Authors: Shelly Laurenston
“I think so.”
They walked down the stairs until they reached the row indicated on their ticket stubs. The seats were nice, plush, and they would be close to the action.
Vic, focusing on the arms of the seats so that he could follow the numbers, went down the line, silently counting until he was forced to stop by very long legs that looked like someone had cut off a couple of tree stumps and covered them in denim.
“Excuse me,” he said. “I’m in that seat . . .”
His words faded away when he saw who was sitting between him and his seat. Bo Novikov.
Vic locked eyes with the polar bear–lion hybrid and his instincts took complete control. Especially when he saw Novikov’s eyes shift from blue to gold and his hair suddenly drop to his shoulders like a big mane of rage.
They both roared at each other. Novikov leaped out of his seat, the pair of them ramming their foreheads together, fangs unleashing to warn of great bloodshed. It was all very primal and something Vic couldn’t control when he got around certain hybrids. Namely Bo Novikov.
“That is enough!” a voice yelled over the roaring. Vic was pushed one way and Novikov the other.
“I am
not
going to put up with this bullshit through the whole bout. Now get some control!” That from Lachlan “Lock” MacRyrie. Vic knew him through Dee-Ann. He was a friendly enough bear . . . until annoyed. And he was clearly annoyed because Vic could see the man’s grizzly hump starting to grow. “Barinov, you and your friend sit over here. Novikov . . . sit down. Now.”
MacRyrie placed himself between Vic and Novikov.
Once they were all seated, Shen whispered to Vic, “What is it about that guy that ticks you off so much?”
“I have no idea,” Vic whispered back. “I don’t even know the man. But I get around him and all I want to do is tear his head off and wear it like a hat.”
Shen laughed. “I love hybrids. You guys are always so fucked up. And it’s always so random!”
Now that everything had calmed down, MacRyrie nodded at Vic. “Hey, Barinov.”
“MacRyrie. This is Shen Li.”
“Vic’s business partner,” Shen volunteered.
Vic gritted his teeth.
“This your first bout?” MacRyrie asked.
“Yeah. Blayne invited me.”
At the mention of Blayne’s name, Novikov looked around MacRyrie and snarled at Vic, baring extremely long fangs. Vic roared back.
“I have no problem killing both of you,” MacRyrie snapped. “And keep in mind, I used to kill for a living.”
Well aware that MacRyrie used to be in the same Marine unit as Dee-Ann, a unit that hunted the hunters, Vic decided not to push the issue. Thankfully, neither did Novikov.
“So how does this work?” Vic asked MacRyrie.
“The jammer has to pass as many of the opposing team as possible within two minutes. The problem is, the jammer has got to get past the blockers—and they don’t want to let her do that.”
Vic stretched his neck, trying to loosen the tension there. “I’m going to be so bored.”
“You might like it.”
“Vic hates sports,” Shen explained.
“I don’t hate sports. I just don’t understand its purpose in my universe.”
MacRyrie grinned. “I get that, too. Not everyone enjoys sports of any kind. But if it helps, the players on this derby team all wear tiny shorts and tank tops.”
Vic shrugged. “That actually does help.”
Two lion males walked to the empty seats in front of Vic’s. At first, he was annoyed. Those manes would just disrupt his viewing pleasure. But then he saw the face of one of the lions.
“Hey, Mitch!”
Mitch Shaw turned and smiled. “Vic!” They shook hands. “How ya doin’, man?”
“Pretty good.”
“What are you doing back here? I thought you were still in Albania?”
“Nah. Doing a local job. This is Shen Li,” Vic said, pointing at the panda. “Shen, this is Mitch Shaw. He works for Bobby Ray’s security company. I get a lot of work from them.”
“This is my brother, Brendon Shaw.”
“You’re not going to say hi to me?”
The lions’ expressions turning to disgust, matching gold gazes moved from Vic and Shen to MacRyrie.
“We are going to be family, after all,” MacRyrie added. “Doesn’t that mean anything to you two?”
Vic watched the felines fight their desire to rip MacRyrie apart, finally settling on ignoring the man altogether.
Mitch nodded at Vic. “We may have some work coming up for you soon. I’ll let you know.”
“Great.”
With one more glare at MacRyrie, the two cats sat down in their seats.
