Badger to the Bone (Honey Badger Chronicles #3) - Shelly Laurenston Page 0,67
to be honest, they are really tasty. And crunchy. Like tortilla chips. Tortilla chips that wiggle and attack me.”
When Zé didn’t say anything for almost a minute, Max guessed, “This isn’t helping, is it?”
“No. Not helping.”
She thought about storming away. Angry and insulted. But she wasn’t really angry or insulted. She simply understood he didn’t get it. So she took his hand and pulled him into the living room. She sat him down on the couch and grabbed all the controls for the television, the sound system, and the cable box. She made a few quick purchases on one of the streaming services and began playing the first one.
“What is this?” Zé asked.
Max sat down on the couch beside him. “The story of me. The next one will be the story of you.”
The documentary about honey badgers started and, after a few tense minutes during which she felt positive that Zé was simply going to walk out of the house and her life forever, he leaned forward, rested his elbows on his knees, and his chin on his fists. For the next fifty minutes, he stayed glued to what was on the television. When the ending credits rolled, he leaned back again and looked at her.
“You guys are mean.”
* * *
Zé wasn’t sure what he’d expected to see in that documentary. But a small animal that challenged lions, hyenas, African wild dogs, cheetahs, leopards, African killer bees, and humans was not it.
But as he’d watched, he’d realized something very important: Max was definitely a honey badger. She didn’t seem as openly hostile as the wild honey badgers in the documentary, but everything else about her was like them.
Now, the question he had to ask himself was what did that mean to him? Was she someone he could live with? A not-nearly-as-hostile-as-a-wild-honey-badger woman with an amazing body, beautiful skin, and a healthy sense of humor. Or was Max MacKilligan going to be too much for him? He honestly didn’t know. At least not at this moment.
Seeing the documentary on jaguars might help because he still didn’t know exactly what he was about either.
“You want to watch this with me? ” he asked, pointing at the new credits rolling on the screen.
“I’m actually hungry again.”
She stood and began stripping off her clothes.
“Uh . . . Max. I’m, uh, going through a thing right now and . . .”
“Oh, dude, get over yourself,” she laughed.
She finished taking off her clothes. “I’ll be back later,” she promised before she shifted right in front of him, turning into what could only be called a giant version of a honey badger. Especially since most of them weighed, according to the documentary, no more than thirty-five pounds or so. This badger was a healthy one-hundred-and-twenty, just like Max.
Max trotted out of the house and Zé followed, curious to see if she could open the door with those ridiculously sized claws. She didn’t try, though. Instead she went to the window and opened it by using her snout. Then she jumped out and disappeared into the night.
“Yep,” he said to the air. “My life just keeps getting stranger and stranger . . .”
* * *
He continued watching the MacKilligan house from inside his vehicle. The man who’d come out earlier was no one. Definitely not the badger they were looking for.
Not the one he had to find.
He snarled in annoyance and his brother leaned forward, sticking his head through the seats. “Maybe we should just go home. You need to sleep.”
“We’re not going anywhere. Not yet.”
“Well,” his other brother said from the passenger seat, “I don’t think we should be hanging around here. Because the bears are getting nervous.”
“Fuck the bears.”
“You know, big brother, you say that; but when they drag us onto the street and start ripping our arms off . . . we won’t be able to help anybody. Now will we?”
He hated that his brother was right. Hated it.
“Fine,” he growled. “We’ll come back in the morning. Ask questions.”
“Politely,” his brother insisted. “We’ll ask questions politely.”
Fuck polite. He didn’t do polite.
A hand fell on his shoulder and his brother softly insisted, “I’m sure she’s fine.”
“She better be,” he said, starting the engine. “Or I’m going to kill them all.”
chapter TWELVE
Zé woke up with Max staring down at him, her body resting against his.
“You were wonderful last night,” she purred.
“Don’t even try it,” he told her, sitting up and pushing her off with his arm. “I know for a fact that I didn’t drink enough of