Bite Me (34 page)

Grinning, she eased open the door she’d stopped in front of and stepped out of the stairwell. She carefully closed the door and waited. The She-lions were loud and so busy shit-talking about what they were planning to do to “that little rat girl”—and the other name for honey badgers was
ratel,
not rat—that Livy didn’t actually have to strain her ears to know when they’d passed, nor did she worry too much about their scenting her out.

Yeah. You could always tell the city shifters from the country ones. The country ones knew how to actually hunt.

Livy heard the door close on the floor she’d just escaped from, and she went back into the stairwell. She went down another flight of stairs and opened the door.

But before Livy could step through, she was flying back and down the stairs she’d been tossed on until she hit the wall.

Laughing, she looked up the stairs to tell the cats to fuck off . . . but it wasn’t bitter She-lions blocking her on both the stairs leading up and the ones leading down.

There were bears. Big, brooding bears. And she quickly figured out how much trouble she was in when one of the bears walked down the stairs, crouched in front of her, and greeted her in Russian with, “Hello, little badger. You should have left your father dead and stuffed.”

Blayne was starting to think that having Cella handle this wasn’t any better an idea than having Livy handle it.

She-tiger versus She-lions had begun to get pretty nasty, pretty fast.

So she was grateful when she saw Gwen come through the training rink doors for their three o’clock meeting with Cella’s mother, who was now part of the current argument going on.

“What the hell is this?” Gwen asked, dropping her backpack to the floor. Gwen had just come from a job and was also dressed in her work clothes like Blayne.

“The sisters and cousins of the Howler Livy got into it with at last night’s bout.”

“Why are Cella and her mother arguing with them?”

“Cella offered to handle them.”

“And you agreed to that?”

Blayne shrugged. “It seemed like a good idea at the time. It’s not like Livy’s going to pay for anyone’s medical bills.”

Gwen rolled her eyes. “Is that what this is about?”

“Pretty much.”

“You make everything so complicated,” Gwen complained.

“What did I do?”

Her best friend walked away without answering, but she pointed at Bo and Lock, who were eating ice cream and watching the fight with obvious bear-enthusiasm.

“You two . . . go get Livy.”

“Can’t we watch the fight?” Lock asked.

Gwen stopped, put her hands on her hips, and glared at her mate.

“Okay, okay. It was just a question.”

Lock got up and gestured to Bo.

Bo shrugged. “What do I need to go for? He can bring back Livy without me.”

“Do you really think the rest of their Pride isn’t around here somewhere looking for Livy right now? They’re She-lions. That’s how they hunt. So get off your ass, Novikov, and find her before the rest of the Pride does. Then escort her back here; you’ll be her protection.”

Sighing, Bo stood.

“She’s two floors down photographing the gymnasts,” Blayne told them. And, as Livy had suggested, it had been Bo’s hockey teammates who’d told her where to find the gymnasts.

Gwen was near the arguing cats when one of the She-lions shoved Cella. Knowing exactly what that would lead to, Gwen ran between the females, slapping her hands against Cella and holding her back. Then she did what Blayne knew her best friend in the universe would do. Gwen turned just her head one hundred and eighty degrees until it lined up with her spine and told the She-lions behind her to, “Back the fuck off!”

The She-lions roared and scrambled away from Gwen and her “freaky little neck thing.” Freaky it might be, but that move had ended several fights over the years and scared off more than a few drunken frat boys, as well, without either Gwen or Blayne having to bloody their claws. So Blayne definitely saw it as a hybrid benefit.

The kick to the gut sent Livy into the wall. Then the bear crouched in front of her again. He helped Livy sit up by wrapping his hand around her throat, and pulling her up while squeezing.

“You,” he said now in accented English, “should have left this alone, little badger. You should have taken your father and buried him and forgotten all about it. But you did not. So you leave us no choice.”

He threw her into the other wall and stood. Livy, coughing and trying to breathe, saw the bear and two others pull guns. With care, the bears screwed silencers onto their weapons, and pointed. Livy only had time to pull herself into a tight ball and grit her teeth, and endure the pain as the bullets tore into her back, hip, and ass.

Lock, busy staring at a bunch of really sturdy women and girls doing amazing backflips across mats and launching themselves off pommel horses, heard a noise he hadn’t heard since he’d been a Marine in a shifter-only unit that used to hunt the hunters of their kind.

Turning, he walked out of the training room, tossing his ice cream cone into a nearby trash can. Bo came up behind him. He still had his ice cream.

“I didn’t see Livy in there. So, where are we going now?”

Lock didn’t answer; he just followed his ears. He reached the end of the hall and pushed the door open. He stepped into the stairwell and saw Livy’s crumpled body in a corner, blood pouring from multiple gunshot wounds. Three grizzlies stood over her with guns drawn. A black bear at the bottom of one set of stairs and another black bear at the top of the other were just watching.

Novikov’s ice cream cone hit the ground, and the hybrid’s mane dropped to his shoulders as his body began to shake with rage. Lock knew it was rage because his own grizzly hump had grown three times in the last two seconds, his claws easing out of his hands, his fangs out of his gums.

The black bear at the bottom of the stairs looked back, his eyes growing wide at the sight of them.

“Jasha!” he yelled out, his hand reaching for the gun he had under his jacket.

Novikov was down the stairs and had the black bear’s hand in his. Then he crushed both gun and hand.

The black bear roared in pain as the other bears spun around, their weapons now pointed at Novikov and Lock.

One of them yelled out something in a language Lock didn’t know, and all the bears suddenly focused on the hybrid.

And none of them took a shot.

Instead, the bears began to back away from them. They still had their guns trained on both males, but they didn’t fire once, and one had his free hand up, speaking to Novikov. What he was saying, though, Lock had no idea.

