“Blayne—”
She sat back. “And your wardrobe isn’t bad at all. Which just leaves your personality. And if you let me, I can help you fix that.”
“It doesn’t need to be fixed. This is who I am; I’ve accepted that. Maybe you should.”
“I don’t have a problem with you.”
“Then why—”
“Explain the foxes to me,” she said, looking very professorial all of a sudden.
“Why?”
“Who are they? Where did they come from? She said she has a mate; does he mind her lounging on you?” She leaned in close again. “Or does he get to lounge, too? Do you guys all sleep in the same bed?” She practically jumped out of the booth. “Are you bi? Oh, my God! That would be so cool!”
“Hey, hey, hey!” He held up his hands to ward off her insane eagerness. “It’s not like that! It’s never been like that.”
She dropped back into her seat. “Oh.”
“Sorry you’re so disappointed.”
“No, no. Not disappointed…per se.”
And Bo heard himself laugh again, Blayne joining him.
“I’m just trying to understand the dynamic. Were they assigned to you? Or did you choose them like you would a puppy from the pound?”
“I guess they kind of chose me. The first day of school when I moved to Ursus County, they sort of attached themselves to me. Followed me back to my uncle’s house. I thought he’d make them leave, but instead he fed them and told me to ‘get used to it.’ I guess it makes sense. In the wild, full foxes attach themselves to polars and eat what’s left over from the polars’ kills, which is very logical because polars mostly only eat blubber—”
“Ew.”
“—leaving the meat and bone for everyone else.”
Her face scrunched up. “Lovely.”
“You asked.”
“So basically they’re like parasites.”
“I think Sami and Sander prefer ‘scavengers.’”
“But they do live off you, right? Eating your food? Stealing your money?”
“They’ve never stolen from me. Sami will just walk in and say, ‘I’m taking money out of your wallet’ and I say, ‘Okay.’”
“Nice.”
“But they always have some scam going, and haven’t gotten money from me in a while. I just make sure I have cash for bail or, ya know, mob types. When they get in over their heads.”
Blayne pressed her hands to her head. “I have so much work.”
“How ya figure?”
“What? You think some lioness or She-wolf will put up with your hot fox wandering in and out of your house, taking cash out of your wallet? They won’t be okay with that.”
He studied Blayne a moment before asking, “What about you? Would you be okay with it?”
“Well…my best friend can turn her head a hundred and eighty degrees when the mood strikes her, her entire family has Irish mob ties, and my father used to run with a motorcycle club masquerading as a Pack—so I’d have to say I don’t know if I’d have room to judge. But I’m me. I’m unique.”
Yeah. Blayne was definitely that.
“But we’re not talking about me. We’re talking about getting you a nice girl.”
“Then we’re ruling out She-lions and wolves. I mean… if we’re going for nice girls.”
Her grin huge, she leaned across the table and punched him lightly in the ribs. “Look at you with the joking.”
Feeling pretty good about making her laugh, Bo was annoyed to see MacRyrie lumber up to their table.
“Normally I wouldn’t say anything so you could suffer,” the grizzly stated with no preamble, “but Gwen said Blayne would be mad at me if I didn’t tell you. And I like Blayne.”
“Tell me what?”
“Your foxes are getting arrested.”
Bo winced and rubbed his forehead. “Dammit.”
“What did they do?” Blayne asked.
“It’s probably an old warrant,” Bo explained, dropping his hand to the table. When Blayne did nothing but watch him with a sad expression on her face, Bo guessed, “We’re back at the personality makeover again, aren’t we?”
“I’m merely suggesting that with a little help from me you might actually get friends you can go out with that won’t get arrested for old warrants.” She held her hands up. “Merely a suggestion.”
Not in the mood to argue this point, Bo eased out of the booth and stood. The grizzly was just shy of seven feet, so they locked gazes again.
“Friends being arrested,” Blayne reminded him. “Boar-on-boar violence or helping your friends. Your choice.”
Damnit. She was right. Bo moved his gaze over to Blayne. “Tomorrow. Seven a.m. Do not be early or late. Just be on time.”
“Will do.”
Unsure of how he would look back on this evening, Bo headed off in the hope of preventing his friends from going to jail for the night.
Blayne shook her head. “That man.”
“What’s going on with you two?” Lock asked and Blayne couldn’t help but notice he appeared concerned. So sweet!
“I’m trying to help him become a better person. Better person, means a happier person.”
“Maybe you should have given yourself an easier challenge first. Like moving the Empire State Building to Jersey with your teeth. Or closing off an active volcano with a pebble and a bottle of water.”
“I could be wrong, Lock MacRyrie, but I’m sensing sarcasm.”
Bo dragged the two foxes out of the club by the backs of their necks, after he made them return every wallet, watch, purse, and piece of jewelry they’d “grabbed,” as they liked to call it. Since foxes always believed that “stealing” had such an ugly connotation.
Thankfully, the two undercover cops who’d busted them were shifters and let the pair off with a warning as long as they returned everything.
“I give you people lists,” Bo snarled, throwing them into the backseat of his truck, “and you completely ignore them!”
