“Not too high,” Desiree squeaked. “As we’ve found out a few times, too high and he’ll hook himself to overhangs.”
“Are you still bringing that up?” Mace Llewellyn demanded, coming around the couple’s car to give Dee-Ann a hug and kiss.
She still remembered the day the cat rolled into Smithtown, with Dee’s cousin Bobby Ray, acting like he owned the joint. Although he had the protection of Bobby Ray, Mace didn’t really need it. He’d grown on them all and was like family. Hell, Sissy Mae, Bobby Ray’s baby sister—and the single living reason Dee-Ann got into so much trouble when she was growing up in Smithtown—was godmother to Marcus.
“Mace, this is Marcella Malone.”
He shook Malone’s hand. “Bare Knuckles. I heard you’re with the Carnivores now with Novikov.” Mace gave a little laugh. “Didn’t you get into a fistfight with him after a game?”
Malone scowled. “That fucker pitched me into and through the glass in front of the penalty box during the game. So afterward I hit him in the nuts with my stick and spit in his face. And he threw his fox goalie at me! Skates first. Hit me right in the head. I was out for like twenty minutes and you can still see the scar from where the goalie’s skate split my head open.” She shrugged and added casually, “But we get along now.”
“Let’s go,” Dee said, exhausted just from hearing that stupid story.
She handed Marcus back to Mace. He took his son, but leaned down and whispered into her ear, “I don’t actually have to tell you that you’d better watch out for my wife, do I? Or how much I’ll hurt you if anything happens to her?”
“Mace Llewellyn, are you tryin’ to sweet-talk me? Right here with your wife staring at us?”
“Stop threatening people, Mace,” Desiree told him, well aware of the Smith female “code” when it came to their friends’ mates. Besides, Desiree knew her husband well.
“He’s just watching out for you, Desiree.” Dee patted Mace’s arm. “Bless his heart.”
Mace growled. “I know that’s not a compliment, Dee-Ann.”
Although he’d managed for an entire hour not to let one puck get by him, it was the one that did finally get past him that had Novikov screaming about what an idiot he was and how he would never amount to anything if he didn’t play like he had some “purpose.”
Ric, used to it by now, let the oversized hybrid rant like they were playing for the world playoffs rather than merely getting in some early ice time before the rest of the team came in. But when he saw Lock speeding across the ice, Ric scrambled to get between the two. He barely managed, Lock reaching over Ric’s head to shove Novikov and Novikov reaching over Ric’s head to shove the grizzly back.
“Can we not do this?” Ric demanded. “There are kids watching!”
“They have to learn sometime,” Novikov spat out. “Either they’re winners or they’re losers! There is no second place except for loser grizzlies!”
Lock roared, his grizzly hump growing under his practice uniform.
“Cut it out!” Ric ordered, expecting them to actually obey. Not only because as team owner he could fire them both—something he’d most likely never do—but because he was also team captain. That meant something!
“Novikov, run drills.” As it was something that the man did obsessively anyway, Ric knew it would be done without question. And, with a little snarl, the Marauder skated off to run his precious drills.
“Why do you put up with him?” Lock demanded once Novikov was at the other end of the ice.
“Because he’s one of the best players of all time, because we win, because—”
“Blayne would hysterically sob if you traded his ass?”
Ric couldn’t lie to his best friend of twenty years. “Yes.”
“Your weakness sickens me.”
“I know. But if Blayne Thorpe was miserable, she’d cry about it to Gwenie, who’d complain about it to you, and then you’d make me hire Novikov back anyway.”
Lock’s grizzly hump quickly deflated. “You’re right.”
“I know. But we can be weak together. Besides, even that Neanderthal can’t ignore the pitiful tears of a wolfdog.”
“True.”
Ric patted Lock’s shoulder. “Do me a favor. Go run some drills with him until the team gets here. Keep him busy and out of my hair.”
“Yeah. Sure.”
