Born to Be Badger (Honey Badger Chronicles #5)(21)

Was he kidding? Mads wasn’t going near Tock when she was like this. She needed her teammate healthy and ready for the upcoming championship. The last thing she was going to do was get into a badger fight that might injure them both. None of them would. Nope. Keane was on his own. But he was being kind of a dick anyway, so he sort of deserved it.

*

Finn was standing over his brother’s inert form when he saw something strange out of the corner of his eye. He looked, but there was nothing to see, so he turned back to his big brother. He called Shay his big brother not just because he was older than Finn by a couple of years, but because he was his big brother. Keane might be the tallest of them, but Shay was the widest. Like a bus. It was his crazy big shoulders. He had trouble going through doors sometimes. He tended to “loom” behind people without meaning to; when they turned to find this giant man standing behind them, it led to panicked screaming and running away. Something that always hurt Shay’s feelings.

Although he talked much less than their eldest brother, Shay was definitely the most sensitive of their family. Especially for a cat. He cared about people. And things. Like dogs. He cared about dogs. Even Finn didn’t get that. Why care about something that could take care of itself and tended to run in packs when left on the streets? The family had three “outside dogs” at their house in Queens, but for all the Malones except Shay, the canines were there simply to protect the house when they weren’t home. Finn didn’t even know their names. Wait . . . did they have names? Probably. Shay was the kind who’d name a dog or house cat. He was friendly to everybody. Even when they’d first come face-to-face with Mads and her friends, he was the one who felt they should be kind to them. Finn just wanted to keep things polite because their baby sister was half badger. Keane, however, still tried to pretend his sister was tiger only, so he was rude to any honey badger he met. But not Shay. He wanted to hang out at the MacKilligan house. He wanted to chat with Charlie MacKilligan about dog stuff. He cared about the trio as his baby sister’s half-sisters.

It was the caring side of Shay that had gotten him into this trouble. He’d gone off with Tock Lepstein to keep an eye on her because he knew if something happened, Mads was going to be . . . well . . . mad. Not only because their basketball team had made it into the championships, which would be coming up soon, but because—although she’d probably never admit it—Mads and Tock were best friends. They all called each other teammates but the relationship was more than that. For all five of them, but especially for Mads and Tock. They’d been looking out for each other since they were thirteen. Finn had always known that if he had a relationship with Mads, he would always have to make room for Tock. She’d be around somewhere. Showing up to their dinner out, sitting in seats behind him at the movies, or asleep in his kitchen cabinets—all his honey gone.

Normally, he wouldn’t want anyone sleeping in his cabinets. He wouldn’t want anyone around that much at all. But if he wanted Mads around, he’d have to accept Tock, too. Yeah. He knew he’d fallen hard for Mads Galendotter. A woman whose entire life seemed to revolve around basketball. The most boring of games. She sometimes compared that boring game to football. As if there was any comparison! One was a sport of strength, power, grace, rigid rules, and the innate ability to withstand major head trauma. The other was for tall freaks who could jump. In theory, neither Mads nor her friends should be able to play basketball in the shifter pros. They were honey badgers playing against She-bears, the big She-cats, and She-wolves.

Not only taller breeds but wider. Especially the bears. Those females had miles-long shoulders and legs. They might look like they loped and lumbered around, but nope. They could move like lightning down the court and knock smaller players out of the way with ease. But Mads and her friends were honey badgers. What they lacked in size, they more than made up for in brute viciousness. Finn had to admit . . . he did love watching Mads play. That ball was hers, and she wasn’t giving it up to anyone once she had it. And if she didn’t have it, she was going to get it.

He just didn’t know what was going to happen when the season was over. The championships were in New York but her team, the Butchers, was from Wisconsin. She’d need to be in Wisconsin for practices and whatnot. He would never ask her to quit the team or, even worse, quit basketball altogether. Not only because it was clearly her calling in life, but because it was how she made money legally. Because when these honey badgers weren’t playing basketball, they were stealing. They stole a lot. Badgers loved stealing and breaking into shit. And they would steal anything, from ancient art to the finest jewelry to cars to clothes off the rack to farm equipment to the steak off your plate—a situation that had nearly led to bloodshed between Keane and Max MacKilligan. In his defense, though, he’d been really hungry that day.

Not wanting to spend years of his life visiting Mads in prison, Finn would really prefer she play basketball. She loved it and it was legal. Even if the full-human world didn’t know any of these teams existed or had their own arenas and worldwide fans who cheered with growls and howls.

It was the same for Finn and his brothers. They could have been professional bone-breakers like most Malones. Or they could have gone into hockey . . . also like most Malones. But football seemed to be their thing. They’d started with peewee football and when they hit junior high, they joined school teams. All three of them were offered full scholarships to college, but by then their dad had been killed and they had to stay home and take care of their mom, baby brother, and baby sister. Their team coach had been devastated each time one of the brothers made the decision, and he always asked the same thing: How could they just give up football and a chance at a college education? But they weren’t giving up anything except eventually being part of the NFL—something that would never last because of all those blood tests that got more and more invasive as the years went by. Well, not only that. It was also Keane. His brutality on the field was legendary in the shifter league; Finn couldn’t imagine what would have happened if his big brother had gone pro with full-humans. As it was, none of them were sure he’d make it out of high school football without killing someone on the field. The man needed someone he could hit with all the force he could muster, someone who would get up again. Like Alaskan bears. Keane loved playing against Alaskan bears.