In a Badger Way (Honey Badger Chronicles #2) - Shelly Laurenston Page 0,88
Barinov now stood next to Shen, gazing at him in that weird grizzly-Siberian tiger way he had, and not saying anything until Shen finally asked, “What, Vic?”
“You’re engaged?”
“What? No!”
“I heard you were engaged.”
“Engaged to who?” Livy asked. “Oh, God . . . not Max. Tell me you’re not engaged to—”
“No! I’m not engaged to anyone.”
“But . . . ?”
“There is no but.”
“Shen,” Livy pushed. “What’s going on?”
“Fine. I slept with Stevie.”
“The little one?” Vic asked. “She’s so tiny. Wasn’t that just cruel?”
“No.”
“Really? Cause you’re kind of wide. Like a wall.”
“I am not like a—” Shen stopped, blew out a breath. “I can’t have this conversation anymore.”
“Because everybody else thinks you’re too big for her too?”
“I’m not even addressing that bullshit. I mean, I’m not engaged to anyone. We’re just hanging out. That’s it.”
“Really?” Livy asked, pulling away from him, her lip curled a little. “Because her scent is all over you.”
“It’s nothing. She just rubbed her scent on me when we were in the car.”
“Aw, sweetie,” Livy said, patting his shoulder. “You don’t get it.”
“Don’t get what?”
“That tiny cat hybrid owns you now.”
“She’s right,” Vic agreed. “That’s what I mean every time I rub myself against Livy, but I don’t say it out loud because she’s a honey badger and I don’t want to get hit in the face.”
Livy nodded at Shen’s questioning look. “That’s exactly what I would do if he said it out loud.”
* * *
“Are we going to go?” Stevie asked.
“I’m going to go,” Max announced.
“And do what?” Charlie asked.
“Kill them all.”
“No.”
“You don’t think I’d do it?”
“I think you think you’re crazy enough to do it,” Stevie explained. “But you’re not.”
“I could be.”
“You’re not.”
“We’re not,” Charlie added. “People trying to actively kill us—strangers or family—we fight back. We always fight back and we lay waste. But we don’t kill family for no reason.”
“No, no,” Stevie was quick to cut in. “We don’t kill anyone for no reason.”
Her sisters stared at her for what Stevie considered way too long until Charlie blinked and said, “Right. Right. We don’t kill anyone for no reason. Exactly right.”
Stevie swung her finger between her sisters. “It bothers me I had to clarify that for you two. Just so you understand the look of disappointment on my face.”
Shen returned to the kitchen and as soon as he walked in, Charlie and Max let out an “Aw”
“No,” he said quickly. “No, no. We’re not going to do any of that, thank you very much.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Livy’s here.”
Stevie didn’t know she had reflexes that anyone would call “fast,” but she was up and over the table, taking her sister down to the ground before she could throw one of her blades across the room and into the only cousin on the Yang side of the family who would talk to her.
“Really?” Stevie demanded, still pinning her hysterically laughing sister to the floor.
Charlie, shaking her head, stepped close and snatched the blade from Livy’s hand.
“She’s family, dick-ass!”
Stevie couldn’t help but scrunch up her face, and then she saw that Max had done that too.
“I think you meant dumb-ass,” Max suggested.
“Probably. Let’s just let it lie.”
“Yeah, but why would you even come up with—”
“Let it lie!” Charlie tossed the blade onto the kitchen table. “What’s up, Livy?”
Livy, completely unfazed by her cousin, said to Max, “Call your mother.” She slapped a piece of paper on the table and walked out without another word.
“You haven’t called your mother?” Charlie asked.
“Well, with all the shit that’s been going on . . . and I forgot to give her my new number.” She pushed at Stevie. “Get off me.”
Unlike Stevie, Max adored her mother and had lawyers in Belgium working on appeals to get her out of prison. They kept in touch through letters, emails, and the occasional phone smuggled behind bars.
Stevie scrambled off her sister so Max could grab the piece of paper her cousin had left and quickly call her mother. Charlie was busy checking out whatever she’d put in the oven, so Stevie squeezed between Shen and the enormous hybrid blocking her kitchen door, biting back her squeal of panic at the mere sight of the man. She’d met him before, but she couldn’t remember his name to save her life.
She charged through the dining room and living room and caught up with Livy on the porch.
“Hey!” she said, forcing a smile.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Livy asked. “What are you doing with your face?”