The Mane Squeeze Read online

  “You and your friend are both hybrids?” Ric carefully asked.

  “Yup. I’m wolfdog, Gwenie’s tigon. They jumped me, Gwen jumped in, we took off running, Gwen woke up the bear, they went over the mountain. There. That quick enough for ya, Jess?”

  Ric’s back snapped straight. “I’m sorry. Um…they went over…wait…what?”

  “Not at first. At first, Lock was slapping those wolves around. Then they were going over the mountain.”

  “Over the mountain?” Jess shook her head. “Do you mean they rolled down a hill?” She’d lived in Tennessee for two years, she was used to hills.

  “Nope. Over the mountain, into the river, down the river.”

  “You mean they fell into Macon River from one of the falls?” Ric demanded.

  “It was more of a cliff than a fall, but…yeah. I met up with Bren and Ronnie about a mile away. Together we ran down to the mouth of the riverbed, and that’s where we caught up with Lock. He was trying to take Gwen to the medical center, but she was putting up a fight because of the organ thieves.”

  Ric stepped back. “The what?”

  Jess held her hand up to halt Ric, wanting Blayne to finish before she killed her. “Then what?”

  “Then Bren fought the bear, I fought Gwen—”

  “Why were you fighting Gwen? Because of the organ thieves?” Wait. Did I just say that out loud?

  “Because she wouldn’t tell Bren that the bear helped her and Bren thought the bear was attacking her when he wasn’t.”

  “Why wouldn’t she tell Brendon that?”

  “Because she was torturing me.”

  “All right then.” Jess was done. “This was fun but—”

  “No, no, no.” Blayne clutched her hands together nervously or excitedly…to be honest, it was hard to tell. “There’s something else.”

  “You know the Pack who did this?” Ric, so cute when he was trying to maneuver a wolfdog into a nice, logical, straight line. Good luck with that one.

  “No,” Blayne said simply. “I have no idea who it was.”

  “Then what?” Jess pushed.

  “I don’t know if I mentioned it, but I’m planning some life changes.”

  “Life changes?” What did this have to do with anything?

  “Yes. Huge ones, actually. And so lately I’ve been mostly focused on me, you know, kind of obsessing, worried about how I was going to do this and everything and then it hit me!” She grinned, showing all those perfect teeth that had to be the product of excellent dental care and childhood braces. “What a really cute couple Gwen and Lock are!”

  Ric laughed as Jess shook her head, turning to walk away. “Oh, my God! You must be joking!”

  Blayne jumped in front of her. “I’m serious! You have to see them together. They’re so freaking cute!”

  “He’s bear, she’s feline. He lives in New York, she lives in Philly. The list is endless of why this is a bad idea.” Plus this was her Lock! Jess loved Lock. He was the sweetest, kindest, nicest bear ever. And all Jess knew about Gwen was that she threatened Brendon Shaw’s cranky sister with acid during the wedding. Not that Jess blamed her or anything, because Marissa Shaw could be a real bitch, but Lock deserved a lovely sow who loved him, pampered him, and understood his obsession with honey. Not some vicious-tongued cat who’d greeted Jess the last two mornings with, “Hey, Fido. How youse doin’?”

  “I’m telling you—cute. Adorable!”

  “Blayne, forget it.”

  Blayne sighed. “Okay. You’re probably right.”

  “Do you really think that pouty-face move is going to work on me?” Jess asked. “I perfected it.”

  “What about two pouty faces?” Ric rested his chin on Blayne’s shoulder and blinked big brown eyes at Jess. “Will that work?”

  “What are you doing?”

  “I have no idea.” Ric grinned. “But I have to say that I’m completely in for the ride.”

  “But this is my Lock,” Jess argued. “I mean…who is she?”

  Now it was Blayne’s turn to gasp in outrage. “Are you implying my Gwenie isn’t good enough for your bear?”

  “I’m not implying anything. I’m saying it. Out loud.”

  “Breedist!”

  “I am not!”

  “Breed-ist!”

