Badger to the Bone

by Shelly Laurenston

  Zé looked down at the notebook and pen and then at Tock.

  “Now,” she pushed. At least this time she didn’t tap her watch. To everyone else, she said, “I’ll get his background. Maybe he has a local shifter relative who can help him.”

  Tock stood up, took the pad and pen from Zé’s grasp as soon as he’d finished writing out his information, grabbed Mads by her T-shirt, and yanked her out of her chair. “You’ll come with me.”

  “I don’t want to come with you.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “The Katzenhaus Library is only open to cats,” Streep reminded her. “They’re not going to let you in.”

  “So you’ll come with us. You can get us in.”

  “I’m not a cat either!”

  “I’m sure you can charm our way in.”

  “I’d rather stay—eep!”

  With one hand around her neck, Tock lifted Streep up and out of her chair so she stood in front of them.

  “We’ll meet the rest of you at practice,” Tock informed them.

  “At the Sports Center?” Max asked, sounding surprisingly eager.

  “Are you high?” Tock demanded. “Every playoff team is practicing there. Coach is meeting us at the old center on Staten Island. If you’re going to get to practice on time, you’ll need to be on the ferry by—”

  Now Mads grabbed Tock and pushed her toward the door. Because they all knew that if Tock got too deep into obsessing about travel times, they’d be sitting where they were for another hour. At least.

  “Love you guys!” Nelle called after them. “Aren’t they the best?” she asked Zé.

  “Are they?”

  “So what are we going to do?” Max asked, although she was already thinking about getting in some nap time before practice. She loved a good afternoon nap.

  “I can get a new phone and call my team to let them know I’m alive.”

  Max and Nelle just stared at him. They’d already told him once that was not a good idea. At least not at the moment. But they weren’t in the mood to say it again. Instead, they got their point across with staring. Then Nelle suggested, “Let’s get him some clothes.” She leaned in and whispered, “It’s strange . . . he smells like Dutch. But he’s not Dutch and it’s starting to weird me out. Aren’t you weirded out?”

  “No.”

  “Well, whatever. Let’s get him new clothes.” She smiled at Zé. “Won’t that be fun?”

  Zé shook his head. “I don’t have any money.”

  “Oh. No big. I have tons of money.” She stood, slinging her thirty-grand bag over her shoulder. “Come on, you two! Let’s get this big kitty-cat some clothes . . . and a scratching post!” She held up her phone. “I’ll call us a car.”

  She headed outside and Max leaned back in her chair, smiling at Zé’s surly expression.

  “It could be worse,” she told him. “You could be dead.”

  “Do you mean dead when we were back in the Netherlands, or when your psychotic friends were debating whether to kill me?”

  “Tomato, tomaht—”

  “No,” Zé quickly cut in, a look of disgust on his face. “Dude . . . just no.”

  * * *

  Dez MacDermot, current head of the shifter division of the NYPD, gazed at the young lion male talking to her. The kid had been talking for about twenty minutes but he’d lost her interest ten minutes in.

  According to her husband, Mace, fifteen minutes of “miscellaneous conversation” was about all she could handle. “Then you get real bitchy,” he’d say, grinning.

  What annoyed her about this kid, though, was his condescension. He tried to pretend that he respected her but she knew better. She was used to that, though. Since she’d been part of this particular division of the NYPD she was accustomed to being dismissed by shifters. Because she was full-human. Her husband and child might be lions, but she was just a nice girl from Brooklyn . . . who happened to have a shifter as a mate.

  Over time, the cops she worked with, and those who eventually worked for her, grew to respect Dez. Or, at the very least, tolerate her. Her onetime partner and still very close friend, Lou Crushek, explained it to her one day: “You’re a crazy human. You terrify them. Because there’s nothing more terrifying than a crazy human.”

  Fair enough. And hell, if it worked, Dez wasn’t going to complain.

  But listening to this kid ramble was getting on her nerves. She finally decided to cut it short. She had the feeling he would keep going forever if she let him.

  When he took a breath, she looked over at the woman who’d accompanied the kid and his two oddly sized friends. Imani Ako.

