In a Badger Way (Honey Badger Chronicles #2) - Shelly Laurenston Page 0,11

were here. This was what they were really good at. At least Charlie was. She knew how to calm her baby sister down, coax her out of cabinets without violence, and keep her from tearing Max’s eyes from her head. Shen didn’t know how Charlie did it and, to be honest, he didn’t have time to learn. It was early. He was hungry. And all he really wanted to do was sit down and eat a few pounds of the bamboo that he had stowed in his room. Not play nursemaid to a former prodigy with panic issues because a few grizzlies and polar bears were in her house.

When the pushing continued not to work, Shen became desperate and said to Stevie, “Okay, listen up. I know you are under a lot of stress and need new meds or whatever. And I really want to help you. But that means I need you to get in this car right now.” When she didn’t move, he suddenly had a brilliant idea and added, “So stop being a princess and get in the goddamn car.”

It was as if a light went on in her head, and the cat in his arms suddenly turned into a pissed-off woman.

“Princess?” Stevie snarled. An insult he’d noticed Max had tossed at Stevie more than once, which had always led to a violent confrontation of some kind between the sisters. “Princess?” she now yelled.

“Yes, you’re being a princess right now.”

Her head turned and kept turning until her nose lined up with her spine.

“I’m being a princess? Me?”

“Ahhh!” Shen yelped in surprise. “Is what your head doing normal? At all?”

“Don’t try to distract me from your insult!”

“Turn back around! You are freaking me out!”

“Oh, calm down,” she taunted as she turned her head forward. “You big baby.”

Annoyed by the insult and noticing that her arms and legs were no longer gripping the outside of the SUV, Shen shoved her inside.

“Hey!” she complained as he closed the door in her face.

“Like a house cat,” he muttered, snatching the keys out of the kid’s hand.

“This is so entertaining!” Kyle crowed.

“Get in the fucking car, psychopath.”

“I’m just a narcissist,” Kyle calmly explained. “My older sister, Delilah, though . . . now she’s a psychopath,” he added with a big grin. “Clinically diagnosed and everything!”

* * *

A princess? He’d called her a princess. Her? Stevie Stasiuk-MacKilligan?

She was as far from a princess as anyone could be. And Stevie knew that because she’d actually met royals. She’d performed for them when she was a child and then had given them tours around the labs she’d worked at when she was a teenager. And the one thing Stevie was absolutely sure of was that she was no princess.

How could she be? She was constantly aware of others’ needs and feelings. That’s why she was invited places and Kyle Jean-Louis Parker was thrown out of places. Because, like a true prince, he could not care less about anyone’s feelings but his own.

So that giant panda actually calling Stevie a princess did nothing but upset her. Because it wasn’t true.

She was not a princess!

“What are you yelling about back there?” Shen barked at her from the driver’s seat.

Stevie blinked. Uh-oh. She’d said that out loud, hadn’t she? She hated when she did that.

“Then stop doing it,” Shen ordered. “You’re distracting me.”

Her eyes narrowed on his fat panda head. She was tempted to slap him right in the back of it.

Kyle unbuckled his seat belt and turned so he could reach back and grab her hands, holding them in place.

“Let’s play our ‘We’re better than you’ game,” he said with false cheer.

Stevie cringed, realizing she’d spoken her thoughts out loud again.

“I threatened his big, fat panda head, didn’t I?” she asked Kyle.

“You did,” Shen told her. “And my head is not fat.”

“It’s not small!” she barked back.

“Stevie,” Kyle said, voice strong, “look at me. Focus on me. Because I’m fascinating.”

“I’m not a princess,” she felt the need to point out again.

“Of course you’re not. I wouldn’t be friends with a princess unless she was a lot richer than you are.”

Stevie nodded. “Thanks, Kyle. That makes me feel so much better.”

The panda pulled up to a light, stopped, and let out a long sigh before looking back at her and asking, “Seriously?”

* * *

Berg Dunn was always amazed at how Charlie managed people, depending on who they were and how they fit into her life.

When she spoke to the head of Katzenhaus, Charlie was friendly and polite and