chapter FIVE

chapter FIVEMads walked into the Sports Center with her duffel bag and her training plans. She’d be meeting the rest of her team later that evening on Staten Island for practice. This was training just for her. To be the best, one couldn’t just show up for the games. Well . . . you could if you were Max. But Mads wasn’t a MacKilligan. She didn’t have the luck of the Scottish. Or was it Irish? It didn’t matter. Whatever it was, she didn’t have it.She took the secret stairs down to the main floor of the shifter-only part of the Sports Center. This set of stairs was monitored by fellow shifters to ensure that full-humans didn’t accidentally wander down to locations they shouldn’t be in. It wasn’t as if they’d necessarily see jaguars romping around with sloth bears right off the bat. It was rarely that obvious. But they would notice some differences right away. Like entire families that stood over seven feet tall chatting with a couple of short, white-haired “friends” who might or might not be picking pockets when the opportunity presented itself. Or maybe they’d notice how fast some of the children could run. Or how high some of the other children could climb when startled. Or how easy it was to get packs of children to howl.Yeah, it was best to just keep the full-humans away from the many floors that were off-limits to them.Mads’s first plan was to hit the treadmill in the gym. After that, some weight training and then some court time, and then maybe—She hit the wall and quickly backed up, realizing she hadn’t been paying attention again. But when she took several steps back, she noted that she hadn’t really walked into a wall.“Oh. It’s you.”The tiger glared down at her.“Sorry.”“Yeah. Sorry.”They nodded at each other and Mads stepped to the left to go around him. But he also stepped to the left. So Mads stepped to the right, which he also did. She stepped to the left again. But so did he.She stopped and let out a frustrated breath. Like her, he was carrying a duffel bag but his had a team logo and the team’s bright colors. He also hand-carried his helmet and shoulder pads. They were so large, she doubted it would be easy to find a bag large enough for them.They nodded at each other again and this time Mads took a step to the right. But so did the cat.Fed up, she finally snapped, “What the fuck are you doing?”“I was going to ask you the same thing.”Annoyed that he seemed to think it was somehow her fault they were waltzing near the food court, Mads pulled one of her classic court moves. A move she could only do in a shifter league. She leaped onto the cat’s chest and climbed up and over him, then continued on her way.“Did you seriously just do that?” she heard him call out after her.Grinning, she didn’t even bother to turn around. Because, yeah. She’d really just done that.* * *Finn stood in the middle of the main floor, stunned, realizing that a honey badger had just used him as some kind of ladder. Or bridge.He hadn’t really expected to see any of the badgers that had come to the house that morning. Especially the one so comfortable sleeping in his cabinets. He definitely hadn’t expected her to climb over him. Who did that?“What’s wrong with your face?” Keane asked as he walked up to him. He also carried his football gear.“What?”“Your face.”“What about it?”Keane pointed at it. “It looks weird.”Finn jabbed his thumb over his shoulder, about to explain how annoyed he was, when a Black woman on roller skates skidded to a stop and announced, “He’s smiling!”“What?” both Keane and Finn snapped at her.Seemingly unbothered by their tone, she threw her arms in the air and insisted, “You’re smiling! You’re happy! Everyone should be so happy!”With that disturbing performance, she skated away.“What was that?” Finn asked his brother.“Some freakish hybrid. Just ignore it.” Keane motioned to the elevators. “Let’s get to practice.”* * *Charlie MacKilligan expected a few things in life. She expected her father to make her very existence a nightmare. She expected Stevie to screech like a murder victim when squirrels came too close. She expected Max to have access to stolen cars and grenade launchers at any given moment. And being in love with one of triplets meant having three bears around her at all times. Thankfully, she liked all three, but still . . . That was a lot of bear to deal with on any given day.Anyway, those were things Charlie expected. So when those things happened or she had to deal with those things—like walking out of the shower wearing only a towel to find her mate, Berg, sitting on his bed with his brother and sister, Dag and Britta—she wasn’t surprised. What did surprise her was a ranting Max. Because Max didn’t rant. She caused others to rant, but Max didn’t rant unless she was trying to distract someone from something going on behind them.It started as soon as they all got into the SUV. It was Charlie, Max, Stevie, Shen, Berg, and a new kitten. Charlie had barely pulled away from the curb when Max suddenly announced, “Those dirty Malones rejected my Danish.”Charlie hit the brakes and asked, “What does that mean?”“I made them a kind gesture, to show them I appreciated what they did for us, and they threw it back in my face!”