Beast Behaving Badly (8 page)

Lock glanced across the rink. Novikov stood talking to a hot little fox. She had to be an Arctic fox—she had on shorts. It was below zero outside! “Arctic fox,” Lock said while busy readjusting the tape he'd wrapped around his hockey stick.

“Yeah, but what's he doing talking to her?”

“It's probably
his
Arctic fox.”

“
His
Arctic fox? What does that mean?”

“It means she's his Arctic fox.” Lock didn't know how he could be any clearer.

Reece Lee Reed, who'd moved up from the minors nearly a month ago and was part of the Smith Pack, slammed to a stop in front of Lock and Ric.

“Did he buy her on the black market?” Reed asked with what Gwen insisted on calling “That hick, backwoods Smith accent.”

“He doesn't have to.”

“Are you saying they're going out?” Ric demanded.

“Is there a reason you sound so upset?” Lock asked.

“You kinda sweet on him, Van Holtz?”

Ric ignored Reed and said, “I heard he was with Blayne this morning.”

“God,” Reed sighed. “That man is becoming my hero.”

“He was helping her with derby,” Lock clarified. “According to Blayne via Gwen he was really nice and completely hands off.”

“Nice? He was nice? Novikov?”

“I'm telling you what I heard.”

Reed chuckled. “Blayne would think Satan himself was just misunderstood.”

Lock couldn't even argue.

“What if she likes him?” Ric asked. “What if she's hoping it goes beyond some ludicrous derby training?”

“I still don't see why you're so worried?”

“Good God, man. Look at her!” He gestured to the fox with a tilt of his head. “She's like the porn version of Nanook of the North.”

“Nanook does the North,” Reed muttered . . . then he laughed at his own joke. He was a self-contained wolf, finding entertainment wherever he wanted.

“I doubt they're having sex. She's his fox,” Lock explained again.

Bert, a black bear, skated over and, leaning in, said, “Word in the Center . . . Blayne Thorpe dropped the great Bo Novikov on his ass during derby training.”

“Bullshit,” Reed said. “Little thing like that. She couldn't drop my sister.” Lock had to agree. He knew Reed's sister, Ronnie Lee. She could easily play for the Chicago Bears as a fullback, where Blayne looked like she belonged on the cheerleading squad.

“My source,” Bert added, “impeccable.”

“Maintenance guys?” Lock guessed.

“Yep.”

“Did she really drop him, or was he just trying to get her on the floor and that was the easiest way?” Reed asked.

“Really dropped him.”

“Just what I thought. He's weak. A few years of the good life and he's lettin' little gals like Blayne Thorpe drop him.”

Ric looked up at Lock before answering, “You're right, you know. Novikov is weak. Completely at the end of his game.”

Reed nodded. “That's what I thought. Looks like it's time for some new blood.” He skated onto the rink to warm up with the rest of the team.

Bert shook his head. “That was just mean, canine.”

In answer, Ric smiled.

 

 

Running late for her dinner date, Blayne rushed into the hockey rink, stepping aside as the medical team took out a battered Reece Reed on a stretcher.

“Hey, Reece.”

She cringed when he managed to wave and give her a smile that could only be called blood filled. Blayne looked back at Gwen, but she didn't seem to notice or care as she made the medical team move around her.

“I told you we weren't late,” Gwen said.

“We're late, but their practice is running long.”

“That's the same thing.”

“No it's not. And how come when I'm late, it's the end of the world, but when you're late everyone just has to wait for you?”

“Why do you think?” Gwen walked to the end of the entrance to the rink. They'd both dressed up for the night since they were having dinner out and then going to the Kuznetsov Pack's new downtown club. Blayne couldn't wait. There was gaming to be had at the club. She wasn't very good at gaming, but she loved playing with the Kuznetsov Pack because they didn't care she wasn't very good.

The team headed in, and Blayne and Gwen stepped aside to let them through. Lock skated over first, grinning down at his fiancée. “You look gorgeous.”

“I know.”

Lock stepped off the rink and into Gwen, and she quickly stepped back. “Stop. You'll get sweat and blood all over me.”

“And?”

She laughed and dodged behind Blayne.

“Why am I in the middle of this?” Blayne demanded.

“My human shield.”

Ric came up behind Lock. “Good evening.” He took Blayne's hand and kissed the back of it. “You look wonderful.”

“Thank you.” And Ric didn't look half bad himself. She didn't know how it was fair a man as handsome as Ulrich Van Holtz would look even better sweaty and in a battered goalie uniform, but he did.

“We won't be long getting ready.” He tapped Lock's shoulder and motioned to the locker room. “I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm starving.”

