In a Badger Way (Honey Badger Chronicles #2) - Shelly Laurenston Page 0,136
The others had gone back into the house, but Shen and Stevie had waited outside.
“I told him the truth,” Kiki admitted.
Shen rolled his eyes and groaned. That was exactly what he’d been afraid of.
“What?” his sister asked.
“He’s seventeen. He’s a baby!”
“He’s a prodigy and he didn’t want me to mollycoddle him. So I didn’t. I gave him the unvarnished truth so he could turn from ‘some artist’ into ‘the artist.’ I was doing what I do. That’s why he brought me here.”
“What if you killed his spirit?” Shen wanted to know.
“If a true and honest critique that has nothing to do with personality kills his spirit . . . he was never meant to be an artist. But you,” she added, pointing at Shen, “know I’m right. I can see it on your face.”
“He’s good.”
“But he could be great. I want great. Anybody can be good. Now I’m going inside. I’d like something to drink. Why don’t you come with me?” she asked Stevie.
“I’ll be right in,” Stevie promised.
She nodded and left them.
“You okay?” Stevie asked Shen when they were alone.
“I knew this would happen. My sister is—”
“Direct.”
“That’s the nice way of putting it.”
“It’s the only way. If I thought she was just being a destructive twat, you know I’d say something.”
Shen smiled. “Yes. I know now that you’d say something.”
She looked over at the garage. “Maybe I should talk to Kyle, though.”
“Oriana’s in there with him.”
That made Stevie feel better. No matter how much the Jean-Louis Parkers bickered among themselves, Stevie knew they still protected each other when necessary. Not the way Charlie and Max did, but with the same determination. Just less bloodshed.
Stevie went up on her toes, kissed Shen’s cheek.
“What’s that for?” he asked, his cheeks turning a touch red.
“Because all this time you weren’t being a dick . . . just protecting Kyle from your sister.”
“He’s a kid. I had to do something.”
chapter TWENTY-SEVEN
Kiki didn’t consider herself a hard ass. She was direct, yes, but not a hard ass. In her opinion, hard asses were people who said mean things simply to be mean. They seemed to get a kick out of breaking people down and, if they felt like it after, building them back up. Kiki, however, just told people the honest truth if they asked.
The kid had asked.
Besides, why would she go out of her way to hurt him? She didn’t care that he’d used her brother’s phone to lure her here. People had done weirder and unhealthier things to get her attention. To get her to mention them in her magazine, online, or on TV. Even if the mention was bad, they wanted it, because it would get them publicity. To be truthful—and when was she not?—she’d known it wasn’t her brother texting her. “Trapped” as a sex slave? Her brother would never say he was trapped in that situation.
Kyle Jean-Louis Parker, though . . . he had true potential. He had a future. She could see it. Of course, it didn’t hurt he was gorgeous, even as a slightly pimply seventeen-year-old. He had that shoulder-length hair the color of his jackal fur—people probably assumed he dyed it to look like that but Kiki knew better—those golden eyes, and those sharp, angled cheekbones. Even better, he had those long legs that gave him a good height, but he wasn’t freakishly tall or buff like the grizzlies and polar bears, who often had to live in their own enclaves so full-humans didn’t question why so many very large men and women had an unhealthy love of honey. But Kyle was a good-looking jackal whose entire family easily slipped into the full-human world without seeming strange or different. Except for their inherent talent.
And Kiki had seen Kyle’s sister dance at the Bolshoi a few years back. Oriana hadn’t even been an adult yet, but what Kiki had seen had blown her away. The beautiful lines, the delicate skill, all combined with the muscles and strength of an animal that could drag a much larger gazelle back to its den to feed the rest of its family.
But unlike Kyle, Oriana put her entire self out on that stage. Her skill alone would make her a great dancer but what made her brilliant was what she gave to the audience. What she revealed through a look, a move. She exposed everything while fully clothed. That was something that couldn’t be taught. Couldn’t be learned.
Kyle had to find that soulfulness and put it in his work the way