“See, kid?” Grigori asked him while Bo diligently organized the chief’s paperwork. “The whole hockey thing is actually paying off.”
Blayne had been running for about an hour, avoiding the Kamchatka bear territory like Bo told her to, although she didn’t see why. Irina Zubachev had been ever so nice since Blayne had dropped nearly three hundred dollars of Bo’s money on hair products from Irina’s store.
Turning, Blayne headed toward the ocean.
She couldn’t believe the beauty of this place. She wondered what it looked like in the summertime, but right now, in the midst of winter, it was truly a wonderland. Snow was everywhere, and icicles hung from the many trees and buildings she passed. Bears of every type roamed around, often in their shifted form, none of them showing her much interest. And while they had lakes and rivers filled with salmon, they also had a lot of seals. Where they got the seals from, she didn’t want to know. How many met an untimely end as a polar meal, she also didn’t want to know.
Instead, Blayne kept running, her small pack of dogs behind her.
She saw a small walking bridge and headed for it. As she ran across, she saw her first sign of locals in human form this far away from town. Two males, polars, fishing. She ran up to them and stopped.
“Morning!”
They both jerked a little before turning only their heads to look at her. Their scowls faded and they smiled.
“Blayne Thorpe. What you doing out here?”
“Running!” She patted the dog that pressed up against her side. He was trying to warn her off, but she knew there was nothing to worry about. She’d met Earl and Frank the day before, and they were so nice!
“I only run when chased,” Frank muttered.
“Did that trick work?” she asked.
“Like a charm,” Earl said, rewarding her with a smile. “Where’d you learn to fish anyway, city girl?”
“Daddy. He took me fishing all the time. He said it was the only way to get me to give him some peace and quiet, otherwise I scared off the fish—and the one who got the biggest fish, didn’t have to clean it. I haven’t cleaned a fish in eight years.”
“Where you off to now?” Frank asked.
“Loop around town. See if I can spot Bo.”
The two bears chuckled and nudged each other.
“Would you two grow up?”
“Just be careful. Lot of ladies after that one,” said Earl.
“You’ll have some competition,” Frank added.
“We’re friends,” she argued.
“Yeah. Friends.”
“Is that what they call it these days?” asked Frank.
Shaking her head and laughing, she said, “I give up!”
“You might as well,” Earl yelled after her as she took off running. “Once a bear sets his sights on you, it’s real hard to get away!”
“Also known as stalking in other parts of the country!” she yelled back.
And she laughed again despite herself when they yelled back, “Only if you’re caught!”
Dee didn’t realize the greatness of the fox connections until she stood outside the Brooklyn bear’s headquarters. Unlike the Group’s faux office building, the bears had a five-story brown-stone that, from the outside, appeared like a nice family home on a decent piece of land in a quiet Brooklyn suburb. But as she’d gotten closer, Dee spotted the multicamera security system that ringed the property. And, when her eyes strayed to the trees—the black bears sitting in them, keeping watch.
Getting past the bear’s external security was not much of a challenge for Dee. She’d been sneaking around the bears of Collintown for years, just like her daddy taught her to. Especially helpful when she was dating the Collintown sheriff’s son. Her daddy would have been doing a whole lot of different kind of sneaking if he’d found out about that.
So, yeah, getting past those cameras and tree-sittin’ bears—not a problem for Dee. Getting inside the first floor? Also not a problem. But getting to the floor where they had those bodies that the foxes had told Dee still hadn’t been destroyed…? That was the challenge.
The first thing Dee did was strip naked, placing her clothes someplace she could get to them easy if she had to make a run for it. Then she pried off the metal grate covering the vent. She placed the grate on the floor, stepped back, shifted to wolf, and leaped inside. She low-crawled her way through and down, desperately trying to keep her claws from scraping against the interior metal. Bears had amazing hearing. Of course, they also had a shit-hot sense of smell, so she had to get in, get out, and get home before they realized they had a wolf in their midst.
Dee reached the lowest level—about fourteen floors underneath the house—and, after pressing her snout against the grate and sniffing carefully, she eased out into the room. She landed and shifted back to human.
The room was pretty damn cold, but that was probably to keep the bodies from decaying. She unzipped the first body bag. A full-human male, in his forties. In fact… Dee’s head tilted to the side. She knew the guy. Ex-SEAL and a real scumbag. Dee leaned in. Although there was burned skin and broken bones, she could see what killed him. The cut across his throat, opening up the arteries on both sides of his neck. Dee moved to the next table, unzipped the bag. Again the throat was cut but not like the ex-SEAL’s. Instead, there were individual cuts at the location of each artery in the throat. Dee moved down and saw the same cuts on the inside of the upper arms and the inside thighs. Very precise and measured cuts. Done by a professional.
Dee thought about the hockey player, Novikov. She’d done a little research. After the death of his parents, he’d been raised by his uncle, a Marine and former Unit member. Although she’d never met him personally, Grigori Novikov had done training with other team members she knew. He was supposed to be really good and could easily have taught his nephew a few things.
Leave it to Blayne Thorpe to land face up, as usual. She gets kidnapped with the one nonmilitary trained male who could protect her. Dee wondered what it was like to be that lucky.
