Beast Behaving Badly (33 page)

“And the Bensons died without a cub of their own, so that house goes untended.”

“But it's a beach property, right? You could sell that, couldn't you?”

“To who? Full-humans? Remember, Blayne, they don't know we're here and we plan to keep it that way.”

“Well those dogs have to be coming from somewhere, and it needs to stop.”

“I have a few friends in the Humane Society who could look into it,” Marci told her. “I'll call them and ask.”

Blayne pressed her shoulder into Marci's. “Thank you. Dr. Luntz.”

“Oh, stop your foolishness, Blayne Thorpe. And duck.”

“What—”

The puck slammed into her head, sending Blayne flipping into the lap of Marci's daughter.

“My fault!” one of the Canadians yelled from the ice.

Marci shook her head at Blayne. “Told you to duck, now didn't I? You don't listen, Blayne Thorpe.”

 

 

Bo went behind the goal, the entire opposition right on his ass. They'd been riding him for almost the entire game, knowing he was the one they had to stop. He hard-charged around, the other team's winger coming at him from the front, their left defenseman at his back. The rest of Bo's team moving in and the opposition's goalie crouched and ready to block Bo's shot.

Could he get through them all and possibly get the goal? Yeah. He could also get his head cut open in the process and end up spending the rest of the night icing his wounds and taking massive amounts of over-the-counter pain meds to get rid of what would be a monstrous headache rather than playing what had become his favorite game outside of hockey—Making the Naughty Wolfdog Squeal.

Using an overabundance of peripheral vision that gave him almost a 360-degree view of everything around him, Bo saw Raymond Chestnut push past the other team's right winger. Where he was going, Bo didn't know or care. Instead he yelled out, “Chestnut!”

The nearly eight-foot polar stopped on a dime and turned toward him. Bo swung his stick back—hitting someone in the face—then forward, the slap shot sending the puck away from the group and at Raymond. The polar blinked in surprise. He'd played with Bo throughout grade, junior high, and high school, and never once had Bo purposely shot the puck to anyone. He seemed so stunned that Bo was sure he'd let the puck go right by him.

Thankfully, he didn't. Raymond halted the puck with his stick, spun, and sent it off—right past the goalie who'd only seconds ago realized that for once Bo no longer had the damn thing.

The puck sailed into the ratty net that had been used for every inside town game for the past forty years, the goalie diving in after it, his team piling on top of him, trying to help. It was a lost cause. The puck was in and Grigori threw up his arms and blew his whistle. The game was over and Raymond Chestnut had made the winning shot.

The crowd roared in approval, everyone coming off the bench and across the ice. Raymond shook hands and gave hugs while appearing stunned out of his mind. A polar sow threw herself into Raymond's arms as did five cubs. It took Bo a second, but he eventually recognized Meg D'Accosta. Raymond's girlfriend throughout high school and apparently his mate now.

“That was impressive!” Blayne smiled up at him, her hand holding an icepack to her forehead. “I thought you were going to not do it.”

“I'll admit, it wasn't easy for me. And how's your head?”

“Oh, you know . . .” A sound like a shot ricocheted around them, and the bears and foxes all fell silent, focusing on Blayne.

Her cheeks bright red, she lowered the icepack and, except for the nasty cut still there, even the swelling was gone. Once again her bones had “snapped” back.

“It's much better,” she muttered.

“I see that.”

“Huh,” Grigori said next to them. “And I thought the boy had the hardest head in Ursus County.”

Everyone laughed, and Bo pulled an embarrassed but giggling Blayne against him, hugging her tight.

“We're all going to the Chestnuts' bar for drinks,” Dr. Luntz said, her hand patting Bo's back. “You'll come with us.”

Bo shook his head. “I can't. I've got stuff to do back at Grigori's house.”

His uncle growled, and Blayne stepped away from him. “What stuff?” she asked.

He pulled the list out of his hockey pants and unfolded it. “Let's see—”

Before he could read off the first item, Blayne leaped up and snatched the paper out of his hand, Grigori and Marci laughing.

Bo stared at his empty hand for a moment, shocked, before turning his gaze to Blayne. She held the sheet with two hands, and he could see the evil intent in her eyes.

“Blayne Thorpe, don't you dare—”

Too late. She ripped the paper into shreds and tossed the shreds into the air. “It's snowing!” she cheered.