He slammed the door closed and stormed around to the other side of the truck. He got in and turned the motor over.
“We needed the cash,” Sami explained. “We’re heading to Thailand tomorrow.”
“You know I would have paid for your trip.”
“We don’t want you to think we’re living off you.”
“You are living off me.”
“Yeah…but we don’t want you to think it.”
Bo glared at the couple over his shoulder, muttering, “Maybe she’s right.”
“Maybe who’s right? About what?”
“Blayne. She seems to think I need a personality makeover.”
“What’s wrong with your personality?”
“I apparently only attract criminals.”
Neither fox argued that point, allowing Bo to face straight ahead and ask out loud, “I don’t know what she’s doing. She’s insisting she wants to help me.”
“It’s Because she likes you,” Sami explained, “she’s compartmentalizing you. Putting you in a safe zone.”
“I don’t want to be in a safe zone.”
“Then keep doing what you’ve been doing.”
“How does that help me?”
“First off, don’t look for logic. You’ve picked the most illogical hybrid on the planet. Second, she’s one of those chicks who has to be ‘friends’”—she raised her hands and made air quotes—“with a guy before he can hope to get close, but by then he’s already moved on to a girl who doesn’t need that and he’s already thinking about the wolfdog like a sister. Trust me, she’s got thousands of buddies and brothers throughout the tri-state area. If you want more than that, you’ll have to work for it.”
“I don’t mind working for it. It’s just…”
“Just what?”
“Her lack of time management really worries me.”
Sander sat forward, placing his hand on Bo’s shoulder. “Will you give a shit about her lack of time management when s
he’s got those insanely long legs wrapped around your head?”
Bo thought on that for a moment, then answered honestly, “No.”
“Then why are we still sitting here discussing this?”
The fox had a point.
CHAPTER 9
“We can’t keep her here.”
After less than three hours of sleep, Dee wasn’t in the mood for New York City rudeness. And she heard rudeness.
“Why not?”
“I’ll show you.” The coyote led Dee down to the main offices, away from the here she thought he was taking her, which the rest of the Group called “The Pound.” A nickname she didn’t much appreciate, but didn’t bother arguing about.
They reached one of the communication centers, and the coyote gestured through the glass that offered a clear view into the room.
“Good Lord.”
“Exactly.”
For months now Dee had been bringing strays she’d found on the street. Hybrid kids with no pack, pride, or clan of their own. If they were really young, she sent them off to a home were they could go to school and at least live a modicum of a normal life while learning how to take down deer, control their fangs and claws, and not snarl at strangers on the street. But the older kids who had potential, she’d been bringing them here. They got free room and board in exchange for going to school, making decent grades, and getting daily training in combat techniques. Dee was convinced she could not only give these kids a new life, but she could also get herself a fierce little combat unit that would be hers and hers alone.
So far it had all been going great, except for the first hybrid she’d brought in a few months back. Abby. Abby never shifted to her human form, she ate off the floor, and she had a thing about running in circles for hours. But this… this was a problem.
“How long did it take her to do this?”
“Patrol walked by around three a.m. this morning. When he swung back around three forty it looked mostly like this.”
Abby had ripped through that command center like a damn hurricane, tearing into equipment and furniture with the force of a pit bull on meth. Abby hadn’t even left the scene of her crime, either. Instead she was in the middle of the room… running in circles.
“She can’t stay here,” the coyote said again. “She sets the other kids off and she’s—”
“I know. I know.” Dee just wished she could figure her out. “Has she actually hurt anyone? Or tried?”
“Nope.”
Good. That helped.
Dee walked into the room, keeping the door open with her foot.
“Abby,” she called out. “Abby!”
Abby Vega stopped in mid-run and focused on Dee-Ann. Panting, stumbling a little, the kid stared at her. No, Dee wasn’t ready to give up on her yet, but she needed some help.
“Come on, kid. We’re headin’ out.”
With a gleeful bark, Abby charged past, slammed into the wall outside the room, used it to turn her entire body, and charged off down the hallway toward the exit. Sighing, Dee followed after her.
For a week they had been training every morning. And for a week, Blayne was learning that not everyone was as easy to fix as she thought they should be. It seemed that Bo Novikov simply didn’t understand he had a problem.
True, in the last Carnivores home game that past Sunday, it was Bo’s skill that won them not only the game but the Carnivores’ first time in the Cup playoffs in years. Something Bo should be rightfully proud of, and yet he showed nothing but that scowl as he’d skated off the ice while his own team cheered and hugged each other, the loyal New York crowd chanting Bo’s nickname for nearly twenty minutes. If any of that mattered to him, Blayne couldn’t see it.
And when she silently noted that throwing overeager fans into the wall when they came at him to sign something—often a body part—seemed normal to him; that not speaking to girls who were clearly putting out “I’d like to know you better” signals because he was running late on his all-day schedule was considered acceptable behavior; and complaining every time Blayne was one or two minutes late for their training rather than going with the flow of life…Well, Blayne kept coming back to the same conclusion. The man didn’t know he had a problem. And he had huge problems!
