Big Bad Beast

CHAPTER 3

R ic paid the cabbie and stood, Dee-Ann glaring at him from the front stoop of his family’s restaurant.

“What did you want me to do?” he asked.

“Tell them no.”

He shrugged. “I like the idea. Besides, we should all be working together to stop this—don’t walk away from me, Dee-Ann.”

His stern warning ignored, Dee kept walking, but Ric caught up with her and pulled her into the alley between the restaurant and the deli next door.

“Don’t you find it curious,” he asked, standing in front of her, “that felines who are so into pure bloodlines they could be British royalty are suddenly concerning themselves with hybrids?”

Folding her arms over her chest, Dee did that thing he hated where she looked right past him. Then again she only did that when he was right about something and it pissed her off.

“If you’re really adamant about not working on this, I can put someone else on it.” He tried to think of the one person who’d really set Dee off and he realized that one person was waiting for him right inside one of the private dining rooms. “I’ll give it to Blayne.”

Ric took a step away, but Dee’s hand shot out and caught hold of his arm. “Pardon?”

“I said I’ll put Blayne on it since you don’t want to—”

“Teacup? You’re going to put Teacup on this?”

“She’s a great ambassador for the Group, gets along well with felines and bears, and she already knows Dez MacDermot.”

“She babysits for Desiree.”

“She’s also taken on bigger responsibilities with the Group and that’s worked out just fine.”

“With the hybrid pups and cubs. It’s not like she’s ever been in the field.”

“But she handled herself just fine in Ursus County.” Ric still had a hard time believing that his goofy, loveable wolfdog buddy was the same She-predator he’d seen decimate a gang of full-human males trying to kill them. And she’d done it with nothing more than a couple of blades in her hands and sheer willpower. Then again, Blayne’s knife skills only made a real appearance when she was backed into a corner with no way out. Of course . . . he didn’t have to mention he knew that to Dee.

“Ursus—” The She-wolf gritted pearly white fangs and snarled at him like he was trying to take her favorite chew toy. “The only reason she lived through Ursus County was ’cause of me. The only reason she has a job with the Group is ’cause of me. The only reason she breathes my precious, precious air is ’cause of me!”

It was true. The one person who could really set Dee-Ann Smith off was and perhaps always would be Blayne Thorpe.

“I understand that, but—”

Dee’s head dipped low, bright gold eyes looking up at him through dark brown lashes. “Fine. I’ll do it.”

“Not if you’re just going to use this as an opportunity to beat up on Cella.”

If it was possible, Dee-Ann’s expression turned even angrier. “That’s true. I wouldn’t want to hurt your girlfriend.”

Ric blinked. “My what?”

“Forget it.” She stepped around him, ready to leave, but Ric caught hold of her wrist, keeping her in place.

“I promised you food.”

“I don’t need you feeding me, Van Holtz. I’m not some charity case.”

“I never said you were. And what happened to Ric? It sounded so nice when you called me Ric. And you have to eat, Dee-Ann.” He gripped one of the loops of her jeans, tugging at it.

“Hands!”

“One good tug and these will come off. You’re too skinny.”

“When did you become my mother?”

“See? Even your mother is concerned.”

“No, she’s not.”

He led her to the back door. “Come on. You have to eat, otherwise I’ll be up all night worrying you’ve passed out somewhere. Unable to take another step due to lack of nutrition.”

Ric had his hand on the doorknob, giving Dee a wink over his shoulder. But the door swung open from the inside, shoving him back and right into the She-wolf. He slammed into her, his body pushing hers into the wall behind them.

“Sorry, boss,” one of his crew said, tossing a bag of trash into the Dumpster. “Didn’t see you there.”

Ric didn’t reply. He was too busy being seriously aware of the woman he had pressed against the wall.

“You planning to get off me anytime soon, supermodel?” she asked.

“Or we can stay this way forever. That’s an option.” One he was more than willing to explore.

“Good Lord!” Dee pushed him back and walked toward the alley door. “If Cella’s not your girlfriend, we need to get you one.”