Unlike before with his uncle, Bo didn't have time to write a copy of this list. His precious, detailed, perfectly timed out list! How could she?

Bo skated toward her, and Blayne squealed and stumbled back from him.

“You're not going to do anything crazy, are you?” she asked.

“That was my list.”

“It was too confining!” she argued. “You need to learn to live in the moment.”

“And you need a good dousing in Small Bear River.” He reached for her, but Raymond Chestnut swept her up in his arms and took off running toward town, the rest of the two teams right behind him, the town cheering them on.

“You want your wolfdog back, Bold Novikov, guess you're going to have to come and get her!” Raymond crowed, everyone applauding in agreement.

Grigori stood beside Bo now. “The boys seem to have taken to your Blayne.”

“I don't run after women,” he said, still pissed off about his list.

“You shouldn't run after them. None of them deserve it.”

“Right.”

“ 'Course everyone in town knows that Blayne can put whatever she wants on account, in your name. And if you
walk
to town now, those boys can probably damn-near clean out Chestnut's bar long before you get there.”

“And,” Dr. Luntz tossed in for good measure, “there is something about Blayne Thorpe that just screams, ‘Drinks for everybody!' Don't ya think, Bold Novikov?”

With a short, outraged roar, Bo took off running before the damn woman could put him in the poor house.

CHAPTER 26

J
osh Bergman couldn't believe he'd done four years at Penn State to end up being a security guard. But he couldn't ignore the fact that the money was worth every damn second that he sat in this same chair, night after night, staring at TV screens. Especially after his old man cut him off after he'd gotten expelled before his senior finals. He still couldn't believe how that turned out. His own frat brothers turning on him because of what some girl said. Where was the loyalty?

Whatever. Things were already looking up. They'd lost a whole team a few days ago, and he'd already gotten word he'd be going in for training and would be assigned to a team of his own. The money for team members was just damn phenomenal. He already had the car and rims picked out for when he got that first paycheck. But until training started, he had at least another week to kill before he could give this bullshit job up for good.

Josh reached behind him to grab another bottle of water from the small fridge under the desk when something on one of the cameras caught his attention. Forgetting the water, he leaned in and studied the screen. After a moment, a girl walked into camera range. Josh tapped on the keyboard, zooming in. She was cute, he'd give her that but there was something . . .

She turned and her eyes glinted in the one streetlight across from her. They glinted just like a dog's.

Josh keyed the com attached to his ear. “I've got an alert at Door Six. I repeat, an alert at Door Six.” He waited for a response, rolling his eyes. Tim probably smoking another joint behind the garages and not paying attention. That guy would have this job forever. “I need a call back, Tim. Are you hearing me?”

“Doubt he's hearing much of anything anymore.”

Josh spun his chair around, not thinking, just reacting at the female voice behind him. As the chair turned, there was a flash of metal and he couldn't say he felt anything—even when blood sprayed across the console—but even without that pain, without the feeling, he knew he was dying. Knowing this, however, he still put his hands to his throat, trying to stop the bleeding. The woman, a bitch as big as him and covered with bruises and cuts, was busy with the console and didn't seem to notice or care that he was standing up and stumbling away from the desk.

He staggered over to the emergency exit. Once the doors opened, the alarm would go off and cops and ambulances would swarm this place. People who would keep him alive. He was too important to die. He knew that.

Josh reached the door, and removing one of his precious hands from his throat, he shoved the big metal bar with
OPENING DOOR WILL ACTIVATE ALARM
written across it. But as the door flew open, there was no alarm. And standing right outside weren't cops and ambulances and people who would keep him alive. But animals. Freaks. The biggest one he'd ever seen, even after working at this place for six months, stepped up to him and grabbed him around the face.

“And where were you going, genius?” the thing laughed, carrying Josh back inside and crushing his entire head with that one hand at the same time.

 

 

The She-lion pushed Dee aside, dropping into the seat the bleeding security guard just left. “Could you have gotten more blood on this goddamn keyboard?”

“Speed is your friend right now,” Dee snapped. It was one thing to put up with the pretty male lions but she had no patience for the females. And with the pain from her broken ribs as they knitted themselves back together and the fever slowly but surely coming on her, she had no patience for anyone. Male or otherwise.