Lock put on his helmet and gazed down the length of the ice as if Ric had just asked him to face an entire army of samurais completely alone.
While his friend skated into battle, Ric left the rink and went into the team’s locker room.
“Hey, Bert,” he said to the black bear tying up his skates, and the only other player there.
“Hey.”
Ric walked past him and to Novikov’s locker. He played with the new lock the hybrid had just purchased, opening this one as easily as he’d opened the others. Once inside his locker, Ric proceeded to move around all his meticulously laid out items, including shampoo, soap, razor, bandages. He took his time, enjoying what he was doing as much as he enjoyed making a really good crème brûlée. Once he felt he’d done enough, he closed up and engaged the lock.
Bert watched him until he was finished, then remarked, “You’ve got kind of a mean streak, Van Holtz.”
“Only a little one.”
“True.” Bert got to his feet. “You could have pissed in his locker instead and we both know he would have spent hours cleaning it up.”
“Don’t tempt, Bert. Don’t tempt.”
Van buried his face in his hands and sighed—loudly.
He’d come to loathe these meetings with the Board, the representatives of every major Pack, Pride, and Clan, as well as some reps for the non-social breeds. The meetings were long and tedious but he wasn’t ready to step down from his position for no other reason than he didn’t trust any of these people to do what had to be done. The grizzly and black bears with their philosophical debates. The polars with their inability to take anything seriously. The lions with their blatant boredom. The tigers and leopards with their constant plotting. The foxes with their sticky fingers and the wild dogs with their patience-rendering goofiness. And then there were the wolves. His own kind. Even the damn boardroom table was merely another area for them to fight over territory. He’d become so fed up with the constant snarling and snapping that he’d actually outlawed it during meetings. It was the only way to get through these things in a somewhat timely manner.
“Is there anything else?” he asked over the current argument. And what were they all arguing about? Where to hold the next Board meeting. The Magnus Pack was down for Arizona so they could attend a thousand-mile ride with a bunch of other lowlife bikers. The Löwes wanted to meet in Germany, probably for the multi-band rock concert that happened every year. The Llewellyns wanted to go to the French Riviera, and several of the grizzlies, polars, and a couple of tigers wanted to go to Siberia—because that would be fun.
“Yeah,” Anne Hutton, a middle-aged tigress from Boston who made most of her money by laundering gangster cash, said. “What’s going on with all that half-breed shit in New York? And why are we giving so much money to the Group? Your Group?”
“It’s hybrid, you fucking idiot,” said the always delicate Alpha Female of the Magnus Pack, Sara Morrighan. She reminded Van of a dog that had been kept in a cage twenty-four-seven for the first half of its life until someone had let it out in the backyard to go completely wild. “Half-breed is rude.”
“Shut up, Fido, no one’s talking to you,” Hutton shot back.
“Don’t you have a hairball to cough up?”
“All right,” Van cut in. “That’s enough.” He held his hand out and his assistant placed the file he’d brought with him. “And why we’re putting so much money toward this situation is simple.” He pulled out the stack of photos and tossed them across the glossy table. Some glanced, but quickly looked away. Others leaned forward to take a longer look. Some didn’t look at all.
&n
bsp; “There are so many,” Morrighan whispered.
“Too many.” Van gestured to the photos. “And we can’t let this go on.”
Slinging her arm over the back of her chair, Hutton said what Ric was sure many of the others were thinking. “They’re mutts. Are we really going to go through all this effort for mutts?”