“Cella’s not my girlfriend. She works for me. It would be inappropriate.”

Dee-Ann stopped in the open doorway and faced him. “So do I, but that hasn’t stopped you from demanding I get naked every other day.”

“True, but I don’t sign your checks.”

“Which means what exactly?”

“I don’t know, but if you give me some time I’m sure I can come up with something completely logical that could be argued in front of the Supreme Court.”

“Ya know . . . I bet you could.”

Dee didn’t know why she should suddenly care if Ric was going out with Malone or not, but she’d admit to herself that she kind of did care. Maybe she was just feeling moody. Maybe a little homesick. Whatever. She’d get over it.

She stood outside the kitchen while Ric went back in and got their food. It seemed to take longer than she thought it would, which meant that he was cooking it himself. But when he finally came out, he smiled at her—back to his happy-go-lucky, goofball self because he’d cooked something up in a pan—and motioned down the hall toward the private dining rooms. Figuring he probably wanted to discuss next steps before she had to deal with Malone on a daily basis, Dee started walking. One of the waiters slipped past her carrying a big tray piled with more food.

“Here,” Ric said, when the waiter stopped at one of the rooms.

That seemed like a lot of food for the pair of them, but maybe he was hungrier than she realized.

Once at the door, Ric reached around her with his free hand and pushed it open. The waiter went in and Dee followed, but she froze at the doorway and snarled, glaring back at Van Holtz.

“What?” he asked, trying to look innocent.

“I really should have killed you when I had the chance, supermodel.”

“And where would the fun be in that?” He pushed her into the room before she could make a break for it, and that’s when she was noticed.

“Deeeeeeee-Annnnnnnnnnnnnnn!” she heard seconds before a crazed wolfdog female wrapped herself around Dee and held on, hugging her tight.

“You’ve been missed,” Van Holtz whispered in her ear before he walked into the room, grinning at the table filled with a small group of people she tolerated but didn’t necessarily want to spend much time with.

“I’m so glad you’re here!” the wolfdog said, arms tightening so that Dee’s air was almost cut off.

“Get off me, Blayne.”

“You’re staying, aren’t you?”

“Get off me, Blayne.”

“You have to stay so we can eat and talk. It’s been ages!” She rested her head against Dee’s shoulder. “I’ve missed you so much.”

That’s when Dee reached for her bowie knife, but Ric caught her hand before she could clear the sheath and held it behind her back.

“Why don’t we all sit down and eat before the food gets cold?” he offered.

“Okay!” The wolfdog released her death grip on Dee’s neck and skated back to the table—why she was wearing roller skates in the middle of a restaurant, Dee didn’t want to even hazard a guess—unaware as always how close to death she came every time she insisted on the touching.

“Put it away,” Van Holtz whispered in Dee’s ear, “or I’m taking the whole hand.”

With a grunt, Dee shoved the knife back. “There, supermodel. Happy?”

“Thrilled.” He released her, but not before she felt his fingers slide across her forearm. “You have the smoothest skin,” he murmured, looking down at her arm.

“Yeah. It’s the scar tissue from all those knife fights. After a few years, it heals up real soft.”

Ric got Dee-Ann seated at one end of the table and Blayne Thorpe at the other—not easy when Blayne kept insisting on wanting to hug Dee again. It was like she had a death wish. Then he and one of his runners went about taking care of the rest of his guests.

Lachlan “Lock” MacRyrie, Ric’s best friend since they were both ten years old, was still laughing when Dee sat down kitty-corner from him. Whether he was laughing at Blayne’s attempt to show Dee affection, Dee’s reaction to that affection, or Ric’s constant attempts to keep Dee from wiping Blayne from the face of the earth, Ric didn’t know. It was hard sometimes to believe that this nearly seven-foot-tall grizzly taking up a lot of space in the good-sized private dining room had once been the same medium-sized kid who’d run face first into Ric’s locker on a dare. A dare that had been issued by Ric. He’d felt bad about it, too, when Lock had knocked himself out cold.