Not bothering to look at the rest of the bodies, Dee moved over to the desktop computer set up in the corner. She tapped the keyboard and the screensaver vanished, revealing a log-in screen. She turned her arm over, the information that male fox had written there in black ink clear and bright against her skin. Leave it to bears to use a twenty-two code password. She had a great memory but for random numbers and letters? Uh, no.
She quickly typed in the password and zipped through the system, finding what she needed faster than she thought she would. Yet as she delved deeper, looked closer, she began to realize that, as usual, Blayne had found her way into more trouble. Honestly, how did that poodle manage to live so long?
Realizing the Group would need to move faster than she originally thought would be necessary, Dee logged off the PC and stepped back—and right into a rather large wall.
“Find what ya needed?”
Dee looked over her shoulder and up. Way up.
“As a matter of fact, I did.”
“Good. Hope it was worth it.”
And when Dee’s head collided with that wall, she wasn’t really sure she could say it was.
Bo stared out the big picture window of the police chief’s office while his uncle and Adams discussed Blayne.
He didn’t understand it. Three days ago, after a call like Adams had just gotten from the bears out of Brooklyn, they would have pushed Blayne to the outskirts of town with the force of every deputy they had. And that would have been if they were in a good mood. But now? Well, now things were different, weren’t they?
“They say the Van Holtzes are really pushing to get her back,” Adams said. “And they wanted to see the bodies of those full-humans. Even sent some polar to ask.”
“And?”
“Told ‘em to fuck off.”
“Good. They’ll get her back when she’s ready to come back.”
Mouth open, Bo again wondered how the woman did it. She’d only been
here three days!
“Anything else?” Grigori asked.
“Yeah. We’re sure it’s because they’re attracted by Blayne but, uh… I’ve been getting complaints about all the strays running around town the last couple of days. They’re gettin’ into trash, shittin’ all over the place. What do you want to do?”
“Have Ben Chambers catch ‘em and put ‘em down. We have it in the town budget.”
“Okay. I’ll put in a call and—”
“You’re going to kill them?”
Bo could actually feel the boars behind him cringe at the sound of Blayne’s voice coming from the open back door. Biting back his grin, he looked over his shoulder. She stood there in her gray and pink winter running outfit, one of those “strays” sitting patiently at her side, big brown dog eyes—from both canines—staring at the males.
“You…you can’t just kill them.”
“Blayne—” Grigori began and, right on cue, Blayne Thorpe burst into devastated tears.
Dee backed up from the wall, her hand swiping at the blood flowing down her mouth and chin.
She faced the four bears behind her.
“Did you really think we didn’t know you were coming here, canine? That it wouldn’t spread through the foxes that some She-wolf was looking for a way in, and that that information wouldn’t get back to us?”
“Thanks for the naked thing, though,” another said, grinning. “That was fun.”
The bears unleashed their much larger claws, and Dee asked, “That’s it? You’re not even going to let me offer sex for a chance to get out of here alive?”
The one who’d tossed her into the wall snorted. “Sweetie, your shoulders are bigger than mine.” The grizzly had a point. “Besides, we told your Alphas to stay away. Now the Van Holtzes need to learn a lesson.”
Dee smiled. “Oh, darlin’, I’m not a Van Holtz… I’m a Smith.”
The smug smiles faded, along with the bravado, and Dee scented the panic and the rage that only came from bears. Apparently the foxes hadn’t told them everything about her after all.
A long arm swung out, claws aiming for her face. Dee caught the grizzly’s wrist in both her hands and yanked the bear forward. She unleashed her fangs and bit into his forearm, tearing out flesh, muscle, and possibly some artery when she pulled away.
Roaring, the grizzly snatched his arm away from her while a black bear attacked her from behind. Dee ducked and went under the bear’s legs, grabbing the retractable baton he had in his back pocket. Not her bowie knife, but it would do in a pinch. She moved away from the black and into a polar, slamming her fist into the polar’s throat. Trachia crushed, the polar dropped to his knees, so Dee planted her foot onto his shoulder and launched herself at the black bear, using his own baton by smashing it into his head.
The last bear was in the middle of shifting when she landed and took him out at both his still-human knees. She was loving this baton!
Laughing at the wounded bears, Dee opened the door to leave—and froze, her laughter dying in her throat. Boars she could handle… but sows?
Dee slammed the door shut, shoved a desk in front of it, and sprinted for the vent. She never looked back.
“How could you even think it?” Blayne cried, burying her head into Bo’s chest after running into his arms. “They’re defenseless! Helpless! Abused!”
“Blayne,” Grigori begged, “please calm down.”
“I’m just like them! Are you going to do the same to me? The big green needle? Or just shoot me in the back of the head?”
“We’re not doing anything!” Chief Adams swore loudly. “I promise!”
“Swear it!” she commanded through her tears.
“I swear it, Blayne. We won’t touch the dogs.”
“Even after I leave?” She glanced back at both bears. “You’ll protect them once I’m gone?”
“Blayne—” Grigori began, but Chief Adams cut him off.
