“Game’s going pretty well, huh?”
“Sure.”
She didn’t sound sure. “What? Say it.”
“It’s just a suggestion, but maybe you could…”
“Could what?”
“Let someone else get a goal.”
“Why would I do that?”
She rubbed her forehead with both hands. “Because it’ll be very cool to do and you have absolutely nothing to lose?”
“Except my puck.”
Her hands turned into fists, and he thought she might try pummeling him, but she looked off, took a breath, and tried again. “Only a truly confident man—”
“Is willing to be a loser?”
That time she did swing, hitting his arm and chest with those tiny wolfdog fists. And his laughing—not helping.
The truth was Bo had never willingly allowed anyone to get his puck, but Blayne did have a point. He had nothing to lose. But there was a bigger issue here.
“Will it make you happy if I do this?” he asked.
“Yes,” she hissed, frustrated. “It would make me happy.”
“Then I’ll do it.”
Blayne blinked, her fists unfisting. “Just like that?”
“Yep. I like making you happy.”
Her grin—worth any going-against-his-personal-beliefs moment this would cause.
“But don’t try this during an actual game where I’m getting paid millions of dollars to win,” he added, so boundaries were clear.
She laughed, heading back to her seat. “Like I care what you do at that dog and pony show at the stadium.”
Nope. He didn’t get her at all, but man did he like her.
Blayne returned to her seat, Marci watching her close.
“What was that about?” she asked.
“Just a little conversation. Nothing to worry yourself about.”
“Seems to me like you two are getting serious.”
“Getting serious about what?”
The sow dismissed her with a hand wave. “Forget I asked.”
“I will.”
Kerry-Ann, who’d shown up once the game had started, held out a bag of popcorn for Blayne. “This is going so well, isn’t it?”
“You were supposed to give me more time,” Blayne reminded her around a mouthful of popcorn.
“I had complete faith in your skills, Blayne Thorpe.”
“Uh-huh.” Just for that Blayne took another handful of popcorn. “I have a question.”
“And what’s that, dear?”
“All the stray dogs I keep finding. Where are they coming from?”
Both Kerry-Ann and Marci shrugged.
“Don’t know,” Kerry-Ann admitted. “We find ‘em all the time. Figure they’ve been coming from one of the full-human towns. A few of the store owners wanted us to get a team together to hunt them down and…uh…” She studied Blayne a moment before finishing with, “Take them somewhere they could live forever in happy fields.”
Even if Marci hadn’t spit out her Sprite, Blayne didn’t buy that for a second.
“Contrary to popular belief, Kerry-Ann, dogs aren’t stupid. We know when we’re going to the vet.”
“Well, we didn’t do it, did we?” Kerry-Ann snapped. “It was just a suggestion anyway.”
“Uh-huh.” Blayne took more popcorn, now feeling fully entitled to the entire bag. “And what about the farmhouse?”
“What farmhouse?”
“The one near the beach. You have to get through Antarctic Minor to get to it.”
Marci chuckled. “She’s talking about the old Benson place, Kerry-Ann.”
“Gosh. No one’s lived there for years. Can’t get to it anyway from here because of the storms.”
“What are those anyway?”
“They’re the reason we don’t have any more covens running around Ursus County,” Marci murmured.
“They wanted to make the polars comfortable by making certain parts of the area cold year-round. Needless to say, that went badly.”
“Even the polars don’t feel like going through that freezing weather. It’s hell on their coats.”
“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 h
ead 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
Josh 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 hi
m 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.
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