  While the two females snarled viciously at each other, Ric grabbed a stick from the ground and waved it between Jess and Blayne. “Look! Look! A stick! Who wants it? Who wants it? Go get it!” He threw the stick and Jess and Blayne watched it flip across the forest floor. Once it landed, they looked back at Ric.

  “Dude,” Jess told him, “that was just rude.”

  Niles Van Holtz, Alpha of the Van Holtz Pack, briefly glanced up from the pan he was scrubbing. “Hold on.”

  His assistant watched him for several long minutes until Van was satisfied the pan was perfectly clean. If there was one thing he couldn’t stand, it was crud on his dishes and cookware.

  “What is it?” he finally asked while carefully drying the pan with a clean cloth.

  “There was a territorial breach on Van Holtz property. Another Pack.”

  “Which property?”

  “East Coast. Macon River Falls.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  He certainly hoped there was more to it than a simple territorial breach for his assistant to come in on his day off. Especially if it involved his cousin Alder’s New York-New Jersey territories. As it was, Van didn’t involve himself in the day-to-day operations of his cousins’ territories and sub-Packs. He made the assumption that those who’d fought their way to the top could manage. Besides, the only thing he liked to micromanage was his restaurants, his kitchen, and his delicious wife when they were in bed. Any other time, she wouldn’t tolerate it, and he couldn’t be bothered.

  “There were injuries.”

  “How bad?”

  “Bad enough we were given a heads-up by the medical staff. And there’s something else.”

  He hoped so because right now it didn’t sound like anything his idiot cousin couldn’t handle.

  Van hung the now-dry pan from the rack over his counter before he faced his assistant. “And what’s that?”

  “The ones that were attacked were hybrids.”

  Van sneered. No, his cousin couldn’t handle this. Or maybe Van should say that Alder wouldn’t handle this, his opinion on hybrids having been made quite clear over the years. Yet Van understood what his cousin didn’t when it came to hybrids—an attack was rarely just an attack when mixed breeds were involved. “Get my cousin on the phone.”

  His assistant sighed. “Which cousin, sir? At last count, you had—”

  “I know how many cousins I have.” And why did he allow his wife to hire his assistants? They were all like her in tone but without the added benefit of a great ass and genius-level IQ. “Get me Ulrich out of New York on his cell and put him through to my office.”

  Cousin Alder wouldn’t like it, but it was time to see what Alder’s youngest boy, or as Alder liked to call him, the “useless, worthless, prissy boy” was truly made of.

  CHAPTER 6

  Gwen sat on the top stair of the porch, her elbows resting on her knees, her chin resting in the palm of her hands. She stared off into the woods.

  She stared and she sulked. She hated when she sulked.

  As it grew later, finally drawing to a close this hellish day, Blayne sat down beside her, resting her elbows on her knees, her chin in the palm of her hands. She stayed silent a good five minutes, which for Blayne was pretty much a record.

  “What’s wrong?” Blayne finally asked.

  “Nothing,” Gwen answered. “I’m just sitting here. Staring.” Maybe hoping a bear would wander out of the woods to say “hi and I’m sorry I broke my promise.”

  “How’s the leg?”

  “Healing.” Although it did feel like rats were inside her calf, tearing the flesh apart with their teeth and then sewing it back together with a giant needle and some t
hread.

  “Hurts like a bitch, huh?”

  “I haven’t started screaming yet, have I?”

  “You have a point.” Blayne took a deep, satisfied breath. “It’s really beautiful here, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Beautiful house,” she sighed. “Great weather.”

  “Yep and yep.”

  “And that grizzly—”

  “Left me!” Gwen screamed out, startling the birds from the trees.

  Lock brushed the attacking bees off his face and dug into the hive again, pulling out the honeycomb. He shook off the clinging bees and broke off a piece. Ric sat down against a tree opposite from Lock that was close enough so they didn’t have to scream at each other, but far enough away to help Ric avoid the rampaging bees.

  Once he seemed comfortable, he observed, “You’ve stripped the trees of their bark quite nicely.”

  “Yeah,” Lock mumbled around the honeycomb. “Sorry about that.”