“What was that about?” Vic asked the grizzly.
“Nothing really.” MacRyrie grinned. “I’m just marrying their sister.”
The main lights were turned off and AC/DC’s “Back in Black” was cranked up. Colored strobe lights moved across the track, and a female announcer who sounded like she needed to lay off the cigarettes said:
“Ladies and gentlemen, cats and dogs, foxes and bears. It’s what you’ve been waiting for . . . what you’ve been needing . . . what you’ve been
craving.
Now is the time and this is the hour for you to finally get exactly what you deserve! And tonight it’s the ruling champions against the angriest bitches on the block. So welcome, one and all . . . to Buroughs Brawlers Banked Track Derby!
“Let’s give a big hand to our first team, the toughest bitches on the East Coast . . . the Jamaica Me Howlers!”
The first team came out on the track, fists pumping, screaming at the crowd, working to get everyone psyched up for the bout. When each team member was introduced, depending on the breed or species, different parts of the auditorium erupted in applause and cheers.
Yet even with those cute, tight outfits on the players, Vic could already tell he was losing interest. He finally pulled out his cell phone and opened up a book on Stalin that his father had told him he might find interesting. “Although,” his father had added, “nothing about that fistfight he had with your grandfather over woman.”
While Vic read, he stopped listening to the announcements and the music that was playing and the teams. What could he say? He really was not a sports fan. Not even when it involved hot girls. But then suddenly Vic heard booing and hissing. It came out of nowhere and seemed strange since he hadn’t heard any of that before. And when he looked up, he saw that Livy was moving across the track.
“And it’s the woman you love to hate, the bitch you know to fear . . . it’s The Bringer of the
Pain
!”
That was when the booing got even worse.
Horrified, Vic watched Livy, wondering if this was why she didn’t play all the games. Because everyone was so mean to her.
The Bringer of the Pain, aka Livy, stopped on the track, looked out over the booing, hissing,
screaming
crowd, and raised both her arms to about chest height, middle fingers extended from each fist. She stuck her tongue out and made some gestures with it that he was not entirely comfortable with her using outside the bedroom, and then turned on her skates and basically told them all to kiss her ass.
But he knew Livy well enough now to know that she wasn’t upset. No. She was enjoying herself. She liked being the bad guy of the derby world. The one everyone hated. And without the usual confinements of a relatively polite society, she was able to express her own feelings right back.
Of course, Vic figured out within the first ten minutes of the game why Livy was hated and why she had earned her particular derby name.
Because Olivia Kowalski brought the pain to
everyone
.
The whistle blew and Livy unwrapped herself from the She-lion’s head and landed on the track. She shook the blood off her hands.
Livy glanced up in time to see the She-lion bring her head down. The woman’s forehead smashed into Livy’s face, and blood began to pour from her nose and mouth. The She-lion skated backward, a middle finger raised. If this had happened during the jam, Livy wouldn’t have had a problem. As far as she was concerned, anything that happened during the jam was just what happened. But this was done after the whistle, and that pissed Livy off.
She shot after the cat, ready to tear her apart; Livy’s claws unleashed, her fangs out.
The two teams charged out onto the track, Livy’s team blocking her from reaching the cat, Blayne and Gwen wrapping their arms around her and desperately holding Livy back. The other team simply stood in front of their teammate, ready to protect her from the honey badger that most teams in the league referred to as “that bitch.”
The refs, a husband and wife bear team, ordered the track cleared, and a sixty-second break was taken.
Livy was pushed back to the team’s infield and forced onto the bench.
Blayne crouched in front of her. “You need to calm down,” Blayne slowly explained as if she were talking to a child. “Vic is in the audience.”
Livy blinked and wiped blood from her nose. “So?”
“You don’t want him to see you doing something that will completely freak him out. When I saw Bo for the first time, I was
positive
the man was a serial killer. It took quite a while to figure out he wasn’t. He’s just a tough player. Like you. But men are less patient than women. He may not hang around to find out the true you. Is that what you want?”
That was when Livy pushed Blayne to the ground. Not too hard, but hard enough to get her point across.
“What was that for?” Blayne demanded.
“Your face was irritating me.”
“Okay.” Gwen motioned the wolfdog away. “Enough.”
