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  Calm and controlled again, Vic followed Shen to the rental car and, eventually, back to the States.

  “How’s it going?” Toni asked as she handed Livy a dark German beer.

  Livy had insisted Toni’s parents not attend the after-funeral get-together at her parents’ house. The Jean-Louis Parkers were such nice people, it wouldn’t be fair. But nothing would deter Antonella. She was determined to be part of the entire, horrifying ride.

  Livy took the cap off her beer with her hand, yawned, took a drink, shrugged. “Fine.”

  “That bad, huh?”

  “It could be worse.”

  “You’re at your father’s funeral—”

  “I’m sure he was killed for a very good reason.”

  “—your mother is fighting with his entire family over money—”

  “In her mind, the fact that she didn’t kill him herself means she earned that money.”

  “—someone unleashed poisonous snakes in the backyard—”

  “For the kids to have something to play with.”

  “—and your father’s mistress just showed up.”

  Livy turned and watched the tall Serbian supermodel strut through the hallway toward Livy’s mother. She wore all black, including a black fur stole, and black six-inch Louboutin shoes. Livy’s mother spotted her instantly, and without saying a word, she was suddenly surrounded by her sisters and female cousins.

  “Cool,” Livy muttered. “Fight.”

  “You can’t let your mother fight her.”

  “She probably won’t. But my aunt Teddy will definitely take her on. Because I’m pretty sure before she started dating my dad, that model was dating one of Teddy’s sons. And you know how Teddy is about”—Livy dropped her voice and put on her best Polish accent—“ ‘my beautiful, beautiful boys. They are from God, no?’ ”

  Toni shook her head. “I swear, your entire family is like an episode of Dallas.”

  “I was thinking more like Dynasty, but without the shoulder pads. My people do not need shoulder pads.”

  Livy watched her mother—birth name Chuntao Yang; American name she’d chosen when she was nine and just moved to the States, Joan—stand her ground as the last woman Livy’s father had been sleeping with walked up to her.

  Toni rubbed her nose and stated very quietly, “She’s full-human.”

  “That was his kink.”

  “I mean, Livy, she’s full-human.”

  Livy shrugged, watching as her mother leaned in and whispered something to the woman. “Then I suggest we not let her in the backyard.”

  “Livy—”

  Whatever her mother said, it must have been a doozy, because the woman leaned back, then hauled off and slapped Joan across the face, snapping the She-badger’s head to one side.

  Slowly Joan looked at the much younger woman. Her head tilted to the side, cold black eyes examining, judging. Then she head-butted the model, causing the full-human to scream and stumble back. Joan followed that up with a left hook to the jaw, a right to the gut, and another left directly to the face. And she did it all without an ounce of anger. If she were angry, that supermodel would have been missing her eyes.

  Joan held her hand out and one of her sisters placed a switchblade in her palm.

  Before Toni could say a word—and Livy knew she would because all this was beyond the understanding of the much more controlled and polite Jean-Louis Parkers—Livy strode across the room.

  “Let’s see how many Vogue covers that face of yours gets now,” Joan calmly stated, her hand with the blade pulling back.

  She was just swinging it down when Livy caught hold of her mother’s wrist, held it.

  “No, Ma.”

  Lips pursed, her mother looked at her with that disappointment Livy had gotten used to seeing years ago. Ever since Livy had told the man at the candy store he’d given her back too much change. Something her mother had never forgiven.

  “No,” Livy insisted.

  “You and that weakness of yours.” That weakness being Livy’s conscience. She didn’t use it often, but the fact Livy used it at all disappointed her family greatly.

  Joan yanked her arm back. “I know you didn’t get that nature of yours from my family.”

  “So you blame us?” Aunt Teddy demanded. “Any weakness this girl has is your fault, Joan. Definitely not my handsome brother’s.”

  As if the bleeding, sobbing mistress no longer existed, Joan and her sisters faced off against the Kowalskis.

  Livy walked back to Toni’s side. “I’m in the mood for waffles. You want waffles?”

