and bone from a frozen-solid leg of lamb.
“Hope you don’t mind,” he said around his food. “The bears ate almost all the sweet stuff and I was really hungry.”
He took another bite, his wolverine jaw easily decimating what most humans and several breeds of shifters would have to thaw first.
Charlie stared at the weasel with a definite look of distaste before ordering, “Go away. Over there.”
Without question and still eating, he moved away from them.
Berg was glad to see she didn’t like Max’s friend. Especially when the first thing Britta had said about him behind her binoculars was, “Nice ass on that short guy.”
“Well, now that you’re here,” Berg suggested, “we can teach you about shifter stuff.”
“What do I need to know?”
“Can you scent the difference between a polar bear and a grizzly?”
“Don’t all bears smell alike?”
Berg looked off for a moment and took a deep breath. He especially didn’t like the weasel’s knowing laugh.
“No,” he finally replied. “We do not all smell alike.”
“Okay. Okay. Don’t get moody.”
“But see? It’s insults like that I . . . we . . . can help you avoid.”
“If you think it’s necessary.”
Before Berg could tell Charlie exactly how necessary it was—especially if she was going to live in this neighborhood without broken bones—Clark McKlintock walked around the garage, through the back gate in the fence, and over to the pair.
“Hey, Clark.”
“Berg.”
“Charlie, this is Clark McKlintock. He lives on the next block. He’s a polar.”
She stared at Clark for a few seconds, then asked, “Should I smell him?”
“I wouldn’t.” Berg shook his head and again focused on Clark. “So what’s up, Clark?”
“Was wondering if this is yours?”
“If what’s mine?”
Clark turned around and showed them his back, where the quivering, sobbing mess that was Charlie’s baby sister had attached herself. She was still human, but claws on both her hands and feet were buried deep into poor Clark’s flesh.
“Oh, shit!” Charlie immediately grabbed her sister around the waist. “Let him go!”
“Safe bear,” Stevie said. “Safe bear. It petted dog. So he is safe bear.”
Well . . . that was logic. Not necessarily good or sound logic though.
Charlie attempted to drag her sister off Clark’s back but she simply dug her claws in deeper.
Clark looked over his shoulder at Berg. “Could you get this mutt off me, please?”
Berg almost thumped the polar in the back of the head. “Mutt” was a rude way to talk about hybrids, but Charlie didn’t seem to notice. Mostly, he was sure, because she was busy trying to deal with her sister. But also because she didn’t know better. She didn’t know she’d just been insulted.
But he did. And it pissed him off for her.
Pulling Charlie’s hands away from her sister, Berg said, “You know what? Let’s make this a learning opportunity.”
Charlie frowned at him but, after a moment, she took a step back.
“Now,” Berg said, using his best professorial voice, “this may appear bad. And it is. But your sister still managed to choose well in this instance.”
Now completely confused, Charlie looked over at the weasel. At this point, he only had a hunk of frozen bone left, and he was gnawing on it like a chicken bone.
He grinned around his meal at Charlie’s questioning look and nodded.
With a shrug, Charlie said, “Is that a fact? Please explain.”
“First, polar bear is always a good choice. It never occurs to them to react to anything. They just lope along.”
“You do know that what she’s doing to me now hurts, right?” Clark asked.
“Whereas,” Berg continued, “grizzlies are fast to react. Chances are if she had done this to my sister, Britta would have shifted to her grizzly form and dropped back-first onto the ground. But a polar . . . ? I’m surprised he even noticed. They’re so slow . . . and dull-witted.”
“Hey,” Clark complained. “Wait a minute—”
“They’re also slow moving physically. Compared to grizzlies, I mean. And almost every other shifter . . . ever. You and your sisters could easily outrun them. And you can easily out-think them. Without much trouble. Because they’re that fucking stupid.”
Clark jerked around and pushed him, which pissed Berg off, so he shoved the polar back and let the muscle between his shoulder blades grow, making his shoulders larger.