Ric placed a full-sized platter in front of the grizzly. “Salmon and my perfect honey glaze for you.”

Lock stared at the fresh, ten-pound wild salmon in front of him. “Did you put in enough honey this time?”

Snarling, Ric pulled the plastic honey bear out of his pocket and chucked it at his friend’s big grizzly bear head. “Philistine,” he snarled.

Turning away before he could watch the brute desecrate his perfectly prepared food with all that honey, Ric leaned in and kissed Lock’s mate and Blayne’s best friend, Gwen, on the cheek before placing a plate of food in front of her. “Wild boar stew for you.”

“Yum. Smells fantastic.”

Next came the simple New York steak with sautéed green beans for Blayne since she could be a little finicky about her food.

“To drink?” he asked the table.

“Wine?” Gwen asked.

“Excellent choice.” He’d introduced the Philly feline to the higher-end wines in the last few months and it had turned out she had a wonderful palate.

Her grizzly bear mate, however . . .

“Mil—” the bear began but Ric held his hand up, cutting his friend off.

“Can’t you at least try some wine?” Ric nearly begged. “I have a splendid nineteen thirty-two—”

“I want milk. Cold. A vat please.”

Shaking his head, disgusted, Ric turned his attention to Blayne. “And you, Miss Thorpe?”

“Nothing with caffeine or sugar!” she crowed. “Or I’ll never get to sleep tonight! Woo-hoo!” When they only stared at her, Blayne’s shoulders slumped and she calmly stated, “Diet Coke please.”

Ric turned to Dee-Ann, who seemed to still be seething. “Dee?”

“Water.”

“Sparkling or flat?”

The confused expression on her face was priceless when she snapped, “Tap.”

“Flat it is.” As if he’d ever give her regular, everyday tap water. He nearly shuddered at the thought.

Ric gave the runner their drink orders and suggested he bring more bread now rather than later because Lock was gnawing his hand off in hunger. He caught hold of the door and opened it, the runner shooting out and leaving Bo “The Marauder” Novikov standing there. Novikov was a godsend to Ric’s hockey team and Blayne’s mate, but he was such an irritating asshole that Ric couldn’t help slamming the door in the polar bear–lion’s face.

A roar shook the door and walls, and Blayne jumped out of her seat and across the room to snatch the door open. “Do not”—she ordered—“rip those hinges off!” She took Novikov’s hand. “Just come in and be nice.” She glared at Ric. “You too, Ulrich.”

“Me?” Ric placed his hand against his chest. “What did I do?”

Fresh from his daily—and brutal—training, Novikov tossed the bag with his hockey equipment to the floor. He glanced around and asked, “Is there food for me?”

“Are you paying this time?” Ric asked, which got him a slap on the arm from Blayne. “Ow!”

The runner returned with their drinks and Ric had Novikov give him his order since Ric didn’t deem him worthy of his brilliant expertise in guessing—always correctly—what his friends were in need of at the moment.

The seven-foot-one hybrid dropped his nearly four-hundred-pound weight into one of the restaurant’s best chairs with no regard for the furniture and looked around the table, his blue eyes stopping on Dee-Ann. “What’s she doing here?” he asked Blayne.

“I invited her,” Ric told him, sitting in the seat across from Lock and kitty-corner from Dee. “Although I don’t remember seeing your name on the e-mail I sent out.”

“Both of you stop it,” Blayne snapped. “And Dee’s here because I want her to be here,” she told Novikov.

“She tagged you like a wildebeest.”

“Would you let that go already?”

“Here.” Lock reached over to the sideboard, grabbed one of the big baskets of bread, and slammed it in front of Novikov. “Shove this in your hole and keep quiet.”

Snarling a little, the rude bastard continued to glare at Dee-Ann, and Ric was ready to climb across the table and tear the hybrid’s face off with his teeth. But Blayne had a good handle on her mate, pulling a notepad out of his back pocket and proceeding to write on it.