  Eyes wide, the jackal said, “But your family—”

  “They’ve got snakes in the backyard.” She grabbed Toni’s wrist and led her toward the hallway. “So they don’t need waffles.”

  “Yes, but what about—”

  Knowing exactly where this was going, Livy stopped by her father’s mistress. “If I were you,” she warned the foolish woman, “I’d get out of here. And feel free to go to the cops at your own risk.”

  Figuring she’d done all that she was morally responsible to do, Livy continued out the front door, down the steps, and toward the limo.

  “Wait!” a voice yelled from behind them. “Wait!”

  Livy stopped, turned around, her hand still tight around Toni’s wrist.

  Jake ran up to her. “Going for waffles without me, cousin?”

  “I figured you’d be braving the snakes in the backyard.”

  “With those vicious little bastard pups? Don’t let their age fool you. They’re mean. But more importantly . . .” He held up a set of car keys. “We can take Dad’s Bentley.”

  Livy snorted and released Toni’s wrist so she could snatch the keys out of her cousin’s hand. “Let’s go.”

  The pair began to walk off, and Toni emphatically stated, “I’m not going anywhere with either of you two driving!”

  Livy looked at her cousin and, smirking, the pair walked back, grabbed Toni by the arms, and dragged her behind them.

  “You can’t do this!” Toni protested. “This is kidnapping! A brutal, senseless kidnapping!”

  “Stop bragging,” Livy teased.

  “I know,” Jake joked. “Like she’s so important she just has to be kidnapped in a two-hundred-thousand-dollar car.”

  “God, how much?” Toni demanded. “Your father is going to have your ass if anything happens to this car!”

  “Your lack of faith in my driving skills hurts me.” Livy stopped next to the beautiful car, its bright yellow paint job nearly burning her retinas. Yeah. Kowalskis weren’t exactly known for their subtle sense of style.

  “Just so we’re clear,” Toni informed both Kowalski cousins, “if I die because of your insane driving . . . I will never forgive you.”

  “Noted. Now get your skinny ass and narrow shoulders in the car.”

  “She does have freakishly small shoulders,” Jake noted once they’d forced Toni in the backseat.

  “I know. But I don’t hate her because of it.”

  “That is really big of you, cousin.”

  “I think so.”

  Jake opened the passenger door while Livy walked around the beautiful car. “What do you wanna do after we eat?” he asked.

  Livy looked back at the house she’d lived in during her high school years. You know, when she wasn’t crashing at Toni’s place or finding some house that was left untended for a few days.

  “What do you think?” she asked her cousin.

  Jake grinned. “Take you to the airport?”

  “See? You’re not nearly as stupid as your father says you are.”

  Jake’s grin never faded. “Ahhh, yes. The love of a family. See what you’re missing by living in Manhattan?”

  Livy snorted and opened the driver’s side door. “No. No, I don’t see.”

  CHAPTER 2

  As always, Livy’s plans did not turn out as she’d hoped. Although she’d intended to be back in Manhattan the night of her father
’s funeral or, at the very least, early morning after, she’d ended up staying another full day in Washington, helping her mother contact the many life insurance companies. Not so that the woman could lay claim to Damon’s money, but because it meant her mother most likely wouldn’t bother Livy for the next few . . . years.

  Her mother often forgot how annoying she found Livy until she had to spend some “quality” time with her only child. Then all those memories came flooding back and Livy didn’t have to worry about seeing her mother—or putting up with her—for ages.

  And despite Livy’s suggestions that she leave, Toni insisted on staying. Which, in the end, was good. Because the woman knew how to get people through an airport as quickly as possible.

  “Sit here,” Toni said, pushing Livy down by her shoulders so that she sat on the one piece of luggage she’d brought with her. “I’ll get a taxi and we’ll be out of here.”

  Toni went off and Livy rested her elbow on her knee, her chin on her fist, and gazed off across the busy streets surrounding JFK Airport. As she waited, obscenely long legs and massive bodies began to march by her.

