“No,” Dutch said with a dismissive wave. “Don’t be stupid.”
“But you said—”
“Just don’t tell her the truth. Have your story ready before you see the woman. Then lie your ass off.”
“And my old job? Can I go back to that?”
“If you want, but now that you know what you can do, why would you want to?”
“What does that mean?”
“Full-humans will just hold you back. Because you can’t reveal what you can do. You can’t unleash your claws. You can’t unleash your fangs. You can’t roar.”
“You roar?”
“No, I’m a wolverine. Still, I can bite through thick human bone, which is helpful during a nasty fight. But I can’t do that if I’m standing around with a bunch of full-humans watching me, because we all know they’ll ask questions. They’re all so nosy.”
It took a few seconds for Zé to understand what was happening, but when he did, he asked, “Wait . . . are you pitching me something?”
“My organization is always looking for good people, and we love former military. We pay top dollar and everyone knows exactly what you are and what you can do. It’s something to think about when you’re ready.”
“Would I have to work for you directly?”
“No. Asshole. But just so we’re clear, I’m always around. Max is my best friend.”
“So?”
“What? Are you actually going to sit there and tell me you’re not interested in—owwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!”
Shocked by his scream of pain, Zé looked up to see that Charlie had Dutch’s ear and was twisting it to the point that Zé was worried she’d tear the damn thing off.
“You will not bother Zé,” she told Max’s friend. “You will not talk to Zé. You will not annoy Zé. You will not interact with Zé at all. Do you understand me?”
Dutch pulled away, stumbling into a grizzly that roared a little and pushed Dutch back.
But Zé was impressed. Dutch didn’t hit the floor and start crying, which would be what Zé would expect after having a six-and-a-half-foot man attempt to shove you to the ground.
“I can talk to whoever I want to!” Dutch told Charlie while holding his ear.
Charlie moved in on Dutch. “Not if you’re missing your tongue.”
“I’m telling Max.”
Zé smirked when Dutch took off through the crowd and that smirk turned to a large grin when Charlie put a plate of dark chocolate cupcakes in front of him.
“If Dutch bothers you again, you just let me know. He lives and breathes because I allow him to. I’d happily enjoy reminding him of that.”
He pointed at the cupcakes. “These are the best, by the way.”
“Thank you. I’m glad you’re enjoying them.” She sat down in the chair next to him. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“Did Max go see her mother today?”
Zé choked on the cupcake he’d just bitten into, sending a spray of chocolate across the ground.
“Okay. Thanks.”
“No, no.” He grabbed Charlie’s hand before she could stand up and walk away. “I did not say ‘yes’ to that question.”
“You kind of did.”
“I don’t want to get in the middle of this.”
“There’s nothing to get into the middle of, Zé. Don’t worry. I’m not going to flip out or anything. It’s her mother. I would never get between them. I just wanted to make sure.”
“How did you find out?”
“Imani Ako, the She-lion from a few blocks over. She was here. She told me. I thought she was going to use it to blackmail us, but no. She just wanted to tell me. Trying to gain my trust, I guess.”
“I really think Max is going to tell you.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Charlie admitted. “If my mother came back as a zombie, I’d be, like, ‘Mom! You’re home!’” she jokingly cheered, pumping her fists a little. “So, you don’t have to tell her anything. I just . . . needed to know. For myself.”
Zé watched Charlie MacKilligan for a moment before he guessed, “You’re worried she’s going to leave.”
It seemed that Charlie was about to answer but then she patted him on the shoulder and said, “I’ll wrap up some more of these cupcakes for you and hide them in one of the high cabinets. After I accidentally shot Mr. Longchester from down the street—when he sniffed out some cake in our cabinets one morning—we haven’t had a problem with any more break-ins.”
Once Charlie was gone, Stevie jumped into her empty seat. “What did Charlie want?” She leaned in. “Does she know about Max’s mom? Did she ask about that?”
Zé stared at Max’s sister. “I can’t express to you how much I’m not getting in the middle of this.”
* * *
The party eventually wound down. Barbeques were hefted up and taken home. There was no leftover food—there never was when bears were involved—but paper plates and disposable utensils were cleaned up. Trash-bagged and taken to the large, bear-proof Dumpsters outside the fence. Max and her sisters didn’t have to lift a finger. She liked the way the bears knew how to show their appreciation.
Her teammates were going to go back into the city and get hotel rooms, but Charlie stopped them at the door.
“You’re staying here . . . aren’t you?”
As usual, the four idiots were too terrified to say “no” to Charlie so they all headed down to the finished basement, planning to sleep together on sleeping bags and air mattresses like they used to when they were in high school and at away games.
After making sure all the bears were gone, and then shooing Kyle away from the garage so he could get some actual sleep—he was still a growing jackal!—she made her way back to the house. But before she went through the door, she sniffed the air and followed the scent to the big tree. That’s where she found Zé. He was hanging out on a limb and texting on his new phone.
“You going to spend the night up there?” she asked.