“What are you doing to my list?” he demanded as if she’d stolen his wallet.

“Just making a few . . . changes.” She held up the list. “I drew hearts and flowers on it!”

“Give me that!” Novikov yanked it back from her and so began another lecture on the proper use of lists.

How Blayne tolerated it, Ric had no idea. To each their own, he guessed.

Ric picked up his fork, ready to dig into his medallions of gazelle and deer in wine sauce. But finding only an empty plate where his food used to be, he decided that he’d been right. Dee-Ann had been hungry.

“What?” Dee asked around his gazelle when he raised a brow in her direction. “You were busy talkin’.”

Dee ate the most amazing angel’s food cake with white icing and listened to the chatter going on around her.

It seemed wedding plans were not going well for Lock and his mate because their mothers had different views on pretty much everything. Blayne was worried her wedding would top five hundred guests “easy,” and Ric was arguing with Novikov about . . . well, about pretty much everything, but mostly about who to add to their team and who to drop. Since she had no interest in weddings, Dee listened mostly to the hockey discussion. Especially since Reece Lee Reed was on the team now.

Dee had grown up with the Reed boys. Although she’d always been closest to Rory, the eldest, she was tight with all of them. Ricky Lee Reed was currently in Tokyo, working in the Japanese division of her cousin Bobby Ray’s security business. Yet all the Reed boys were as close to her as her cousins Sissy Mae and Bobby Ray. Then again, her cousins had never faced the wrath of Eggie Smith when caught trying to sneak her drunk ass back into her parents’ house. So, like Lock MacRyrie, the Reeds had earned her loyalty.

After a few minutes, the conversation turned to Cella Malone, and MacRyrie said to Dee, “By the way . . . Malone moved back to the city. She’s on the team now.”

Dee gazed at the bear while Ric chuckled beside her. “I know,” she said.

“Oh.” The grizzly’s head tipped to the side and he asked, “Did you know you have a bunch of bruises on your face?”

“I’m aware.”

He thought a moment and added, “It’s not because of Malone, is it?”

“Do I really need to answer that?”

He shook his head, dug into his platter-sized slice of berry-nut cake. “I’m thinking, no, you don’t.”

“Do you know Marcella Malone?” Teacup asked.

“My face does,” Dee muttered.

“Isn’t she great? She’s so nice and sweet. I met her at team practice the other day. Her dad is ‘Nice Guy’ Malone.”

“Fascinating,” Dee lied, then slammed her fork into Ric’s before he could get some of her cake. “Don’t you need that hand to work so you can keep cooking?”

“You won’t share?”

“Not without a fight.”

Ric leaned in a bit, the rest of the table having a discussion about something else she couldn’t care less about. “And don’t let this thing with Marcella Malone bother you, Dee. You have more important work to do. I expect you to impress me.”

“Because that’s my life goal,” she replied dryly. “To impress a Van Holtz.”

“All the Packs would be better off if that was their life’s goal.”

“Y’all born with that level of arrogance?”

Ric grinned, showing perfect, gleaming white teeth. “It seems that way. Although my Aunt Irene says she hasn’t quite figured out if it’s an inborn personality trait or a genetic defect. But she’s working on it.”

Ric walked his guests out of his restaurant. It was a hot, muggy night and he couldn’t wait to get home. But he still had to ensure the kitchen was shut down properly, that he knew what was being delivered tomorrow so he could start working on the menu for himself and his Aunt Adelle, who shared executive chef duties with him, and that he dealt with any complaints that may have come up in the evening if they had to do with his crew.

“Everything all right?” Lock asked him, the pair standing off to the side while the others watched a hyped-up Blayne do backflips in her skates. He could only guess that there was some processed sugar in the honey cake the pastry chef had made. He’d have to check since it was listed on the menu as a sugar-free dessert.

“I thought I saw Stein earlier.”

Lock turned toward him, eyes blinking wide. “Are you sure it was him?”

“Not really. But it looked like him.”

“Your father’s going to have a fit if the kid’s back.”

“I know.”

