In a Badger Way (Honey Badger Chronicles #2) - Shelly Laurenston Page 0,6

the constant chewing of bamboo by giant pandas among the most irritating. Mostly because it rarely stopped.

It took three minutes, but when they saw him go in for another bamboo stalk, they all picked up what was left of their treats, their cups of coffee, and walked out the back door.

Grinning, Shen tossed the bamboo back in his duffel bag and reached up to knock on the cabinet door.

“You can come out now. They’re all gone.”

He opened the refrigerator door and pulled out a bottle of water. But just as he started to take a drink, he realized that Stevie still hadn’t come out.

Frowning, he used his free hand and opened the cabinet door again. Stevie was still curled tight into the corner, her hands dug into her hair, her thin naked body tense and shivering.

“Stevie? You o—”

She came at him then. Exploding from the cabinet, the top half of her body leaning out, extremely large fangs coming toward his face.

Shen jerked back and felt the enamel of her fangs brush against his lips before snapping closed on nothing but air.

Then she roared. Loudly. The windows in the house rattled before she disappeared back into the cabinet, slamming the door after her.

“Well . . . that wasn’t normal,” Shen said to no one.

* * *

Charlie MacKilligan began to rub her temples and glanced up at the gorgeous man who stood beside her. A migraine was starting to settle behind her eyes and that was never a good thing. It made her tense and she tended to say things she couldn’t take back when she was tense.

But she knew what was going on here. They were building up to something. Attempting to lull her into a false sense of security with mindless chatter before they made their move.

Her father often did the same thing so she was used to it. Of course the fact that her worthless father often tried this same technique on her made Charlie angry and distrustful of the people who’d pledged to protect her and her sisters.

Apparently, the shifter world had decided that hybrids were worth their time to protect. This was the first Charlie had ever heard that. Most purebreds didn’t know what to do with her and Stevie. Not only were they the combined DNA of two different species, they were the fucked-up offspring of Freddy MacKilligan, which everyone found way more offensive than the intermingling of different species.

It wasn’t fair, really. That they’d been hit twice like that. By their mothers’ poor choices in men and their father’s . . . uselessness.

Big fingers gently stroked Charlie’s cheek and she smiled up at Berg Dunn. Her big grizzly bear. Literally. He could shift into a grizzly bear. The morning after her cousin’s wedding a few weeks ago, she’d woken up to find herself sleeping on top of his back, bear fur tickling her nose. He’d shifted in the night and it was shockingly weird to realize that her head was resting on his grizzly hump like it was a hard pillow. Then, as she was sitting up, trying to shake herself awake, she’d watched a big bear butt walk past the open bedroom door; followed a few seconds later by another bear. Those were Berg’s triplet brother and sister lumbering by. They’d also shifted that morning and were wandering around their house in their bear forms. Apparently something they did whenever the mood struck them. Something Charlie couldn’t do because, unlike her sisters, she couldn’t shift. Something else she blamed on her father.

“Headache?” Berg softly asked.

She didn’t bother to lie to him. She’d never believed in suffering in silence if she didn’t have to. “Yeah, but it’ll be fine.”

The once they get out of here was implied.

Charlie glanced over at her younger sister to see how she was holding up. As usual, Max was on her phone. She lived on that thing, making Charlie wonder if her sister had an entire other life that she was unaware of. Then again . . . she probably didn’t want to know one way or another.

Max stopped texting long enough to scratch the right side of her face, where she had those fresh scratches going from her eye down her cheek.

“What happened to your face?” she softly asked because she was too bored not to.

“Nothin’,” Max lied.

“You messing with that cat again? Leave the cat alone.”

Max lowered her phone. “I want her off our property. She’s spraying everything. It’s driving me nuts. Besides . . .” she suddenly