But before he could go after the big idiot, Charlie stupidly jumped between them, her arms spread wide to keep them apart. Had she lost her mind? She couldn’t be that clueless to the shifter life, could she? Then again, he and Dag had gotten in the middle of a badger fight—so who was he to talk?
“Hey! Hey! Gentlemen!” She looked at both of them. “Stop it right now!”
With her arms still outstretched, she pointed one finger at Berg. “And I don’t need you to protect me from big, slow-moving assholes.”
“I’m not slow,” Clark said. And when they stared at him, he added, “Mind or body . . . owwwww!” Eyes wide, he stared at Charlie. “I think her claws are getting longer.”
“They’re totally getting longer,” she said with no obvious sense of urgency. “In fact, they can get so long that they can sever your spine in at least ten places.” She stepped in close to Clark, gazing up at him without any fear. “Because me and my sister are mutts and that’s what we do. We are freaks of nature and we can erase you. So be nice to us . . . or I’ll show you exactly what I can do to you.” She stepped around him, stopping by his side, and adding, “And you won’t even have time to scream.”
Moving away from the stunned polar, she barked, “Let him go, Stevie!”
Stevie suddenly hit the ground, her ridiculously long claws covered in blood and gore.
The poor girl was panting and sweating and completely freaked out.
With her gaze locked on Clark, Charlie ordered the weasel, “Take her inside, Dutch.”
“With the bears?” he asked.
Charlie scrunched up her nose, annoyed. “Shit.”
“No, no,” Stevie ground out. “I’ll be fine.” Pressing her fists against the ground, she forced herself up. “I can be around the bears.”
Charlie sighed. “Sweetie—”
“I can be around the bears!”
That slightly hysterical bellow had both Berg and Clark taking a big step back, away from the thin hybrid. Her sister, though, moved closer. And she laughed a little.
“Brave woman,” Clark muttered low to Berg.
“You sure?” Charlie asked her sister. “I’m sure the idiot wouldn’t mind taking you out for ice cream.”
“The idiot you love,” the weasel corrected. And Berg wanted to slap him. Just once. Back of the head.
“There’s a great place a few blocks over. Sammy’s Ice Cream Palace. Only a few minutes away,” Berg told her. But when Charlie raised an eyebrow, he quickly added, “A full-human place. Lots of full-humans. You can find the address on your phone. But I’d suggest using any water hose at any house to wash off her hands and feet—since full-humans usually freak out at the sight of young women covered in gore.”
“Excellent.” The weasel pushed himself away from the house and came toward Stevie.
From around the corner, Max came running in, panting, with Berg’s dog beside her. He seemed happy and entertained. She, however, did not.
She started to speak but the panting kept her from anything more than harsh breathing sounds.
Max rested her hand against her hip and bent over at the waist.
Laughing, the weasel went to his friend. He turned away from her and, with some sort of unspoken offer and acceptance, Max climbed onto his back. She rested her arms on his shoulders and he held her with his hands under her legs.
He started off, and Stevie fell in beside them. She seemed much calmer now, but who knew how long that would last.
“Is she going to be okay?” Berg asked Charlie. “This is New York. There are a lot of bears in New York. And Jersey.”
“She’ll be fine once she’s back on her meds.”
“Why would she be off her meds?”
Charlie didn’t answer him, just walked back into the house.
“You know you don’t have a chance with her, right?” Clark asked about Charlie.
Unable to resist any longer, Berg slapped the back of the polar’s head. He probably put more force behind it than was necessary, but Clark was getting a little of the residual anger Berg felt toward the weasel too.
Clark spun around, fist pulled back, but all Berg had to say was, “Don’t make me get my sister.”
Lowering his arm and sneering, Clark headed back toward his street.
“Just keep those honey-stealing badgers off our territory,” he warned before disappearing around the garage.
Although Berg wasn’t really as worried about the MacKilligans’ honey-stealing ways as he was about what would make a very careful Charlie suddenly allow her panic-riddled sister to go off her much-needed medication.