“What did they do?”Max looked at her, stared a moment, before replying, “Nothin’.”“You see, Max, when you start lying to me—”“Stevie’s planning on having a baby,” she quickly announced, “and she’s gone off her medication.”Charlie watched Max and quickly came to the conclusion her sister was attempting to distract her, but she wasn’t lying.“Well,” Max pushed when Charlie only stared at her, “aren’t you going to say anything?”“Okay. Don’t get the baby its first knife until it’s at least thirteen. There. I said something.”“And that’s it?” Max leaned over and said in a very loud whisper, “You’re not concerned? Even a little? I mean, just look at her!”Charlie did. Her baby sister was in the backseat between a giant panda and a grizzly bear. She held a red-and-white kitten so small that she’d used a hand towel to wrap him in, but she could have gotten away with a wash cloth. Stevie was so busy cooing over that cat, she wasn’t even paying attention to Max. When she noticed that Charlie was looking at her, she held up the tiny thing for her sister to see and cheered in a squeaky voice, “Kitten!”Turning back around, Charlie shook her head. “She looks fine.”“Really? Because she just went off her meds. Without any warning!”Without any warning? Stevie? No way. No way! Stevie could be unpredictable when it came to her work or dealing with nature. But she was never unpredictable when it came to her mental health. She never just “went off her meds.” And she definitely never, ever made unplanned decisions. Charlie remembered when Stevie was eleven and set up a schedule for therapy three times a week. She put all her appointments on a massive calendar that she put in the Pack kitchen for all to see. So that everyone knew when she had to be at her appointments. She had no shame and she kept everyone informed. Why would that suddenly change?It wouldn’t. Charlie knew that as sure as she was sitting here. Her baby sister wouldn’t change. She feared going to one of those mental hospitals they’d seen in horror movies when they were kids. The ones people were forced into against their will. If she was going to a mental hospital, she wanted to have complete control over the situation. So, nope. Stevie hadn’t changed. So then where did Max get the idea that . . .“Kitten!” Stevie said, holding up the cat again.“And what do you have to say for yourself?” Max demanded of Shen. “Now that you can’t drown me out with your damn bamboo chewing.”Shen looked Max right in the eyes and replied, “I’m just a male. I want lots of babies. I just want my seed pouring out of me like I’m a Gatling gun.” Then, to get his point across, Shen made machine-gun sounds with his mouth.Charlie focused on the street ahead and began driving again.“I just can’t believe you guys,” Max argued. “It’s like you have all lost your minds!”“That or you don’t want to tell me what happened last night so you’re distracting me with Stevie.”Max dismissed Charlie’s words by waving her hand in front of Charlie’s face. Normally not an issue except Charlie was driving.“You know,” Berg noted from the backseat, “my sister would say that no one has the right to dictate what any grown woman can do with her body.”“No one is talking to you, Yogi!”“Okay. But if you bring this up in front of Britta, you’re gonna get a lecture. And remember the last time you tried to walk out on one of her lectures? She just held you in place with her foot.”“I suggest we all not talk until we reach the Sports Center,” Charlie told them, reaching for the radio.“I thought we were going to the vet for that stupid cat.”“The Sports Center has a new vet office in it. Bears love having pet dogs for some reason.”“Dogs help keep invaders away from our beehives,” Berg said. “Don’t they, Max?”Without even turning around, Max warned, “I know you’re not talking to me.”“Me? Accusing a honey badger of stealing honey from a beehive? Why that’s crazy talk.”* * *Finn threw the black bear to the ground.“What was that for?” the bear demanded, getting back to his big feet. “All I asked was—”Finn again threw the bear to the ground.“Hey! Cut that out! I can’t believe you’re acting like this.” Once more the bear got up. “All I wanted to know was why—”Finn threw the black bear to the ground.“Stop doing that!”“Malone!”Around the practice field, three heads turned to stare at the defensive line coach but she waved her tablet and changed her bark to, “E.R., come here.”Finn jogged over to Big Julie Farnell. A She-lion from an enormous swamp-cat pride from the West Coast. Julie had taken a job with the team a few years back, leaving her pride behind, and even bringing her cubs with her. A bold move for a lioness and one not really appreciated by her mother and sisters, but Julie was a bold female in many ways. Full-humans had given her the name Big Julie when she joined peewee football as a kid. The parents hated her because she made their sons look bad but they couldn’t hate the way she stomped on the other team. She’d continued to play until junior high. She’d been ready to fight it out in court so she could play high school football but some players from the other team decided to “teach” the girl a lesson about playing in a man’s sport. They brutally battered her all through a game, using