  She didn’t move or anything, but she did notice the squealing girls and the crowd of people following the full-human males walking by. It was around that time she heard a low male voice bark, “I am not a football player. Now get out of my face.”

  For the first time in days, Livy smiled. She couldn’t help it. What exactly did the man expect? He was seven feet and two inches tall. Nearly four hundred pounds. And even with that handsome face, wickedly sharp cheekbones, and dark brown and gold hair that hung in ragged layers almost to his shoulders—he was terrifying-looking. Of course people thought he was on a national sports team. Their other option was murdering serial killer from a “Friday the 13th” movie.

  Livy waited until Vic was a few steps from her before sweetly asking, “Hey, mister. Can I have your autograph?”

  Snarling, Vic replied, “I am not a—Livy?” Vic stopped right in front of her, his expression of annoyance fading away and replaced by one of curiosity. “What are you doing?”

  “Selling my ass on the streets for a few bucks.”

  “Times that tough?”

  Thankfully, Vic had learned how to deal with what very few called Livy’s sense of “humor” not long after they’d met. Which was good because Livy really didn’t know how to not ask people strange, disorienting questions. As an artist, she found their confusion fascinating.

  “Tough enough,” she replied. “Hi, Shen.”

  “Hey, Livy. Like your hair.”

  Livy smirked at Shen’s running joke. As a honey badger, she had black hair with a white streak off to the side while Shen, as a giant panda, had white hair with big swipes of black through it. He was also munching on that damn bamboo crap. With his fangs, he was clearly a predator. But for whatever reason, although they had the digestive system of carnivores, giant pandas ate bamboo. The problem was that pandas needed a lot of bamboo in order to survive. A lot. So every time Livy saw the man . . . he was eating.

  Still, it was fun to watch him hang around poor Vic Barinov. Although Livy saw the grizzly side of Vic more than she ever saw the tiger, it seemed neither side of the hybrid knew what to do with the sweet, but sometimes chatty, six-foot panda who was nearly as wide as he was tall. Something else Livy and Shen had in common. Massive shoulders on relatively smaller human bodies than most shifters were used to. Oh. And they were both Asian. Well, as Jake liked to say, “Livy is half-Asian, half-Polish and allllll honey badger!”

  Livy, however, had much less in common with Vic, but they’d worked together once when helping Toni rescue her baby brother from Delilah’s cult.

  “Before we go any further,” Vic said to Livy, “my house?”

  “What about it?”

  Vic raised an eyebrow.

  Livy rolled her eyes. “I haven’t been back since the last time you threw me out.”

  “I didn’t throw you out. I asked you nicely to leave so I could call the contractor to fix all the holes you’d put into it.”

  “I had to get inside, didn’t I?”

  “But you have your own place.”

  “I ran out of honey.”

  “So you came all the way out to Westchester for honey?”

  “You have really good honey.”

  Vic blew out a breath. “Just tell me if I’ll be facing holes when I get home.”

  “No holes.”

  “Do I have any honey left?”

  “Yes. You have honey left.”

  “I don’t know why I’m getting the tone. You’re the one who keeps eating all my honey.”

  Livy smirked. “When you have rum-infused honey in your cabinets—you’re asking for it.”

  That made Vic smile, something he didn’t do very often. Then again . . . neither did she.

  Using his bamboo stalk to point at them, Shen admitted, “I don’t get the thing you two have for honey.”

  They stared at him while he chomped on his bamboo until Vic turned back to Livy and asked, “You need a ride home?”

  “Toni went to get a cab. She should be back soon.” She studied Vic a moment. She hadn’t seen him in months; his work took him out of the country very often. “What are you doing back in the States? Or are below-freezing East Coast temperatures where you come to get a break from those balmy Russian winters?”

  “I have information on our old friend.”

  “That Whitlan guy? Are they still looking for him?”

  Vic nodded. “Yeah.”

