The Mane Squeeze

CHAPTER 10

Gwen was inputting the information from recent receipts and was taking her sweet time about it, too, when Blayne received yet another text message. She responded quickly and shut her phone. Placing the phone in her backpack and her backpack over her shoulder, Blayne got up and headed toward the office door.

Gwen kept typing, waiting until Blayne’s hand was on the door handle before she said, “Where you going?”

Blayne stopped, her body tensing. “Huh?”

She continued to work. “I said, where are you going?”

“Out.”

“For drinks? I haven’t had a Guinness in forever.”

Blayne stared at her. She’d been a nervous mess all day, jumping when the phone rang, tearing papers she had on her desk into shreds, and twisting and untwisting poor, defenseless paperclips. When it came to emotions, Blayne was always an open book.

“No,” she finally answered. “Not drinks. I’m…uh…” Gwen could see her out of the corner of her eye, struggling with what she wanted to say. Struggling between lying and telling Gwen the truth. After a minute, she went with the lying. “I’m going to the hospital. Again.”

“The volunteering. Right. Okay.”

Blayne nodded, stared at Gwen for another moment—her frustration evident in the way she was twisting and untwisting her fingers—and went out the door.

Gwen went back to work…for about thirty more seconds. Then she shut off her monitor, pulled her backpack onto her shoulders, and ran to the office door. She stopped long enough to lock the doors and took off running. It still amazed Gwen that Blayne had finagled office space in the Kuznetsov Building. It was a small space, barely big enough for their two desks, small fridge, and coffeemaker, but the rent was too good to pass up and there was basement space to accommodate their company trucks and supplies. Really, Gwen couldn’t ask for better, especially in this city.

Stopping at the main doors of the building, Gwen stuck her head out and looked both ways. She could see Blayne running west and she took off after her. She didn’t get too close, though, not wanting Blayne to catch sight of her.

Thankfully Blayne didn’t grab a bus or take the subway, which was good because Gwen was still learning her way around this nightmare town. Still…the door Blayne disappeared into nearly fifteen minutes later did nothing but convince Gwen that she’d have to rescue Blayne from herself yet again.

Gwen walked to that door, stopping immediately when she stepped inside. Nope. Not a hospital—a place Blayne knew Gwen would never willingly go into—but an ice-skating rink. The entire floor teeming with full-humans watching their children skate, all of them hoping to be the breeder of the next gold Olympian.

Yet Gwen’s powerful sense of smell told her that full-humans weren’t the only ones using this building.

Sniffing like a bloodhound on the trail of a murderer, Gwen followed her nose to a discreet door behind a set of stairs. That discreet door led to another discreet door. She pulled it open and came face-to-face with several bathrooms and closets filled with cleaning and maintenance supplies. She almost got sidetracked by some copper pipes in the maintenance closet but made herself focus.

She sniffed the air and went to another set of stairs and a locked door. She sniffed at the door and pawed at it a couple of times. It opened, a wolf standing on the other side.

“Hi.”

“Hi.” Gwen walked in, ignoring the way the male automatically sized her up, and quickly examined everything around her. This area of the building was huge, with its own set of elevators, a food court, several sports-related stores, and a Starbucks. This was a shifter-only space, huge and all-inclusive. A safe zone for every breed. That meant no fighting of any kind, including Pack, Pride, or Clan wars, and no hunting or bloodletting. Shifters got bitchy when they had to clean up any messes that required cops or disposing of carcasses.

“Can I help you?” the wolf asked.

“Uh…yeah. I’m looking for my friend. She’s a little taller than me, black with brown hair…she was probably talking to herself.”

He grinned. “The wolfdog? Yeah, she went down those stairs over there.”

“Thanks.”

“Want me to help you look for her?”

Gwen chuckled at that, sure of the kind of help the wolf wanted to give her. “No, thanks.”

“If you change your mind, let me know.”

“Yeah, yeah, sure.” Because she obviously had nothing better to do than hook up with some horny wolf for ten minutes. How She-wolves tolerated any of them, Gwen would never know.

As directed, she went down the stairs and stopped in the hallway. The really big, multidoor-filled hallway. Because finding Blayne shouldn’t be easy, now should it?