their biggest and meanest guys, with the full approval of the coaching staff.Julie put up with all of it until one of the guys made the mistake of tackling her after she’d sacked their quarterback. And then he wouldn’t let her go. He thought it was funny. Julie didn’t. And she proved that point by shoving him off, grabbing his arm, and twisting it until it shattered at the shoulder joint. While he was screaming, one of his teammates tried to yank her off while calling her an “evil cunt.” Julie didn’t like that either, so she yanked the player’s helmet off and beat the hell out of him with it. Mostly around his face and head. Refs tried to step in but that didn’t work out for them either and both teams jumped in, fighting each other. It was, in short, a bloodbath when all was said and done. The two boys were in and out of hospitals for months, their future football careers over forever. The parents wanted to file criminal charges but two things backed them off that decision. First, the bruises Julie had all over her body within hours of the game, which the coaching staff had made sure to photograph for posterity. And, of course, Julie’s mother and aunts and her father and his brothers. The entire lion pride had walked into the principal’s office that Monday and the rage of the full-human fathers, who had such big football dreams for their sons, seemed to wilt in the face of the lion males who stood over them . . . breathing.That’s all it was, just breathing. But when that breathing blew your hair back, and gold eyes bored into your skull like twin suns . . . maybe involving the cops was not such a great idea.In the end, Julie was transferred to a private school and she started playing for a teen shifter team filled with males and females of all species who knew better than to call a She-lion an “evil cunt.” After college, she was drafted to a pro team, where she played for fifteen years until a bad car accident crushed her leg and arm. The accident should have killed her—her sports car had been decimated by a bus with badly repaired brakes—but she recuperated just fine in a shifter hospital except for her elbow. It never healed properly and the only way to fix it was with a metal joint. A minor surgery for an average shifter but a major one for a pro player. The prosthetic would give her an edge over her opponents, making Julie’s arm stronger than any top quarterback’s. So she had to choose between the surgery and her pro career. It wasn’t an easy decision but the pain radiating from her elbow to her shoulder made tackling guys twice her size the last thing she wanted to do despite her very high tolerance for pain. She’d been tossed around by enough Cape buffaloes on family vacations to know what real pain was, and being hit by a couple of grizzlies trying to keep her away from their quarterback was not it. Which meant if she couldn’t suck up the pain of an elbow injury, it was serious and would only get worse.While the surgery had killed one career, it had given her another. Defensive line coach for the New York Crushers. She’d been with the team less than a year, but the Malones—so far—hadn’t minded her. And to be honest . . . they minded almost everybody. Especially the last defensive line coach.Unlike everyone else, Julie used an abbreviation of Finn’s team nickname when calling him. E.R. stood for “Eternal Rest.” A nickname that was well deserved, but that didn’t mean he enjoyed it. Made him feel like a funeral home. And why nicknames were necessary at all, he didn’t know. Weren’t they mostly for the fans?“You can just call me Finn,” he reminded her.“I’ll just call you Malone Three.”Finn let out a long sigh. “Or that.”She gestured in the black bear’s direction. “Why are you throwing Franklin around like a chew toy?”He shrugged. “No reason.”Franklin stood beside them now. “All I did was ask him—”Before Finn could even raise his hands, the black bear was flying forward thirty feet or so as Keane came up behind him.It was true, what they said . . . tigers really did enjoy attacking a man from behind.“I know I keep asking this of you both, but I’m going to try again . . . please do not beat up your own teammates.”“What if they deserve it?”She let out a long breath. “This is why we call your kind alley cats.”“Racist.”Julie let out another breath.She began to walk away but stopped. “Who is that? He’s waving at you.”Finn turned and saw the canine he’d called, hoping he might get some information that could help him and his brothers.“No outsiders during practice, Malone. You know that. If Coach Bradley sees him . . .”“I just need to talk to him for five—”A football slammed into the dog’s unsuspecting head, dropping him where he stood.Finn closed his eyes, but he heard Julie clearly suggest, “Why don’t you and your brothers grab your friend there and carry him to my office and we’ll all try to convince him not to sue the entire team into oblivion. Okay? Great!”