“I wasn’t planning on it. But Kamatsu managed to get my new number and she’s been texting me like crazy. She wants proof it’s really me. She’s been asking me a ton of questions that only I can answer. It’s very annoying.”
“She’s worried about you.”
“Yes, which I really appreciate. But I’m also bored now.” He began typing, staring at his screen while saying what he was writing. “I’m done. I’m going to bed. Do not bother me again until sometime tomorrow.”
Max grimaced. “That’s a little abrupt, isn’t it?”
The phone vibrated with an incoming text.
“ ‘Okay,’” he read from the screen, “‘now I know it’s you. Talk to you tomorrow.’ ”
Happy with that reply, Zé started down the tree, slipped, flipped, and landed on his feet right in front of her.
“I bet you wanted to do that,” she prompted.
“Yes. I did. Beautifully handled, don’t you think?”
Max jammed her hands into the back pockets of her shorts. “Look, Zé, I hope tonight wasn’t too much for you. I mean, my mom, watching bears feed, fighting for the cupcakes . . . Dutch. I know this kind of existence isn’t for everyone.”
“I actually had a relatively pleasant time. Except for Dutch. But your sister handled that.”
“You and Charlie. I don’t get it. I love Dutch. He’s fun, he can eat frozen meat because he’s got that wolverine jaw, and he’s not afraid to eat a rattler if there’s one slithering around. What?” she asked when Zé just stared at her, not saying anything.
“Are you two . . . together?”
Max laughed. Hard. She couldn’t help it. “When it comes to Dutch . . . I’ve seen too much.” She stopped, glanced up. “That rhymed. Huh. Anyway, one time he got drunk at homecoming and somehow managed to set himself on fire. If Tock hadn’t been there to put him out, the rest of us would have let him burn. But he’s my boy. He always has my back.”
“But I don’t have to worry about him, ri
ght?”
“Worry about him?”
“Yeah. Worry about him getting in my way.”
“I’m not a building you’re trying to climb. And no. You don’t have to worry about Dutch.”
“Good,” he said, a small smile on his lips. “See you in the morning.”
But Max wasn’t going to let him get away with that. When it came to sex, cats might play games but honey badgers didn’t and he might as well learn that now.
* * *
Zé was about to go into the house when Max cut in front of him and blocked his way.
“Something wrong?”
She went up on her toes and slid her hand behind the back of his neck. He watched as her lips came close, already parted and lush. She didn’t wait for him to come to her; she simply made her wants known. And he liked it.
When her lips touched his, he grabbed her waist and pulled her close. Both her arms went around his neck and her tongue slipped into his mouth.
They should have been testing and easing into this. Finding out what each other liked through exploration. But there didn’t seem to be a question to answer. It was as if they both just knew.
She sank her hands into his hair, digging her fingers into his scalp. He began growling at the sensation and pushed her against the wall next to the back screen door. The kiss quickly grew out of control. He pushed his hand between her thighs, brushing his fingers against her covered pussy. In return, she wrapped her hand around his denim-encased dick and began stroking.
Their intensity grew, both of them pushing each other. Any second, he knew, they’d start ripping off each other’s clothes. Right out here, in the backyard.
Max pulled her hands away, only to place them on his shoulders. She pushed him around so that he had his back to the screen door; then aggressively stepped into him. Sadly, the screen was not as strong as the wall and their combined weight took the whole thing down.
With mouths open in shock, they gawked at each other. Then, from somewhere deep in the house, Charlie yelled out, “I am not fucking paying for that, you two horny idiots!”
* * *
Mairi lowered the long rifle. She’d been using the scope to watch her cousins. She had no intention of shooting Max. That would be too easy, now wouldn’t it? She wanted a proper fight with her. It had crossed her mind to start shooting people at that party. But this was the States, wasn’t it? And something like that would make big news. Random “extremely large innocents” shot at a summer party. “News at eleven!” She’d be in an American prison faster than she could spit, so it was best not to get off track.
She carefully took her weapon apart and put it back in its case. She locked the case and made her way off the small, full-human–owned house to the waiting vehicles down the block. She secured her case in the back and got into the passenger side. They headed back to the city and the hotel they’d been staying at.
Although she hadn’t really forgotten about Freddy MacKilligan, she wasn’t actively looking for him. She could deal with him later. She’d let her female kin deal with her twin aunts first, and then she’d find that idiot and twist him until he coughed up the location of the money he’d stashed. She refused to believe he was smart enough to steal it back from the twins alone. He must have had some help, but he was protecting whoever that could be. Mairi knew it must be a woman. Some young thing too stupid to know what she was getting herself into, but smart enough to steal a hundred million and hide it from nearly everyone.
She had no idea how Uncle Freddy was smart enough to pick such competent women to help him—and get them pregnant—but so stupid he always managed to get his money stolen by someone else. That man . . . a walking disaster if she’d ever seen one.
But she’d worry about him later. She had other things on her mind right now. Like why they were pulling into this parking lot behind a closed shopping mall.
“What are we doing here?” she asked the full-human behind the wheel.
“Got orders to come here, ma’am. Not sure why.”
The first shot took the driver’s head clean off. The next few took out the men in the vehicle with her.