  Ric shrugged. “My father had them imported from Japan for a tidy seven-figure sum, had them featured in that Vanity Fair article on him and the Van Holtz dynasty, and got an award from the Tree Rescue Foundation for his efforts to resurrect nearly extinct trees—but I’m sure he won’t be too upset.”

  Lock winced. “Now I feel bad.”

  “Don’t,” Ric said good-naturedly. “Now—” Ric cringed when Lock bit into a honeycomb and spit out a bee he’d started to chew on “—Adelle is going to make her honey-glazed chicken. Unless you’re all honeyed out.”

  Lock stared at his friend, and Ric nodded. “As I thought. So dinner is set. But before we go back, perhaps you can fill me in on why you’re sitting out here, tearing the bark off trees and abusing bees.”

  Ric cringed again when Lock spit out another bee.

  “What?” Lock demanded, tired of being judged for his eating habits. “Would you prefer I eat them?”

  “No, no. You keep doing whatever it is you enjoy doing. No matter how vile.”

  Lock stared down at the remnants of the hive and admitted what was bothering him. Something that even honey wasn’t curing. “I should never have left her.”

  “Did you have a choice?”

  “If I wanted to fight a polar.”

  “Weren’t you the one who told me that when it comes to bears—bigger wins?”

  “Yeah.” And Toots was definitely bigger. “But I promised her I wouldn’t leave her. I guess I just feel like I let her down by not being there when she woke up fully.”

  “Okay, so maybe you did let her down a little. But I’m sure when she calls, you can explain—”

  “Calls?”

  “To thank you, of course. It’s proper etiquette to send a thank-you note or call after someone saves you from a violent Pack, Pride, or Clan attack.”

  “I’m sensing she didn’t get much shifter etiquette training in Philly. Or, now that I think about it, any etiquette training in Philly.”

  “But you did give her your number? Or you got hers?”

  Lock stared at his friend. “My number?”

  “You didn’t give her your phone number?”

  “She was wounded. It didn’t occur to me.” When Ric sighed, his disappointment clear, Lock threw in, “And I’m sure that cat wouldn’t have let me leave anything for her anyway.”

  “What did the cat look like?”

  “I don’t know. He was a little thing. Tiny. Lion…I think. You know, the breed with all the hair.”

  “Tiny. Right. The world is filled with tiny lion males. And the only tiny lion I know of this close to my territory is Brendon Shaw. And, if I remember what you told me correctly, he’s the one you beat up at Jess Ward’s wedding. Something I’m sure he did not forget since last you two met.”

  “He didn’t. But I didn’t beat him up,” Lock quickly added. “I…I simply threw him five…or maybe it was fifty feet into a tree.”

  The two friends gazed at each other for a long moment.

  Finally, Lock shrugged. “That does make it all kind of awkward, doesn’t it?”

  And that’s when Ric started laughing.

  “You don’t want to talk about the bear?” Blayne asked.

  “No.”

  “But you just yelled about him. So maybe we need to discuss—”

  “No.”

  “Okay.” The sun began to slowly set and that’s when Blayne abruptly turned to Gwen and spewed out in one, never-ending sentence, “My father wants to retire and he wants me to take over his business and I’m moving to New York and I want you to move with me so we can be partners and run the business together, preferably in Manhattan rather than Queens, because you’re my best friend and I love you and it’ll be great!”

  Gwen continued to watch the sun go down behind some trees. “Only you, Blayne,” she said calmly, “would spit out life-changing decisions like bullets from a tommy gun.”

  “Is that a yes?” Blayne asked, with that hopeful eagerness that never seemed to die a humane death.

  “No. That’s not a yes. And what makes you think you need a partner to run your dad’s business? You’re smart, Blayne, no matter what Sister Mary Rose told you. You’ll be fine.”

  “In business terms, I’m a big-picture thinker. I have big plans for this business. But details, Gwenie, are not my friends. You’re the one who handles details beautifully. To sort of quote my dad, I’m the fuck-up with big ideas and you’re the stabilizer.”

  Gwen chuckled. “You’re not a fuck-up.”

  “Maybe not. But I don’t want to do this on my own.”