The She-lion tapped on the keyboard for a few seconds. “We're in.”

Dee shoved her a little to get past to join the rest of the team. Thankfully Van Holtz had only chosen the best for this. Good. She hated having to do everything on her own because she didn't trust the ones working with her.

Using only hand gestures, she sent groups down one set of side stairs, another up, and after prying the elevator doors open, took a group with her, all of them climbing up the elevator cables to the top floors.

They waited until the She-lion still on the computer did what she needed to. She shut off all the power in the building. Already past nine o'clock, everything went pitch black. Good thing her team could see in the dark.

Motioning to the grizzly hanging underneath her, she watched him move up so he could pry open the doors. They could hear the full-humans trying to figure out what was going on. Some were laughing, thinking it was funny. But some were concerned, moving cautiously. Grabbing the hand held out to her by the grizzly, Dee let him haul her out of the elevator shaft and onto the floor. Again using only hand signals, she sent her team off to do what they'd been sent to do while Dee walked down the hallway toward big double-doors.

Before she reached them, she scented full-humans moving silently up behind her but ignored them, keeping her focus on reaching that door. She could do this because she knew her team would handle them.

Dee pulled out her bowie knife, the blood from the security guard still on it, and walked up to the double-doors. The bodies of full-humans silently dropped behind her.

Instead of kicking the doors open, she applied a small explosive to each door hinge. She stepped back, turning her face as the hinges blew. The doors fell forward and Dee walked in. Three guards protecting the one important male who ran this place pulled their guns but Dee moved fast and cut throats until she had the important full-human by the neck. Using the back of her hand, she smashed his face, knocking him out, and dragged him out of the office by his collar.

“Move out!” Dee yelled, her team falling in behind her. The grizzly grabbed the full-human Dee was dragging and tossed him over his shoulder. The bear leaped at the elevator cables, his gloved hands and booted feet taking him down to the first floor in seconds. Dee and the rest of the team followed, hitting the exit moments later.

“Go! Go!” she ordered, her team charging for the three trucks waiting for them. Once her team shut the truck doors and rumbled off down the street, Dee motioned with her hand to a dark corner. The first giggle was followed by several others, and the hyenas charged out of the darkness and into the building. Two clans. One spotted, the other striped. They tore into the building, and when the last one ran inside, still laughing, she let the door close and limped over to the Maserati waiting for her at the corner.

She slipped inside and closed the door.

“Hyenas?” Van Holtz asked. “Really?”

“By morning there won't be anything left but an empty building.” She leaned her head back, closed her eyes. “Besides, I call them in for a little late-night snacking and they leave my cousin's Pack alone. It's called tit-for-tat.”

“Sounds like a deal with the devil to me.” Van Holtz pulled onto the street and headed away from where the trucks were going.

“Wait. I need to talk to—”

“Uncle Van will handle that.
You're
going to the hospital. And don't argue with me,” he growled when she started to do just that.

“Fine.”

“Yeah. Fine.”

She glanced around the car. “What about some American muscle?”

“Now you're complaining about my car?”

“Pansy car for rich foreigners. Like yourself.”

And when he shifted that pansy car, ripping paint off buildings as they shot by, Dee didn't say anything but . . . okay. She was impressed. If a man could handle a car like this . . . well, maybe he could handle something that many had considered too fast.

Maybe.

 

 

With enough liquor, even bears will dance.

And yet, Grigori Novikov never thought that would include his nephew. Who, as a matter of fact, was stone-cold sober. Of course, Blayne had begged to have that sixties psychedelic crap Bo liked put on and the dance floor was so packed that there wasn't much moving going on, so it wasn't like anyone could really break out any fancy moves. But still. His nephew. Dancing. With his girlfriend. Who he kept calling his girlfriend. And his girlfriend who still hadn't caught on yet. Too cute and smart to be that dumb, but there ya go.

Marci dropped down next to him. Unlike Blayne and Bo—Marci had been drinking. A lot. He knew this even before she started singing along with The Supremes' version of “(Love Is Like A) Heat Wave.” Thankfully, most of the gossips were drunk off their ass, too. So hopefully he wouldn't have to hear tomorrow how “this was a mistake” and “we should have never” or “I should have never” or whatever else she insisted on saying anytime they were nearly “caught.”

