When she didn’t respond, he walked away. Down the stoop, across the tiny front yard, and into the waiting limo.
Tock didn’t even know she’d pulled her gun and aimed it at the nosy canine’s head until her team grabbed her and pushed her up against the front door.
“It’s always fun when visitors come to call, isn’t it?” Max joked while pinning Tock to the house until the canines had driven away.
*
Ric Van Holtz wished he could just go home, but he had a job to do. And these days, he knew his job was more important than ever.
A shame really. That his kind couldn’t play nice. Instead, they were starting wars with honey badgers. One of the worst things he could think of anyone doing. For lots of reasons.
Honey badgers weren’t like the rest of them. They lived mostly in family units, coexisting with the full-humans of the world as if they belonged there. They normally had very little to do with the various shifter intelligence agencies: his organization, simply called the Group; Katzenhaus Securities, started in Germany by lions, but now worldwide and involving all cat breeds; and the BPC, aka the Bear Preservation Council, which handled all bear issues around the world.
Unless you got up close enough to catch their scent, you would never know honey badgers were anything but the full-humans most of them pretended to be. It was a mistake, however, to think they were nothing but a disorganized group of weasels that liked to steal. In reality, they were a dangerously unstable but highly organized gang of vicious predators that could shut down entire nations on a whim.
That was the thing about badgers. They were never the leaders of the countries they took down. They were smarter than that. A leader could lose his throne or be assassinated. So honey badgers were never the front-facing ones. That would only make them targets.
No, they were never the tsars of a country. They were the Rasputins. They were never the Lenins. They were the Trotskys. They were never the pope, but they were definitely one of the cardinals. Over time, depending on how powerful they became, they might become targets, but they never started off that way. And depending on what their plan was, they could topple entire ruling parties. Sometimes because they had an agenda. Sometimes because they were bored and had nothing better to do. And sometimes because they were just feeling downright mean.
One never knew with a honey badger.
So to purposely start a fight with them seemed . . . stupid. He was going to say reckless, but nope. It was just plain stupid. Reckless was when his daughter tried to juggle knives while his back was turned. Stupid was trying to kill honey badgers. A species that made hyenas appear warm and friendly.
Instead of heading back to Manhattan and the Group office, the limo turned at the corner and made its way down the street until it reached another shifter-only neighborhood. Not bears this time, but cats. They pulled up in front of a lovely house where cubs and a few moms were lounging out front. As soon as his Uncle Van stepped out of the limo, the kids were sent inside and male lions woke up from their lazy napping to unleash fangs and claws in warning.
By the time Ric got out of the limo, Imani Ako was out of her house and motioning the males away with a sweep of her hand.
“Niles,” she said, coming down the walkway toward them, “how did it go?”
“How do you think? I couldn’t get in to see the eldest. And the other one didn’t even remember us.”
“It’s always better to be forgotten by badgers than to take up any of their memory. That way lies skinning.”
“Don’t remind me.”
She laughed. “And Ulric—” she began before turning her head so Ric could kiss her cheek.
“Imani.”
“Don’t worry about Charlie and her sisters. I’ll talk to them myself. Now if both of you will just follow me, I have someone else you should talk to.”
“Someone I actually want to speak with?” Van asked.
Walking toward the house, Imani did nothing but laugh.
*
“We have to go in there.”
“We don’t have to do anything,” Tock reminded Max as all five of them stared at the front door. “You, however . . .”
“My sister is very sensitive when she’s upset. I don’t want her to—”
“Kill us all?” Nelle asked.
“She wouldn’t. I don’t think.”
“Why don’t you go in first,” Streep helpfully suggested, “and if we don’t hear your dying screams, we’ll follow about ten minutes later.”
“We are honey badgers,” Max reminded them. “I can’t believe you’re all being such limp dicks about this. We are afraid of nothing.”
“Except your sister,” Mads muttered.
“What’s going on?” asked a deep voice from behind them.
The grizzly and his triplet siblings stared at them . . . and then the weapons now aimed at the bears.
“I thought we discussed your not pointing guns at us,” the female triplet said. Tock could barely tell the three of them apart. She just knew the female because of her scent, her slightly smaller size, and her voice. It was not as low as that of her two brothers. Other than that, all three Dunns might as well be clones of each other.
“Don’t sneak up on us, then,” Max said.
“We’re bears. How could we sneak up on you?” She gestured to the big yard next to the house. “And there’s nothing here but bears.”
“I smell muffins,” one of the male triplets announced before pushing past them and walking into the house.
“Hey!” a sun bear complained from the yard. “How come those bears just get to walk into the house?”
“Because,” Max snapped back, “one of them is fucking my sister!”
“Oh.”
Max faced her team. “Although, quite honestly, I can never tell which one.”
“I know!”
“Right?”
“I thought it was just me.”
Now that the bears had gone in—meaning they’d be the first to die if Charlie MacKilligan was “in a mood”—the badgers followed. The whole house smelled amazing. So many baked goods. Tock was betting Charlie hadn’t gotten any sleep. She must have been up all night doing whatever she did in the kitchen.
Tock could only make two things: jerk chicken and latkes. Both sides of her family loved her latkes.
But the stuff Charlie made . . . she was like a magician in the kitchen.
As they walked through the living room, they saw a spread of fresh baked goods on the dining room table, the sideboard, and the top of the china cabinet. The kitchen table and counters were also covered.
The woman really should open her own bakery.
But instead of a stressed-out Charlie ready to destroy, they found a relaxed, laughing Charlie sitting at the kitchen table. Her newest sister, Nat Malone, sat on her lap, Max’s wolverine friend, Dutch, in a chair to the right, and the young jackal, Kyle Jean-Louis Parker, in the seat at the other end of the table. They all seemed to be relaxed and happy. Enjoying themselves.
Tock was relieved. No running for her life. But Max seemed strangely calm. Usually, there was nothing calm about Max. A calm Max made Tock nervous.
“I see the Xanax worked,” Max noted, watching the triplets pile their plates high with the available food.