Breaking Badger

by Shelly Laurenston

  Free, Yun reared back her paw and unleashed a devastating blow to Charlie’s head that spun her several feet away. She fell to her knees, her hands covering her face.

  Finn and his brothers jerked forward, about to jump in once again, when Mads barked out a sharp, “No!”

  They all stopped. Even Keane, which was surprising. He usually only stopped so quickly for their mother or Nat. But maybe it was something in the way Mads had warned them off. In her tone. In the way her entire body was rigid and her claws started easing out of her fingertips.

  Charlie remained on her knees, her hands still covering her face. Only now blood poured from between her fingers and she seemed afraid to move her hands. Probably afraid that most of her face would go with it.

  A blow like the one she’d received from Yun should have crushed her skull. It should have killed her. But Charlie just remained kneeling, cradling her destroyed face.

  With Charlie’s back to Yun, she didn’t see the tiger lowering her head, opening her maw, and charging right toward her.

  The room remained silent as they all watched. Not even Charlie’s sister called out a warning. And Yun made no sound as she launched herself from about twenty feet away toward Charlie’s back. Ears flat against her head. Forelegs spread wide. Lips pulled back over white fangs. Jaws opened wide so she could wrap her fangs around the back of Charlie’s neck and crush it on first—

  Yun was a hairbreadth away when Charlie spun around to face her, going up on one knee for balance before slamming her fist into the She-tiger’s open mouth. With her free hand, she grabbed the back of Yun’s head, pulling her forward, closer and closer, which meant that she was sticking more and more of her arm inside the tiger’s mouth and down her throat.

  Coughing and struggling, Yun tried to unwedge the hybrid’s arm. When that didn’t work, she tried biting down on it. That brought some blood and some light damage to Charlie’s tough badger skin, but the bones . . . the bones didn’t break. They didn’t bend. They weren’t crushed under the strength of desperate tiger jaws. Something Finn had never seen or experienced before. He’d taken down water buffalo that crushed easier than Charlie MacKilligan.

  And the entire time that Charlie had her arm down Yun’s throat and her hand gripped the back of the She-tiger’s head, she stared Victoria Yun directly in the eyes. And she smirked. Just like Vicky Yun had smirked.

  Then something happened. Something that had Yun’s eyes growing impossibly wide and Charlie’s smirk intensifying.

  Yun began to fight harder. Her front and back claws slashed at Charlie as Yun struggled to get away from the hybrid with everything she had. But nothing, it seemed, could stop Charlie. Nothing.

  Something cracked and Yun’s entire body buckled. She fought a little more but it wasn’t like before. There was no real determination behind it. Instead, it simply seemed like instinct. The last struggle. Death throes. Something else cracked and air rushed out of Yun seconds before her entire body deflated to the ground.

  Charlie still had her arm stuck between Yun’s jaws. She tugged once. Then again. With the third, she dragged her arm out and with it, Yun’s heart and lungs.

  “Holy shit,” Shay whispered. He might have said it, but they were all thinking it. Even the badgers in the room. Even Mads, who moved closer to Finn, pressing her arm against his. He understood why, too. They all needed to feel grounded in reality. Because this didn’t feel real. A hybrid wolf–honey badger shouldn’t be able to do . . . that. It wasn’t a simple matter of not being normal. It was insane.

  He knew just how insane when, in the deafening silence of that room, Max MacKilligan burst out laughing. She was no less shocked than the rest of them, but while they all stood around dazed and disturbed and, quite honestly, freaked the fuck out, Max MacKilligan laughed. Hysterically. Barely able to get out her “Damn, Charlie!” before she started laughing again.

  See? That was insane. The MacKilligans were insane.

  * * *

  Mads pressed her arm against Finn’s. She knew she shouldn’t. They weren’t that kind of friends. Or even friendly. But she felt a little dizzy. A little off-center. How could she not with Charlie standing there, holding the major organs of a tiger in her hand?