Sighing, Gwen went from door to door. Some were locked, and some opened to a practice or training session. She wished she could have stayed and watched the gymnasts. Nothing like watching all those eight-year-old cubs and pups vaulting themselves twenty to thirty feet in the air and then screaming on the way back down because they had no real idea yet how to land properly.

She didn’t have time for that, though. She was snooping, and she wouldn’t let anything get in her way. Because who knew what Blayne was up to? Gwen was betting it had something to do with a man. She’d already seen the basketball players working out and Gwen was surprised she didn’t find Blayne there in the stands, watching and waiting on some freakishly tall loser to come over and smooth talk her. The woman had the worst taste in males. She picked what seemed to be the nicest, sweetest guys, and they always turned out to be full-fledged sociopaths. And if she was sneaking some guy in behind Gwen’s back that meant one thing—another nutbag Gwen was going to have to deal with down the road.

Why did she have to work so hard to protect her friends and family? Why couldn’t Blayne find normal, cranky shifters with dominance issues like the rest of them?

Gwen heard male voices coming from a door close to her and she reached for the handle, figuring she’d find Blayne. But before Gwen could get a grip, the door flew open and she barely moved out of the way in time. She caught sight of ice skates and knew it was the hockey players. Her uncle Cally had played hockey on a shifter team for years when he was younger.

She was trying to move around the player, when he snarled, “Do you not answer your phone?”

Gwen tensed and looked up—and kept looking up until she burst out laughing. “You play hockey?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“It can’t be fair. You battin’ the other players around the ice with your giant arms.”

“I don’t have giant arms.”

She kept laughing and shook her head. “Forget it. Is Blayne in there?”

“No. And why didn’t you answer your phone?”

“I shut it off because my brother was driving me crazy after I lacerated his ass this morning. Why?”

“I found out who jumped you and Blayne at Macon River.”

Gwen stared up at the grizzly. To be honest, she’d forgotten about that Pack. Forgotten they’d existed or had attacked her and Blayne. Not that she didn’t care, but the past few weeks had been so crazy busy, it had gone to the bottom of the heap of concerns she already had.

“Who was it?”

“I was calling to tell you that, but when I thought about it, I realized I couldn’t tell you.”

“Why not?”

He took several gulps of water from the bottle he held in his hand. His hair and skin were drenched in sweat and he was panting. He must have had a hell of a workout. “Because it’s been handled, and I don’t want you going over there to start it up all over again.”

“I won’t.”

“You say that now, but then you’ll be sitting around…thinking. And you’ll remember what went down—and the next thing I know, I’ll be hearing about you in the news.”

Disgusted he was probably right, Gwen ignored him with a flip of her hand. “Whatever.”

“‘Whateva,’” he mimicked back at her and then smiled.

Goofball.

And Gwen was about to tell him that, too, when she noticed seven females dressed in black latex minidresses and carrying black-and-gray pom-poms walk by in latex boots with six-inch heels. She peered at Lock, figuring she’d have to get his attention back to ask him a question, but he was still gazing down at her. Or maybe he had a really quick response time like Mitch.

“Who are they?”

“Who are who?”

Did he really not see seven big-breasted females in black latex walk by? Or was he the biggest liar this side of the Atlantic?

“The chicks in latex.” She pointed and he glanced over, but focused back on her in less than a second.

“Oh, yeah. They’re the derby pep squad.”

Oh, no. No. No. No. No. No. No!

“Derby pep squad?” Please, Christ! Let it be something other than what I’m thinking!

“Yeah. Some leagues use cheerleaders and some use pep squads. The New York Roller Derby League uses a pep squad.”

Goddamnit! Gwen took a breath, trying her best to stay calm. “Is there a bout tonight?”

“Yep. In the stadium, one floor beneath us.”

Without saying another word, Gwen walked off.

“You’ll never get in.”

She looked at him over her shoulder. “Why not?”

“The bout’s already sold out.”

She faced him and quickly realized he was wearing a practice jersey for one of the professional shifter league teams. “But you play for the New York Carnivores.”

“I do.”

“So I’m sure with your connections you can get me in.”

