In a Badger Way (Honey Badger Chronicles #2) - Shelly Laurenston Page 0,34
walking toward her, grinning as he eyed her naked body. The bears on Carthage Street had seen Max naked so many times, none of them reacted to it anymore. But this guy . . .
He stopped next to her and leaned against the fence, his elbow resting near her face.
He was good-looking and, Max could now smell, a male lion. A handsome, muscular cat who probably adored his foam green Escalade the way the dogs in their house loved their rubber toys.
“Hey,” he said, flashing a handsome grin. “How you doin’?”
Max could have played with him. But she wasn’t really in the mood. It had been a long day already and she just didn’t have the energy. So she simply nodded her head toward his SUV and watched the cat’s gold eyes grow impossibly wide before he took off running.
“Hey!” he screamed. “What the fuck—”
By the time the lion reached the SUV, Berg had already gotten out . . . and stood up. He was at least six-ten and wide. Oh, so very wide.
That didn’t seem to bother the proverbial king of the jungle. . . and New Yorker. He started yelling at a shocked—and a little hurt—Berg.
“What are you? Stupid? What the fuck are you doing in my truck? Who the fuck do you think you are?”
Dag got out, holding an empty brown paper bag. Max was guessing that bag had once held the cheesesteaks the bear kept smelling.
“Oh, what?” the lion demanded. “You think you and your boyfriend can scare me? You two think I’m afraid of you?”
But the Dunns really weren’t the problem. Nope. It was what surrounded the lion.
Max cleared her throat—she was still naked so she figured he’d notice anything she did at the moment—and he spun to face her, but instead faced an annoyed Britta. Although the bond of the triplets had not been tested quite as much or as doggedly as the MacKilligan sisters’ bond, Max had no doubt that Britta would go as far as Charlie should her two brothers ever be at risk.
And the male lion sensed that.
“Well—” he began.
But that’s when more bears showed up, slowly surrounding the cat. Britta was clearly angry, but the others were just curious. They didn’t like cats on their territory, but they really only chased the pack of wolves that lived several blocks over because the howling annoyed them so much.
Max watched the cat closely from her little spot, noticing how he kept his hands down by his sides. But his fingers twitched. Not a lot, but just enough to tell her what she needed to know.
The front door to the house opened and Charlie came out. She stood on the stoop and called out, “Hey, guys. There’s stuff on the table in the backyard if you’re interest—”
Most of the bears were gone before she finished her statement, jumping over the fence and tearing across the yard to reach the table in the back.
The Dunns, though, were still standing there. The boys confused, Britta just glaring.
That’s when Charlie said, “I’ve kept some stuff in the kitchen, but they’ll find it if you guys don’t get it now.”
Britta moved first, ramming her shoulder into the cat’s before she walked off toward the house. Her brothers soon followed, after Berg handed the SUV door back to the cat.
“Really?” he demanded of the bears’ backs.
Now, it was just the cat . . . and Max. While he tried to figure out how to put his door back on—useless, she’d heard the metal hinge bend then break—Max climbed over the fence and crept up behind the lion. She waited until he sensed her, and then she grabbed him by the shoulder and rammed her foot into the back of his leg. He dropped to one knee with a short roar and Max pressed her claws against the cat’s neck. Right by the artery.
“Why are you here, kitty?” she asked.
“I’m just visiting—”
“Don’t lie to me. I’m not a bear. I’m not a cat. I’m definitely not a dog. And if you don’t think I’ll tear your throat out and bury you in our backyard beside the tree the bears use to scratch their backs . . . you are woefully wrong. So I’ll ask you one more time. Why are you here?”
He didn’t answer right away, so Max pressed her middle claw into his neck, just above the artery, making sure she scraped it.
“I’m Katzenhaus,” he angrily growled out.
“And what’s a Katzenhaus kitty doing in bear-ville?”