  Before they’d worked together on a few joint NYPD-Katzenhaus cases, Dez had met Imani at some all-lion event a few years back. Imani had introduced herself by explaining that her Pride had wanted Dez’s husband as one of their males but the Pride he’d been born into had put a sizable amount on the mating contract. A contract Mace had not been part of or even aware of. He’d been too busy fighting for their country as a Navy SEAL. Even if he had been in town at the time, Mace was not a fan of binding sex contracts with women he didn’t know. Especially when that deal was whipped up by his older sister.

  “Imani, I—” Dez began, but the kid cut her off.

  “Imani is just here to observe,” he said, stepping in front of Dez so her view of Imani was also cut off. As if that would miraculously stop her from knowing that Imani was in the room with them.

  “Oh . . . Observe. Okay. And you want me to . . . ?”

  “Observe as well. Oh, and we’d like you to provide a couple of entry teams and three units for what should be simple arrests. Oh, and one of your conference rooms here,” he said, gesturing to the rooms that he could see through the glass windows of Dez’s office.

  Entry teams? Why would they need entry teams? Those were the SWAT teams that crashed in doors during drug raids or dealt with mass shooters. Her department had its own SWAT units, made up of the biggest shifter breeds: grizzlies, Siberian tigers, and lion males. All of them former military. And such teams were necessary for the kind of gangsters they took on. Because nothing in the world was more terrifying than a grizzly drug lord with a meth addiction.

  She just didn’t think her entry teams were necessary for the kid’s project.

  Wanting a minute to consider his request but knowing the kid wouldn’t stop pushing for an immediate response, Dez used the same technique she employed when she was trying to stop her Rottweilers from attacking neighborhood dogs on a walk: distraction. For her dogs, she just needed treats and a ball. But for these arrogant pricks . . . ?

  Dez looked at one of the lion’s friends. “So you’re a maned wolf, huh? I never heard of those,” she lied. “What’s the name of your Pack?”

  He rolled his eyes and she guessed that he’d had this conversation before. But he still didn’t have to sound so bitchy when he said, “I’m not a wolf.”

  “Then why are you called that?”

  “Maned wolf is its own species.” It was a statement but he said it like it was a question, with the last word going up a notch. As if he was questioning her intelligence, which just annoyed Dez even more.

  “But that doesn’t make sense because you have wolf in your name. Are you, like, half wolf and half lion because of the mane?”

  “No.”

  “Are you a werewolf?”

  There was a moment while all three men gawked at her until the maned wolf arrogantly informed her, “There’s no such thing as werewolves.”

  “I’m not sure why the tone? I was told there were no such things as shifters, too—and yet here we are.”

  Imani cleared her throat behind the lion but Dez kept her gaze right on the maned wolf. Even if the women weren’t particularly close, Dez knew that if just one look passed between them, the hysterical laughing would begin.

  “Miss MacDermot—”

  “Captain,” she corrected the lion. “Captain MacDermot.”

  “Gur
l, did you get a promotion?” Imani happily asked, leaning over so they could see each other.

  “I did! I am now Captain Desiree MacDermot of the division that no one knows exists.”

  “Good for you!”

  “Ladies!”

  Dez looked up at the lion, one eyebrow raised. And she was sure Imani had the same expression.

  “Can I continue?” he asked.

  Dez tapped her fingers against her desk. That was because what she wanted to do was pull her gun and shoot the kid in the leg. Just to hurt him. But she knew that wouldn’t work out well for her. He was representing the Group. Wait. Was he?

  Imani, from what Dez remembered, always made it clear she would never willingly work for the Group. She had a thing against hybrids and she wasn’t a fan of the Van Holtz wolves that ran the organization. And she didn’t seem like the kind of woman who would change her mind about anything.

  “Who do you work for?” Dez asked and she immediately felt the tension in the room go up ten clicks. But the lion male simply rolled with it.

  “We work for a new organization. A sort of offshoot of BPC, Katzenhaus, and the Group. Our work is . . . very specific, though.”

