The She-lions roared and scrambled away from Gwen and her “freaky little neck thing.” Freaky it might be, but that move had ended several fights over the years and scared off more than a few drunken frat boys, as well, without either Gwen or Blayne having to bloody their claws. So Blayne definitely saw it as a hybrid benefit.
The kick to the gut sent Livy into the wall. Then the bear crouched in front of her again. He helped Livy sit up by wrapping his hand around her throat, and pulling her up while squeezing.
“You,” he said now in accented English, “should have left this alone, little badger. You should have taken your father and buried him and forgotten all about it. But you did not. So you leave us no choice.”
He threw her into the other wall and stood. Livy, coughing and trying to breathe, saw the bear and two others pull guns. With care, the bears screwed silencers onto their weapons, and pointed. Livy only had time to pull herself into a tight ball and grit her teeth, and endure the pain as the bullets tore into her back, hip, and ass.
Lock, busy staring at a bunch of really sturdy women and girls doing amazing backflips across mats and launching themselves off pommel horses, heard a noise he hadn’t heard since he’d been a Marine in a shifter-only unit that used to hunt the hunters of their kind.
Turning, he walked out of the training room, tossing his ice cream cone into a nearby trash can. Bo came up behind him. He still had his ice cream.
“I didn’t see Livy in there. So, where are we going now?”
Lock didn’t answer; he just followed his ears. He reached the end of the hall and pushed the door open. He stepped into the stairwell and saw Livy’s crumpled body in a corner, blood pouring from multiple gunshot wounds. Three grizzlies stood over her with guns drawn. A black bear at the bottom of one set of stairs and another black bear at the top of the other were just watching.
Novikov’s ice cream cone hit the ground, and the hybrid’s mane dropped to his shoulders as his body began to shake with rage. Lock knew it was rage because his own grizzly hump had grown three times in the last two seconds, his claws easing out of his hands, his fangs out of his gums.
The black bear at the bottom of the stairs looked back, his eyes growing wide at the sight of them.
“Jasha!” he yelled out, his hand reaching for the gun he had under his jacket.
Novikov was down the stairs and had the black bear’s hand in his. Then he crushed both gun and hand.
The black bear roared in pain as the other bears spun around, their weapons now pointed at Novikov and Lock.
One of them yelled out something in a language Lock didn’t know, and all the bears suddenly focused on the hybrid.
And none of them took a shot.
Instead, the bears began to back away from them. They still had their guns trained on both males, but they didn’t fire once, and one had his free hand up, speaking to Novikov. What he was saying, though, Lock had no idea.
But when they smiled and nodded at Novikov, Lock suddenly understood that these bears were hockey fans. Fans who didn’t want to hurt Bo “The Marauder” Novikov.
Disgusted, he wondered if these idiots really thought that either Lock or Novikov would ever consider letting them get away with shooting some helpless woman to death in a stairwell.
At least that was what he was thinking until that helpless dead woman slowly and silently pulled herself up into a crouch and unleashed her obscenely long claws.
Taking her time, Livy moved until she was right beneath one of the other bears. She waited a beat, two . . . and rammed those claws between the bear’s legs. His agonized roar of pain rang out as Livy twisted her claw, dragged it out a bit, readjusted, then rammed it back in again.
The uninjured black bear aimed his gun at Livy, but she caught hold of it with her other hand and stood. She yanked at the gun, but he didn’t give it up, so she went up on her toes and slashed the shorter bear across the face. He screamed, one of his eyes landing a few feet away.
Livy took the black bear’s gun from his now-weakened grip, and Lock grabbed Novikov from behind. He yanked his teammate up the stairs and dropped them both to the ground as shots hit the wall and door where they’d just stood.
In a few seconds, it was all over, and together, he and Novikov stood and walked to the top of the stairs, looking down at all those dead bears and Livy. Who was not dead.
Without her head moving, her gaze lifted to Lock’s. He saw the rage in her black eyes. Something he’d never seen from her before. He’d seen her annoyed, but never truly angry. But as blood wept from her many wounds and her body shook, Lock wasn’t exactly surprised when Livy unleashed a roar of her own.
Lock pulled out his cell phone. When the call was answered, he said, “Dee-Ann . . . we have a major problem.”
After arranging his parents’ flight to the States, and their hotel room at the Kingston Arms, Vic and Shen went to the Sports Center. Vic had already lost an hour of his life arguing with Livy’s uncles, and the last thing he wanted was for her to hear the latest from them.
So it was with the intent of telling her what was going on that he walked into her office, freezing halfway into the room when he saw giant pictures of his naked self on her desk.
“Oh my God.”
Shen came in behind him, his cell phone ring of zoo pandas eating bamboo really annoying Vic at the moment.
Looking for the phone in his jacket, Shen laughed and pointed at the big prints. “Is that you?” He laughed harder. “I can’t wait until your mother sees that. This is Shen,” he said into the phone.
A few seconds later, Shen walked out of the room and Vic stood there, staring.
“She can’t seriously be planning to show these to anyone . . . can she?”
Vic stepped back to rest his ass against Livy’s desk, but as he did he saw her camera there.
