Badger to the Bone (Honey Badger Chronicles #3) - Shelly Laurenston Page 0,8

sisters to deal with, the crazy cousin who did this to my face, the twin aunts who blew up my uncles on their plane, and now my uncles have moved into our house and I’ve got to fix that.”

“Your blown-up uncles live with you?” Zé asked.

“Of course they do. They don’t want to go back to Scotland until they figure out what’s going on, but . . . a bomb on a plane? Whose bright idea was it to do that? Everyone knows you can’t kill honey badgers just by blowing up the plane they’re on,” she scoffed.

“Your uncles are honey badgers?”

“Well, so am I.”

“Of course you are.” Zé sighed.

“Okay, we’re done,” Patowski said, and Zé knew he meant it. But before he could move, Patowski motioned to Anderson and Anderson took the butt of his pistol and bashed the woman on the side of the head. It was an unnecessarily hard hit. She should have dropped instantly. She didn’t.

“Owwwwwww!” she whined. Then, in retaliation, she punched Anderson in the nuts.

He roared in pain and anger, bending over before wrapping his hand around her throat and squeezing the life from her.

Gasping for air, her hands swinging out wildly, she locked her gaze on Zé.

“Let her go!” Zé bellowed at Anderson. When the kid didn’t, Zé shot up and turned to Patowski. “Now! Let her go!”

“She’s right about you,” Patowski guessed, his gaze sizing the taller man up, “isn’t she?”

Instead of stopping Anderson from killing the woman, the other men began to slowly move toward Zé, but when they heard it, everyone froze.

When they heard her laughing.

Zé looked down. She was no longer in the chair, but on the floor, on her back, with Anderson’s hand tight around her throat. But she was no longer struggling to breathe. She was laughing.

Frustrated and snarling, Anderson tightened his grip but . . . she only laughed harder.

Then Zé saw it. It was just a flash. Just a moment. But for a brief second, she moved her head so the bright lights hit her eyes—and they changed, becoming glassy and reflective. Like a dog’s standing under a streetlight.

“Fuck,” was all he got out before the knife she’d been hiding under her long-sleeve tee appeared. Gripping it tight, she rammed it into Anderson’s throat, hitting him directly in the artery.

Shaking, squealing, and pissing himself, Anderson released her and stumbled back, trying to stop the spouting blood with his hands.

She got to her feet, her gaze locked on Zé. Another teammate went to grab her, but without moving her gaze from Zé, she brought her blade up, back, and across, cutting the guy’s throat from ear to ear.

Then it hit him. This was not some crazy girl who happened to get her desperate hands on a knife. This . . . this was a well-trained killer. And staring at him, that well-trained killer put her blood-covered forefinger to her lips and said, “Shhhhh.”

* * *

It had all been so simple. Or so she’d thought.

Allow herself to be kidnapped by Devon’s men, go with them to a secondary location—risky but necessary in this particular case—meet Devon or, if he wasn’t with the mercenaries, find out where he was, track Devon down, kill Devon.

This was not a complicated plan. And it should have had her back home in no time, her elder sister none the wiser.

But the cat . . . the cat had thrown her off. She hadn’t expected to find a shifter here among all these shitty full-humans. Then, even more confusing, he was clearly here for some other reason. Not just to make some easy cash and damn whoever might get killed in the process.

When she’d realized there was a shifter among the group, she’d moved quickly to get him out of the way. Unlike the full-humans, a cat would know how to neutralize her kind quick, before Max could make a move. But his reactions? His confusion? He sincerely thought she was delusional.

Then it hit her: he really wanted to help.

Max was not a cat person, normally. Big or little, she wasn’t a fan. But she knew this guy was trying to help her. He didn’t belong with these full-humans: ex-military who turned from a life of good works and heroic risks to brutal mercenary work and murder for profit. But the cat . . . he was here to stop them.

How did she know? He had that look. Her mother called it, “The good-guy look. You have to watch out for them, honey.