* * *Julie watched the second oldest Malone brother for nearly a minute before asking, “Could one of you get him down, please?”Keane Malone slammed his fist on her desk and roared, “Shay!”The sound startled the big cat and Shay fell off the bookshelf he’d been climbing so he landed on his back, leaving a healthy dent in her concrete floor.She rolled her eyes. She’d always thought dealing with lion males was a lot of work. All the hair conditioner the females needed to provide and feeding them first, even ahead of the kids. It was all so much work. But give her that any day over these cranky tigers. It wasn’t just the Black Malones either. They might be the crankiest tigers she’d ever met, but all tigers were grumpy and rude. They just wanted to be left alone to eat and sleep and argue with anyone that happened to walk by.“How’s he doing?” Julie asked Finn, who was hovering over his canine friend.“He could be dead.”“He’s not dead. He’s unconscious. Just gently—”The alley cat reached his arm back and slapped the poor dog as hard as humanly possible.“Don’t hit him!”“But he’s awake now.”He was. The canine woke up swinging and snarling, scrambling backward and looking for who had just struck him.“Calm him down,” Julie ordered. “Calm him down before he starts barking. See, he’s barking. That’s going to bring Coach Bradley right in here. You know polar bears are attracted to barking because of seals.”“It’s okay, Stein,” Finn told the dog. “It’s okay. Calm down.”“Why am I here again?” Keane asked.“Because you and your brother were beating up the bears—”“That wouldn’t be possible if you had more bears from Alaska. These tiny Yellowstone bears are holding us back.”“I can’t have this bear discussion with you again, Keane.”“What about Russian bears? If they can play stupid hockey, we can teach them to play football.”“Is your brother dead?” she asked about Shay.“No. Wait.” He looked at where his brother had fallen, stared a moment, then finally refocused on her. “No.”“How are we doing, Finn?”Finn held up a finger and said to his friend, “What do you mean you can’t help me?”“I haven’t gambled in years. Thanks to rehab and my cousin’s constant threats.”“I thought you had contacts.”His friend finally stood. He was tall. Extremely good looking. A wolf. “What kind of contacts?”“People who could get me information. You know . . .” Finn gestured with his hand. “Information information.”“I have no idea what that means.”“Stuff no one else has. About underground shit.”“What makes you think I have that kind of contacts?”“You’re a Van Holtz.”“A Van Holtz with a gambling problem. I just made sous chef for the lunch shift. That is not a show of confidence from my family. I got miles to go before my cousins and uncles trust me with anything really important. Although . . .”Julie watched the canine glance off, staring at her bookshelf.“What’s he doing?” she asked Finn.“He’s thinking.”“Is that what that is? How do they function during the day? You know, without assistance?”“I can hear you!” the wolf suddenly barked, glaring at them. “I’m standing right here!”“Maybe he can get a dog,” Julie suggested, “to assist him. I’ve heard border collies are very intelligent.”“Do you want my help or not?”“I thought you couldn’t help,” Finn reminded the wolf.“I can’t, but I have a suggestion.”“What suggestion?”“Your sister.”Julie didn’t know too much about the Malones’ personal life. She’d heard things during her time with the team. About their father’s murder. About how the rest of the Malone family had been no help, putting the three eldest brothers on the outs with the entire Traveling clan. And about how the brothers had made it their mission in life to get revenge on those who’d done the deed.She’d also heard that any time their baby sister came in to watch a practice or to stop by and bring the brothers lunch or just to visit, the other players were very polite. They also never made eye contact with the kid. The first time Julie saw this behavior, she assumed that maybe they were just uncomfortable being around a shifter who was deaf. There weren’t a lot of them, but she’d heard there were a few. But she kept seeing the same reaction each time the pretty shifter came to practice, which wasn’t very often. Still, often enough that the players should have gotten used to her presence.Then there was that day . . . the day a rookie smiled at her. It was a rather innocent smile. Not a leer. Julie knew a leer. So she hadn’t thought much about it. Until the team practiced a new play. It was just a run-through. Just a quick way to show each player the moves without anyone actually doing the full running or tackling. The rookie was a running back. All he had to do was catch the ball from the quarterback. The offense would protect him. The defense would go for him, but not really.Because it was just a run-through.Julie remembered watching in horror as the Malone brothers, two on defense, one on offense, mowed down the entire offensive line and took out that poor rookie just as he caught the ball. He even had a smile on his face. No idea that he was about to be taken down by three giant tigers, pissed off that he’d smiled at their baby sister. Sure, she’d been sixteen at the time, but it wasn’t like he was forty. The poor kid wasn’t even twenty-one and, again, it was a pretty innocent smile. It wasn’t like he’d tried to hump her right on the field! Julie was sure a simple “Stay away from our sister or we’ll kill you,” would have gotten the message across to the young cheetah just as effectively as turning him into a twisted pretzel did.When the kid asked to be traded to another team, in another state, across country, the head coach didn’t even argue. How could he?So the dog’s even mentioning the Malones’ baby sister seemed reckless.Julie cringed when Keane’s big fist again slammed on her desk, and she wondered how much longer the old metal could last. It wasn’t like the team had gotten her a new desk when she’d taken this job. It had probably been here ever since the team’s founding in the seventies.