Badger to the Bone

by Shelly Laurenston

  So far that plan had worked just as well as hitting them with the hammer.

  Kyle rubbed his nose, then lifted his head. He sniffed the air, surprised by the strange scent filling the garage. That’s when he saw her standing in front of his work. She was in a long black skirt, a black T-shirt with some no-name band on it, and bright yellow Doc Martens boots. Her black hair was long and separated into three pony tails, one of them hanging in front of her face.

  The “lost” MacKilligan sister, as he’d started calling her when he’d discovered who she was. When Charlie had let out that scream of rage at her father, Kyle simply went into the garage and got to work. He didn’t want to get in the middle of his own family’s drama, much less someone else’s. But now he had the lost sister roaming around his workspace. Uninvited. Badgers and cats . . . they had absolutely no respect for other people’s boundaries, did they?

  Although he did have questions. For instance, would Natalie turn into a giant tiger-striped honey badger like Stevie? Or would she simply be a honey badger? Or maybe shift into a tiny tiger? Or . . . would she shift into something even more interesting than any of those options?

  Yeah, see? He had so many questions!

  * * *

  Natalie was impressed by the work she was seeing. Not only the statues that took up so much space, but the rough drawings tacked to the wall.

  She wasn’t an artist herself. She could doodle a bit, but only when her computer was doing something that required her to wait until it finished. Otherwise, she was all about computers and games. She loved games! Of course, she’d have to convince her brothers that she should go to college to get a degree in game engineering, rather than just engineering. She was already dreading that conversation. Her mother knew what she wanted but her mother left almost all decisions about her only daughter to her eldest sons. Especially Keane.

  Natalie loved Keane more than seemed possible, but he tended to drown her in concern. He was convinced she was this weak kitten he’d found dying under his house. He had no idea what Natalie and her friends got up to when he wasn’t around. What had happened with Freddy MacKilligan was nothing, really. And she’d only gone off with him so she could spend some time with the man who was her father.

  Ech! What a mistake. He was such an idiot. She could deal with almost anything, even pure evil. But pure stupidity? Who had time for that?

  About to move over to another statue, Natalie abruptly realized that someone was right next to her. She looked over the kid standing at her side. She’d seen him in the house earlier, before he’d slipped away. He smelled like dog.

  “What?” she finally asked.

  “What do you look like when you shift?”

  Natalie blinked. She had her hearing aids on and she could kind of read his lips, too. But the question was so bizarre that she immediately assumed she’d misread and misheard him.

  “What?”

  “Oh,” he said. “That’s right. You’re deaf.” That didn’t stop him from talking, though. Only he spoke a little slower and used his hands a lot more. Not to speak in ASL, but to gesture.

  “When you shift . . . are you all honey badger? Or all cat? Are you a giant”—he lifted his arms in the air—“tiger? Or a giant honey badger?” He brought his arms down and spread his hands a couple of feet apart. “Or a tiny tiger? Do you have fangs? Or are you fangless? Do you have a snaggle-fang?”

  A snaggle-fang? Oh, boy.

  “Um . . . who are you?”

  “I’m Kyle. I’m a genius. Literally . . . a genius.”

  “I’m walking away now.”

  “Can’t you answer any of my questions?”

  “I don’t want to answer any of your questions.”

  “Is it because you’re shy?”

  “No. It’s because you’re weird.”

  “I am weird. But that’s because I’m a genius.”

  “Of course it is.”

  After a much-deserved eye roll, Natalie walked away from the kid, but he caught up to her at the door. He took her hand so that she had to look up at him.

  “Do you date?” he asked.

  “Not you.”

  “Because I’m a genius?”

  She pulled her hand from his grasp. “If that makes you feel better . . . sure.”

  “Are you positive you don’t want to go out and—”

  The glass door swung open, slamming right into the kid’s face. Natalie covered her mouth with her hands, shocked when she saw blood smeared on the glass from his broken nose.

  Keane stood in the doorway. “What are you doing?”

  She just shook her head.

  Keane pointed at the glass. “Blood?”

  She pointed at the kid. He was still behind the door, two bloody hands covering his nose. But Nat knew she didn’t need to point him out; her brother could see him through the clear glass. She knew Keane had seen Kyle before he’d even opened the door! That’s why he’d opened the door. He’d seen a boy talking to his baby sister. Once again, her psychotic brother was attempting to ruin her social life!

  “Oh.” Keane nodded at Kyle. “Hey.” He jerked his thumb at Nat. “Let’s go.”

  Keane walked out and she began to follow, but she did stop long enough to shrug at the kid and mouth, Sorry.

