This couldn’t wait, though.
Splayed across his bed in his lion form, his brother slept hard. But he knew what would get his brother’s attention.
“It’s happening today.”
One gold eye immediately opened; the left side of his face was smooshed into his pillow so he couldn’t open the other eye. Still, even with that one eye, he knew his brother’s question without having to hear it.
“It’s going to be very nasty.”
Slowly, his brother pushed himself up on all fours, standing on the double king mattress. He threw his head back and began to roar. Powerful, short roars with a few seconds between each. Then a series of staccato ones that went on for nearly twenty seconds, until he went back to the short powerful ones.
Finally, they heard their next-door neighbor’s loud girlfriend scream, “Oh, my God! What the fuck is that shit?”
Chapter 16
Shay expected the morning to be bad, but it wasn’t. And that was because Tock was in charge. She woke people up based on how long they normally took in the shower—he did not ask how or why she had that information, but she had it. By the time she tapped him on the shoulder to wake him up, everyone else was either dressed or nearly dressed. Ready to start the day.
“You’ve got twenty minutes,” she informed him. “Clean clothes from your brother in the main bedroom. You can also shower in the bathroom. Breakfast at Charlie’s. Waffles and bacon.”
“Wolves love waffles,” he mumbled, sitting up and scratching his head. “Am I the last to get ready?”
“Finn says you take short showers while Streep insists on wasting water for forty-five minutes.”
“I’ve been up since five!” Streep announced as she walked through the room in shorts and a T-shirt, her feet bare.
“Why are you not dressed yet?”
“I’m not naked.”
“Shoes! Boots, preferably. No idea what’s going to happen this afternoon.”
Shay frowned. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah. Just looking into something.”
“Need backup?”
“Max, do we need back—”
“Nope!” the MacKilligan announced on her way through the hallway toward the kitchen.
“Why is no one wearing shoes?” Tock demanded. “Put your shoes on!” She focused on Shay’s face again. “We’ll be fine.”
After that he’d taken his shower, put on his brother’s clothes, and headed over to Charlie’s. As promised, she had made bacon and waffles and baked goods for the bears lurking around her windows. Dani was already at the kitchen table, enjoying her waffles and bacon, when he walked in and kissed her on the top of the head. She looked so happy that morning, he was glad he’d let her stay with Nat, who ate and then went back to bed as any teenager would in the summertime.
Keane showed up in time to have some breakfast before getting them into his SUV—including the “damn puppies” and Princess—and headed off to Dani’s summer camp out on the Island. Sitting in the front with Finn, Keane complained about the cost of gas and all his traveling “back and forth between Long Island and Queens. I hope you appreciate the money I’m spending.”
While his brother continued bitching, Shay pulled his daughter close and watched as she worked on math problems in one of her notebooks.
“Daddy?”
“Uh-huh?”
“Do you like Tock?”
Uh-oh. Shay had to be careful here. Kids could get attached easily, and he hated disappointing his daughter. He needed to set up strong boundaries now before she started thinking Tock would be a permanent part of their life just because she might occasionally tutor Dani in math.
“Of course I like Tock. She really helped us when we needed it.”
“But do you like like her?”
“No, baby, I don’t. She’s just a friend.”
“Really? Because Auntie Nat thinks you like like her.”
Dammit, Nat! What was wrong with his baby sister? Not everything had to be a stupid rom-com.
“I’ve barely spoken six words to Nat in the last four days. How could she possibly know what I like or don’t like right now?”
“Well, Auntie Charlie thinks Tock likes you.”
Shay rubbed his forehead with his free hand. “You do know that Charlie, Stevie, and Max are not your aunts, right?”
“Don’t change the subject,” Finn said from the front passenger seat. “Do you like like Tock or not?”
Shay glowered at the back of his brother’s super-slapable head. “Shut. Up.”
*
They parked the SUV more than five miles away and walked to the docks. They couldn’t get close to where that boat went down, though. Federal agencies of every stripe were there, blocking the area and conducting investigations.
After a few minutes of just standing around, watching the Feds along with the crowd of curious onlookers and press, they spread out and followed their noses around the rest of the massive New Jersey dock until they could sneak past the full-humans guarding the place.
And as soon as they got closer to where the action had happened, all Tock could smell was bear. Big, male bears.
That wasn’t unusual at any dock. Shipping required big burly people to help move all those products and the crates they were in. But along with the scent of bear, she could smell gun oil and . . . lion.
Tock rolled her eyes. She had no patience for lion males. Lion females were bad enough, but she only fucked with them when they started shit. But lion males . . . True, they’d helped her and her teammates take down the hyena clan led by Mads’s mother, but that didn’t matter. Good will one day did not guarantee good will later when it came to wild animals. It especially didn’t guarantee that with shifters.
“I don’t know why he’s mad at me,” Mads complained beside Tock while Tock just kept sniffing. “It’s not like I invited that coyote and his family into my home. He was already there. He had imminent domain.”
“It’s eminent and I don’t think you’re using that term correctly. At all.”
“I just don’t think it’s fair to consider running off a coyote that’s not bothering us when he’s just trying to take care of his family.”
Tock stopped by a large container and sniffed the door. She kept smelling bears. Bears everywhere! She continued moving.
“Don’t you think it’s dangerous to have an animal on your property that could be riddled with disease and fleas?”
“He’s very clean. He doesn’t have fleas.”
Again, Tock stopped, but this time she faced Mads.
“What?” Mads asked.
“Have you bathed that animal?”
“Of course I do. When we’re not home, he gets into the house and sleeps on our sheets.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“You’re just uptight.”
“When it comes to vermin . . . yes, I am.”
“Coyotes are not vermin.”
“Just because it’s cuter than a rat, that does not make it any less vermin-y.”
“I thought we were working.”
“I’m working,” Tock reminded her teammate. “You’re obsessing over your boyfriend not liking the wild animal you’re trying to make into a house pet.”