“I was just trying to help!” Blayne snarled before skating off.
Gwen sat down next to Livy and handed her a wet cloth. “Clean your face,” she ordered.
“You all right?” Gwen asked when Livy was done.
Livy readjusted her nose until she felt certain all the broken pieces were close enough so that when her nose healed it wouldn’t look hideous, then replied, “Yes.”
“Good. Now let this go.”
“It was
after
the whistle—”
“Let it
go
. Understand?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” Gwen stood. “You rest, we’ll bring you in for the jam when we’re ready.”
Livy nodded, spit blood to clear out her mouth, and waited.
“I don’t understand why they don’t use her more,” Novikov said about Livy. “They keep holding her back, only using her for some bouts . . . I don’t get it.”
Halfway through a foot-long hot dog, MacRyrie noted, “We had a honey badger on the hockey team a few years back.”
“Yeah?”
“He’s doing fifteen to life in Sing Sing after an unfortunate post-game situation that took place in front of full-humans.”
“Yeah, but was he good at hockey?”
MacRyrie glanced at Vic before replying to Novikov, “Not as good as you’d think.”
“See, but Livy’s good,” Novikov went on, oblivious. “I wish she could ice-skate.” He leaned forward so that he could see Vic. “Does she ice-skate?”
“How should I know?”
“How can you not know? Blayne says you’re hot for her.”
MacRyrie rolled his eyes. “I think you were supposed to keep that to yourself, brain trust.”
“Did Blayne say that?” Vic asked.
“Yes, but I stopped listening as soon as I realized it was about someone else’s love life. Someone I don’t even really like.” Novikov looked at Vic. “Not Livy. She’s cool. It’s you I don’t really like. Don’t know why, though. But you do irritate me.”
“Shut up.”
“Did you,” MacRyrie cut in, “stop listening to the conversation because you were busy trying to figure out how to get Livy on our team?”
“Someone has to worry about the welfare of this goddamn team. You and that overrated cook certainly don’t.”
“Overrated cook? Do you mean your boss?”
“Whoever. I’m the only one doing the work.”
While the two males bickered, Vic turned to Shen. “How do they know about me and Livy?”
“Everybody knows about you and Livy. Even the twelve-year-old knows. He said something about creating a sculpture of you two that glorifies the wonders of love as well as a paper on the damaging psychological effects of romance on the creative psyche.” Shen ate some popcorn, a needed change from his bamboo, before adding, “That kid’s weird. He freaks me out. He is cute, though.”
Vic, tired of all the idiots, looked back at the track. Livy was skating out for the next jam. So was the She-lion who had struck her.
“This won’t end well,” Shen muttered.
Vic had to agree. Especially when the lioness looked back and grinned at Livy. The honey badger’s lack of response worried him more than if she’d lunged at the woman.
The whistle blew and the pack took off, Gwen and a jammer from the opposing team waiting to start their part of the game play.
As the two teams jostled for position, Livy moved through the players until she was able to cut in front of the She-lion. Livy didn’t ram into her as Vic expected, but she did drag her leg a bit so that the lioness tripped and fell to the ground. The two teams passed by, but Livy skated back and grabbed her opponent by her foot. Then, with strength Vic had been unaware she had, Livy yanked the woman up and spun. Once, twice . . . like the male partner in an ice-dancing team. On the third spin, he noticed that Livy had moved closer to one of the foundation pillars that helped keep the entire Sports Center upright.
And that was probably why Livy used it, angling the She-lion so that the woman’s knee cracked against the hard and unforgiving concrete.
The triumphant roar Livy let out when the knee made direct and brutal contact with the pillar managed to silence the entire stadium.
Silence until Bo Novikov stood and applauded. “Now that’s what I’m talking about!”
Livy looked up at their section and performed a very princess-like curtsy.
The fact that the She-lion was just a few feet from her, sobbing in pain, was a tad . . . off-putting, though.
The ref skated toward Livy, but she raised a forefinger, waved it. “No need,” she said to him. “I’m leaving.”
“Oh, come on!” Novikov yelled at the ref. “That was a totally righteous move! You’re an idiot!”
MacRyrie sighed. “Now he’s arguing with the refs of sports completely unrelated to hockey.”