“Did you just bring up my baby sister?” Keane roared.Surprisingly, the wolf didn’t make a run for it. He just rolled his eyes and put his hands in front of him, palms up, and said, “Don’t get hysterical. I swear, you cats always get so hysterical.”“Tigers don’t get hysterical,” Shay warned from the floor he was still lying on. Julie had forgotten he was down there. “We just rip your skin off and eat you whole.”Julie looked at Finn and nodded. “Subtle,” she told him.* * *Wolves were stupid! Even Van Holtzes were stupid!Because what else would possess Stein Van Holtz to bring Nat into this conversation other than extreme stupidity?“If ya let me finish . . .”“We can kill you then?” Shay asked from the floor.“Prefer you didn’t, but thanks for the offer. Instead, I was going to suggest that you talk to her sisters.”“She doesn’t have sisters,” Finn reminded the wolf.Stein rubbed his forehead. “Oh, my God. Seriously? Are you guys still doing this shit? Everybody knows she’s a MacKilligan.”Keane got up so fast, his metal chair flew backward. All Finn could do was get between the dumb dog and his brother. Even Julie jumped back from her desk, fangs out, a warning growl rolling from her throat. Only Shay didn’t bother to move. Why should he, though? Stein was a decent size for a wolf, but nothing Keane couldn’t kill on his own.“She is not a MacKilligan!” Keane growled, his voice like crushed gravel. “She’s a Malone.”“Whatever gets you through the day, dude,” the wolf said with a dismissive wave, forcing Finn to slam his hands against his brother’s chest and push him back.“Are you going to help?” Finn asked Shay.“Nope.”“Okay, let me put it to you this way so we can get through this conversation,” Stein went on. “Let’s pretend the MacKilligans are delusional, and they just think your sister is also their sister. You can use that.”“Use it how?” Shay asked, his hands behind his head. “To steal us a Porsche?”“If you want. Or to get you information.”Keane stopped trying to rip Stein’s head off and, instead, they all gazed at the wolf.“What are you talking about?”“I won’t say that honey badgers know everybody. Because they don’t. What they do have are connections to almost every badger family worldwide. And by knowing someone in every badger family, they know everyone. It’s weird and very honey badger, but it works for them.”Feeling his brother relax beneath his hands, Finn released Keane and turned to face Van Holtz.“Meaning,” the wolf went on, “that if there’s one species that can get you information—that can help you solve the murder of your father—it’s the honey badger.”* * *Mads wiped the sweat from her face with a dry white towel and grabbed the cold water bottle one of the assistant coaches handed to her. She knew she should sip, but she wasn’t really a “sipper.” She happily gulped down the cool water until the one-liter bottle was finished and again wiped the fresh bout of sweat from her face.She was about to take another ball and start a new round of three-point shots when she noticed the four people standing at the entrance of the practice court.The team practiced on Staten Island so they wouldn’t be seen by the opposition, but she practiced by herself at the Sports Center in Manhattan. It had amazing facilities and, even though they were New Yorkers, the people there were surprisingly nice.Still, these four people stood out from the crowd.The assistant coach leaned in and said low, “I don’t know who they are or how they got down here without being grabbed by security, but they’re full-human and freaky.”Mads handed the basketball over to the assistant, horribly embarrassed.“Don’t worry,” she said on a long sigh. “I know who they are.”“Should I call a cleanup crew?”“No, no. They’re fine.” Idiots, but fine.“They’re wearing wolf and bear fur . . . in the summer . . . that’s just rude on so many levels.”Mads patted the female’s shoulder. “I’ve got this, Tammy.”Slowly, Mads walked over to the four silent people waiting for her.When she was right in front of them, the four bowed their heads but Mads didn’t return the gesture because it was stupid. Maybe if it was the year 910, it would be okay, but it wasn’t.It wasn’t!“What is it?” Mads demanded.It was the shamaness who spoke. It was always the shamaness who spoke. Of course, she was also the one with a dragon tattoo that went from her left eye, down her cheek to her chin, which gave a gal a certain sense of rank among the fruitcakes the shamaness hung around every day.“Your great-grandmother—” The shamaness began before lowering her eyes, as did the other three acolytes with her.“If she has a message for me,” Mads said, already running out of patience, “she could have just . . . ya know . . . called me. I sent her that cell phone with the big buttons. Didn’t she get it?”