But when they smiled and nodded at Novikov, Lock suddenly understood that these bears were hockey fans. Fans who didn’t want to hurt Bo “The Marauder” Novikov.

Disgusted, he wondered if these idiots really thought that either Lock or Novikov would ever consider letting them get away with shooting some helpless woman to death in a stairwell.

At least that was what he was thinking until that helpless dead woman slowly and silently pulled herself up into a crouch and unleashed her obscenely long claws.

Taking her time, Livy moved until she was right beneath one of the other bears. She waited a beat, two . . . and rammed those claws between the bear’s legs. His agonized roar of pain rang out as Livy twisted her claw, dragged it out a bit, readjusted, then rammed it back in again.

The uninjured black bear aimed his gun at Livy, but she caught hold of it with her other hand and stood. She yanked at the gun, but he didn’t give it up, so she went up on her toes and slashed the shorter bear across the face. He screamed, one of his eyes landing a few feet away.

Livy took the black bear’s gun from his now-weakened grip, and Lock grabbed Novikov from behind. He yanked his teammate up the stairs and dropped them both to the ground as shots hit the wall and door where they’d just stood.

In a few seconds, it was all over, and together, he and Novikov stood and walked to the top of the stairs, looking down at all those dead bears and Livy. Who was not dead.

Without her head moving, her gaze lifted to Lock’s. He saw the rage in her black eyes. Something he’d never seen from her before. He’d seen her annoyed, but never truly angry. But as blood wept from her many wounds and her body shook, Lock wasn’t exactly surprised when Livy unleashed a roar of her own.

Lock pulled out his cell phone. When the call was answered, he said, “Dee-Ann . . . we have a
major
problem.”

After arranging his parents’ flight to the States, and their hotel room at the Kingston Arms, Vic and Shen went to the Sports Center. Vic had already lost an hour of his life arguing with Livy’s uncles, and the last thing he wanted was for her to hear the latest from them.

So it was with the intent of telling her what was going on that he walked into her office, freezing halfway into the room when he saw giant pictures of his naked self on her desk.

“Oh my God.”

Shen came in behind him, his cell phone ring of zoo pandas eating bamboo really annoying Vic at the moment.

Looking for the phone in his jacket, Shen laughed and pointed at the big prints. “Is that
you
?” He laughed harder. “I can’t wait until your mother sees
that
. This is Shen,” he said into the phone.

A few seconds later, Shen walked out of the room and Vic stood there, staring.

“She can’t seriously be planning to show these to anyone . . . can she?”

Vic stepped back to rest his ass against Livy’s desk, but as he did he saw her camera there.

Frowning, Vic picked it up, disturbed by the rattling sounds coming from inside it. The high-end Nikon had been seriously damaged. The lens appeared torn out, the body of the camera battered. Then he noticed the blood covering the back of it.

Vic lifted his head and saw Shen standing in the doorway, his friend staring at him silently, his phone still in the hand hanging limply at his side.

“Where is she, Shen?” Vic asked. “Where’s Livy?”

C
HAPTER
30

S
hen had insisted on driving, which was probably a good idea. Vic couldn’t think straight. He couldn’t focus. He could barely breathe.

They arrived at a house on Long Island in the middle of what Vic knew was Malone family territory. The Malone tigers were descended from Irish Travellers and would take over entire streets so that strangers couldn’t wander in and get into their business.

Shen parked the truck next to a silver BMW that Vic recognized. It belonged to Livy’s uncle Balt. It seemed her family had been informed about what had happened before Vic. Something he was not happy about but not really interested in at the moment.

Vic stepped out of the truck, and he heard a screen door open. He scanned the street and saw Cella Malone standing on the porch. She waved and Vic walked toward her, Shen following behind.

Cella let him into the house, and without a word, led him through the home, to the kitchen, and down into a finished basement.

As he made it down the stairs, Vic stopped. Livy’s family filled the room. The older aunts and uncles sitting on couches and chairs, the younger nieces, nephews, and cousins on the floor.

Vic looked at Cella and she moved forward, stepping around the badgers until she reached a room. She opened the door and Vic walked in.

A black woman, whom Vic scented as a mountain lion, leaned over an unconscious Livy, pulling bullets out of the honey badger with surgical instruments. She didn’t wear a mask, but she’d managed to get on latex gloves. Still, it was obvious to Vic she’d gotten right to work as soon as Livy hit the table because the sleeves of her bright white cashmere sweater were haphazardly rolled up and the front covered in blood splatters.

The woman glanced up, and Vic recognized her from the Sports Center. He’d occasionally seen her hanging around Cella Malone’s office, but he didn’t know her personally.

“I’m almost done,” the woman said. “I’ll be out in a little bit.”

Cella motioned Vic out, and he stepped back into the other room. She closed the door and stood in front of it.

Vic stood there for a bit, but he couldn’t take it. He walked up the stairs and out of the house. He rested his arms against the fence that circled the property and took deep breaths, trying to calm down. It wasn’t working.

“Vic?”

He looked down to see Blayne and Gwen staring up at him.

Gwen shook her head. “He’s about to have a hybrid break.”

“We have to calm him down,” Blayne said.

“No time for that,” a voice barked. Big hands grabbed Vic from behind and pushed him out of the gate and into the street. Vic looked back to see Novikov holding him.

“Can’t . . . can’t breathe . . .” Vic panted out.

“Breathing’s not your problem.” Novikov looked around and finally pointed at an old but well-maintained bright red ’78 Camaro. “That one.”

“What . . . what?”

Novikov took Vic’s hands and placed them on the car. “Do it, Barinov. It’s the only thing that’ll stop you from killing everyone in a five-mile radius. Just do it.”