Hot and Badgered

by Shelly Laurenston

  “I’m actually a triplet, but I didn’t have to tell you that. I don’t know you.”

  “I need you three to pose naked for me.”

  “Okay.” Britta clapped her hands together. “You need to go.”

  “Are you embarrassed? You shouldn’t be. Just because you’re not like some stick model doesn’t mean you don’t have your own form of perfection.”

  “You think that’s a compliment, but it’s not. So I need you to go.”

  “Do you know who I am?”

  “I know I don’t care who you—”

  “I am an artist. People beg to sit for me. And I’m asking you. Bears. You should feel honored.”

  “And yet I just want to punch you in the face.”

  Dag dropped from the lowest branch and moved to his sister’s side.

  “We appreciate the offer,” he said, “but go away.”

  “I know you’re uptight suburbanites, trapped in your tiny little vision of the world—”

  “I’m going to crack his jackal bones like kindle,” Britta warned Dag.

  “—but imagine being part of something greater.”

  “You mean you?” Dag asked the kid.

  “Of course that’s what I mean.” He took his phone from the back pocket of his long shorts. He studied the screen a few seconds before holding it up in front of Britta.

  Britta’s expression of annoyance quickly turned to surprise and then awe. “You did that? You?”

  “Told you. I’m amazing.”

  “Wow. You’re like that Michelangelo guy.”

  “Oh, please.” Kyle lowered his phone. “I’m better than Michelangelo.”

  “Wowwwww,” Britta sighed, gawking at the kid. “Seriously?”

  Kyle stared back. “Yeah. Seriously.”

  * * *

  The Kingston Arms.

  Charlie had heard about the hotel chain for years. Not from shifters. From everyone else. It was an extremely expensive hotel that had just opened its newest location in Dubai.

  She had always known that it was shifter owned and operated but that was all Charlie knew. Her mother and definitely her grandfather’s Pack could never afford a place like this, and none of them would ever waste the money when a Holiday Inn Express would do just as well.

  “This place is awesome,” Max sighed beside her.

  And they were only in the lobby. Just the walk to the front desk seemed about a mile long. There were also stores and major restaurants with more of the same on the floors below. A few restaurants on the higher floors. Full-humans mingled easily—and obliviously—with shifters of all breeds and species.

  “I could live here,” Charlie said.

  “Who couldn’t?” Max pointed at a ridiculously large map of the hotel with a listing of all the available services.

  The three of them stood there, staring, trying to figure out where they were and where they needed to go.

  “I say we wander around aimlessly until we find her.”

  Charlie smiled at Max. “Bernice would lose her mind. Besides, she said go to the front desk.”

  They made the long hike to the front desk, taking it all in. But Charlie knew they focused on different things.

  For Stevie, it was about the people. The energy. Everything that surrounded them. She drew all that in and her brain organized and sifted until she had a story to tell through music or science. When they got home later, she’d jot notes into one of the precious notebooks she kept in her backpack for possible later use.

  For Max, it was about finding trouble. She searched out the drama, the weakness, the open doors. Although she didn’t do much stealing—that Charlie knew about—she still had a thief’s eye. Just like her birth mother. She could size up a jewelry store or one of those brand-name places with all the expensive purses that people sat on a waiting list for, and she could come up with several ways in and out with thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of merchandise.

  But for Charlie, it was all about escape. Where were the exits? Who stood between her and her sisters and those exits? What could she use as a weapon? Were there cops nearby? Could she incapacitate and escape or would she have to take a life? These were the questions she asked herself every time she entered a building. To the point that she barely realized that’s what she was doing. It was like breathing to her. Or finding water when she was thirsty.

  As always, it was about protecting her sisters and herself.

  They reached the front desk and without even doing that off-putting sniffing thing everyone had been doing to Charlie, she knew the woman helping them was a shifter. A cat shifter, based on her eyes and the snobby way she looked over the three of them.

  “May I help you?” she asked after giving a plastic smile that revealed pointy eyeteeth.