“Yes. She received it.”“I made sure it could withstand her throwing it against the wall repeatedly.”“Yes.”“So why didn’t she just call? Because she’s torturing me?”Or simply because her great-grandmother always made things hard. And weird. Always so weird.“That wasn’t possible, I’m afraid,” the shamaness told her. “Your great-grandmother has entered the gates of Valhalla.”Mads frowned at the statement. “She what?” When the four messengers only gazed at her, Mads blinked and asked, “Wait. Wait. She’s dead? Solveig Galendotter is dead?”“I’m sorry, but yes.”“In battle?”“No.”“Store robbery?”“Um—”“Did the cops shoot her? The Marines? Another blood feud? The old man down the street who said he’d see her dead one day? That militia? They were really gunning for her.”“Ummm. No. She’d already taken care of the militia. The old man died in his sleep months ago. She’d come to a reasonable agreement with the cops and the Marines. And she was managing the blood feuds.”“Then what?”“It seemed she just died. In her store. Heart attack, apparently.”Mads shook her head. “No way. We’re not talking about some everyday . . . This is Solveig Galendotter. She was never just going to die. Not now, not ever.”When the shamaness did no more than shrug, Mads blew out a breath, nodded, and worked hard to keep control of her emotions. Her great-grandmother would expect no less from her. Gallendotters didn’t get “weepy.”“When did this happen? I’ll need to start making calls to—”“Three weeks ago.”Mads snarled a little. “She died three weeks ago, and you’re just telling me now?”“We just found out now.”A chill went down Mads’s back. “How is that possible? Her store—”“There was always an excuse for why it was closed. Always a reason. We didn’t realize anything was wrong until they had already cremated her and placed her ashes in an urn.”“An urn? Solveig is in an urn?”“And that urn is in Wisconsin.”Mads gasped and stepped back as if she’d been struck. “Dear gods,” she whispered. “Not Wisconsin.”* * *Mick had just gotten this job a few months back. He was fresh out of the military and was ready to get to work in the civilian sector. His older brother had hooked him up, which was surprising. Danny had not been in the military. He’d been the smart one. Had done the college track. Had graduated and everything. No one in the family had really seen him much after that. Their mother got the occasional call or email but that was about it. Mick had found out later that boring, always reading in his room, determined to go to the college farthest away from his family, never had time to hunt down a blue sheep Danny had been recruited by the CIA out of college. The siblings had met face-to-face somewhere in the Middle East during an operation they could never speak of to anyone.Even stranger, both the CIA team Danny was part of and the Navy SEAL team Mick was leading were all shifters. Every last one of them. That meeting had happened four years ago and Mick hadn’t seen his brother since, not until he’d decided against re-upping in the military, when suddenly his phone rang.“Need work?” his brother had asked.Of course he did. He got bonuses from the government but not anything that would have him living in the lap of luxury until his death of old age.“The Thursday after you get back to Ma’s house, come to this location at two o’clock,” Danny had said, spitting out some address in the city, not waiting for Mick to write it down. Must have assumed he’d remember it. “Dress in black jeans, black shirt, and black jacket. That way Ma won’t ask any questions but it won’t look like you just rolled out of bed either.”Out of habit more than anything, Mick had followed orders. He’d met his brother outside a nice-looking brownstone, but once inside he’d quickly realized what he was about to become a part of: The Group. Unlike Katzenhaus or the Bear Preservation Council, the associations of the Group didn’t just “protect their own kind.”Instead, the Group was a nationwide organization that worked with multiple species and breeds of shifters to keep their kind safe. A surprisingly tough job. Like human villages that moved too close to lion territory, the proximity of shifters and full-humans led to all sorts of problems. The Group stepped in before things spun out of control. And if it wasn’t battles between shifters and full-humans, it was battles between shifters and shifters. There were far more “wars” that went on between prides and packs and clans than Mick had realized. His species didn’t usually worry about that sort of thing. They were all about the hunt and relaxing after a long day of mountain climbing. Who had time for all these blood feuds?“Hey, y’all.”Mick closed his eyes and fought his urge to leap away from the voice coming from right behind him.At first, he thought maybe his reaction was PTSD. He’d been through a lot during his time in the military. So being a little jumpy was normal. Some guys got a therapy dog to watch their back for them and help them feel calmer when they were away from home. Then Mick realized that he only got this jumpy when she was around. He’d worked with Dee-Ann Smith just a couple of times so far, but there was something about this She-wolf that put him off. He couldn’t figure out what it was about her, but he was doing his best to give her the benefit of the doubt. She was a former Marine and their military connection should have put him at ease. But something about her just set his teeth on edge.