  * * *

  He’d needed a few minutes, so she’d let him sit down next to her on the porch stairs. His name was Xavier Vargas and he was a very nice man. He also missed his grandson. That was obvious without his even saying it.

  “How long have you lived here?” he asked, continuing the small talk of the last few minutes.

  “Not long actually. Just a few weeks.”

  “Do you like it?”

  “It’s nice. I wouldn’t say the people are friendly . . .” Charlie thought long and hard about how to finish her sentence. After a good sixty seconds, she went with, “But I like that they’re easily manipulated by food.”

  Mr. Vargas nodded, but then he began to rub his forehead with his fingers.

  “This was a mistake,” he finally said after blowing out a long breath.

  “No. You guys need to talk.”

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Tell him the truth. Tell him you did what you had to in order to keep him safe. He’ll understand.”

  “You don’t know my grandson.”

  “No. Not completely. But the more comfortable he becomes with himself... the more he’ll understand. Just give him time.”

  Those words didn’t seem to help and she worried that Mr. Vargas would leave before he had a chance to see Zé. So she quickly added, “But you know what? You’ve made the first move, which I’m sure he’ll appreciate. And you’ve come to the perfect place to have this discussion. It’s a nice, quiet house with quiet neighbors and—”

  Her next words were abruptly cut off when the front security door was thrown open and Keane stalked out, dragging his baby sister behind him. Bears and cats and badgers followed.

  “There’s nothing left to talk about!” Keane barked, stepping over Mr. Vargas as if the man wasn’t even there. “I’m taking her home!”

  Stevie dashed around everyone, jumped over the porch steps—and Charlie and Mr. Vargas who were still sitting on them—and skittered to a stop in front of Keane and Natalie.

  She rammed her hands into the tiger’s chest and said, “You can’t just take her away from us.”

  “Watch me.”

  “Natalie can stay if she wants to,” Berg said. “Why don’t we ask her what she wants?”

  “Why don’t you shut up?” Keane snapped back.

  “Talk to my brother like that again . . .” Britta warned.

  “Hold it!” Max stepped into the middle of the fray, right where she liked it. “Before this gets ugly, why don’t we see if Charlie has anything to say.”

  That’s when all those heads turned toward her. Even Mr. Vargas’s. They all looked at her as if they expected her to say something that could help resolve the situa
tion. But what did they expect her to say?

  * * *

  “Well,” Charlie began, looking directly at Natalie, “let’s face it. You’re doomed. Your life is over. All your hopes and dreams are gone.”

  Oh, shit. Max hadn’t realized that her sister was in one of her “moods” as the Pack used to call it. Of course, she should have realized. The only person who ever managed to make her like this was Freddy, but still . . . Max had never thought her sister was this far gone. Into the world of despair and misery.

  Stevie tried to cut in. “Charlie, I’m sure you don’t mean—”

  “There’s nothing you can do about it,” Charlie continued, sounding sadder and sadder by the second. Even if Natalie couldn’t hear it, she could read it all over Charlie. Like a misery shroud.

  “And why?” Charlie asked. “Because you have a disability. The worst disability anyone could ever have.”

  Max quickly caught Keane’s arm before he could storm over to Charlie and slap the crap out of her. “Let her finish.”

  “You have the painful, cruel disability . . . of being the daughter of Freddy MacKilligan.”

  “There it is!” Max announced.

  “So, you might as well go back to your home,” Charlie said to Natalie. “Go back. Pretend you’re a Malone. And pray that being a MacKilligan won’t catch up to you . . . but it will. It will catch up to you. And when that day arrives, come back here. Because if there’s one thing the three of us can do, it’s help you through the nightmare of your bloodline.”

  With that, Charlie sadly looked off across the street, placed her left hand over her heart, and let out a long, pathetic sigh of despair and misery.

  See? It was always despair and misery.

  After a few seconds, though, Charlie suddenly announced, “Now I must bake.”

  She disappeared into the house, and that’s when Max finally noticed the older man who had been sitting on the stoop with her sister.

  “Mr. Vargas?” she asked.

  He gave her a faint smile and held up the paperback book she’d written her address in.

  Zé came to the top of the stairs and glared down at his grandfather. “What are you doing here?”

  Nope. Max didn’t like that at all, but she knew she couldn’t be the one to interfere. Zé knew her too well. He’d never take her seriously.

  “Stevie,” she said, motioning her sister over. “That’s Zé’s grandfather and Zé is being rude to him.”

  “He’s your grandfather?” Stevie shook her head. “Zé, don’t be rude to your grandfather! Grandfathers are the best! Well . . . not all. But most! And you should be nice. Whatever he did or didn’t do, he did for you.”

  “Stevie,” Zé said kindly but firmly, “stay out of it.”