  “Does your group have a name?”

  “I’m sure we do. But you don’t need to worry about that. At least not at the moment. I just need you to provide what I’ve requested. I’ve been told you’re the one woman who can make things happen.”

  Oh, Christ, this guy.

  “I can,” Dez replied. “But what about the no-knock warrants you’ll need? Those I can’t get you. I can, however, call our D.A. She’s a coyote. Among the full-humans her nickname is ‘Rabid She-Demon.’”

  His smile was blatantly insincere. “No need to call the rabid she-demon. We’ll take care of any necessary paperwork.”

  “You’ll take care of the warrants?”

  “Uh-huh. Any other questions?”

  “Well—”

  “Great! So we’re good?”

  Dez glanced over at Imani. Was she really okay with this? But, again, she got back that tiny, imperceptible nod from Imani. She clearly wanted this to move forward, which confused Dez even more. Before Imani’s retirement, Dez had worked several cases with her and Imani was almost Marine-like in the way she ran her operations. As a former dog handler in the Marine Corps herself, Dez had quickly grown to trust Imani’s judgments and decisions. But she didn’t trust these . . . males. Not yet anyway.

  However . . . Imani was here and Dez still trusted her.

  So, with a resigned sigh, she said, “Okay. Just give me dates and times and I’ll make sure the teams are ready to go.”

  The lion smiled but this time it wasn’t forced. As far as he was concerned, he’d gotten his way.

  chapter NINE

  “I thought we were here to get me clothes,” Zé complained when Nelle strutted by in her fifth ball gown.

  “I know,” Max sighed. “But I forgot how she likes to shop for herself first.”

  “I’m not going to want anything from here. I’m not really a designer kind of guy.”

  “And I’m not a designer kind of girl. So I get it.”

  Nelle spun in front of them. “Thoughts? Concerns? Opinions?”

  “No,” they both said at the same time.

  She rolled her eyes. “I don’t know why I bother.”

  “Neither do we,” Max informed her friend. “Can we just get him clothes? Please.”

  “Fine.” Nelle motioned to a sales person. “I’ll take this. And we need clothes for this gentleman.”

  “I’m not wearing clothes from here.”

  “Why not?”

  “One reason: I’m not European. And I feel like you have to be European to shop here.”

  “He has a point,” Max muttered.

  “And two . . .” He pointed at the gown Nelle wore. “I’m not shopping any place that charges thirteen thousand dollars for a fucking dress.”

  Max’s head snapped around. “How much?”

  “Didn’t you hear the sales guy? He said thirteen thousand. I heard him. God heard him.”

  Now she looked at her friend. “Nelle!”

  “Oh, for the love of Ming the Merciless. Can we get over the drama about a few dollars?”

  Nelle lifted her skirt with one hand and spun away to go change into her street clothes.

  “Ming the Merciless?” Zé asked.

  “It’s from Flash Gordon.”

  “I know where it’s from. How does she?”

  Max shrugged. “She’s a sci-fi fan. Even bad sci-fi.”

  “There is absolutely nothing wrong with Flash Gordon.” Slowly she turned her head so that she could gawk at him. “Tell me you’re joking.”

  “Okay,” Nelle said, standing in front of them, her street clothes back on. “Let’s go. I’ve already called Ándre and he’s waiting for us.”

  Before Zé could tell her “no” as calmly but as adamantly as possible, Max said, “We are not taking him to any store where a guy named Andre will get him clothes.”

  “Why not? What’s wrong with the name Andre?”

  “Let me ask you this first: Is there an accent on the E in Andre’s name?”

  “No.” She cleared her throat. “It’s over the A.”

  “Is he a DJ?” Max wanted to know. “Because that’s the only excuse I’ll accept.”

  Zé laughed at that, ignoring the glare he received from Nelle.

  “No. He’s not.”

  “Then no, Nelle. No. We’re not going to any store where a guy named Ándre will get him clothes.” Max stood. “Come on, cat. Let’s go someplace neither of us will feel uncomfortable buying clothes.”

