“The aunts won’t accept her.”
“You haven’t seen her in years.”
“You didn’t even raise her yourself. How attached could you be?”
“And she’s a MacKilligan now.”
“Hardly even that. The MacKilligans don’t want her any more than the aunts do. They don’t want any of Freddy’s girls.”
Renny studied the cousins who had spoken. “So you want me to hold that against my own flesh and blood? Our flesh and blood? ”
“If you think you can bring her into this life—our life, you’re wrong.”
“I have no plans to do anything but see her.”
“Renny—”
“I just want to see my daughter. That’s all.”
Her cousins moved away from the car and Renny got in. She started the vehicle and lowered the window.
Renny leaned out. “I’ll let you all know when I’m settled.”
“Just . . . be careful.”
“With my own daughter?”
The cousins exchanged glances until one finally said, “She’s not alone, Renny.”
“And she’s not normal,” said another.
Renny looked through the windshield out onto the field, where she saw a hyena rip off one of Dev’s arms and go running into the trees with several of its clan mates following.
She returned her gaze to her cousins. “You’re kidding, right? ”
* * *
They were given a private room in the back of the famed Fifth Avenue Van Holtz Steakhouse. Zé’s grandfather had never had much money so Zé had never considered eating at any of the Van Holtz restaurants in this city or any other around the world that he had been to over the years. If there had been a Van Holtz Steakhouse next to a Sizzler in Taiwan, he would have gone to the Sizzler. His appetite—and the appetites of his teammates—made eating at an overpriced tourist trap an unacceptable move in his opinion.
But here he was. At a Van Holtz Steakhouse on flippin’ Fifth Avenue, no less. This wasn’t the flagship restaurant, though. That was in Seattle. When the server handed him the menu, Zé already knew what he wanted, a T-bone with a side of broccoli. So he put the menu aside.
Max, who sat catty-corner from him, smirked. “You need to look at the menu.”
“I already know what I want.”
“Trust me,” she said, her focus already on the offerings. “Look at the menu.”
Rolling his eyes, Zé picked up the menu and opened it. The first page was a list of wines that, even on someone else’s dime, he would never order. Wines from the 1800s? Who would willingly pay for that at a chain restaurant? He knew the cost of those wines must be insane because the prices weren’t listed.
Already disgusted, Zé flipped the page and immediately saw the listing for his T-bone. Under that listing, however, were choices of T-bone. Zé frowned. He’d never heard of there being a choice of T-bone. T-bone was T-bone . . . right? He let his gaze move down the list and he saw bison and ostrich. Not strange, just a little hippy-dippy for his tastes.
But as Zé continued to read, he felt his face get hot and his brain start to hurt. Why?
Because the menu included deer, elk, moose, antelope, buffalo, zebra, rhino, hippo, giraffe. Giraffe!
“What the fuck am I reading?”
“Your dinner options.”
“What the fuck is peccary?”
“It’s like a pig. A skunk pig, I think. I know people who’ve tried it, but I’m not risking anything with skunk in the name.”
“Capybara?” he asked. “The giant rat?”
“You might like that. They come from jaguar territory.”
Zé took a quick look around. He felt like he was being fucked with. Was he being fucked with?
He turned the page and found a listing of seafood, but his eyes widened once he passed the usual salmon, trout, and ahi tuna. Because that’s when he hit bearded and ringed seal, walrus, beluga whale, narwhal.
“What the fuck is a narwhal?” he demanded.
“Unicorn of the sea,” Nelle replied with a grin.
When Zé got to grilled monkey, he slammed the menu shut, got up, and stormed out. But he only got as far as the stairs that led to the second floor of the restaurant, right by the elevators.
He sat down on the first step, his forearms resting on his knees.
When he’d shifted at the gym, the feeling had overwhelmed him. But not in a bad way. He’d loved it. Loved the power that surged through his body. The strength.
But, most importantly, it was the feeling of finally being whole. Complete.