“I can.”

Letting out an annoyed breath, she walked back over to him. “What do ya want?”

“I don’t want anything, Mr. Mittens.” He leaned down until their noses nearly touched. “In fact, all you have to do is ask me.”

“That’s it?”

“Yeah, that’s it. I try to avoid blackmail. It always works out badly in the end.”

“Can you get me into the bout?”

“Sure. Wait here.” He walked off and the door he’d come through opened up again, more hockey players streaming out. She barely noticed any of them, too busy stressing out over what she’d see in a few minutes, until one walked over to her and sniffed her hair. Normally she’d be pissed off at some strange wolf sniffing her hair without permission, but he was gorgeous and…friendly

“Honey shampoo,” he said with a smile. “You must be Gwen.”

“Do I know you?”

“We have a mutual friend. Lock. I’m Ric.” He pulled off his glove and held his hand out. Gwen shook it. “Nice to meet you.”

“You, too.”

“I recognized your scent from when Lock came back to the house after his run-in with that invading Pack. Sorry about all that, by the way.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“Perhaps. But it was brought to the attention of the Board, and you and your friends should see some recompense for the attack.” She would? But before she could ask for more details—because ya-ha! Free cash!—Lock returned. He’d changed into sweatpants, sneakers, and a light gray T-shirt that looked like it had been molded to his body. And…uh…yowza.

“Hey,” Lock said to Ric.

“Hey,” Ric said back. Then he walked away.

Nope. Gwen would never really get guys.

Lock smiled at her. “You ready?”

Lock had never been so grateful for being on the hockey team before today. It was an excellent way to work off nervous energy and earn a few extra bucks. He’d joined the team about six months after his return from the Marines. Nearly a year after that, Ric had become the team captain and Lock his backup. Which meant he had access to all the cool little benefits that all the team captains and managers had…like primo seats at derby bouts.

What he didn’t expect was to find half the Kuznetsov wild dog Pack taking up most of those primo seats.

“Hey.”

Jess Ward-Smith glanced up from her program and broke out in a huge grin…until she saw Gwen standing next to him. Then her eyes grew wide and…yeah. He definitely saw panic.

“Hi!” she said, way too brightly. “What are you guys doing here?” She elbowed the wild dog next to her without giving Lock or Gwen a chance to answer her. “Hey, Phil. Look who’s here.”

Phil glanced over and then barked, “Oh, shit.”

He then elbowed Sabina, who elbowed Danny, who elbowed Maylin, who yelped at the sight of them. Considering the wild dogs had actually allowed Lock to be around their pups on a regular basis, he somehow doubted they suddenly feared him.

“Where is she?” Gwen demanded, confusing Lock more by her aggressive tone.

“Whoever could you mean, Gwen?” Jess replied, again, way-too-brightly and with a higher pitch to her voice than Lock could ever remember her having.

Gwen pointed her finger at Jess. “Don’t lie to me, Benji. Where is she?”

“What’s going on?” Lock had to ask. And, as if in answer, the lights shut completely off and a rough female voice came over the speakers.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I hope you’re ready for a night of raw brutality and unrepentant violence. You’ve been waiting for it…you’ve been wanting it! And now you’re going to get it! The new girls on the block against the most vicious broads known to derby. Welcome, one and all…to Boroughs Brawlers Banked Track Derby!”

The crowd roared, especially the wild dogs—except for the “top five,” as Lock called Jess and her best friends. They were all whispering and generally panicking.

“So let’s get this party started,” the announcer yelled. “And let’s all put our hands together for…the Assault and Battery Park Babes!”

The response was not exactly enthusiastic, the Babes being pretty new and mostly hybrids. Lock had been hearing a lot about them this past year, though, as they steadily moved up the ranks in the league, taking everyone by surprise.

The spotlights hit the track as the Babes came tearing out to John Lee Hooker’s “Boom Boom.” They moved fast and looked really cute in tiny red shorts, black fishnets, bright sparkly red derby skates, and three layers of too-small tank tops in red, black, and white. As each player zipped around the track, the announcer called them out by number and derby name.

