Born to Be Badger (Honey Badger Chronicles #5)(22)

But they were part of the New York Crushers and had no intention of leaving. Not with their youngest brother still late on his growth spurt and college coming up in the fall; and their baby sister now part of their half-sisters’ lives. They had to stick around to make sure everything went according to plan. Their youngest siblings weren’t going to suffer like they did when their father was killed. They wouldn’t lose everything. They had a chance, and Keane, Shay, and Finn were going to make sure they both got what they deserved.

Finn continued to gaze down at his brother. He was pale but a specialist had been called in to deal with his wounded artery. The shifter world had lots of artery specialists on the medical side of things. It was the first area every predator went for when there was a fight.

The fever had also taken hold but they’d given Shay medication to control it. So he wouldn’t be running around the hospital, trying to fuck any non-related female whose scent he’d caught. But just seeing him lying there was upsetting. Shay didn’t make a lot of noise, but you always knew he was around. He was a presence in his own, quiet way. Right now, the room seemed empty.

Finn heard something smash against one of the glass windows that surrounded the hospital room and looked over to see Keane flinging something off his head. A huge honey badger hit the window but didn’t fall to the ground. It used the power of the throw to shove itself off and back at Keane. Wrapping itself around his brother’s skull.

Screaming, Keane tried to pry the badger off, but it was holding on with all its claws. Blood had already begun to leak down Keane’s forehead, and he was starting to get hysterical.

Finn let out a sigh. He’d tried to stop Keane when he’d stormed out after seeing their brother and hearing what had happened from some woman they didn’t know. She’d had an accent and was extremely pretty, but she was also badger and her explanation had not been kindly told. Unless they were up to something, badgers were brutally straightforward about . . . well . . . everything. Keane had not responded well to any of it.

And now he had a badger on his head.

With one last glance at Shay, Finn moved across the room and opened the glass door.

“Get it off! Get it off!” his brother begged.

Finn knew it wasn’t Mads attacking his brother. She had lighter fur, which got even paler when she was human. She liked to say it was the Viking in her that gave her that blondish fur. But it could be any of her teammates. He had no idea. The hospital was currently filled with honey badgers. And Keane, when angry—and he was almost always angry—could make a Benedictine nun aggressive as any of the nuns in their Catholic high school could attest.

Taking a breath, Finn reached out and attempted to grab hold of the fighting badger. But as soon as it felt fingers brush against its fur, it spiraled around, slashed at him—nearly taking his eye out—dropped to the ground, and ran into Shay’s room. It kicked the door closed with its back feet and by the time Finn and Keane made it into the room, it was standing on the bed facing them. Its back legs were on Shay’s chest, the front legs on his knees. When they moved toward it, the badger hissed so viciously that they immediately backed up, which was just weird. Amur tigers didn’t really back up for anybody. They didn’t have to. But seeing that angry badger face, Finn kind of understood why lions avoided these guys in the wild.

They were nuts.

After a beat, Keane tried to step forward again, but his motion unleashed another hiss that had Finn remembering he really should update his will.

“I think,” Finn suggested, “we leave.”

“Are you nuts? Do you want it to finish the job it started?”

Finn frowned. “Are you saying that’s Tock?”

“Yes. And she’s insane.”

Actually, she was the most rational of Mads’s group. It was why he liked Tock so much. But, more importantly, he understood Tock. So he immediately relaxed.

“Maybe she’s just pissed you keep calling her ‘it.’ And she’s clearly protecting him,” he told Keane.

“What?”

“She’s protecting him. Look.”

“She’s the one that almost killed him.”

“That was an accident. She didn’t do it on purpose.”

“I don’t care. She should suffer.”

“She was poisoned. Then poisoned again by Stevie. Then she ate something that poisoned her—”

“I’m pretty sure she enjoyed that last part.”

“I think she’s suffered enough, don’t you?” He glanced over at the hospital bed that his brother lay in. Tock—appearing more like a weirdly shaped, medium-sized dog than a badger—stood on top of him, still hysterically hissing at them, attempting to warn them away from Shay.

Finn couldn’t imagine his brother being any safer.

“Let’s go. We should find out what the hell is going on, anyway.”

“Going on with what?”

“The badgers.”

Keane shrugged. “I don’t care what’s going on with them.”

“And that’s probably why your wounds are still bleeding.”

*

“Were you ever going to tell the other badgers in the world that our kind is under threat? Or just let us all die from some unknown poison like we’re diplomats in a foreign country?”