  Charlie placed her hands on the counter. “Yeah, we’re looking for Bernice MacKilligan.”

  The employee typed into her computer and looked up. “I’m sorry, but we have no one by that name.”

  “Think she’s at another hotel?” Stevie asked.

  Max snorted. “Bet she’s under her rich person name.”

  Charlie rolled her eyes. “Right. Forgot. I meant Bernice Andersen-Cummingzzzzzzzz,” she said, turning the s into a long, drawn out z because she’d found out when she was younger that her aunt hated when she did that.

  “Oh, of course.” And there went that plastic smile. “We’ve loved having Mrs. Andersen-Cummings and her family here at Kingston Arms.”

  Max’s laugh was loud and long, before she finally got out, “You are such a liar.”

  * * *

  Berg sat on his front stoop, focusing on the car part in his grease-covered hands, trying to figure out exactly what his sister did when she got behind the wheel of a vehicle that could cause so much damage.

  He used a rag to diligently remove excess oil, allowing the hands-on work to help the part of his mind not focused on the task to figure out what he was going to do later that night.

  Berg didn’t just want to drag Charlie over to his house for dinner and then merely get her into bed. It would be nice, he was sure, but he wanted to do something a little more special for her. She deserved better than what she’d been getting from life lately, but Berg had never been much of a wooer.

  He simply didn’t have the charming patter of the cats or the dogged persistence of the canines. The thought of just sticking around until she finally gave in like the wolves seemed to do bothered him on a visceral level. No matter what her sisters kept saying about “stray-dogging it.”

  Bears, unlike the other shifters, had a little something called self-respect. He wanted Charlie to be with him because she really liked him, not because, “Eh. I couldn’t get rid of him anyway.”

  A big SUV pulled into a spot right in front of Berg’s house but he didn’t really take notice until the dog came out from under the porch, ran up to the white picket fence, and began barking.

  The passenger door opened and a wolf stepped out. Berg recognized him right away. Ulrich Van Holtz. The head of the New York division of the Group. He was Dee-Ann Smith’s boss.

  He was dressed casually enough but very Manhattan in his black jeans, black T-shirt, and black work boots. But Berg wasn’t fooled. The T-shirt and jeans were designer and probably cost a few hundred, easily. The boots, Berg was sure, had probably not been purchased at the Brooklyn Army Surplus where the Dunn triplets always got their work boots.

  But this wolf was smart. He didn’t come alone into bear-only territory. He brought a bear friend with him. One that Berg recognized since he’d been forced to go shopping for overpriced furniture at his “gallery”—God forbid they should just call it a store.

  Lock MacRyrie got out of the SUV and followed his friend over to their fence.

  Now the dog was on his hind legs, front legs placed on top of the pickets, and continuing to bark at the two strangers coming too close to his territory.

  Berg stared at the pair with one eye, the other
closed against the sun.

  “Yeah?” he pushed when they just stood there.

  “Mr. Dunn, I’m—”

  “I know who you are. And I know your mate. She had guns pointed at my friend and her sisters yesterday.”

  The wolf at least had the decency to look a little ashamed by that, but his friend seemed oblivious, studying Berg’s picket fence.

  “That’s true. But when Dee-Ann attempted to speak to your friend, I was told she reacted a little more harshly than seemed necessary.”

  “I was there. Smith should have minded her own business and let Charlie pummel that little weasel. She didn’t and so she ended up getting her ass kicked.”

  At this point, the dog was still barking, not caring that he was being annoying. Not caring that they were forced to raise their voices. Not out of anger but because that was the only way they could hear each other over all that racket.

  “Look,” the wolf began, “I understand that—”

  The wolf’s words stopped. The barking stopped. And all because the large grizzly standing with the wolf had somehow managed to yank one of the pickets off the fence. Not on purpose. Berg knew when he was being threatened. He’d been known to do some threatening of his own. But this wasn’t threatening. This was just the usual bear curiosity that ended up causing a lot of damage.

