Keane pushed his way into the middle of the screaming, finger-pointing females and bellowed, “That is enough!”
He spread his arms wide, forcing the two groups of females to separate.
“There is no reason for any of this,” he told them. “So let it go.”
The She-lion leader raised her arm high, forefinger pointing at Tock. “That bitch”—Tock pressed her hand to her chest, mouth dropping in faux shock at the insult—“came at my son?”
“Really?” Keane briefly glowered at Tock and she thought for sure he was about to yell at her. But he turned back to the She-lion and said, “Tock is the most calm and rational of this unholy group of insane badgers—”
“Thank you, brother to my half-sister!”
“—so I have to wonder what your son did.” Crossing his arms over his chest, Keane took a step forward so he towered over the She-lion despite her six-inch, tacky, knockoff designer heels. “By that, I mean what your son did to my niece. Or did it involve my brother’s dog and her puppies? You see, my niece is very attached to those puppies. And I’d be very cranky if someone upset her. Whether it was about the puppies. Or the dog. Or standing near her. Or even just looking at her weird. Whatever upset her, I would take it very personally. You understand what I’m saying to you, Anya?”
The pair glared at each other for several extremely long seconds until male lions came out of the nearby sports gear store and walked toward them.
“What’s going on here?” one of them asked.
Keane replied by locking his eyes on the three males and roaring. Just once.
Looking up. Then down. Then remembering they had left something in the sports store, the males retreated. The free food and housing provided by their mates apparently weren’t worth the trouble of engaging three male Amur tigers.
The She-lion rolled her eyes, clearly disgusted with the males she’d chosen to help father her pride’s offspring, and took a step away from Keane.
With one more glare for Tock, the lioness spun around and walked off. Her tacky sisters and cousins followed.
The She-lion did keep talking, though, but now she spoke Russian.
Unfortunately for them, Tock knew Russian. Just as she knew Polish, German, French, Czech, Slovak, or any other language that her people might have spoken before immigrating to Israel.
It didn’t matter that she understood, though. Because she was going to be the bigger person and just let it go. She was just going to ignore those females. Yeah. She had been going to.
Until she heard the She-lion say in Russian, “Forget those ugly cunts and that alley cat’s fat, lying niece.”
Tock had a lot of issues with what was said, yet she could still have ignored it all . . . except what was said about Dani. It was bad enough that the misogynistic full-human society they were forced to live in would do their best to give the kid a self-image problem. It was bad enough that she called a ten-year-old fat. What Tock couldn’t ignore was the disloyalty of female to female. It was bad enough they had to put up with males’ bullshit all day, every day. Did they actually have to attack each other, too? It was fine if instinctive enemies went after each other. Tock did that all the time. But she never went after another female just because she was female. And she would never do that to a female child!
That was something she couldn’t and wouldn’t ignore.
So Tock walked past her silent teammates, stopping a few feet in front of them and yelling out in Russian, “Your son doesn’t know how to take ‘no’ for an answer. And if you don’t teach him now about how to interact with women, one day, when he’s older, someone like me is going to cut his throat. And no one will miss him. And no one will miss you if you get in my way.”
The She-lion spun around so fast, the females with her took several steps back, staring back and forth between Tock and their leader with wide gold eyes. A few had their fangs out; others, their claws. Because they were expecting a reaction. So was Tock.
She braced herself, her right hand pressed against the small of her back. Max pressed the handle of a tactical knife into Tock’s palm and Tock waited. It didn’t take long. In fact, it happened in seconds.
The She-lion dropped her purse, started running and, in mid-stride, shifted to lion. Her clothes and shoes flew off as her arms and legs, now covered in animal muscle and fur, stretched out. Like a ballistic missile, she headed right for Tock.
Tock took in a breath and tightened her grip on the blade, but she never had a chance to use it.
The She-lion was so focused on Tock, she never saw Charlie MacKilligan coming until the hybrid’s shoulder slammed into the five-hundred-pound cat. Since Charlie couldn’t shift, it was her human body that hit the She-lion and, in theory, she should have bounced off like a ball against a wall.
This was Charlie, though. Charlie couldn’t shift, but her strength had become legendary. Not only did she send the cat flying in the opposite direction, the She-lion didn’t stop until she crashed into the far wall hundreds of feet away.
Charlie, however, immediately stopped right in front of Tock and her teammates.
“Everything okay here?” she asked with forced good cheer, her gaze locked on Max.
“It wasn’t her,” Tock explained, handing the tactical knife back to Max. “This one is kind of on me.” She pointed. “And him.”
Charlie narrowed her eyes on the She-lion’s lying son, and the kid gave a baby hiss before running into the sports store with the two other young males.
Princess barked and Charlie smiled at the sight of her. “God, she is such a cool dog.”
“If you bring home another dog . . .” Max warned.
“I know. I know. But,” she suddenly added with actual good cheer this time, “what I can do is take Dani home with me for the rest of the day.” She focused on Shay. “She can bring the dog and the puppies.”
Keane stepped in front of Shay before his brother could respond.
“What are you going to do with her?” Dani’s uncle asked with clear suspicion.
“Well, I’ll get her home. Get the dogs settled. Put Dani to work in a sweatshop making cell phones until I start sending her out to deliver sweets to strange men in vans.”
“Why do you try to make me angry?”
“Because it’s easy?” She shrugged. “What do you think we’re going to do? She’ll hang out with Nat. She’ll swim”—she held up her hand before Shay could say anything—“under strict supervision. I’ll make sure she’s fed and that the adult bears don’t mess with her. Stevie’s working from home today, so they can talk math or whatever. It’ll be fine.” She reached her arm out and up, gently placing her hand on his bicep, and said with disgusting sweetness, “We’re all family now.”
“Ech.”
Charlie laughed and turned toward Princess and the puppies.
“Did you forget you also have practice?” Keane asked her. “Which you’ve already missed most of.”
Charlie turned back to Keane and asked with all sincerity, “Really? You think I need more practice tackling people?”
They all looked at the She-lion, now human again, trying to pick her naked, battered body off the floor, but unable to do it without help from the other She-lions.