  * * *

  Livy Kowalski didn’t know how this had become her life: taking pictures of people’s weddings to make her living. It was true, art was not always something that paid off during the artist’s lifetime. She could think of plenty of artists and writers whose work hadn’t made a mark until long after their death.

  Yet did any of them actually have to work a Leibowitz wedding? Putting up with a bunch of insane wild dogs that—and she was quoting here—“loved love”?

  Even worse? The bride. She was lovely. Just the nicest person Livy had ever met or worked with. Livy preferred her brides difficult, rude, and out of control, so that she could really wallow in the misery of her work. What she didn’t need was a shining bride informing her that “Despite your outright bitchiness, you are awesome!”

  Livy studied the pictures she’d done for the Leibowitz wedding and knew they were so good, she was just going to get more work from brides willing to pay anything to have her as their personal photographer.

  How had her life become so pathetic?

  “Hello, niece.”

  Livy didn’t bother to look away from her work. She’d learned long ago, living with her parents, not to be easily startled. “Auntie. What do you want?”

  “You can’t even pretend to be respectful?”

  “No.”

  That elicited a chuckle so Livy kept her focus on her work, knowing this was some honey badger shit she didn’t want to deal with. Being the “black sheep” of the Yang clan wasn’t easy but Livy managed to find a way.

  “Have you seen your cousin?” her aunt asked, moving around Livy’s office in the Sports Center. For quite a few years now, Livy had been the official photographer of most of the pro shifter sports teams. The job paid her amazingly well and she often used the athletes as models for her artwork, but it still felt like another distraction from her true work. Her art.

  Of course, her best friend, Toni, would call her an idiot for all this “whining” and tell Livy to “get over yourself!” And she’d probably be right.

  “Which cousin?” Livy asked. “I do have about ten thousand of them.”

  “That’s a bit of an overestimate.”

  “Considering how many people may be genetically connected to Genghis Khan . . . I doubt it.”

  “I’m talking a
bout Max.”

  Livy’s hand froze over her keyboard and she finally turned her chair toward her aunt.

  “MacKilligan?” she asked for clarification.

  “Yes.”

  “I thought the Yangs didn’t consider Max MacKilligan family.”

  “We don’t. But her mother still is.”

  “How magnanimous of you.”

  “Cut the sarcasm. You should talk to her.”

  “Max? We’re not exactly friends. She’s actively attempted to kill me several times.”

  “Oh, who hasn’t?”

  “Thanks,” Livy said, returning her focus to her computer screen. “And talk to her about what?”

  “Her mother’s back.”

  “Back from where?” Livy’s hand froze again. “You don’t mean she’s back from—”

  “Prison? Yes. That’s exactly what I mean. And to add to the fun . . . she wasn’t exactly allowed to go. If you get my meaning. She just went.”

  “How the fuck—?”

  “It doesn’t matter how she got out.”

  “Doesn’t it?”

  “What matters is that when she’s caught, it’s not here.”

  “I’m not sure how that involves me.”

  “You know she’s always been close to our European cousins.”

  “So?”

  “Worked on a lot of jobs with them. And the great aunts would prefer if she returned to Europe.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Which she may not want to do if her daughter does not go with her.”

  “Wait a minute.” Now her aunt had Livy’s full attention. “You want me to tell a woman I barely speak to—because we hate each other—that she should leave the family she has here and go off with a mother she hasn’t seen in about two decades? Am I understanding this correctly?”

  “You are! That’s exactly what we want you to do.”

  “And why should I do this for . . . I don’t know . . . anyone?”

  “Well . . .” Her aunt came closer to her desk and rested her hands on the shiny mahogany. “We’d understand if you don’t want to do it. But we’d feel awful that we had to ask you in the first place. So we’d come here . . . every day . . . to see you. You know, to apologize for trying to involve you. That would, of course, include all the aunts, the uncles, the cousins. All of us. Doing our best to make amends. That would, sadly, mean we’d also be spending time around all the sensitive cats and dogs you have around here. Oh! And let’s not forget the bears! How we do love the bears. And how they do love us. All that sounds like fun, doesn’t it?”