Van saw Morrighan’s left eye twitch the tiniest bit. The only sign she’d show just before she went completely postal and attempted to kill everyone in the room. Holding his hand up to stop her, he said, “They start with them, but they’ll end with us. We protect all of us. You. Them. All of us.” He grabbed one of the pictures: a lovely shot of a young female dog-tiger hybrid torn in half with her insides spread out across the dirt floor she’d died on. “This is Trisha Barnes. She worked full-time as a waitress in a diner and went to nursing school in the evening. One night she was snatched off the street and used as a bait dog for the screaming entertainment of a myriad of scumbags.” He picked up another photo. He knew the victim in each one. Had studied the information about each, knew how they’d died, how they’d suffered. And he’d done all that just for this reason. For what was happening right here—at this moment. “This is Michael Franks. A mechanic. Had a wife and four pups. His injuries were so bad, we were forced to put him down on-site.” And another picture. “And this is—”
“All right. All right.” Hutton cut in, waving her hand dismissively. “I get your point. God, you’re such a drama wolf.”
“But now that Katzenhaft is involved,” Matilda Llewellyn suddenly volunteered, “perhaps they can take the lead—and the financial hit.” Matilda was one of those ancient shifters who just wouldn’t die. She-lions had a tendency to live a long time anyway and Matilda seemed to be ready to outlast everyone if she could manage it. Van was afraid that she could manage it quite nicely at the rate she was going.
“Katzenhaft is involved now?” Melinda Löwe sat up straight. “Katzenhaft doesn’t get involved in anything to do with hybrids.”
“Apparently their philosophy has changed—as has ours. And perhaps you should talk to your niece Victoria, since she runs KZS.”
Melinda, who’d known him for what felt like centuries, rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on, Van. This is KZS we’re talking about. Even the Prides don’t have control over them.”
“That’s probably why they get things done,” Clarice Dupris of the Dupris hyena Clan muttered loud enough for everyone to hear.
Seeing where this would quickly be heading, Van stood. “Meeting adjourned. Because I’m rather sick of all of you right now.”
With shrugs and eye rolls, the predators he was forced to work with for the good of his kind, got up and headed out for the lunch he had set up in one of his Pack’s restaurants on the top floor of this Chicago hotel. Really, Van would rather get to his jet and head home to his wife, kids, and kitchen, but he’d make it through lunch. That was the great thing about predators—little talking while they ate, and they all ate quickly. In another hour, he would be heading home.
Thinking about that, he motioned to his assistant and began to pull the papers together when Matilda made her slow way to his side with the help of a cane and one of her young great nieces.
“So young Niles,” she greeted, flashing those fangs that could no longer retract. That’s how old she was. It was like she was turning into a very large and lean cat full time. It was weird. Even for fellow shifters . . . it was weird. “How’s it going with that She-wolf? Egbert Smith’s daughter.”
“She’s working out well.” Matilda always had problems with the hiring of Eggie Smith and then Eggie Smith’s daughter. Van didn’t know why, nor did he care. What Matilda always failed to understand was that sometimes one needed killers when they were protecting more than a few dollars in the bank or some jewels in a safe. And Eggie and Dee-Ann Smith were both born killers.
“Best watch her, though,” Matilda warned, slowly moving around him, and heading toward the door. “Just like her father, she kills for fun.”
Van’s assistant stood next to him and noted, “You didn’t really argue that point with her, did you?”
“There’s no point in arguing the truth.”
CHAPTER 5
R ic walked into his apartment, placing his hockey bag right by the closet. Yawning, he headed down the hallway toward his kitchen, but stopped when he saw light coming from his office. Without thought, he pulled out the .45 he kept holstered to the back of his jeans more and more these days. Checking corners as he went, Ric made his way to his office, but stopped right inside the doorway.
“Dee-Ann.”
“You gonna shoot me, supermodel?”
“If you keep calling me supermodel.” He put the safety back on his weapon and pushed it back into the holster. “What are you doing here?”
“Needed some information and knew your computer was linked in to the Group’s database.”
“True. Of course, you can also access the Group’s database by using one of the PCs at the Group office. As opposed to illegally breaking into my apartment, I mean.”
“Where’s the fun in that?” She pointed at his TV. “Plus you have a plasma flat screen and a real comfy office chair. Ergonomic and all that.”
