“What are you talking about?”
Tock carried a metal box from the back of the truck. One of those safe boxes people had in the bottom of their closets for important papers when they didn’t want to deal with a big safe.
“We found this in the hoarder house.”
“You went in there?” Mads took a step back. “I can’t go anywhere with you guys until you shower.”
Finn covered her mouth with his hand because that was way rude.
Tock opened the box. “Deed for this property. It was owned by Solveig.” She reached into the box again. “Copy of Solveig’s final will, signed and witnessed blah blah blah, leaving everything to you. Including this property.”
“I don’t want this property.”
“Then sell it to my grandfather,” Max said. “The wolves will love it. They can expand the Pack and keep the hyenas off it.”
“Oooh. And make it a sanctuary for full-blood wolves,” Streep eagerly suggested.
“Anything else?” Mads asked. “Hidden treasure worth millions?”
“Dear God, you have a Basquiat!” Nelle snapped.
“Oh, what? Now you’re going to bring that up every day?”
“There is one more thing,” Tock said. She went back to the truck and returned holding a battered cardboard box with a few grease stains that might have come from pizza.
“What’s that?”
“Solveig’s ashes.”
Mads’s entire body tensed. “How . . . how do you know that? Are you sure? You can’t be sure.”
“Little kid hiding in the house pointed it out to us. I think she liked to play in there. I also think she saw where the adults hid it. So when I asked, she showed me.”
“I’m surprised they didn’t flush the ashes down the toilet.”
“What if they needed them later to use against you? Especially if you ever found out you owned the property.”
Mads stretched out her arms and Tock carefully placed the box into her hands.
“Thank you,” Mads said.
“My friends,” Streep added.
“What?”
“Thank you, my friends.”
Mads, Tock, Nelle, and Max stared at Streep until she snarled and stalked away.
“Evil bitches!” she yelled over her shoulder.
* * *
Dez and Crushek gazed at the set of legs in one corner of the room, walked out, went down the hall, and found the torso and head that went with the legs in another room. The doorways of both these rooms had been torn down by something enormous and strong. Like construction equipment. Or Godzilla.
There were more destroyed walls in the building. There were more bodies. Some had been torn apart. Some had been shot. All of them were Asian and male. They were also gangsters with very long criminal records who had worked for the Yun family.
In fact, Kang Yun was in one of these rooms. Dead. At least Dez was pretty sure it was Kang. A good chunk of his face was gone. Like someone had thrown acid at it. But she wouldn’t know for sure until the M.E. had a look.
“We’re never going to figure out what’s going on here, are we?” she finally asked Crushek.
“Nope.”
“I mean with the Yuns, the badgers, and the other . . . tigers. It’s just going to stay a mystery to us, isn’t it?”
“Probably.”
“Is it something that should keep me up nights?”
“Not really.”
“And why is that? Just so I’m clear.”
Crushek pointed at one of the dead. “That guy there. I busted him myself for human trafficking. My least favorite thing. The Yuns bailed him out and paid for a top-notch lawyer to get him off.”
Dez nodded. “Good enough for me. Hungry?”
“Always.”
EPILOGUE
When Mads said she wanted to have a “little ceremony for Solveig in Detroit,” Finn had really thought she meant a little ceremony. What was happening at this moment was not a little ceremony.
It was a massive street fair in honor of “the crazy Viking.” A title of honor Solveig had earned over the years that she’d lived and worked in her Detroit neighborhood. From what Finn had learned walking around that street fair and talking to people, Solveig was never friendly or nice, but she could be kind. Helping those who needed it without being condescending or giving speeches. She seemed to understand what people were going through and she just acted.
People on her street were going to miss “the crazy old white lady with the scary tattoos.” They’d pulled out all the stops for the street fair. A stage was built for all the bands that would attend, including music from reggae to soul, blues to jazz and rap to hip-hop. There would be something for everyone. There would also be food stalls and trucks, a farmers’ market, and people selling their jewelry and clothes.
Finn and his brothers had thought they’d be there a couple of hours and then go back to the hotel to get in some pool time. But the whole thing was way more fun than they’d expected, and at some point, his brothers went off to flirt with some really good-looking women and Finn went to find Mads.
He should have known where she’d be because the street fair was right next to the park where she used to play basketball as a kid.
That’s where he found her playing with her teammates against some locals, who were getting their asses handed to them by a “bunch of girls.”
Yeah. “Girls.”
Finn found a spot on the rickety bleachers, trying to pretend they didn’t creak when he sat down, and that everyone didn’t kind of stare at the six-seven Asian dude they didn’t recognize. Especially when Mads did her thing on the court and he cheered her on at every turn. She played it straight, too. None of the shifter stuff she had to do when playing against a six-two She-tiger or a seven-one She-bear. Here she could just go back to the fancy moves that she’d done when she just wanted to be on the WNBA. Those moves, combined with her teammates’ play, had the crowd wildly entertained and the opposing team of men pissed.