“Find anything?” she asked around an apple she was biting with her fangs.“Yeah,” Danny replied, gesturing to the tree line. “There is tiger piss . . . everywhere.”“And I smell honey badger,” Mick added. “And blood. Full-human blood.”“Yup. That’s what everyone else has been saying, too.” She pushed back her Tennessee Titans baseball cap and looked around the small island not far from New York. Mick didn’t even know little islands like this existed near his city. Islands with mansions on them. Rich people got everything! He’d grown up on Staten Island in a four-bedroom walk-up with his parents, his brother, and five bitchy sisters. Forget the cousins who moved in and out when they had nowhere else to go. Maybe he wouldn’t have felt the overwhelming desire to make a run for it and join the Marines if he’d grown up in a big mansion like the ones on this island.“Something very bad happened here. Hell if I know what it was, though.” She patted Mick on the shoulder, and it took everything in him not to slap her hand away.Smith tossed the apple core and sauntered off to talk to some other team members, hiking up her too-loose jeans with apple-juice–covered hands as she moved, and he fought the urge to hiss and attack her from behind, grasping the back of her, dragging her off to a quiet spot, pinning her to the ground, and squeezing her neck until she stopped moving.He couldn’t help it. He was a snow leopard. It’s what he did when he was hungry or when he just didn’t trust someone.“You’re glaring,” his brother warned him.“What is it about her?” Mick asked. “She’s always so nice to me, but . . .”“Careful, she’s the boss’s wife.”“What boss?”“Our boss.”That’s what he’d thought his brother had meant, but their boss ought to be able to do better than . . . her. Their boss was one of the Van Holtz Pack, a very wealthy, very powerful Pack out of Seattle and Germany. Their bloodline went back centuries, and it was said they’d started the Group with their own money. Not only that, but the man looked like he’d stepped off the pages of GQ magazine. Mick had gone to lunch with him, and women literally swooned around him. Women the man had ignored. Mick had thought maybe his boss simply didn’t swing toward females or had his own supermodel at home, but . . . she was what he had at home? A rangy She-wolf who dressed like she was about to go to a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert in the seventies on the back of some dude’s motorcycle and said “y’all” a lot?Mick, for as long as he lived, would never understand the canine mind.Shaking off what was essentially none of his business, he turned to his brother.“So what happens now?”Danny jerked his head to the north and Mick watched a chopper land and a dark-haired woman get off. She kept her body hunched over to avoid the chopper blades, so it wasn’t until she straightened up that Mick recognized her.“Oh . . . no. What is she doing here?”“There’s tiger piss all over the place. What do you think she’s doing here?”“So? There’s tigers all over the five boroughs. Who says it’s one of theirs?”“Yeah. Sure. There’s tigers everywhere. But when it comes to true shit-startin’ . . .” Danny shrugged. “We both know, little brother . . . it’s always a Malone.”* * *“Why didn’t you just eat the pastry?” Stein demanded, and Julie had to agree. Who wouldn’t just say “thank you” and eat the goddamn pastries while gently leading the annoying honey badgers out the door? Oh. That’s right. Tigers! That’s who. The angriest cats in the land! They made paranoid, rabid alley cats seem calm and rational.By now Shay was off Julie’s floor and he, along with Finn, turned to look at Keane.The bigger, older—and meaner—brother didn’t even glance at them in return, but a growl came from the back of his throat, vibrating across the room even though he never even opened his mouth.“This is bad,” Stein said, pacing now. “This is very bad.”With his big arms crossed over his chest like he ruled the whole world and had complete control of this situation, Keane cleared his throat and asked, “Can’t we just pay them for the information?”“The same badgers you insulted?” He glanced at Keane from the corner of one eye before rolling both. “You tigers aren’t the only ones that can hold a grudge, ya know.”“There are other badgers, right?”Stein faced the three brothers. “And you can’t afford any of them!” He briefly closed his eyes and took a calming breath. “Badgers have an intricate communications system dating back to ancient civilization.”“Is this where you tell us that Julius Caesar was a honey badger?” Shay asked, already sounding bored.“Julius Caesar was not a honey badger,” Stein corrected, clearly annoyed. “Locusta was.”Finn blinked. “Who?”“Locusta. Poisoner of Ancient Rome. She worked for Nero. Took out Britannicus, heir to the Roman Empire.” Julie, who’d been working on some papers, noticed the quiet and glanced up to see the males gazing at her in surprise. She shrugged. “Not surprisingly, there were a lot of lions in Ancient Rome and, when they weren’t eating Christians, they used a lot of poisoners. It was a thing.”