Ric walked over to the desk and yelled, “What I’m trying to say, Dee-Ann, is that you can’t just keep coming in and out of my apartment whenever you like!”
Startled, Dee gawked up at him, which was when he added with a smile, “Unless you’re naked.”
She rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Like a wolf with a bone.”
“Don’t I deserve to get a little something out of it if you’re going to come and go as you like?”
“You get the blessing of my company.”
Ric resumed his trip to the kitchen. “I’ll make your blessing something to eat.”
“You don’t always have to feed me, Van Holtz.”
“If I don’t, who will?”
Tonight all Dee got were ham-and-cheese sandwiches with some tomato soup. That is, the sandwich was freshly carved Black Forest ham with some fancy French cheese with a name she couldn’t pronounce, seasoned with cracked black pepper on fresh baguettes, and toasted in the oven. The soup was made from scratch with tomatoes he grew in the hot house he’d had built into part of his big penthouse apartment so he could have fresh vegetables and herbs for his home cooking. She was surprised he didn’t have a cow in there somewhere for the milk he gave her. She wouldn’t put it past him.
“What were you looking for on my computer?” Ric asked her.
“We’re trying to track down the owners of the properties that have been used for fights in the past. They’ve all been empty locations, but each one has been owned. The list is long, so I took half and Desiree took the other.”
“What about Cella?”
“She’s not too good with the thinkin’. Must be all those hits to the head.”
“Dee-Ann . . .”
“What?”
“Make this work. Don’t push her out because you don’t like her.”
“That’s not what I’m doing. She admitted she’s not good with the computer stuff, so I took part of it and Desiree took the rest.”
“That works.”
“I know.”
“Not sure how the headlock in the cafeteria fits, though.”
“It was a mutual headlock and that Charlene’s a tattletale.”
“The lovely Charlene is my eyes and ears, so be nice to her.”
“Lovely, huh?” The wording bothered her—she told herself she didn’t know why—so she suggested, “Maybe you should take Charlene out sometime. It’s been ages since you’ve been on a date.”
“Dee-Ann, I work with Charlene. That would be grossly inappropriate.”
And he wasn’t joking. “How is that inappropriate but telling me to get naked isn’t?”
“First off, I don’t tell you to get naked. I suggest it in a completely nonthreatening and non-sexually harassing manner. And
second, you and I are far beyond the boundaries of workplace etiquette that I normally abide by.”
“And why is that?”
“Because you constantly break into my apartment, wear loose-fitting clothing that simply begs for me to feed you so that they won’t be so loose all the time and, to be quite blunt, you’re damn cute.”
“Cute? I’m cute?”
“Damn cute.” He tapped the table with his forefinger. “Damn cute.”
“Charlene is lovely and I’m . . . cute?”
“Damn cute. You keep forgetting the damn part of it.”
Disgusted, Dee went back to her delicious sandwich. No wonder the man made such good food. It was the only reason she hadn’t chucked it at him.
“Almost every one of these properties is shifter owned.”
Dee leaned over his shoulder to get a better look at his computer screen and Ric worked not to bury his face in her neck and sniff. Something she’d already caught him doing more than once.
Honestly, how could the woman be so oblivious to the attraction between them? Or, at the very least, his attraction to her.
It had been ages since he’d been on a date? He knew that! Because he was waiting for her! What was the point of going on a date with a woman he knew would never be who he wanted? It wasn’t that he was a saint or anything, but Ric had never been one of those one-night stand guys. He never knew how to extricate himself from those situations the day after. It was a skill he simply lacked. Like his inability to golf well.
“Do you know any of these people?” Dee asked.
“Some of them. I’ve heard or know of others.”
“Can you get me some home addresses?”
“Why?”
She briefly chewed the inside of her lip. “No reason?”
“Is that a question or a statement?”
“Both?”
Ric turned his chair, facing her. “You can’t harass these people, Dee-Ann.”
“Harass? Who says I want to harass anyone? I’ll just ask a few questions.”
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