When Max shot an amazing three-pointer that clinched the game and had her teammates jumping on her, Finn got up and went out onto the court. He put himself between the badgers and the full-human males. He could see how embarrassed they were to lose to a bunch of girls and how quickly their embarrassment could turn into what he liked to call “a situation.” He found “situations” only happened with full-human men.
Shifter males knew better.
But before he could get too worried about it, his brothers were there. Just the presence of the three of them together prevented any problem; the situation resolved itself. And Mads and her teammates had no idea.
Together, the group went back to the fair to get food and drink; Mads was still holding on to the winning ball. She seemed prouder of this win than of winning the playoffs.
“I take it back,” he said to her as they waited on line to get jerk chicken and beef patties. He had his arm around her shoulders and she had hers around his waist. And he actually enjoyed feeling like someone had a little bit of a claim on him. The pair of them looking like an actual couple. He usually hated that.
“Take back what?”
“Basketball is a sport. But only when you play. You and your teammates are . . . awesome.”
“Thank you. I’m sure Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, and LeBron James would argue the whole ‘only a sport when I play’ thing—but whatever. I love the sentiment.”
“I can’t believe how fast this whole thing was pulled together.”
“I think the event planners started right after Solveig died. They’d tried to get in contact with Tova about it but she’d ignored them. When I called about arranging something, they told me what was going on and I just jumped in. Later tonight I’ll be sprinkling some of her ashes around. Leaving a piece of her here. Another time, I’ll go to Norway. Leave some of her there. But I’ll keep some for myself. So she’ll always be with me.”
“We’ll go together. I’ve never been to Norway.”<
br />
“You still planning to be around then?”
“I’m not going anywhere. You going anywhere?”
“Only for away games.”
“Oy,” they heard behind them and Finn saw Tock approaching them. “You two.”
“What about us?” Mads asked.
“I don’t know. You’re just getting on my . . .” Her words faded away and she suddenly asked, “Is Shay standing behind me?”
“Yes,” Finn replied.
“Why are you being so creepy?”
“I’m not being creepy,” Shay replied. “I’m just standing here.”
“You’re not just standing there. You want something. What do you want?”
“You still going to help us with our father?”
“We said we’d help you.”
“But are you going to talk to your grandmother?”
“I already told you, you don’t want me to talk to my grandmother.”
“Why?” Shay asked. Because Shay was that annoying.
“Can’t you just trust me on this?” Tock asked.
“I don’t know you well enough to trust you.”
“Don’t you have a dog to pet or something? Look over there. Look at that friendly dog. Why don’t you go play with that one?”
“The two-hundred-pound pit bull with the spiked collar being held by what seems to be a possible gang member of some sort? You want me to play with that dog?”
“Yes. Go put your hand right in front of his face. I’m sure he’d love it.”
Finn faced forward again and said to Mads, “Or we can go to Norway tonight. There’s nothing stopping us.”
* * *
Mads carefully sprinkled her great-grandmother’s ashes around her old store and thanked Solveig for all she’d done for her in this life. Then she promised to meet her in Valhalla one day, but not anytime soon.
She walked across the street to those waiting for her and right into Finn’s arms. He hugged her tight and she let him. Something she didn’t normally do. She’d always found being hugged suffocating. Even when it was meant to be friendly. This, however, she really liked.
“You okay, Mads?” Tock asked.
“I’m great.” She pulled out of Finn’s arms and looked at her friends. Although she’d never call them that when Streep was around because it was just too much damn fun to piss her off by calling them “teammates” instead. “Thanks, you guys, for coming. It really means a lot.”
“You want to go back to the hotel now?” Nelle asked.
“Or,” Max tossed in, “stay and listen to the crappy reggae set that’s coming up on stage?”
“Crappy?” Mads barked. “Did you just say crappy?”
Laughing, the group headed back for more food and dancing but Mads felt a tug on her arm and turned around to see Finn looking at her. She moved in close and they stared at each other for a long time, neither saying anything because it was unnecessary.
When the music from the stage hit her and she realized it was a band she loved, she went up on her toes and he came down. They kissed and Mads knew that she wouldn’t spend the whole night at this street fair. Not when there was a big bed waiting for them at the hotel.
She pulled back, her hands stroking down his arms before she grasped his fingers with hers and pulled him toward the dance floor.
“One thing,” he said as he followed her.
“Yeah. What’s that?”
“When we get back, you need to get that coyote its own bed.”
* * *
Nat’s mother let her gaze bounce back and forth between Charlie MacKilligan and Stevie MacKilligan, trying to understand what they were saying to her.
“So you think that my daughter should live here with you now?”
“Not all the time, but yes.”
“My seventeen-year-old daughter? Should live with a couple of twenty-somethings—”
“Three,” Charlie corrected. “Three twenty-somethings.”
“And their boyfriends,” Stevie added.
“Although I spend most of my time in the house across the street with my boyfriend’s triplets. He’s a grizzly.”
“Uh-huh.”
“My boyfriend’s a panda,” Stevie said with a wide smile. “But we wouldn’t take this responsibility lightly. We would watch her closely.”
“Uh-huh. So my seventeen-year-old with you three, your three boyfriends—”
“And sometimes the badgers from Max’s basketball team.”