After that, he’d—stupidly—thought he’d be okay. That nothing else would shake the foundation on which his world was built. He had shifted into another species. Nothing would shake him because he could change his entire physical being into something completely different.
Then, however . . . he’d seen a listing for grilled monkey in a wine reduction sauce with garlic asparagus and broccoli. When he saw that one could substitute wild rice, he’d snapped.
How could anyone eat monkeys? Looking into the eyes of a monkey was like looking into your own eyes. It was like eating your neighbor. Wasn’t it?
“You’re still here.” Max sat down on the step beneath the one his feet were on, her back against the stairwell wall so she could look up at him. “I thought we’d lost you.”
“Grilled monkey? Really?”
She chuckled. “Jaguars eat monkeys, but that doesn’t mean you need to eat monkeys. You can eat whatever you want.”
“I was just going to get a T-bone steak, but you told me to look at the menu.”
“You need to get used to it. If you hang around shifters, you’re going to see them eat weird shit.”
“What do you eat?”
“Depends where I am. When I was in Italy, I found an amazing badger-owned restaurant near Vatican City that made this”—she closed her eyes, took in a breath, as if she were tasting that meal again—“viper Bolognese sauce that blew my socks off. It was utterly divine. But in Germany, I found this black mamba bratwurst that was just . . . wow.”
Zé held his hand up. “Wait . . . black mamba as in . . . ? ” He shook his head. “When you said ‘viper,’ you meant—”
“Vipers. Cottonmouth, rattlesnake . . . copperheads. Like that.”
“Because honey badgers eat—”
“Whatever we want. Down to the last rattle. And you need to know that and be okay with it.” She patted his leg. “You’ve traveled. I’m sure you’ve tried the delicacies of other countries.”
“Yeah, sure . . . but giraffes? On tonight’s specials they had baby elephants!”
“Okay. First off, those are not from out in the wild. Trust me when I say we are not decimating the wild population of any animal. We have farms and ranches all over the world.”
“How is that better?”
She snorted. “That steak you’re planning to get . . . where do you think it comes from?”
Zé started to argue but quickly realized she was right.
“Everything on that menu is to fulfill the needs of certain breeds. There’s no shame in it, and we give back. Most of the tough bastards that are protecting the world’s wildlife preserves are shifters. And occasionally, those stories about big game hunters being mauled by lions and such . . . that’s usually us. Why? Because we can . . . and because we’re dicks. And let’s face it . . . those guys are asking for it.”
Now it was Zé’s turn to snort. He even smiled. Something he didn’t really like doing unless he had to. “I never got trophy hunting.”
“Who does? Except extreme assholes.”
“So what do I have to eat?” he finally asked. “The rat?”
“The capybara is not a rat; it’s a rodent.”
“What’s the difference?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “And the only thing you have to eat is whatever you want. I have to admit, the prime rib here is really good.”
“Where is she?” Z�
� heard from down the hall.
He looked over his shoulder and saw a stunning black woman running toward them.
“Max! Have you seen a child of mixed parentage running around?”
Frowning, Zé and Max exchanged glances. Mixed parentage? Really?
“Nope.”
“If you see one, let me know.”
“How do you lose an entire child?” a male voice snarled and Zé watched in horror as a massive human being stomped toward them. His hair was white with brown layers under it but he wasn’t an old guy. Just massive. Maybe four hundred pounds packed onto nearly seven feet of thick bones. But he moved like a much smaller man. Fluid and easy as if all the world had been built for humans of his size.
“Zé, this is Bane and Bo.”
“Blayne!” the woman snapped, starting off down the stairs. “My name is Blayne!”
“Whatever.”
The male literally stepped over Zé and Max with those insanely large legs so he could also go down the stairs.
“Bo, this is Zé,” Max said to the man, which only got Zé a grunt in response.
“If more of them make a break for it,” he said, pointing his finger to the very last room at the end of the hall, “grab ’em.”