While they all discussed dinner plans, Blayne stood outside the rink and watched Bo Novikov skate alone. His team may be done for the night, but clearly he wasn't. Yet she couldn't help but feel bad for him. Out there. All alone.

Blayne turned and said to Ric and Lock, “We should invite Novikov out with us.”

The two men gaped at her before adamantly answering, “No.”

Surprised, she asked, “Why not?”

“We want to have a nice time.”

“Who's to say we won't?” When they only gaped at her more, she added, “It's a nice thing to do.”

Now they looked confused.

“For christsake,” Gwen snapped. She walked around Blayne. “We'll invite him to meet us at the club. Does that work for everybody?”

“Yes!”

“No.”

Blayne glared at the two men. “You're being mean!”

Ignoring them all, Gwen stepped on the ice and brought her fingers to her mouth. She whistled and, looking more annoyed than usual, Novikov stopped skating and scowled in her direction. Again, Gwen didn't seem to notice or care. She motioned him over with a wave of her hand.

Once she had the hybrid next to her, she said something to him. With that same expression he wore every moment of every day, he looked up and right at Blayne. She wanted to run but instead smiled and gave a small wave. It wasn't easy, especially when it only seemed to make him scowl more.

“Okay?” she heard Gwen ask.

“Yeah.”

He skated off and Gwen walked back over.

“How did you manage the ice in those heels?” Blayne asked.

“Why aren't you getting ready?” Gwen demanded of the men.

Lock planted his hockey stick against the floor. “I wasn't leaving you alone with
him
.”

“I'm getting cranky from hunger.” Gwen pointed toward the locker rooms. “Go.”

They did, but they grumbled as they went.

When they were gone, Gwen put her arm through Blayne's and together they walked out of the training rink.

“What happened?” Blayne asked.

“Nothing. I simply suggested to Bo Novikov that he may want to meet us at the club tonight.”

“And why would he want to do that?”

“Because otherwise you were going to stay out too late with Ric and be late for your training session tomorrow. Personally, I think it was the Ric mention that upset him the most.”

Blayne snorted. “And I'd bet cash that it was the thought of me being late.”

CHAPTER 8

B
o walked around his truck and looked up at the club buried behind a few buildings. To a full-human it probably looked like some crackhouse, complete with scary drug-dealer protection out front. But Bo could feel the music vibrating through the ground and into his feet, could smell the different breeds housed inside the building, and could see the shifters easing out of a side door and disappearing into the surrounding darkness. Plus the fact that the scary protection guys out front had eyes that reflected in the darkness pretty much screamed “not-quite-human gathering inside.”

Sami and Sander stood on either side of him, also staring up at the building.

“This is gonna be fun,” Sander said, rubbing his hands together.

“Let's go,” Sami added.

Bo grabbed them by the back of their thin leather jackets and yanked them back to his side. “A few rules,” he said.

“Don't be such a drag,” Sander whined.

“We haven't even done anything yet,” Sami added.

“But you will . . . unless I make rules. So here they are. No stealing. That includes wallets, credit cards, cell phones, smart phones, PDAs, or any other small phone-like items that you think are shiny and pretty. You are also not to take anyone's identity; I don't care how much you think they deserve it. The only cash you'll be using will be yours or mine. I find out anything has gone missing, I start breaking fingers.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

They started to walk off, and Bo yanked them back again. “There will be no cons.”

“But—”

“No long cons, no short cons. No ‘my grandmother is dying and I need money for the hospital'; no ‘I was robbed at Penn Station and lost everything'; definitely no ‘I have this great idea that just needs a few backers and a plane ticket to South America but only if you want to double your money in less than a week.' Absolutely no pretending either you or Sander are prostitutes, so you can roll someone in the parking lot. No getting anyone drunk and taking inappropriate pictures of them to use later. I don't care if they are mated to someone else and you think they deserve it.”

“Okay! Fine.”

The pair started to walk off again and Bo yanked them back. “No having sex in the one place you'll definitely be caught—”

Sami stamped her foot. “You're killing our fun!”

“Agree or we leave.”

“Fine. We agree.”

They approached the club, and the foxes immediately caught the attention of the bouncers. Not surprising. Not only were they foxes—therefore not to be trusted—but with their smaller shifter size, they stuck out among their kind.

The bouncers watched the pair closely as they walked by, but when Bo got closer, he saw the recognition in the males' eyes. He got the usual reaction, too, when that sort of thing happened. One male smiled and couldn't let Bo in fast enough, and the other snarled and muttered “no-talent asshole” under his breath as Bo walked into the club. Something he'd become so used to that he didn't even bother to react anymore. Besides, he didn't want to see Blayne with bloody knuckles.