  There was so much blood. Not just from the cat and its torn-out organs. But from Charlie. Where the cat had struck her with its paw . . . well, that should have crushed her face in. As a honey badger, she probably would have survived anyway, but it would have taken a good week or two for those facial bones to knit themselves back together again. They should have had to carry her out. Instead, Charlie’s face wasn’t crushed. The skin was torn a bit on the lower jaw. Her nose appeared broken. That wasn’t the first time, though . . . and it wouldn’t be the last. And she had claw marks across her forehead through part of her scalp. Strangely, they reminded Mads of a stone skipped across a lake. But she’d seen how Yun had hit Charlie. That was one full, powerful strike. She hadn’t held back. Yet Charlie was barely injured. That was fucking weird!

  Charlie held up the cat’s insides.

  “It’s like some kind of new blood eagle,” she whispered to Finn.

  “Should I ask what that is?” he whispered back.

  “No, you shouldn’t.” If he didn’t already know about the ancient ways Vikings tortured and executed their enemies, it was best he continued not to know.

  “If you come after my family,” Charlie told the cats gawking at her, “this is what happens to you. All of you. I don’t stop. I don’t ever stop.”

  With that, Charlie tossed the cat’s remains across the ground, shaking the blood and gore off her hand.

  One of the male tigers looked around the room and, apparently shocked no one was doing anything to this one crazy woman, took a step forward. He had his gun out, maybe with armor-piercing rounds in the clip. And Charlie was still trying to get the blood off her hands. Maybe he thought he had a shot. He forgot something, though. He forgot Max.

  She climbed his back and slammed two blades into his neck before he could even get his finger on the trigger of his gun. She opened up the cat’s arteries and scrambled over his head, burying the blades into his chest.

  Mads didn’t know why Max was stabbing him in the chest. She’d opened up the arteries in his neck while he was human. He would be dead before he hit the ground. But there Max was . . . stabbing away.

  Charlie walked past the pair, the roomful of tigers separating so she and the badgers could leave without any problem. Max was still going, though. Kind of lost in the moment until Charlie yelled, “Max!”

  Max yanked her blades out of her prey’s chest and jumped down from the cat, allowing him to fall dead to the floor.

  “Coming!” Max cheerfully called out to her sister before following her.

  “Is she . . . is she skipping?” Finn asked Mads about Max.

  Mads blew out a breath. “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “You know, it’s best you don’t ask those questions. You will never like the answers.”

  chapter ELEVEN

  Finn woke up when he smelled the muffins. They were blueberry and he really wanted one. Or maybe six. Or a dozen. He wasn’t finicky. He just knew he was hungry. It had been hours since he’d eaten. Hours!

  They’d left Chinatown the night before, driven to the badger house in Queens, and that was kind of the last thing he remembered. They were all exhausted by the time they got to the house . . . except the two MacKilligan sisters. He recalled both of them being awake enough to still be bickering as he’d stepped out of Keane’s battered SUV. How long that had gone on after he’d fallen asleep, he had no idea.

  Lifting his head off the back of the couch, Finn realized it wasn’t just the smell of muffins that had jogged him awake. It was the sound of crunching. He forced his eyes open despite the bright sunlight in the badger living room and looked around. It looked like people had pretty much dropped wherever they could find a space. Nelle was elegantly curled up on a stuffed chair tu
cked into the corner opposite the giant sofa he was on. Streep was asleep on the floor, tightly packed into the space between the wall and the chair that Nelle was asleep in. The badger seemed surprisingly comfortable in such a tiny space.

  Tock was also asleep on the floor but, unlike her friends, had her back against the wall so she faced the entrance; she had an automatic weapon across her lap, her finger on the trigger. When Finn’s eyes passed over her, she woke up long enough to look at him, judge him nonthreatening, and go back to sleep.

  Keane was on the far end of the same couch that Finn was on, his long legs stretched out in front of him, his arms crossed over his chest, his hair covering his face. Shay was next to him in pretty much the same pose except for the loud snoring. It was like sleeping next to a moose. Finn turned his head and found the source of the crunching.