  Berg stared and the wolf cringed, and, finally, the dog slowly moved away from the grizzly in front of him. Apparently, he did see the torn fence as a threat.

  “Oh, shit. Sorry.” MacRyrie held the picket up. “I, uh . . . can put it back for you.”

  “That’s okay. I can fix it.”

  “Anyway,” the wolf continued in a lower volume now that the barking had stopped, “I was hoping to work something out with the MacKilligan sisters.”

  “Then what are you talking to me for?”

  “It seemed smarter to discuss this with you first.”

  “Did it?”

  Berg heard high-pitched yelping and looked behind him. His sister came around the corner, her grip tight on the back of a jackal’s jeans, lifting the denim high and into the kid’s ass crack.

  “It’s time for you to leave right now,” Britta informed Kyle.

  “You are being unreasonab—ow, ow, ow!”

  Unlatching the fence gate, she shoved the jackal through as if that alone would keep him out. “When you’re eighteen, you can come back here and ask us about posing naked . . . that way I can slap the shit out of you without any guilt. Or charges of abuse of a minor. Until then . . . stay out of our territory, skinny dog.”

  The wolf closed his eyes, took a breath, before asking the jackal, “Again with this, Kyle?”

  The kid looked at the wolf but Berg wasn’t sure that he recognized him until Kyle said, “You do seem to forget that I don’t answer to you, Ulrich.”

  “I can always get Dee-Ann involved, if you’d like.”

  “Unlike the rest of the world,” Kyle scoffed, “I don’t fear the great Dee-Ann Smith. Mostly because she finds me”—air quotes—“ ‘off putting.’ You ask a woman for specific details about all those she and her murderous father have killed throughout their terrifying lives so that you can praise their skills in a sculpted piece for the ages . . . and suddenly I’m the mentally disturbing one.”

  “Kyle—”

  “Although I do wonder . . . what is it like to be married to an actual sociopath? Do you sleep at all? Or are you too afraid she’ll wake up in the middle of the night and cut your throat for the hell of it? Do you fear for the safety of your child?”

  “Okay, that’s it!” Britta suddenly exploded, yanking the gate open and storming through. She grabbed the kid by the back of his jeans again and now his hair. She lifted him off his feet and carried him back to the honey badgers’ house. “You are a horrible, horrible child and if you’d been my son, I’d have taken you directly to a military school!”

  “Your sister is awesome,” MacRyrie said.

  “She does not tolerate bullshit from anyone. Especially other people’s bratty kids.”

  “We really just wanted to talk to Charlie MacKilligan and her sisters about a job with us,” Ric finally said.

  “And now? What? You want to lock them up?”

  “Lock up who?” Britta asked as she walked back, slapping her hands against each other like she’d just finished cleaning up a mess.

  “Charlie and her sisters.”

  Britta stopped, crossing her arms, gaze locked on the wolf and bear interloper. “Lock them up for what? For being who they are? For being different? For being hybrids? I expected more of a Van Holtz. And if you think the bears are going to let you start doing that bullshit . . .”

  There was silence after Britta let her words—and warning—fade out. And that silence lasted until Lock MacRyrie suddenly faced his friend and announced, “Yeah, we’re not going to let you get away with that.”

  Eyes crossing, Van Holtz suddenly gawked at the bear he’d brought to back him up and snarled, “Lock!”

  “But we’re not!”

  * * *

  Charlie and her sister walked into the giant hall that had been reserved for the wedding reception. Unlike most wedding venues, this gargantuan hall had been booked for an entire two weeks to get everything ready. Most events just needed a day to get a room set up. Maybe two. But her aunt wasn’t taking any chances. It also meant that she’d been planning this wedding for at least two . . . maybe three years?

  Who planned a wedding for that long? Human or shifter?

  The venue was amazing, though. Elaborate crystal chandeliers throughout with a giant one in the middle of the room right over the dance floor. Round tables with chairs decorated with expensive-looking fabric.