“Lions,” Keane sniffed. “Bunch of snobs.”* * *“Why is my great-grandmother in Wisconsin?” Mads demanded.“Your mother’s family took over everything before we even had a chance—”Mads tugged at one of her braids and walked away from the shamaness and her acolytes. Then she immediately walked back.“You let this happen,” she accused. “You let those idiots take her body and do exactly what she did not want. Now her soul is trapped in a goddamn urn. In Wisconsin.”“We had no rights to Solveig’s remains once your grandmother and mother stepped in. Perhaps if you had been more involved in her life—”Mads pointed a finger, not realizing her claws had come out. She was pointing a lethal claw at a powerful shamaness and she didn’t even care, she was so pissed. “Don’t. Even.”The shamaness lowered her eyes and raised her hands in supplication.“Forgive me. I am merely here to tell you what has happened as she had requested. Nothing more.”“Well, you’ve done your job. Now fuck off.”“Perhaps if we talked to your mother and grand—”“If you go to Wisconsin, my family will eat you.”“But—”“Unlike my great-grandmother, their loyalty is not to our Viking blood, so they will show you no respect. They are hyena through and through, always hungry and able to chew and digest bone.” Mads stared straight into the shamaness’s eyes. “Understand what I’m saying to you?”“Very clearly.”“Then go. I’m getting tense.”With another annoying head-bow, the four full-humans walked out of the practice court.Mads couldn’t believe her great-grandmother was dead. Solveig Galendotter? Not alive? Sure, she’d been at least one hundred and five years old, but that was nothing. Solveig’s own mother had lived until she was one hundred and twenty, and she’d only died because she’d been killed by a blood enemy in battle.Gallendotter females were long lived not because they were shifters or even because they were Viking . . . but simply because they were too mean to die.Living was their revenge on all who hated them. And there were many who hated them.Mads planned to live as long as possible simply to irritate her mother and grandmother. It wasn’t a lofty goal but it was better than nothing.Turning away from the double doors, Mads faced the assistant coach she’d been working with. As soon as she saw the sad expression on the cat’s face, she threw up her hands.“Don’t,” she ordered, returning to grab the basketball from the female’s hands.“But—”“No.”“I just want to—”“No.”“Just let me—”“No, Tammy. We’re not doing this. We’re not having the conversation you want to have. So let it go.”“Should I call someone for you?”“To do what? Raise my great-grandmother from the dead?”“Uhhhh . . . ?”“Exactly. So just let it go.”Mads dribbled the ball to the free-throw line and took a couple of shots. When she was about to take a third, she stopped and glanced over her shoulder. Now three of the assistant coaches stood there watching her. They were all cats, so they had the big cat eyes. Not the ones she was used to seeing, narrowed with distrust and plotting, but big and wide and sad.Eyes filled with pity.She dropped the ball and walked toward the exit, grabbing her wallet from her open backpack as she moved.“Where are you going?”“I need a break,” she told the coaches. Not a lie. She really needed a break.From cats with pity in their eyes.* * *“You want me to talk to them?”“Well, I can’t do it,” Keane said calmly, and probably honestly, Julie was guessing. Since, you know, he’d yelled at the honey badgers just that morning.“And I don’t wanna do it,” Shay added, also probably honestly.“I don’t want to do it either,” Finn practically whined. “They hate us. All of us.”“And with good reason.”The three brothers glared across the room at the Van Holtz wolf.“Who rejects pastries?” Van Holtz demanded. “Who? And they brought you an array of pastries.” He pointed an accusing finger. “An array. Before we were Van Holtzes, we were just Holtzes in the wilds of Germany, and anyone who turned down our pastries would have started a blood feud.”“Can I hurt him now?” Shay asked, his cat gaze locked on the canine. “I really want to hurt him now.”“No,” Finn replied. “His Pack is huge. And one of his uncles makes this amazing Cape buffalo with onion sauce that is to murder for, and I don’t want to be banned from their restaurant soooo . . .”“Fine.” Shay walked out of the office without another word, because he had nothing else to say.Keane stared at his younger brother for a brief moment before following Shay.“So all this is up to me?” Finn called after Keane.“Yes!” Keane barked back.“I hate them,” Finn growled before he walked out after his brothers.Julie went back to the paperwork on her desk, wanting to finish signing a few purchase orders before returning to practice. But then she noticed that the canine hadn’t left.Looking up at him, she asked, “What?”“I’m waiting.”“For?”“The box seat tickets you’re going to offer me to the first home game so that I don’t sue your team into oblivion for hitting me in the head with a football.”Glaring, Julie let out a long, slow breath.Dogs . . .