Born to Be Badger (Honey Badger Chronicles #5)(10)

He nodded. “Yes, ma’am. Thank you.”

“Good luck, sweetie,” she said.

As he was walking away, wondering what the hell was going to happen to him—and also wildly relieved he had been given some kind of weird permission from a honey badger not to go back into that empty store to take care of his broken family—he heard the badger speaking into her own phone. He slowed his step to listen, making sure she wasn’t calling someone to come get rid of him. But she wasn’t.

“It’s me,” he heard her say.

As she reached the waiting SUV, he heard a man from inside the vehicle yell, “I knew this would happen! Why don’t you ever listen to me?”

“My niece is in trouble,” the woman said into the phone, ignoring the man who’d yelled. “And if my niece is in trouble, so’s your granddaughter.”





Chapter 2


She didn’t speak to him. Not during the drive to the air-Sport. Not when they were getting on the private jet. Not when they took off and headed . . . somewhere. She didn’t say anything. But she did keep checking two things: her phone and her watch. He didn’t understand why she needed to check her watch when she could easily see the time on her phone. Then again, her nickname was Tock. From things Mads and the other badgers had said, the woman was big on keeping time. Maybe looking at her watch was just a habit. Habits were hard to break.

About an hour into the flight, she disappeared into the bathroom, and when she returned, she was dressed in a tight black T-shirt and leggings and thick black boots. She put on a black tactical vest and began loading several weapons: four guns with what he could only describe as a shitload of extra magazines; and six knives of varying sizes that she slipped into sheathes cleverly sewn into her clothes.

“That’s a lot of weaponry,” he noted.

“Is it?”

“Well . . . for me, it’s a lot. I don’t really know anything about guns or knives.” He lifted his hands. “I just use my claws.” He unleashed them, watching his fingers change so that the short human nails instantly disappeared and the tiger claws exploded from the tips. His claws were over four inches. Longer than those of full-blood Amur tigers, but that was typical of shifter cats as they tended to have longer claws and fangs than their full-blooded cousins, and were often larger and weighed more. It made sense. Big shifters breeding with other big shifters often led to even bigger cubs and pups.

“See?” Shay asked, holding his claws up for her.

She glanced up, frowned, and went back to loading her weapons.

Realizing she had no interest in holding a conversation with him, Shay looked around for something else to do. He noticed a stray looped thread coming from the fancy leather seat next to his fancy leather seat. Curious whether he could catch the tiny loop, he reached one of his claws out toward it . . .

*

Once Tock finished loading her guns and putting them away in the appropriate holsters, she glanced at her watch. The current time matched her estimates, which always made her more relaxed; allowing her to finally lean back in her seat and take a few minutes to mentally prepare for—

“What did you do?” she demanded, sitting up straight.

The cat looked at her; blinked. He didn’t try to untangle his claws from the threads he’d pulled out of the open seat beside him. Nor did he attempt to hide the strips of leather that had fallen to the jet floor, leaving nothing but a half-undone seat in the middle of the private jet that she did not own.

After examining his handy work, he shrugged. “I just wanted to see if—”

“Forget I asked,” she cut in. Tock was in no mood to hear cat logic. “Just untangle yourself and stop touching things.”

He retracted his claws and the giant, loose ball of thread dropped onto the seat. But as soon as he relaxed, she watched his gaze search for something new to tear apart. The cat was a menace!

Desperate, she reached into her travel bag and pulled out a magazine.

“Here,” she ordered, forcing the magazine into his hand. “Read this.”

“Mechanics?” he said out loud, reading the magazine title. “Like cars?” he asked, hopefully.

“No. Like physics.”

The hope drained from his face and he glanced at the cover. “I can’t think of anything more boring.”

“Physics is not boring.”

“Isn’t it, though?” He gazed at the cover for a long moment before unleashing one claw and slowly dragged it across the pristine cover. The magazine was three months old but it was still pristine because that’s how Tock kept her things. Pristine! Clean! Intact!

Annoyed and desperate, she reached over and snatched the magazine from his hands. But when she looked at it, she saw that his single claw had torn right through half the pages.

“Dammit!”

“You shouldn’t have snatched it!” he complained.

“What is wrong with you?” she wanted to know.

“Nothing, actually. Just sitting here. Enjoying life.”

“And making my life miserable.”

“That happens sometimes when you hang around cats.”

“I am only hanging around you because you insisted.”

“I just want to—”

“If you say ‘help’ one. More. Time.”