  Stevie gasped and Max cringed.

  “Not smooth, dude,” Max warned.

  “I will not stay out of it!” Stevie told Zé. “You will be nice to your grandfather! In fact,” she added, looking around at everyone, “all of you will be nice! Do you know why? Because we’re all family now! Whether we like it or not! So here’s how this is going to roll!” She turned and pointed her finger at Natalie. “You’re our sister and we do care about you. I have no idea if we like you, we may not, but we won’t know until we get to know each other. We will get to know each other.” Her finger moved to Keane. “You will not keep your sister away from us. Do you know why? Because we’re all family! All of us. So if she wants to come see us, you’ll let her. If she wants to call, you’ll let her. But you guys are welcome here, too. Because you’re family.”

  Stevie spun again and now that finger was pointed at Zé. “Now you will take your grandfather into the house. You will invite him to dinner. The triplets will arrange for the meal. While we’re waiting for food, you two will talk. It will be a nice conversation because it will be between a grandfather and grandson who love each other!”

  Max winced because that last bit was screamed quite close to her ear.

  Stevie took in a calming breath and let it out before asking, “Have I made myself perfectly clear to everyone?”

  When no one answered, Stevie’s face turned a bright red and her hands curled into those tiny fists again.

  That’s when everyone quickly agreed that yes, she’d made herself clear.

  She relaxed and the redness left her face. “Now, if you’ll excuse me,” she said before going back into the house. Shen and the triplets followed behind her.

  Max looked over her shoulder at Natalie. They smiled at each other and Max winked. Then Keane and his brothers stepped between them.

  Turning toward the tigers, Max threw out her arms in direct challenge and asked, “What? Ya got a problem?”

  With growls and snarls, the tigers led their sister away, and Max really hoped she’d see the kid again. Then she remembered that “kid” had taken out their cousin Mairi, and she wondered if seeing her again would actually be a good idea.

  “Eh,” she said with a dismissive shrug. She wasn’t going to sit around worrying about her murderous little sister right now. She had more important things to deal with!

  “Would you gentlemen like a couple of beers?”

  “That would be nice,” Mr. Vargas said. “As long as it’s American beer.”

  “We always have Coors for my friend Dutch.”

  She carefully stepped around the full-human. When she was next to Zé, she pointed at the old man and mouthed, Talk to him! Zé rolled his eyes, so she added with a vicious frown, Be nice!

  Confident she’d gotten her point across, Max changed her frown to the smile she was much more comfortable with and went up on her toes to kiss Zé on the cheek. But before she could, he brushed his head against her cheek, her chin, her throat. She felt his purr moving across her flesh.

  When he pulled away, Max walked to the door and went into the house. Once she was inside, she bent over at the waist, put her hands on her knees, and let out a long, shuddering breath.

  There wasn’t a lot in the world that rocked Max to her toes, but those feline moves . . . ?

  Damn.

  * * *

  When Max disappeared into the house, Zé looked down at his grandfather. “Are you coming or what?”

  “Are you going to help me up?” he snapped back.

  “Why are you sitting down there anyway?”

  “Just help me up.”

  Zé held out his hands and with a simple heave, he easily brought Xavier to his feet. They stared at each other.

  They were silent for a long time until Zé said, “You should have told me.”

  Xavier nodded. “I know. But after your mother and grandmother. . . I couldn’t risk losing you, too.”

  “You couldn’t lose me. Apparently once cats find people they like, they stick with them.”

  A small smile curled Xavier’s lips. “You learn that from those badgers?”

  “I’m learning all sorts of things from those badgers.” He motioned to the house. “Let’s go inside. We’ll talk.”

  “Anything to keep that little blonde from yelling at us again,” Xavier complained as he moved to the front door. “She’s terrifying.” He stopped, looked up at Zé. “The one with the purple hair, though? Max? She seems really sweet.”

  Zé laughed so hard that Xavier had to ask, “What the hell’s so funny?”

  “Don’t worry,” Zé promised, putting his hands on his grandfather’s shoulders and gently leading him into the house. “Just like me . . . you’ll figure it out.”

  Shelly Laurenston is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Pride, Call of Crows, and the Honey Badgers series, as well as winner of the RT Book Reviews Readers’ Choice Award for her 2016 novel, The Undoing. When she’s not writing about sexy wolf, honey badger, lion, and other fang-filled predators, she’s writing about sexy dragons as G. A. Aiken, the acclaimed and bestselling author of the Dragon Kin series. Originally from Long Island, she now lives on the West Coast and spends most of her time writing an
d making sure her rescued pit bull doesn’t love everyone into a coma. Please visit her online at www.ShellyLaurenston.com.