Caught? He got his AARP card the other day in the mail, weren't they too old to be “caught” in a relationship? He knew she worried about what her cubs would say. They'd adored their dad and with good reason. But they were all adults with cubs of their own.

That's when he remembered that Rebecca Luntz-Peters hadn't left the bar and as was her way, had been nursing one lone beer all night. He glanced over and, yep. She was gaping, her mouth open. Then she was scrambling for her cell phone. Probably to call her older sister in Boston and her younger sister in Nevada.

Awkward.

Not sure what else to do, Grigori said, “Let's dance.”

He grabbed Marci's hand and hauled her drunk ass out away from the table and to the dance floor. He pulled her into his arms and held her against him in an attempt to keep her under control.

“You're going to regret this in the morning,” he told her.

“Blayne said I should go for what I want. So I went.”

Figures it was that damn wolfdog. In town less than four days and all hell was breaking loose! Wasn't it bad enough she had a dog living under his couch?

“Maybe you should have made that decision while sober.”

“I'm not drunk. I'm just fortified. Blayne, however—”

“Has been drinking Shirley Temples all night.”

“Yeah. Which are full of sugar.”

“So?”

When his black bear only giggled, he had a bad feeling.

 

 

Bo watched his uncle close his truck door and walk around it.

“You'll be all right?” he asked Grigori.

“Yeah. I'm just going to drive Marci home.”

“I don't need you to drive me home, ya bastid. I'm fine.”

Bo would have believed that more if Dr. Luntz was sitting in the passenger seat rather than on the truck floor, and if she had her eyes open rather than closed. And if she weren't slurring her words a bit and calling his uncle “bastid.”

“Yeah. Right.” Grigori rolled his eyes at his nephew. “I'm gonna make sure she gets settled. So, uh . . .”

Rather than get an explanation that would just freak him out, Bo cut in, “No problem. Take your time.”

Grigori nodded at him, got in his truck, and drove off. Bo turned and headed through the woods back to his uncle's house. He stopped, though, when the burden he carried on his left shoulder slid out of his old hockey pants—that were shorts on him when he was twelve but ski pants on Blayne—and hit the ground. Letting out an annoyed sigh, Bo reached down to grab her, but she'd already taken off running.

“You'll so never catch me!” she screamed at him over her shoulder.

This wouldn't be so bad if she were drunk like Dr. Luntz. But Blayne was stone-cold sober and on a caffeine-sugar rush like the world had never known before.

“Damn you, sugar,” Bo yelled at the heavens. “Damn you!”

He'd be better off trying to control a six-year-old after straight sugar had been poured into his mouth, rather than a crazed wolfdog running around Ursus County territory in the snow . . . with no pants on.

“Blayne Thorpe, get back here!”

She laughed and kept going, forcing him to run after her
twice
in one day.

And if Blayne was fast simply from her combined bloodlines, adding sugar and caffeine to that mix made her a jet, shooting through the woods and other bear's territory until she reached his uncle's house. That's when she stopped, waiting for him to catch up.

“Don't move,” Bo said as he carefully approached.

He almost had her, too, until she yelled, “Catch me!”

“I don't want to catch you.”

“Then I guess you never will!”

She took off again, laughing, and Bo took several steps back, then charged forward. He planted one foot on the stoop and propelled himself to the roof. He charged up and over it, leaping from the base of it and straight down at Blayne who'd turned to head off into the woods behind Grigori's house.

Bo tackled her from behind, his arms going around her and pulling her into his body. She squealed as they sped toward the ground, but he turned and took the brunt of the contact on his shoulder and back.

They landed hard, Bo knowing from experience that his shoulder had probably taken the worst of it. They lay there for a long moment, both panting, Bo flat on his back and Blayne on top of him, facing up at the dark sky.

But they didn't lie there long before Blayne said, “I still wanna run.” She tried to pull out of his arms, but Bo held her tight. “I wanna run,” she insisted.

“I don't care, Blayne.”

“You can't hold me here, you Visigoth!”

“I can. I will.”

“Why?”

“Because you'll run and run and run . . . with no flippin' idea of how to get back here. You'll get lost in the snow and then me and the rest of the town will have to track your ass down. It's not happening.”