Max nodded. “Sure.”
Bo started to turn away but stopped and looked Zé over. “Do you play hockey?”
Zé was so surprised by the question, he began to answer that no, he did not, when Bane . . . sorry . . . Blayne returned and barked, “Seriously? ” Her voice was so high when she spoke that howls and yips from the other private dining rooms answered her.
“I was just asking. No need to get hysterical. I’m not the one who lost my child.”
Blayne pointed down the stairs. “Check the second floor.”
Bo stomped off—was he physically able to just walk or did he only stomp everywhere?—and Blayne went back up the stairs. She, unlike the male, was forced to go around them even though her legs were rather long, too. Just not as long as Bo’s.
“Uh, sweetie?” Max called out, catching Blayne’s attention. Then she raised her forefinger and pointed up.
Blayne looked up and so did Zé. That’s where they discovered a giggling child of, well . . . obvious “mixed parentage” hanging from the ceiling. The disturbing part was that she didn’t seem to be hanging from anything in particular. There were no beams or light fixtures. The kid was just hanging there from a flat ceiling. Giggling.
“Holy shit!” Zé exclaimed, forgetting there was a child nearby.
“When did that start?” Blayne wanted to know.
Max only laughed. “When Stevie started doing that, she was about six, I think. She was startled by a squirrel.”
“Oh, my God! Oh, my God!” Blayne dramatically pointed down the hall and shout-whispered to her child, “You get back in there!”
The child ran—still on the ceiling—to the last room. Blayne looked down at Zé and Max.
“You cannot tell Bo,” she whispered to them. “He’ll flip out!”
“The man with tusks will flip out?” Max asked.
Blayne bent at the waist so that she could put her hands very close to Max’s face as she angrily explained, “They are not tusks! They’re fangs! Like the mighty saber-toothed cat of yore!”
“Did you know,” Zé felt the need to note, “that saber-toothed cats are not really related to modern cats? Like your tigers and lions.”
“Stop talking!” Blayne snapped before yelling down the stairs, “Found her!”
She pointed her finger at Zé and Max again and whispered, “Not a word from either of you two! Ever!”
She stormed off and was halfway down the hall when she spun back around, now grinning, and happily told Max, “Oh, and tell Stevie I said ‘hi’!”
Max nodded and gave her a thumbs-up. When Blayne was gone, Max muttered, “That bitch is a nut.”
A minute or two later, Bo returned. He stopped just below, gazing at them, and asked, “So was the kid on the ceiling?”
Afraid to reveal anything, Zé and Max merely stared back but he seemed to see through their clever silence. He nodded his head, started up the final steps. “Yeahhhh. Blayne thinks I don’t know. But I know.”
“Let me guess,” Max said. “You thought that with both of you being hybrids, your varied genes would just wipe each other out and you’d end up with full-human children. Right?”
“Yep. That’s what we thought.” He glanced back at them. “Instead . . . we have children that can run on the ceiling. Like lizards.”
“They can all do it?’ Max asked.
“Yeah. They can all do it. Blayne hasn’t figured that out yet, though. She’s probably in denial.”
“Probably. But you know what? Most of my family lives in denial and they all seem pretty happy there.”
* * *
The cat went with the prime rib and seemed very happy about his choice. He also ignored the offers to taste the non-poisonous snake dishes that Max’s teammates offered him and that was probably for the best. Not everyone was a fan of boa constrictor tartare with mushroom-garlic risotto.
As always, Nelle turned what could have been just a bunch of bitches abusing her friendship into an event. All her wealthy “side-friends,” as her teammates called them, stopped by. Cats and dogs from all over the world brought their skinny, influencer asses into the private dining room to drink, eat, and chat while taking lots of pictures of themselves and one another with their phones.
Max enjoyed the scene from a distance, sitting on a wooden cabinet where the restaurant stashed extra napkins and dishes, listening to all the insipid dialogue. She didn’t mind insipid dialogue. She simply read news articles on her phone while other people’s conversations droned on in the background. Like a movie soundtrack.
