In a Badger Way (Honey Badger Chronicles #2) - Shelly Laurenston Page 0,117
she just unloaded.
“You see, the damage I did to the Jean-Louis Parker house was getting into the six figures, a sum none of us can pay at the moment, except maybe Max, but only if she steals something expensive, and I didn’t want to be responsible for that, but the wild dog queen or Alpha female, whatever, she said she was considering taking the house away from Kyle’s family, but that didn’t seem fair because it was my fault, but then she said she wouldn’t do that if I brought you guys to something they called Wild Dog Night, which I’m afraid is just going to be a pit with dogs fighting, but I figured if it turned out to be that scenario, we could handle it at that time, so I said we’d be there, but ever since I’ve been trying to come up with a way to tell you guys but nothing ever really seemed to present itself, so now here we are.”
Shen wasn’t surprised when Charlie, Max, and the bears just gazed at Stevie, none of them saying a word. And they stayed like that for more than a minute until the bar door opened and Dutch walked out with Kyle hanging from his back—and yes, Shen had completely forgotten about his client but that was not his fault . . . snakes!
Dutch had a half-eaten rattler clutched in his hand and blood covering his mouth and chin.
“So what’s next?” he asked before taking another bite from the rattler’s corpse. “I’m up for anything.”
chapter TWENTY-THREE
The leaders of the three shifter-only protection groups stared at each other for several long minutes. This was a very typical reaction for a wolf, a bear, and a cat when confronting each other out in the wild, and it was typical for three shifters of the same species to have the same reaction when confronting each other in a boardroom.
However, these stares weren’t caused by the desire to rip out the throat of another predator or even someone really annoying. Instead, they were caused by a rare moment of confusion.
When no one else spoke up, Van finally asked for clarification from Dee-Ann and Cella.
“She buried a car? An actual car?”
“An SUV,” Cella corrected.
“By herself?”
“Apparently.”
“Dee-Ann?” Van asked his younger cousin’s wife.
“I’m not sure what you want me to say.”
“Have we dug it out yet?” Ric asked.
“We’ll need wolves for that,” Cella said.
Before Van could ask why, Dee-Ann put on what he could only call a “little girl voice”—which actually sounded like something out of a horror movie—and mocked, “The kitties got sick because of the bad smell.”
“First off, bitch,” Cella verbally slapped back, “three of my people passed out cold, two vomited until their stomachs practically burst, and one is still recovering at the hospital.”
“From what was basically a fart.”
“It was not a fart, hillbilly,” Cella insisted. “She unloaded her anal sacks on those full-humans and between that and being buried in their SUV, I’m guessing getting them out would not be a rescue mission.”
“Why don’t you just admit that y’all kitty cats are weak?”
“Why don’t you admit that you lick your ass so much, you don’t even notice horrendous smells anymore?”
“Ladies!” Van cut in, “Please.”
“Were they sent by the twins?” Ric asked.
Both women shrugged.
“How long before you know one way or the other?”
“Not until we get them out of the ground, so we can find out who they are, where they came from, and what they were planning. But I’m not sure when any of that is going to be.” Cella’s entire face contorted in disgust. “It wasn’t just a scent, you know. There was a . . . residue.” Cella suddenly turned to look at Dee-Ann and said with great drama, “Rezzz-a-duuuuue.”
Both women started laughing, leaning against each other.
When they saw Van and Ric just staring at them, they stopped.
“You know,” Dee-Ann said, “I can round up some of my Pack and for a hundred bucks each, they’ll dig it up. But it’s a hundred bucks each. Don’t try to cheat ’em. My daddy warned me about you Van Holtz boys.”
Ric, gawking at Dee-Ann, threw his arms out wide. “Thank you very much . . . wife.”
She smiled. Nodded. “Welcome, darlin’.”
* * *
“Uncle Will wants you to do what?” Stevie asked her sister, sure she’d heard wrong.
“Open a bar so that the MacKilligans can use the basement to move illegal snakes around the coast for the benefit of paying honey badgers.”
“But they had snakes at the bar,” Kyle pointed out. “They