In a Badger Way (Honey Badger Chronicles #2) - Shelly Laurenston Page 0,145
and assistants, we’ll put you back in your room for the changing process. But you’ll be able to watch what happens to your DNA on the monitor we have set up in there. Exciting, right?”
Stevie forced a smile. “Absolutely.”
* * *
“Where’s your brother?” Charlie asked again.
“I don’t know!”
“Where’s his lab?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“You’re lying.”
“Unlike you, I don’t obsessively watch where my brother goes and what he does. And he won’t tell me anything because he thinks I’m going to steal his precious research. Like I give a shit.”
“Hey!” a young, nonrelated male lion barked from the doorway. Berg and Dag started to move, ready to challenge him, but Britta knew her brothers would just get in the way. She grabbed their arms, held them back.
“What the fuck is going on?” the male roared.
Her eyes still locked on Wells, Charlie softly said, “Max.”
The blade was out of Max’s hand, across the hall, and buried in the male lion’s chest before he could move. He fell back into another male lion’s arms.
“Don’t pull it out,” Max warned the second male. “He’ll bleed out and that’ll be the end of him. You may want to carry him to an emergency room, hon.”
“Go,” one of the She-lions urged, and the males were gone as fast they’d come in.
“I don’t think he’s lying,” Max said about Wells.
“You sure?” Charlie asked, leaning in, staring intently into his face.
“Yeah. I’m sure.”
“The thing is . . . based on what Stevie has told us, your brother is not going to do anything on his own. Because, like you, he’s a momma’s boy.”
Slowly, Charlie’s head turned, her cold—suddenly gold—wolf gaze locking on the head of the Pride. Jennifer Wells.
“Mommy,” Charlie said, her voice low, “where’s your boy?”
“Go to hell.”
Charlie’s body spun away from Wells and she faced the She-lion, her .380 now in her hand, aimed at the older woman. She stalked across the hall toward the lioness, the gun raised. The other females attempted to attack, but the MacKilligan cousins got in the way, fighting the women and mostly getting their asses kicked. But they were all honey badgers, so they just kept fighting, seemingly tireless, keeping the females at bay.
Charlie pressed the barrel of the gun against the She-lion’s head.
“Where’s his lab?”
But she wouldn’t reply. She just smirked. It was like she was daring Charlie to kill her.
“You know me,” Charlie said. “You know what I’ll do.”
“Then do it. Pull the trigger.”
Charlie shrugged. “Okay.” She pointed the weapon back at Matt Wells and shot him in the leg.
Roaring, the lion male dropped to the ground, his hands wrapped around the bleeding wound.
“Now,” Charlie explained, “you’re gonna lose a son tonight. The question is . . . do you wanna lose two? Because what you need to understand about me, lady, is that I. Don’t. Give. A. Fuck. I will wipe out every last one of these bitches and leave you the last cat standing, and won’t lose a bit of sleep. So think carefully before you answer me.”
“Jersey,” the She-lion spit out. “His lab is in Jersey.”
Charlie walked away, saying softly over her shoulder, “Max.”
Max charged at the lioness, launched herself into the air, and caged her in by putting her legs and arms on the wall behind the She-lion, claws dug into the marble keeping her aloft. Then Max, sounding awfully perky, asked, “Can I have the address please? Or the coordinates. Whichever.”
* * *
“Is it weird,” Blayne asked, “to be able to look inside yourself?”
“Nah. But I am curious how he’s able to do this. He must have injected me with something other than just the genetic material.”
The three of them sat on the floor, staring up at the giant monitor. They were into the second hour, waiting for the injection to start to work. To change her.
To make Stevie “normal.”
“Hey,” Gwen pointed out. “Something’s happening.”
She was right. On the monitor, something was definitely happening.
“That’s your DNA?” she asked.
“Yes. My shifter DNA.”
“And that’s . . .”
“What Wells created. It’s remaking my DNA now.”
“Do you feel anything?” Blayne leaned in. “Are you in pain?”
“No. It’s supposed to be a relatively painless process.”
“That’s something, I guess.”
Once the process was completed, Stevie could see that her DNA was now that of a normal—
Gwen reared back. “What the fuck was that?”
Stevie wasn’t really sure. “I . . . I don’t know. I’ve never seen that before.”
The replaced DNA had suddenly been attacked by . . . something and just like that, her original DNA had returned.