“I’m out of here.”
Max looked up from her phone and smiled at Mads. “Everything cool?”
“Yeah.”
They bumped fists since Mads wasn’t much of a hugger. But when Max realized that Mads wasn’t really looking at her, she quickly grabbed her wrist and held her in place.
“Are you sure?”
When she got no answer, Max kept her loose grip on Mads’s wrist and slid off the cabinet. She led her teammate out of the room.
“What’s going on?” she asked once they were in the hallway. Again, Mads didn’t say anything, so Max guessed.
“Family? ”
Mads still didn’t answer but she did look more sour than usual, which could only mean one thing . . .
“Are they in town?”
Mads blew out a breath.
“Why? For a heist?”
Mads scratched her neck.
“Shit. For what? Jewelry or bank?”
She rubbed her eye with her fist.
“Oh, God. A bank heist?”
Yeah. They’d been playing ball together for a long time. Words didn’t mean as much to them when they were stressed.
Max gave a low whistle and in less than a minute, Nelle, Streep, and Tock were in the hallway with them.
It took even less time and a single look to get across the problem.
“I can’t believe your family is going to hit a bank,” Streep said, pacing.
“They want you involved, of course,” Nelle guessed. Not exactly shocking. As honey badgers they were all really good at stealing, whether it was a basketball from a really bitchy point guard or a terra-cotta soldier from an archeological dig in China . . . badgers were good thieves. Their only real competition being foxes, but the canines always preferred long or short cons to actual break-ins that might require weaponry and heavy equipment.
“I told her no,” Mads said, leaning against the door, her arms folded over her chest.
“Her” was the matriarch of Mads’s Clan. A very unfriendly female who felt Mads owed her because the matriarch hadn’t killed her when her father had first brought her home.
“But she’s continued to move forward on this plan.”
>
“That woman does love a heist,” Tock muttered.
Although it wasn’t just her. Most hyenas loved a good heist. Anything that required them to strong-arm innocent people: home invasions, car jackings, bank and jewelry heists, and celebrity tabloid reporting.
“Are you at the team hotel?” Nelle asked.
“Yeah.”
“You can’t stay there. They’ll come for you and drag you out of bed.”
“She’s right,” Max said. “You’ll stay at my house in Queens.”
“No!” all her teammates said together.
Max raised her hands, palms out. “Calm down. The bears won’t bother her.”
“It’s not the bears we’re worried about.”
Max rolled her eyes. “You guys are still scared of my sister?”
“Yes!” they all said together.
“Oh, come on!”
“You guys can stay at my apartment,” Nelle offered. “But only if you’re mean to my sister.”
Her teammates easily agreed to that, but before Max could argue her point about her own sister, the dining room door opened and Zé stepped out.
He looked at Nelle. “I hate your friends.”
She nodded. “So do I.”
He walked off and Max asked, “Are you going back to my house?”
“Can I tell anyone I’m still alive?” he asked, continuing to move away.
“Uh . . . I’m not actually sure.” Because that depended on Zé.
“Then I guess I’m going back to Queens.”
“Hold up. I’ll go with you.” She looked at her teammates. “I’ll text you guys tomorrow. Any problems,” she said, looking directly into Mads’s eyes, “you call me. Understand?”
Nelle put her arm around Mads’s shoulders, yanking her back when she attempted to pull away from the show of affection. “Don’t worry. We’ll be safe at my place.” She jutted her chin toward Zé and winked in a way that made Max want to tear her eyes out. “Have fun.”
“Ew.” Max shook her head at her teammate. “Don’t be that girl, Nelle. Just don’t.”
* * *
They got into the back of the car that Max had called up on her phone. The driver, thankfully, was not chatty so they sat in silence most of the way until Zé finally asked, “So exactly when can I tell my friends I’m not dead?”
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