It was sad really. A relatively decent person who just didn’t get that Blayne could help him. Bo never dismissed her completely when she made subtle suggestions about how he could handle things better. Instead he asked what he liked to call “follow-up questions.”
For instance, “How do you know he didn’t want me to throw him into the wall? He was bragging to his friends about it.” Or, “Why should I talk to someone who’s on the cover of Japanese Vogue when I’ve got you standing here with your Hello Kitty earmuffs on? Who can beat that for hot fashion?”
These types of questions did nothing but confuse Blayne. She couldn’t tell if he was being snarky because he seemed so serious when he asked.
As for time management and enjoying life, they seemed to be at an “agree to disagree” stage. But Blayne was trying really hard to be on time for their sessions. She didn’t want to be one of those girls who took her friends for granted.
Blayne looked at herself in her bathroom mirror, her electric toothbrush “wurrring” away in her mouth. Was Bo Novikov a friend of hers? Seriously? She had to think on that a moment. She didn’t take in friends lightly. She may have a lot of them, but they had all proved themselves to be good, reliable human beings.
Was Bo Novikov a good, reliable human being? Well… he was reliable. Like the watch he wore, that man was extremely reliable. A good human being, though…? Okay, first off, he wasn’t a bad human being. So that was something right there. But really, he had to be a good human being if he was spending an hour every morning with her. He hadn’t made a move on her, hadn’t acted inappropriately, and although she still did find him staring at her occasionally, he didn’t make her feel like running for the exits anymore.
In fact, if she were to be honest with herself and at five thirty in the morning, she could be nothing but honest she kind of liked when he stared at her.
Which in Blayne’s Big Book of Logic added up to Bo Novikov being a friend. She chuckled. Who knew that would happen?
Smiling, she went back to dutifully brushing her teeth.
She’d just spit out her toothpaste when her cell phone rang. She ran into the bedroom, tripping over a box she’d left out with old tax papers in it and slamming into a chair she’d moved the night before when she’d gone on a search for a magazine she wanted to read. Limping now, she went to her bed and ended up pulling off all the bedding until she found her cell phone. The ringing stopped but started again a few seconds later because her close friends knew she could never find her phone.
“Hello?” The phone rang in her ear and Blayne realized she hadn’t actually connected the call.
“Hello?” she said again once the call had been connected.
“Hi, Blayne? It’s Jess.”
“Hey, Jess. Whasup?”
“We have a little emergency and could really use your help.”
“I’ll be right there.” Blayne disconnected the call and dashed around the room trying to find clean clothes. She hadn’t asked what Jess’s problem was because she knew the wild dogs wouldn’t bother her unless it was something important. They were a very self-contained group and usually handled stuff themselves. Besides, it was probably a plumbing problem and she didn’t want to waste time. If she hurried, she’d be at their house, help them out, and still make it to the training on time with Novikov. Easy-peasy.
At least that’s what she thought until she stood in the Kuznetsov Pack’s frozen backyard.
“How long has she been doing that?”
“Since Dee brought her here about an hour ago. When she wouldn’t stop, we panicked.”
Blayne could see why. “She hasn’t stopped at all?”
“Not once.”
Blayne motioned the Kuznetsov Pack’s Top Fiv
e, as she liked to call them, back into the house. The Top Five included Jess, Sabina, May, Phil, and Danny. The first members of the Kuznetsov Pack and, as Blayne liked to joke, the power behind the throne.
“Explain to me again why Dee’s bringing new kids over to your house?”
“Dee says the pup needed some place to stay and would we mind.”
And of course, they didn’t. The Pack’s oldest pup was Kristan, a wolfdog. Because of her, the Kuznetsovs were much more sympathetic to the wolfdogs than most, something Blayne was quite grateful for.
“Poor thing’s been living on the streets,” May said. “Before that with full-humans in some foster home.”
“She needs mental hospital,” Sabina said, and based on everyone’s reaction, she’d been saying it all morning. “Or drugs.”
“No,” Blayne said. “No drugs, unless you really want to see her flip her shit.”
“So what do we do?”
Blayne grabbed Jess’s arm and looked at the humongous watch she always had on. This was probably the kind of watch Novikov wished Blayne had, but the damn thing looked like it weighed a ton. How is that comfortable?
“Okay. I have some time.”
“Time for what?”
Blayne shifted, shook off her clothes, and ran to the back door. Danny opened it for her and she shot down the stairs and into the backyard. She ran around the pup until she’d caught her attention. The younger dog stumbled to a stop and watched Blayne. That’s when Blayne jumped over her, landed on the opposite side, and went into a play bow. Confused, the pup watched her but didn’t move. At first. But after Blayne pounced back and forth in front of her a few times, the pup jumped forward, then back, then forward again. By the time they were chasing each other around the backyard, a good portion of the Pack had come out of the house to join them.
Bobby Ray Smith, or Smitty to his friends and the entire U.S. Navy, handed Dee a cup of fresh-brewed coffee while they continued to watch the wild dog Pack play with their newest resident. “See?” he asked between sips. “Told ya Blayne would know what to do.”
“Are you telling me all that girl needed was some playtime?”
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