Mairi dropped down, hands over the back of her neck to protect herself.
More shots took out the ones in the second vehicle as well. Then silence.
She waited, not remotely surprised when the door to her vehicle was wrenched open and big hands grabbed her and dragged her out.
“Come on, lads—” she began to say but they simply shot, using handguns this time. The shots kept coming and coming. She thought they’d never stop. A few even hit her in the head. A couple quite near the heart.
Those hurt. A lot. She could feel them burning into her, searing past flesh and bone directly into organs.
These men didn’t speak. They were professionals. And she knew her twin aunts had sent them. Because her Scottish aunts would have made sure of one thing if they had arranged this operation: that she was shot in the back of the head where the neck bones meet the skull. These men didn’t do that. Well, they thought they had. One of them turned her over and shot her right in the back of the head. But not where it would kill her. Not there.
They burned the vehicles—with her men inside—but took her and dumped her into the plastic-covered boot of one of the Cadillacs. They drove off, and an hour or so later came to a stop. She heard the men standing around, chatting, laughing. Having a very nice time until they were ready. They opened the trunk and reached for her.
Mairi attacked then. Their weapons were holstered and they hadn’t expected much of a fight from a corpse so she had free rein.
She wrapped herself around the first, tearing his throat out with her fangs and spitting the blood and bits of artery into the eyes of the man next to him. That one had a big butcher’s knife in his hand to cut her up. She grabbed it and cut his throat before burying it in the head of another. She fell with the body of the man she was wrapped around and rolled forward away from him.
By now the rest of her assailants had retrieved their weapons. They started shooting, but those earlier shots—the ones that didn’t go straight through her—they’d already been expelled from her body or were stuck in her thick skin. These new ones didn’t do any more damage than the first. They hurt, but as long as they didn’t get her in that one spot, they couldn’t kill her.
She killed three of the last four quick and took a moment to watch the terrified young man who took off running. She got into the car, the keys still in it, and went after him. When she reached him, she slammed him with the front of the vehicle. Not enough to kill him, though. Not yet.
She stopped the car and got out; paused a moment to finally pull out a few of the bullets that were burning nasty holes in her thick badger skin.
Giving an all-over shake, she walked over to the man. Despite his battered legs and destroyed hip, he was desperately trying to drag himself away. It amazed her, the way full-humans fought for their lives. Even when they knew they were done for. It was the one thing their kind had in common with the weak bastards. The will to live.
“Now where you going, my lad?” she asked before grabbing his left foot. His right was barely hanging on by its tendon so she didn’t bother with that one. “No use trying to get away when we still have to get better acquainted.”
“No!” he begged. “Please! No!”
“Don’t start with all that yellin’,” she told him as she dragged him back toward the car. She could hear his fingers digging into the asphalt, trying to stop her from taking him. “Not that I mind yellin’, ya see. I just think you should wait.”
She pulled him alongside the car and dropped his leg, put her foot on his back, and gazed down at him. “You know, at least until you really have something to scream about.”
chapter EIGHTEEN
Max woke up on top of Zé with the morning sun blasting through the living room windows.
They’d fallen asleep like that a few hours before after bingeing late-night reality TV repeats i
nvolving people in love with criminals just getting out of prison. Considering her mother’s unannounced return, it seemed apropos.
After going through the back screen door—which woke everyone in the house up—sex had seemed awkward at best. Not that Max wasn’t still down for it. Oh, she was. But having her teammates and her sisters so close that even full-humans with no enhanced senses could have heard them was something even she couldn’t do. Not for their first time. And after that kiss Max was definitely sure there would be a first time and quite a few more. She didn’t believe in never-ending love between males and females—they just weren’t built for that unless they were canines—but she did believe things could last for a while if the two people clicked.
And she felt that she clicked with Zé. She really enjoyed the way he just sort of hung out. Watching, learning, but not diving in. Not getting into her business. Trying to “fix” things, as many men enjoyed doing. Maybe it was the cat in him that she liked so much, which was shocking since, ya know, she had actively attempted to kill that cat roaming around their property.
Max rubbed her eyes and quickly realized that she hadn’t woken up simply because she was ready to greet the new day. Nope! It was because she’d known she wasn’t alone with her cat.
Three females stood on the other side of the coffee table.
Stevie waved at her and mouthed, Sorry.
Next to her was Charlie; her lips pursed, her eyes mid-roll.
And next to both her sisters was their Aunt Bernice. The unofficial leader of the American MacKilligans, mostly because no one else wanted the job except Freddy, but that would be a goddamn disaster.
“Mind untangling yourself from the house cat and getting your ass outside so we can talk?” her aunt ordered, as was her way.
True, Max could launch herself across that table and tear out her aunt’s throat with little to no effort, but it entertained her more to grin widely and cheer, “Auntie Bernice! I’m so glad to—”
“Shut up! And move your ass!”
See? Much more entertaining.
* * *
Zé knew as soon as Max was awake. He felt her lashes blink against the skin of his neck. Felt her breath quicken when she realized they weren’t alone.
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