Once inside, the foxes caught everyone's attention first. The females checking out Sander, the males checking out Sami, and those who were flexible either way, checking out both. The pair of them dressed for attention—Sami in her “New York winters are for wimps” leather bikini top, leather shorts, fur boots, and thin leather jacket; Sander in his leather pants, designer silk T-shirt that fit his narrow frame perfectly, and thin leather jacket. Bo knew they looked like Euro trash. Hell, Sami and Sander knew they looked like Euro trash. That was the point. That's what made them so good at what they liked to do when Bo wasn't around to make his strict rules. They enticed to manipulate, but their loyalty to each other was something Bo never questioned.

The club was big and packed. He saw stairs leading to another floor, and a sign next to the stairs that read
GAMES UP
with an arrow. This floor had several bars and tech music. Not his favorite music, but he could tolerate it.

The trio walked over to the closest bar. Sami ordered them three beers before planting herself on a stool. She faced away from the bar so she could check out the room.

“You think she's here?” Sami asked, removing her jacket.

Bo lifted his nose, sniffed the air. “She's here.”

“Then you better track her down and make your move,” Sander said.

Bo's eyes narrowed. Sander was being a little too eager, so he reached into his back pocket and pulled out the two sheets of perfectly folded paper. He flicked them open and held one page out to each. “Here are tonight's rules.”

Sander stared at the printed page in front of him. “You wrote it down?”

“I find putting the rules in writing cuts down on the morning-after ‘But you never saids.' You know I hate the ‘You never saids.'”

Mumbling under his breath, Sander snatched the sheet from Bo and shoved it into his front pocket. Sami took the sheet and carefully refolded it before slipping it into the top of her boot. “Okay,” she said, reaching behind her to grab the beers from the bar while Bo handed cash to the bartender. “Let's go find your wolfdog.”

 

 

Ric, quite comfortable on the end of the U-shaped couch he'd reserved for the four of them, was about to go looking for Blayne when she suddenly dropped into his lap and announced to them all, “I heard people fucking in the bathroom!”

Not sure how to respond to that, Ric simply reached for his German ale.

“Good fucking or bad fucking?” Gwen asked.

Blayne thought a moment, her eyes focused on the ceiling. She finally answered, “
Drunk
fucking.”

“Ahhh.”

Ric laughed. Blayne always made him laugh, which was why he cared so much about protecting her. His cousin and Dee-Ann may think it was perfectly acceptable to use Blayne as bait, but Ric didn't like it. Yet he admitted, at least to himself, that he did worry that if Blayne knew the truth, she might start doing things that would only put her in more danger. Or maybe she'd cower in her apartment, afraid to ever come out. Or maybe she'd do nothing at all. It was the wild card factor that made telling Blayne anything about this a risk. So, against his better judgment, he told her nothing and hoped that Dee-Ann was as good at her job as his cousin believed she was.

“Did you stand there and listen?” Ric had to ask.

“Of course not!” She reached down, fussed with the heel of her very sexy shoes. “But I did have to pee,” she admitted.

“Hey, Blayne,” Gwen murmured from the comfort of Lock's lap. “Two o'clock.”

Before Ric could stop her, Blayne turned in his lap and rose up on her knees. She raised her arm in the air and began to wave while screaming, “Dee-Ann! Dee!
Ann!
Over here!
Sit here!
”

Ric winced, knowing he'd hear about this later. If there was one thing Dee-Ann Smith couldn't stand, it was being the center of attention.

Glaring at Ric across the packed new club, the She-wolf walked over to the couch.

“Hey, y'all,” she said in that enticing Southern accent.

“Dee!” Then Blayne was up, her arms around Dee. Blayne hugged Dee like they were long-lost friends. Although based on the way Dee was currently scowling, Ric doubted that would ever happen.

“
Get her off me,” Dee mouthed at him. “Now!”

“I didn't know you were coming tonight,” Blayne went on, oblivious as always. “I'm so glad you're here!”

When Ric saw Dee's hand reach around to her back, where he knew she had some illegal weapon stashed, he quickly grabbed Blayne around the waist and pulled her onto his lap while snapping under his breath at Dee, “Don't even!”

Dee snarled, her empty hand dropping at her side as he sat Blayne down, both of his arms around her waist.

“Why don't you join us, Dee?” he asked.

“Nah.”

“Oh, come on, Dee!” Blayne cheered happily. “Have a drink. Or let's dance!” Blayne tried to stand up again, but Ric held her in place. “How about I introduce you around!” She tried to stand again, but Ric yanked the overeager wolfdog right back to his lap.