  The color scheme seemed to be white and red and gray. Standard color choices and hard to get wrong. Though if anyone could, it was Charlie’s cousin.

  As they entered the room, the three of them leaned to the side, so the flying vase of flowers missed Charlie’s head by inches. But to be honest, she was mostly impressed at the reaction times of Max and Stevie. She’d trained them both well—by actually throwing things at their heads when they were growing up.

  “I hate it!” Carrie MacKilligan Andersen-Cummings screamed at her one older sister and three younger ones, who stood around her, eyes in mid-roll. “I hate it! I hate it all!”

  “I’m leaving,” Stevie abruptly announced, turning on her heel. But Max grabbed the back of her neck and yanked her around.

  “We don’t desert each other,” Max reprimanded. “Especially when it’s this entertaining.”

  Bernice rushed to her daughter’s side. She clasped her hands together as if she was praying . . . or trying to stop herself from choking the life out of her pain-in-the-ass child.

  “What is it you want, sweetheart?”

  “I don’t want roses,” Carrie spit out. “Everybody has roses! I deserve better than roses!”

  Carrie’s sisters, standing behind her, looked at each other, and Charlie wondered how long before one of them snapped and killed her in a fit of sibling-on-sibling rage.

  “Make. It. Better. Mommy,” Carrie ordered before stomping off in heels that had to be five inches high. Designer. Probably cost more than Charlie’s entire wardrobe.

  The oldest, Kenzie, nodded at Charlie and she nodded back. But that’s when Carrie spotted them and screamed across the room, “What the fuck are they doing here?”

  “Calm down,” Bernice ordered her daughter. “They’re here to see me.”

  She walked over to Charlie and said in a low voice, “I thought I told you to come alone?”

  “I ignored you,” Charlie admitted.

  Bernice placed the tips of her fingers against her forehead, closed her eyes, and changed the subject. “So, any word on your father?”

  “Yeah,” Max answered, “we just saw him yesterday.”

  Brown eyes snapped open and Bernice gawked at them. “You what?”

  “Just saw him yesterday.�
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  “He doused himself in bear spray to sneak into our all-bear neighborhood,” Stevie explained. “He smelled unpleasant.”

  “I knew it. I knew that he would ruin—”

  “What are they doing here?” Carrie demanded, coming close. She looked at Charlie. “You guys are not invited.”

  Charlie nodded and said, “I see you got your nose fixed.”

  Finger pointing, Carrie stepped toward Charlie but her mother quickly pulled her back. “Sweetheart, let me handle this. Go over with your sisters.”

  “Fine.” She glared at Charlie. “Whore.”

  “Your ass is still flat.”

  Bernice grabbed her daughter’s arm and yanked her away before she could drag her claws down Charlie’s face. A move Charlie did appreciate. Those claws could leave scars forever depending on how deep one cut.

  “Wow,” Stevie muttered, watching the mother and daughter moving away. She lowered her voice to a whisper, “Her ass is flat.”

  “She’s never had a good ass.”

  “Personally,” Max added, but not bothering to lower her voice, “I like that she made her nose so ridiculously small that she can barely breathe now.” She studied her cousin for a moment and finished up with, “It’s like she has all this face”—she held her hands about two feet apart—“but this”—she closed her hands until she made a tiny circle with her fingers and raised her voice several octaves—“tiny little nose.”

  Charlie and Stevie laughed loud until their aunt came over and took hold of Charlie’s arm.

  “With me, ladies. With me. Kenzie, you’re in charge until I get back.”

  “I don’t want to be.”

  “I don’t care!”

  Once out of the hall, Bernice stopped and faced the nieces she had barely acknowledged all of their lives.

  “Time for tea?” Charlie asked.

  Bernice let out an exhausted breath. “Fuck the tea. Let’s hit the bar.”

  “It’s not even noon yet,” Stevie wisely pointed out, but Bernice wasn’t having it.

  “So you gonna make a big deal about it?” Bernice demanded, arms thrown wide, stepping up to Stevie.