“Right.” Stevie nodded. “But just badgers from the team.”
“I’m back!” a voice called from the front of the house, and a few seconds later Kyle Jean-Louis Parker stormed through with all his luggage, heading toward the basement. “I couldn’t do it! I couldn’t stay with them a minute longer! I am an artist! Possibly, one day, the greatest artist that will have ever lived. I can’t trap myself with the tiny minds of my family! I need freedom! So I’m back! I will be in my basement, watching reality TV and attempting to forget the horrors of this week with those . . . peasants!”
He stomped off, marching down the stairs, and Lisa Malone said, “You want my seventeen-year-old daughter to live with you three, your three boyfriends, badger basketball players, and that stunning, blond, long-haired jackal who is . . . how old?”
“Eighteen.”
“Eighteen. And why in the history of the universe would I do this stupid thing to my daughter?”
Charlie moved her coffee mug aside and stretched forward a bit on the kitchen table before carefully explaining to Nat’s mother, “I just discovered that your daughter can unleash venom through her pores and spit it out of her mouth. Like a reptile. Actually, the way she spits it out of her mouth is exactly the way spitting cobras do it.”
“Exactly,” Stevie repeated. “I looked into her mouth and compared it to images of a spitting cobra. Most of the time, her mouth is normal. But when she shifts because of a dangerous situation and has poison in her system, it becomes the inside of a spitting cobra’s mouth.
“Although, now that I think about it,” Stevie went on, her gaze suddenly focusing on the small kitchen window behind Charlie, “we should test other snake poisons on her and see if the inside of her mouth changes to match the inside of each individual snake’s mouth.”
“That,” Charlie said, “would be a good idea.”
“That would be fascinating, wouldn’t it?” Stevie agreed, grinning at Charlie.
“Would it?” Lisa asked.
Charlie looked at Nat’s mother and realized it would be best just to be direct with her. Straightforward. No point in beating around the bush anymore.
“See, Lisa, the problem here is that you weren’t just impregnated by any badger. You, like our mothers, fucked Freddy MacKilligan. And, like our mothers, you’ve cursed your child with fucked-up Freddy MacKilligan genes.”
“I’m a scientist—world-renowned, actually,” Stevie explained. “And would normally consider my sister’s thoughts insane. But the more evidence I see . . . the more I believe she’s right. Freddy MacKilligan has fucked-up genes.”
Charlie put her hand over Lisa’s. “And understand, the problem isn’t that Nat has this weirdness. And it is weird because she’s half badger and half tiger. I have no idea how that reptile part got in there. The real problem is that she has no real control over it. She just unleashes it when she feels in danger. Or pissed. Or simply annoyed. Which she feels any time she drinks some snake venom–infused vodka. All you need is a guy to pat her ass during a teenage party and the next thing you know, you’re looking at a very serious situation. And I am sure you’re thinking you can just tell her not to drink. Sure! Why not? But think about yourself when you were seventeen. Was that really an effective strategy? And that’s where I’m hoping we can help.”
“That’s why we’re offering to have her stay here for a little while,” Stevie said. “Not all the time, but back and forth. Here and there. But you know, spend enough time around us so that we can he
lp guide her.”
“Teach her how to be a honey badger without going to prison,” Charlie suggested.
“We just want what’s best for her.”
“And for you not to get hit in the face with a mouthful of black mamba venom when you two get into a mother-daughter spat over cleaning her room. Or you can do what you’ve probably been doing and pretend everything is just fine. That you don’t see what’s going on. Don’t see that your daughter’s different.”
“My family tried that with me for a while,” Stevie said. “Then one day my mom dropped me off at Charlie’s mom’s house. To meet my sisters, she said. And she never came back. I haven’t seen her since. It was for the best, but it still hurt.”
“Deal with it now,” Charlie promised, “and we’ll all get through it together like family.”
Lisa leaned back in the kitchen chair and slowly nodded her head. “My boys won’t like it, but . . . but . . . What is that noise?”
“That is your daughter. She is building a nest in the walls.”
“Why?”
“Don’t know. My hope is that she’s not laying eggs like a snake, though.” Charlie took Lisa’s hand. “But whatever she’s up to, we’ll find out together. And then we’re going to make her stop.” She turned toward the wall behind her. “Because I’m renting here! I do not own this house!”
Lisa stared at Charlie for a moment before pointing out, “You do remember that she can’t hear you . . . right? When you yell?”
Charlie winced and admitted, “Yeahhhh . . . that’s going to take me some time to get used to. Because usually I just yell at Max and Stevie when they screw up. Mostly Max.” She shrugged. “Always Max. But don’t worry. I will do my best to keep in mind that she’s—”
“Deaf?”
“I was going to say not Max. But sure. Deaf, too. I’ll keep both in mind. Just for you.”
“How comforting for a mother entrusting you with her child.”
“See?” Stevie happily cheered. “We’re already working like a family! This is gonna be great!”
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 and making sure her rescued pit bull doesn’t love everyone into a coma. Please visit her online at www.ShellyLaurenston.com.
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