“We will. We both promise.”
Taking in a shaky, tear-filled breath, Blayne again rested her head against Bo’s chest.
“I’ll take her back to the house,” Blayne heard Bo tell his uncle.
“All right. I’ll be home in a bit.” Really big hands patted her back, almost breaking her nearly unbreakable bones. “Don’t worry, Blayne. Everything will be just fine.”
She sniffed, nodded, and let Bo take her away from the chief’s office and into the woods behind it.
After a few minutes, Blayne straightened up but took Bo’s hand as they walked for a while through the woods, snow starting to fall again. When they were about a mile outside of town, Bo asked, “Feeling better?”
She sniffed. “Yeah. Much.”
Bo stopped, lifted her hand, and pressed it to her chest. “Blayne?”
“Uh-huh?”
“Did you really expect me to buy that load of shit performance back there?”
Blayne snatched her hand back. “Shut up!”
“Oh,” he said in a high voice, “you’re going to hurt my dogs? My poor wee brutal fighting dogs? Who will love and protect the brutal fighting dogs who’ve been taking down the Ursus County deer population for the last month? Who? Who?” Bo laughed and didn’t seem able to stop. “That was the best dinner theater I’ve seen in years!”
Refusing to respond, Blayne grabbed hold of the bottom of Bo’s long-sleeve tee and wiped the tears from her eyes. Then she blew her nose in it.
When she pulled back, the look of horror on the hyper-neat hybrid’s face was worth the risk to her life she knew she was taking.
“What?” she asked innocently.
“You disgusting little—”
“I didn’t have a tissue!”
“That’s not an excuse!”
She giggled. “It is for me.”
Bo reached for her, but Blayne squealed and took off running, Bo Novikov right after her.
Okay. She knew it was wrong, but seriously… she was having the best time!
CHAPTER 24
Ric looked up from his desk. “What?” he asked the leopard standing there.
“We’re ready to go.”
“Good.” He pushed his chair back and walked to the door. The team he’d handpicked for this was waiting and armed to the teeth. They wouldn’t waste time with shifter etiquette since this would be full-humans they’d be dealing with.
Ric grabbed his own weapon—a .45—and put it into his holster before he bothered to look at the woman he loved but refused to speak to. Although it was hard to be mad at her with her face looking like that.
“I’m okay,” she said again.
Unable to not speak to her for any length of time, Ric said, “Dee… they were sows. We both know your ribs took a beating from them.” Not to mention her legs, spine, and head, but her ribs took the worst of it.
“I said, I’m okay.”
He motioned to one of the team leaders and the lioness led everyone out. When they were alone, Ric said, “You’re not going.”
“Don’t answer to you.”
“Actually, you do.”
She ignored him, reaching into her locker and pulling out her vest and several weapons he didn’t remember placing on the authorization list.
He walked up to her. “Dee?”
When she didn’t answer, he placed his hand under her chin and lifted.
“I’m fine.” She slapped his hand away.
“You can’t even move.”
“I can move enough.”
He placed his hand on her forehead, and she jerked away, but not fast enough for him to notice another problem. “You’ve got the fever.”
“Probably. But it won’t hit good and proper for at least another hour or so. We’ll be done by then.”
“Dee—”
“I need to be in before the fever has hold of me. Won’t be responsible for anything I do if you keep me out. Understand?”
Yeah. He understood. Understood that she was the one who’d gotten the information that was leadin
g them to the New York base of the people who’d grabbed Blayne. Dee wasn’t about to let someone else follow that through. Not when she’d been working on it for so long.
And the fact that the bears had known this info since they’d tracked the full-humans’ damaged vehicle and their weapons to the location was something he and his Uncle Van would deal with at a later date.
“All right. But when the team’s done, we take you to the hospital.”
“Fine.” She held her vest in one hand and kept her other hand pressed up against her ribs. “Help me get this thing on, will ya?”
It was the first time he’d heard her ask anyone to do anything for her not in the context of ordering food at a restaurant. He decided to take it as a positive sign.
He took the vest from her and turned her so she faced him.
“And no need to look so full of yourself, Van Holtz,” she complained.
He was polite enough not to disagree, but he did smirk. It was a Van Holtz thing. He couldn’t help himself. At least that’s what he said when she snarled at him.
“I need ice time,” Bo complained after writing a list of all the things he needed to do that evening in order to reorganize his uncle’s library—and burning his soiled shirt in his uncle’s backyard pit. “Want to come with me?”
Blayne snorted. Not exactly the answer he was expecting.
Pulling a training jersey over his head, he watched as she fed the dog under his uncle’s couch. When Grigori realizes she’s expecting him to keep that dog… “What does that snort mean?”
“It means do you really expect me to be like the other skanks who shine your knob? Sitting around watching you play hockey?”
“I don’t want you to watch me play. I need training and you’re available.”
“I can’t help you train.”
“Because you’re a girl?” And he was surprised when that bowl of fresh chicken and steak for the dog didn’t come flying at his head.
“No, you sexist prick. Because you equated my roller skating ability to a seal moving across land. I somehow doubt my ice skating skill will impress you any more.”
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