With an annoyed growl and a flash of fang, Dee walked off, disappearing into the crowd.

“Don't go, Dee!” Blayne yelled after her. “Dee!
Deeeeee!
” she bellowed one last time before settling back down against Ric's chest. Blayne gave a little pout. “She never hangs out with us anymore. I wonder why.”

Ric caught Lock's gaze, but they both quickly looked away, both males afraid of being the ones to say something to make sweet, innocent, completely clueless Blayne Thorpe cry.

 

 

Blayne caught Gwen's gaze, but they quickly looked away from each other, both females afraid of laughing so hard they might piss themselves.

Did Dee-Ann Smith really think Blayne was that stupid? Okay. Blayne had her moments. She'd admit it. But she knew when some heifer was following her. Hard not to be close to the O'Neill Pride and not pick up certain skills. Because of the O'Neills, Blayne knew when she was being shadowed. Of course, she also knew how to hot-wire a car, launder money, and get guns into Northern Ireland. Not that she'd ever do any of those things. She wouldn't. But that didn't mean she lacked the skill or brains to do them.

Yet for whatever reason, Dee-Ann Smith was following her. Constantly.

Blayne had the feeling Ric must have hired her. He worried about Blayne. She knew that hybrids had been taken, their bodies found weeks or months later with their throats or other major arteries torn out and their corpses covered in scars. Although full-blood shifters like bears and lions were often used for hunting by men with more money than sense, hybrids had always been the ignored. Until now. Until someone had decided it was a good idea to turn them into pit bulls.

So, did Blayne mind the protection? Not at all. A little protection from some Southern She-wolf was a hell of a lot better than ending up on the wrong side of a pit fight. But what Blayne didn't understand, and what made her toy with Dee-Ann and Ric so much, was why they wouldn't just tell her the truth?

Maybe Ric was worried Blayne wouldn't feel comfortable basically taking money from him. And normally, she wouldn't. But again, taking a little charity from a friend or ending up in the middle of a pit fight? The answer was a no-brainer for Blayne Thorpe. Yet she didn't like the tricky way they were going about it. She especially didn't like that Ric, someone she considered one of her best friends, wasn't being honest with her.

Was it cruel to mess with them? Maybe.

Would Blayne stop? Doubtful.

At least not until they told her the truth. Besides, it took so little to get on the She-wolf's nerves. All Blayne had to do was be herself, but with a dose of proverbial amphetamine added to really amp it up. She did love amping it up. She'd been amping it up since she'd realized it embarrassed the hell out of her father.

Honestly, the military types were so damn easy.

A shadow fell over them and she sat up, grinning, thinking Dee had returned. But when the shadow kept growing, she knew it wasn't Dee. It was Novikov.

“Hey!” she cheered, glad to see that he'd made the effort to come. “You're here!”

“Hey,” Novikov said while staring intently at Blayne. She'd have to work on him with that staring thing. A lot of females would be put off by it, and if he wanted to date a She-wolf, he was risking his eyes. She-wolves loathed the staring game.

Yet once Blayne got past his intense stare, she noticed that he had a beer gripped in his hand and a female hanging around his neck.

Okay. She'd admit that she didn't expect him to bring a date. But she didn't mind. Nope. Not at all. She wanted to help the guy get out and have fun . . . even if that meant dating an obvious porn star.

The group fell into an awkward silence, neither Lock nor Ric bothering to attempt even the basic politeness. She'd have to talk to them later about that. How could she teach Novikov to be polite when two of the most polite guys she knew weren't acting polite? It was a conundrum!

After the silence went on for way too long, Gwen finally asked the question Blayne was dying to know the answer to.

“What is that?” Gwen asked from the safety of Lock's lap, pointing at the fox.

And, to Novikov's credit, he did appear truly perplexed by her question. “What's what?”

Gwen frowned. “Around your neck.”

He glanced over, shrugged, and replied, “This is my fox. Sami.”

“Hiya,” Sami said, looking quite comfortable. She was a cute little thing. An Arctic fox from what Blayne could tell with white hair that reached to her shoulders. But her brown skin and the shape of her eyes suggested she was Eskimo. Wait.
Is that the politically correct term?
Blayne didn't know, and now she felt guilty. What if it wasn't the correct term? What if calling Sami Eskimo was the same as the old guy in Little Italy last week who'd called Blayne that “nice colored girl”?

“So,” Novikov went on, oblivious to Blayne's struggle with finding the correct terminology to describe the human side of his fox, “what are you guys doing?”

“Nothing,” Lock said, and boy, could he make that one word sound more grudgingly given?