  “You’d think they’d have gotten him by now. How hard is it to find someone in this day and age?”

  “The man knows how to disappear.”

  Livy shrugged, not really caring. Honey badgers didn’t concern themselves with the problems of other shifters. They saw themselves as honey badgers, not as part of a bigger shifter universe. A good thing, since most of the other breeds didn’t really like them and some didn’t even know honey badgers existed.

  “What about you?” Vic asked. “What are you doing here?”

  “Just coming in from Washington.”

  “Visiting family?”

  “Dead family.” Livy chuckled at her own joke, but when Vic and Shen just stared at her, she said, “Sorry. Bad joke. I was at a funeral.”

  Vic frowned, which made him look even more terrifying, but Livy knew that was just his face. His handsome but terrifying face. God, those cheekbones are amazing.

  “I’m sorry, Livy. Who died?”

  “My father.”

  Both men blinked and she realized she’d surprised them.

  “Livy . . .” Vic looked at Shen, back at her. “My God, I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “It is?”

  Livy shrugged. “We weren’t close.”

  “Still. It’s your father.”

  “I threw a baseball bat at him once,” she admitted to the two men. “Clocked him right in the head. He was out for, like, a good thirty minutes.”

  Shen blew out a breath. “Oh. Okay.”

  But Vic refused to be put off. “He’s still your father. I know this must be hard for you.”

  “Not as hard as when he woke up and came after me with that baseball bat. Didn’t catch me, though. I’m superfast when running . . . away.”

  Vic stared at her a moment before finally stating, “I want to awkwardly hug you.”

  Livy looked up at him. “Awkwardly?”

  “Neither of us is very good with affection, so I pretty much assume that any physical encounters between us will be awkward.”

  That made Livy laugh, and without thinking about it too much, she stood up and wrapped her arms around Vic’s waist, giving him a hug she hadn’t given her mother when she’d left for the airport to return to New York.

  Vic hugged her back and, if Livy wasn’t mistaken, kissed the top of her head.

  “If you need anything,” Vic said, “you just let me know.”

  “Thanks
, Vic.”

  Livy pulled away. Not because she was tired of that hug—it was surprisingly nice—but because she sensed someone grabbing the rolling case she’d brought with her for the trip.

  Using her foot, Livy rammed the case down, spun around, and nearly had her hands around the man’s throat when Toni came running up, screaming, “He’s the cabbie! He’s the cabbie!”

  Livy immediately pulled her hands back. “Oh. Sorry.”

  “He’s just helping with the luggage,” Toni explained. She patted Livy’s leg, trying to get her to remove her foot from the bag. When Livy didn’t move fast enough, the patting became a hard slap.

  Livy moved her foot and the driver quickly took her bag and headed to the waiting cab.

  Toni glared at her, which just made Livy chuckle. Then Toni smiled up at Vic. “Hello, Victor.”

  “Hi, Toni. How are you?”

  “Fine.” Toni patted Vic’s arm, waved at Shen, since she didn’t know him well at all, and headed to the cab.

  “I gotta go.” Livy smiled at Vic. “Maybe I’ll see you around.”

  “You still working at the Sports Center?” he asked.

  Livy sighed. “Of course. Where else would I be? In Paris? Milan? Perhaps in the middle of some great war? Why would I be there when I can take pictures of giant guys who balance on thin skates and charge around an ice rink, chasing after a little black puck? Because that’s fascinating.”

  “So work’s going well?” Vic asked with a straight face.

  Livy smirked. The bastard. “See ya.”

  Livy got into the taxi beside Toni and closed the door.

  “Huh,” Toni said.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Explain to me at what point in our friendship where I ever expressed having any tolerance of girls who play that particular game?”

  “Fine,” Toni said. “I just noticed that Vic watched you until you got into the cab.”

  “So?”

  “His friend was busy staring at the football cheerleaders or dancers or whatever they are who’d just passed by. But Vic watched you.”

  “And? Your point?”

  Toni shrugged and looked out the window. “Just sayin’.”