“Are you going to help him?”

“No.”

“Ric—”

“I’m not.” The kid had broken his heart. Ric wasn’t about to help him now. Those days were over. “The kid’s on his own, which—according to him—is the way he likes it.”

“Stubborn.”

“It’s a flaw I’ve learned to live with.”

By now Novikov had a wriggling “I need to run and be free!” Blayne over his shoulder. “Anyone need a ride?” he asked, heading to what Lock called the man’s “military transport.” A vehicle so big, it could get an entire Roman legion in it.

“No, thanks. We have our truck.”

“Okay. See you at the game tomorrow.” He started to open the door of his truck, but stopped and faced them. He thought a moment and said, “And thank you for dinner.”

Ric, confused by the sudden bout of politeness, answered, “You’re welcome.”

With a nod, he suddenly slapped Blayne’s rear and said, “Happy now? I said thank you to your loser friends and Gwen.”

“It’s progress! Now let me go to run free!”

“You’ll be in Connecticut before I can catch you and I have a game tomorrow.”

He got her into his vehicle and put a seatbelt on her. It appeared to be a standard seatbelt but, for whatever reason, Blayne seemed unable to get it off, giving Novikov time to get around and inside the vehicle before his mate could make a run for it.

Watching her try to wiggle and fight her way out of that seatbelt, Ric stated, “I feel like we should be rescuing her.”

“Really?” Gwen asked, slipping her arm around Lock’s waist. “I always feel like I should be rescuing him. He’s gotta go home and deal with a hyped-up Blayne for the next few hours.”

Ric shook his head. “I need to talk to Jean-Louis about his honey cake. It’s supposed to be sugar free.”

“You gonna tell him, hoss?” Dee suddenly asked from behind Ric. To be honest, he’d thought she’d left a while ago.

Lock, appearing caught, shrugged. “Don’t know what you mean.” He grabbed Gwen’s hand. “Let’s go.”

“Wait. What’s the redneck talking about?” Gwen demanded, forced to follow her mate to their truck.

Ric sighed. “Okay. What’s going on?”

“I’m only telling you ’cause I don’t want Jean-whatever—”

“Jean-Louis.”

“Yeah. Him. He makes the best angel’s food cake I’ve ever had and I don’t want him fired over something not his fault. But when Novikov wasn’t looking, MacRyrie put sugar in Blayne’s soothing chamomile tea.”

Ric, working hard not to laugh, said, “Oh. That’s horrible. I’ll talk to Lock about it tomorrow.”

“What about you re-organizing Novikov’s hockey bag while he was in the bathroom? You gonna tell MacRyrie about that, too?”

“Probably not . . . right away.”

She grinned. “Y’all are so mean to that boy.”

“You act as if he doesn’t deserve it.”

“I didn’t say that, but where I come from, we tolerate our rude ones when they play a sport that well. We put up with Mitch Shaw for the town’s football season.”

“Mitch isn’t rude, though. He’s just”—he thought a minute and finally finished—“Mitch.”

“That don’t make it right.” She winked and began to amble off. He’d never met anyone who ambled in Manhattan, but Dee managed to.

“Uh . . . need a lift home?”

“Not going home. Got that meeting with that idiot feline and Desiree early in the morning and it’s too far to travel.”

“You can stay at my place,” he offered, hoping to look innocent and helpful rather than lustful and desperate.

“No, but thank you kindly. I’ll crash at Rory Reed’s tonight. He’s staying at Brendon Shaw’s hotel with the rest of the Pack, so he’s got room service and a real comfortable couch.”

“But my place has me and my waffles with blueberries.”

“I can’t keep living off you, Van Holtz.”

“It’s not living off me if you’re going to be my wife anyway.”

Turning around and walking backward, she said, “Huh?”

Ric decided this wasn’t the time. “Nothing. Have a good night, Dee-Ann.”

“You, too.” She turned back around and quickly faded into the shadows. “And thanks for dinner.”

He sighed, thinking about another lonely night in his bed. “Anytime.”