  It was Mads. She sat with her back against the armrest of the couch, her bare feet tucked under his thigh as she silently stared at him and chewed something decidedly crunchy now that her broken jaw had healed. He thought maybe cereal or nuts until she opened the wooden box she held in her hand and pulled out a very black, very terrifying-looking scorpion, then put the struggling thing in her mouth. It was a good-sized arachnid, so it didn’t go all the way in, the stinger remaining outside her lips. Finn watched in horror as that part jabbed her over and over, most likely injecting her with its venom several times while she chewed and stared . . . at him.

  They sat like that for a good—he didn’t know—maybe five minutes? Then, unable to help himself, Finn started laughing. Not loudly. He didn’t want to wake anybody up. He also didn’t want anyone else joining them in this moment. This was their time to be really fucking weird.

  Because this was weird, right? Even by shifter standards . . . this was fucking weird.

  “What are you doing?” he finally whispered to her.

  “Snacking.” She held out the wooden box to him. “Want one?”

  “No. I prefer my struggling meals to kick me in the head with their hooves.”

  “There are some scorpions that have poison that can—and will—kick you in the head metaphorically. This, however, is not one of them. It’s just an Asian Forest Scorpion. Its venom is very mild. Sure you don’t want to try it?”

  “Positive.” Finn thought a moment. “But give me one.”

  Mads frowned, then shrugged. She handed over the scorpion and Finn slightly turned so he could carefully place the bug right between Shay’s eyes.

  Finn tapped his brother’s arm and Shay woke up, his eyes crossing to get a better look at what was on his face. Finn had to hand it to his brother. He didn’t jump up. He didn’t run. He stayed calmly situated on the couch while screaming, “Get it off me! Get it off me! Get it off me!”

  Chuckling, Mads tried to reach over Finn to get to Shay but Finn blocked her with his arms so his dog-loving brother suffered a little longer.

  Keane woke up, and as soon as he saw what was on their brother’s face, he shot off the couch, barking, “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”

  By now the other badgers in the room were awake. Nelle and Streep were in hysterical giggles, but Tock simply got to her feet, swung the strap of the automatic weapon she held over her shoulder, and walked across the coffee table so she stood in front of Shay. She easily lifted the scorpion off the panicked cat’s nose as Shay swiped at his face a thousand times with both hands. The pair stared at each other for several seconds until Tock simply leaned her head back, opened her mouth wide, and lowered the struggling scorpion in.

  As she chewed, Shay finally jumped up and ran out of the room, screaming he needed a washcloth.

  “He’s going to scrub the skin right off his bones, isn’t he?” Mads asked Finn.

  “He’s going to try.”

  * * *

  Finn pointed at the wooden box Mads held. “Do they have a lot of boxes like that around the house?”

  “Not really. Stevie is easily—”

  “Squirrel!”

  Outside in the yard, Max’s baby sister ran past the living room windows, hands wildly waving over her head.

  “—startled,” Mads finished. “She’s also scared of snakes, racoons, spiders, rats, the occasional thunderstorm if she thinks it has anything to do with climate change, and giant wasp nests but only because she finds the look of them ‘aesthetically unappealing’” she said with air quotes.

  “What does that mean?”

  “I think it means she finds the big nests ugly and they make her skin crawl. But she doesn’t know to just say that.”

  Finn blinked. “Okay.”

  “Don’t be such a snob. I like the MacKilligan sisters,” Mads admitted to Finn. “They’re good to each other.”

  Stevie ran back the other way, arms still flailing over her head. But this time, Max ran after her until she abruptly stopped and looked down, up, toward the nearby trees, down again . . . Max finally turned away and that’s when Stevie appeared out of nowhere, launching herself at her sister’s back. Stevie wrapped her arms around her sister’s neck, but couldn’t quite manage to take her down. Still, Mads was impressed.

  “Wow. Stevie’s come a long way.”

  “Has she?”

  “Yeah. That was a full-on ambush. I knew her when she couldn’t do that at all. No ambush skills. No fighting skills. Just no skills outside of math and science and fancy music.”

  “She’s definitely got some tiger in that DNA.”