Frowning, Vic picked it up, disturbed by the rattling sounds coming from inside it. The high-end Nikon had been seriously damaged. The lens appeared torn out, the body of the camera battered. Then he noticed the blood covering the back of it.
Vic lifted his head and saw Shen standing in the doorway, his friend staring at him silently, his phone still in the hand hanging limply at his side.
“Where is she, Shen?” Vic asked. “Where’s Livy?”
CHAPTER 30
Shen had insisted on driving, which was probably a good idea. Vic couldn’t think straight. He couldn’t focus. He could barely breathe.
They arrived at a house on Long Island in the middle of what Vic knew was Malone family territory. The Malone tigers were descended from Irish Travellers and would take over entire streets so that strangers couldn’t wander in and get into their business.
Shen parked the truck next to a silver BMW that Vic recognized. It belonged to Livy’s uncle Balt. It seemed her family had been informed about what had happened before Vic. Something he was not happy about but not really interested in at the moment.
Vic stepped out of the truck, and he heard a screen door open. He scanned the street and saw Cella Malone standing on the porch. She waved and Vic walked toward her, Shen following behind.
Cella let him into the house, and without a word, led him through the home, to the kitchen, and down into a finished basement.
As he made it down the stairs, Vic stopped. Livy’s family filled the room. The older aunts and uncles sitting on couches and chairs, the younger nieces, nephews, and cousins on the floor.
Vic looked at Cella and she moved forward, stepping around the badgers until she reached a room. She opened the door and Vic walked in.
A black woman, whom Vic scented as a mountain lion, leaned over an unconscious Livy, pulling bullets out of the honey badger with surgical instruments. She didn’t wear a mask, but she’d managed to get on latex gloves. Still, it was obvious to Vic she’d gotten right to work as soon as Livy hit the table because the sleeves of her bright white cashmere sweater were haphazardly rolled up and the front covered in blood splatters.
> The woman glanced up, and Vic recognized her from the Sports Center. He’d occasionally seen her hanging around Cella Malone’s office, but he didn’t know her personally.
“I’m almost done,” the woman said. “I’ll be out in a little bit.”
Cella motioned Vic out, and he stepped back into the other room. She closed the door and stood in front of it.
Vic stood there for a bit, but he couldn’t take it. He walked up the stairs and out of the house. He rested his arms against the fence that circled the property and took deep breaths, trying to calm down. It wasn’t working.
“Vic?”
He looked down to see Blayne and Gwen staring up at him.
Gwen shook her head. “He’s about to have a hybrid break.”
“We have to calm him down,” Blayne said.
“No time for that,” a voice barked. Big hands grabbed Vic from behind and pushed him out of the gate and into the street. Vic looked back to see Novikov holding him.
“Can’t . . . can’t breathe . . .” Vic panted out.
“Breathing’s not your problem.” Novikov looked around and finally pointed at an old but well-maintained bright red ’78 Camaro. “That one.”
“What . . . what?”
Novikov took Vic’s hands and placed them on the car. “Do it, Barinov. It’s the only thing that’ll stop you from killing everyone in a five-mile radius. Just do it.”
Vic didn’t know what Novikov was talking about. He didn’t understand anything right now. He just knew he couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t do anything because something inside him was breaking loose and . . . and . . . and . . .
Blayne bit her lip and winced as Vic Barinov picked up that Camaro and sent it flipping and rolling down the street.
“Hey!” Dee-Ann said, running out of the house. “That’s my car!”
Blayne caught Dee-Ann before she could run into the street, and threw them both to the ground seconds before Vic’s roar of rage and emotional pain was unleashed. House and car windows exploded up and down the street as car alarms blared.
After Vic had roared himself out, Bo placed his hand on Vic’s shoulder and steered him toward the house. “I’ll take him back inside.”
Dee-Ann finally lifted her head. “What the holy fuck was that?”
Gwen, who’d dived to the ground on the other side of Blayne, lifted her head and said, “It’s called a hybrid break. They’re rare, but they happen.”
“And what about my car?”
“If it hadn’t been the car,” Gwen explained, “it would have been everyone else.”
Blayne offered, with a smile, “Think of it as a sacrifice for the good of all!”
“Shut up, poodle!”
“Or I can shut up.”
Coop stretched out on the couch and turned up the sound on the living room stereo. The strains of Vivaldi filled the entire space around him, and he relaxed into that. But before he could really lose himself in the work of a master, he heard the front door open and suddenly there were wolves standing around the couch, staring down at him.
Muting the sound, Coop sat up. “Hi, Ric.”
Ulrich Van Holtz forced a smile at Coop, gave a small nod. “Hi, Cooper. Are Cherise and Kyle around?”
“Cherise is practicing in the basement, and Kyle is sketching in the kitchen. Why?”
Ric glanced over at Reece Lee Reed and his brother Rory Lee. At one time, Coop couldn’t tell the difference between one Smith Pack wolf and another. But he’d met quite a few since his family had become friends with the Kuznetsov Pack wild dogs.
The Reeds went off in search of Cherise and Kyle, Coop guessed, while Ric continued to stare down at him. “I’m going to need you guys to pack. I have a car and driver waiting to take you to the airport. The Van Holtz jet will be taking you back to Washington tonight.”