  And Gwen knew why. Because Gwen had all the confidence but none of the courage to see her dreams through, while Blayne had all the courage but none of the confidence. In many ways…they were a perfect team to run a business. If only Gwen could walk away from her family. Walk away from Philly. But she couldn’t.

  “Why make me a partner, Blayne? In a year you’ll have everything running fine and you’ll resent me taking part of your profits. And I will take part of the profits if I’m a partner.”

  Blayne stared down at her feet. They were too small for her size and definitely too small for the She-wolf in her. Some days she could do amazing things with those feet, other days she could barely manage to make it down flights of stairs, escalators, or simply walk from one room to another without falling on her face. “Other than my dad, I don’t have anybody but you, Gwenie. You’re my Pack.”

  “A Pack of two? That’s awfully sad.”

  “It doesn’t have to be. Not if we do something with it. By myself I can keep the business going. Maybe for the next forty years. But together…we can really do something with it, and enjoy ourselves.”

  Gwen was fighting really hard not to get caught up in Blayne’s excitement. She’d done it before, gotten caught up. And that way laid madness…and jail time. Yet the thought of their own business…just the two of them. No Pride or Pack to answer to, no decisions made that were not theirs and theirs alone. “Yeah. Maybe that’s true.”

  “I know you’ve got a lot invested in Cally’s business—”

  Gwen barely stopped herself from snorting at that one.

  “—and that it will be hard to walk away from that—and from your mom. But if you just give me a chance—”

  “Stop.” Gwen wanted to rub her calf. Actually, she wanted to shift, rip off the bandage, and lick her calf until the pain went away.

  Blayne winced a bit. “Your mom at it again?”

  “She wants me running the business.” Roxy’s business. The one Gwen had absolutely no interest in.

  “Well…if it’s your business, I guess that’s the same as the two of us…” Her words died off as Gwen let out a bitter laugh.

  “I said she wants me running the business. Not that she’d give me the business. That business belongs to the Pride.”

  “You’re part of the Pride.”

  “No, Blayne.” Gwen looked her friend in the eyes and said what they’d both known for a very long time
but neither had ever said out loud. “I’ll always be an outsider.”

  “But they don’t treat you like—”

  “They treat me like family. But where they go, what they do as a Pride—I’m never part of that. I never will be part of that.”

  Blayne’s jaw clenched in frustration. “That doesn’t seem fair, Gwen.”

  “Sweetie, haven’t I taught you there is no fair among predators?”

  “Then nothing should be holding you back. You should come with me. Screw ’em all.”

  “She’s still my mother, Blayne.”

  “And?”

  “I can’t leave Roxy on her own. I’m her only daughter.”

  “And she’s got a whole Pride watching out for her. A Pride you’re not even a part of.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Yeah, but what? Instead of spending your whole life worrying about family who love you but not enough to give you as much power as the rest of them, maybe you should think about yourself for a change. About what you want.”

  “Because it’s that easy?”

  “No. It’s not that easy. It wasn’t easy for my dad to walk away from his Pack. But he did it anyway. For me. Because they wouldn’t take us both and he wasn’t giving me up. He made choices to benefit me and…”

  “And now you need to be there when he needs you.”

  “Because of me he doesn’t have anybody else. Your mom can’t make the same claim.”

  Blayne put her arm around Gwen’s shoulder and hugged her. She’d always been affectionate, even though Gwen wasn’t. But she was Blayne and she would always do things her own way.

  “Just think about it before you say no, okay?”

  Lie to her. Tell her what she wants to hear so you both can pretend you have a choice. “Okay.”

  After another quick hug, Blayne left her and Gwen sat there. She didn’t know for how long, but the entire time her mind kept jumping back and forth between what her life would be like if she left Philly—from the best possibility to the absolute worst—to what her life would be like if she stayed. And although she loved her mother for never giving her up and making sure the family never turned on her, forcing her out, Gwen couldn’t shake the feeling that her future was not meant to be in Philly. It wasn’t meant to be with the O’Neill Pride. She’d always be an O’Neill, but would her future cubs be raised by the Pride, her life dedicated to the Pride? No. She didn’t see that. She didn’t see that at all.