  “Seems so.”

  Finn tilted his head to the side. “She’s still not quite getting her sister on the ground, though.”

  “The fact that she could ambush Max MacKilligan at all is impressive. Let’s not ask for the moon.”

  “Muffin?”

  Charlie stood over them with a tray of giant blueberry muffins. Before Mads could take one, Finn took the entire tray and placed it in his lap. When silence followed that bold move, he looked up and asked, “What?”

  “Not big on sharing?” Tock asked.

  “I’m a tiger, so the answer to that is no.”

  “No problem,” Charlie replied. “I have more in the kitchen. But you guys better get what you want before the bears start wandering in.”

  Keane walked back into the living room holding a platter piled high with blueberry muffins.

  Charlie’s friendly smile vanished. “Or apparently now, cats.”

  “You let bears just come into your house?” Keane asked.

  “We tried to lock them out,” Charlie explained, “but they just took the door down and came right on in. But they did it so nicely, I couldn’t even be angry . . . Did you actually take the rest of the muffins?”

  “I’m hungry.”

  “Are you going to share with the rest of us?” Tock asked.

  Keane sat down on the far end of the couch, placed the platter on his lap, and finally replied, “No.”

  Nelle walked barefoot across the room, reached across the coffee table, and snatched a muffin off Keane’s platter. The tiger immediately roared in warning and Nelle hissed, bared her fangs, and lunged at him. The move so surprised Keane, he reared back, eyes wide, allowing Nelle to take three more muffins that she tossed to Tock, Streep, and Mads before flashing Keane a smile and taking a big bite out of her own muffin with her fangs still unleashed.

  Charlie let out a long sigh. “I guess I have to make more muffins now, before the bears tear the house down.”

  “And why is that necessary?” Finn asked.

  “Bears,” all the badgers replied.

  “How do you think the MacKilligans get to live here?” Tock asked.

  “Because it’s America . . . ? Right?”

  “What does that matter when there are bears? Hungry, growling bears?”

  “A lot of them females with cubs,” Streep added. “Even badgers avoid that fight.”

  “It’s just easier to bake them treats and hope for the best.”

  “Is that why you’re baking something already?” Keane asked, nose lifted.

/>   “That cake’s for Mads. So she can finalize the papers and buy her house.”

  Mads had completely forgotten about the house. But she was also confused. “Was cake part of the deal? I don’t remember that.” Last night felt as if it had been years ago.

  “No. But it’s always best to show up to a bear deal with baked goods in hand. I’ll go get the cake.”

  “Do you know how to bake?” Finn asked Mads.

  “I can’t cook or bake. And I’m not exactly eager to learn.”

  “Think the bears in the neighborhood will let you stay?”

  She knew Finn was only joking, but Mads realized . . . “I hadn’t really thought about it.”

  Charlie returned with a cardboard box that made whatever delicious-smelling thing she had in there look like it came directly from the local bakery. She also had a small container of white cream on top and placed both on the coffee table near Mads.

  “It’s crumb cake. Tell them when the cake cools, they can drizzle the icing on.” For a moment, Charlie’s gaze bounced back and forth between Mads and Finn until she finally said, “Go with her, Finn.”

  “Why?” the pair asked together.

  “She’s carrying a lot of cash. And a valuable painting. Anything could happen between here and there. Do you want to be responsible for her getting mugged on the cold, heartless streets of Queens?”

  “How would I be responsible for that?”

  “Because I said so.” Charlie gave a smile that was more terrifying than friendly before pointing toward the front door. “Now don’t be too long, you two. We still have to discuss—”

  There was banging at the living room windows and they all saw Max standing there. Her baby sister still attempting to take her down. It was a sad attempt, but Mads had to give the kid points for sticking it out.

  Max jammed her finger against the window and yelled, “Why are those cats still here?”

  “Because you’re going to be working with them,” Charlie informed her younger sister.

  “Like hell I will! I don’t owe them anything!”

  “Max—”

  “I’d rather set myself on fire!”

  “Excuse me, would you?” Charlie walked out of the room.