“Tonight? Why? What’s happened?”
“There’s been a problem, and it’s for your safety and the safety of your siblings.”
Coop got to his feet. “Where’s Livy?”
“We can discuss that—”
“Where is Livy?”
“She’s been hurt.”
“Then I need to see her.”
“No. She’s been taken to a safe place, and there’s nothing you can do for her right now. But your safety is of utmost concern. So we’re taking you home. The Van Holtz Pack will watch out for you and your family once you get there. And Rory and Reece will travel with you on the jet.”
“How bad is she?”
Ric took a breath before he answered. “Pretty bad.”
“I need to let Toni know.”
“She’s being notified. But we need to get you and your siblings out of here . . . now. Understand?”
Sadly, Coop understood all too well.
Ivan Zubachev watched Antonella Jean-Louis Parker rub her face in exasperation. Ivan didn’t know why he enjoyed tormenting the little canine, but he did. Maybe because she looked so adorable when she was frustrated. Ahhh. If he were only twenty years younger, the wolf she’d chosen to be her mate wouldn’t have a chance against Ivan Zubachev. He’d have happily stolen her heart from him or any other worthless male dog.
But that wasn’t really an option. He had his own mate whom he not only loved, but feared quite a bit. She could be mean when she thought he wasn’t paying enough attention to her, but he liked her strength and she did make him laugh.
So that left Ivan with only the tormenting of the little canine. Like he was doing now.
“Are you really arguing this one point with me, Ivan?” she demanded. “Are you really?”
“It is important, little doggie.”
“It is not important. And stop calling me ‘little doggie.’ ” She looked at her watch. “Oh, come on, Ivan. It’s already after—”
“I know what time it is, my tiny puppy.”
She started to protest her new nickname, so Ivan quickly reminded her that, “You said I could not call you little doggie. So I did not.”
“You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you, Ivan? You’re making this difficult simply to be difficult.”
“That is crazy talk, my dear Antonella. Now, about the breeding females you will provide to my players—”
“I will not provide females of any kind to your players or to you. Ever!”
Ivan held up his forefinger. “Hold. We must discuss.”
The little canine rolled her eyes while Ivan pushed his chair back a bit, his team’s coach, manager, and three of his sons surrounding him.
“We should go out to eat when we are done here,” he said to them in Russian.
“I am hungry,” his eldest son replied.
“Maybe steak?” the coach suggested.
“We’ll bring the little canine with us . . . and the Smith.”
“Does he have to come?”
“She won’t come without him,” Ivan sighed.
“Too bad.”
Thinking he’d tortured Antonella enough, Ivan rolled his chair back to the table. But before he had a chance to speak, the conference room door opened and “the Smith” walked quickly into the room. With a phone gripped in his hand, he crouched by Antonella’s side and began to whisper to her. Ivan watched the color drain from Antonella’s beautiful face, saw shock in her eyes.
His younger son came into the room and hurried to Ivan’s side.
“What happened?”
“There’s been an attack on her friend in New York. It was very bad.” His son leaned in closer and whispered, “It was Russian bears.”
Ivan reared back a bit. Everyone knew that Antonella Jean-Louis Parker and her family and friends were under Ivan’s protection, even if Antonella Jean-Louis Parker had no idea of that.
“Who?” Ivan demanded. “Who did this?”
His son’s lip curled. “Chumakov.”
“I’m sorry, Ivan,” Antonella said, her voice as shaky as her body. “I have to leave now. I . . . have to go home.”
“That’s not necessary,” she started to argue.
“Oh . . . it is, my little doggie,” Ivan growled out, his gaze briefly straying to the American wolf standing straight and tall by Antonella. “It is absolutely necessary.”
Cella stepped back and her best friend, Jai Davis, MD, stepped out of the room, closing the door behind her.
“Well?” Cella pushed after turning her back away from the honey badger family members waiting to hear about Livy’s condition.
“The next twenty-four hours will tell. I don’t want her moved yet, but if she suddenly gets worse or doesn’t wake up by tomorrow, we’re going to have to take her to a hospital.”
“The shifter-run one on Old Country Road?”
“Yes. I have privileges there, and I already have a call in to Dr. Ford. He’s an arrogant male lion I have thought about beating to death on more than one occasion, but he was a combat doctor for several tours. He would know how to deal with this if it gets bad.”
“Good. But we need to be careful who we involve in this. We don’t know if Chumakov’s men are still around. Whether they know Livy survived or not, and if they do know she survived, if they’re waiting to take another—”
Cella’s words stopped abruptly when the door behind her and Jai opened, and a naked Livy walked out.
“What time is it?” the badger asked.
“What the fuck are you doing up?” Jai snarled.
“Did you get all the bullets out?” Livy asked in her usual calm tone.
“I believe so—”
“Then I’m fine.”
Livy gave a short whistle at one of the badgers on the floor and someone threw her a T-shirt. She pulled it on, then stopped to bend and twist her back. Something cracked into place, and she gave a little head shake. “There we go.” Livy looked around. “Where’s Vic? I thought I heard his voice.”
Bite Me Page 27