“Number thirty-eight, and team captain, Pop-A-Cherry! Number sixty-two, Marlon Brandher. Number twenty-four, Our Lady of Pain and Suffering.” Lock laughed, kind of wishing they had cool names like that on the professional teams, when he heard Gwen gasp as the announcer called out, “Number seventy-six, Evie Viserate!”

Lock heard the wild dogs barking and was about to ask who she was when Jess yelled, “Lock, get her!”

Get her? Get who? Following where Jess pointed, Lock watched as Gwen marched down the stadium stairs toward the track.

“What the…” Glad he’d changed out of his skates, Lock went after Gwen and grabbed her around the waist, hauling her back up the stairs.

“Put me down! She’s not doing this!”

“Who?” he demanded.

Jess motioned to the track again and Lock looked at Evie Viserate. Really looked at her. She had her hair in two ponytails and a bright white helmet over that. But when she smiled Lock could only cringe. Because he’d recognize that smile anywhere.

“Uh-oh.”

Gwen was still putting up a fight. “Put me down! Right now!”

“I’ll be back,” he said to Jess. “Hold our seats.” And then he hauled the crazed feline back up the stairs and out into the stadium hallway.

“How could she lie to me like that?” Gwen demanded as soon as Lock put her down on the ground in the hallway.

“Maybe because she knew you’d get a tad hysterical.”

“I’m not hysterical. I’m pissed off! She’s going to get herself killed out there.” She tried to go around him again, but Lock took one small step and immediately blocked her way with that insanely beautiful body of his.

“How do you know that?”

Arms folded under her chest, Gwen demanded, “Have you ever watched derby? Real derby? Not that full-human one,” which was pretty tough for a bunch of full-humans but, compared to shifter derby, totally lightweight.

“No.”

“Then you have no idea how bad this could get.”

“But you do?”

He really thought she was being a little drama queen for no reason, didn’t he? That her whole life was built around stopping Blayne from having any fun because she was Gwen the Fun-inator.

“Yeah. I do. I’m the daughter of The Rocker.”

Lock frowned. “The baseball player?”

Taking a deep breath, “No. Not the baseball player.” You pinhead! “The derby queen.”

His frown faded and she watched him try not to smile. “Your mother was a—”

“Yes. But not ‘a,’ she is the derby queen. Even now. She and my aunts ran the Philly league for years. Just surviving bouts against the Philly Phangs was considered an accomplishment by most teams. For shifters, derby hasn’t changed that much. The uniforms are hotter, the girls cuter, but the rest of it is exactly the same.”

“And you don’t think Blayne can handle it.”

“I know she can’t.”

“Because you tried and failed.”

Gwen paced away from him. “Yeah. I did try.” She leaned against the wall. “I did fail.”

Lock stood next to her, still towering over her even as he leaned back. “That doesn’t mean Blayne will fail.”

“I’m not worried about that, her failing like me. I mean, I was eighteen and daughter of The Rocker. I didn’t stand a chance, and everybody knew it. Even my mother. The whistle blew on my first game and I froze. Just froze. I’ve never experienced fear like that before.” She shook her head. “That won’t happen to Blayne.”

“Then what are you—”

“Her name was Marla the Merciless with the Pittsburgh Stealers—that’s ‘Stealers’ as in thievery. She slammed into me like a two-ton truck. I hit the ground and then she came down on me, breaking my leg in five places.”

“Ow.”

“My pelvis.”

“Uh…”

“My right hip.”

“God, Gwen—”

“My tailbone.”

“Okay, okay.” Lock shuddered. “I get it.”

“I woke up in the hospital.”

“Because you’d never go there on your own.”

“Exactly. It took weeks for me to fully recover.”

“Did you play again?”

“No. But not only because I was terrified, which I was,” she freely admitted. “But because when Marla was crawling off me and before I blacked out, she called me a ‘mixed-breed whore.’ And the way she said it, I knew whether I’d been the worst or best player out there, whether Roxy was my mother or not, she would have made sure she hurt me.”

“That was a long time ago, Gwen.”

“So? Nothing’s changed. Am I the only one who remembers Labor Day weekend? That Pack went after Blayne for one reason and one reason only.”

“Maybe. But Blayne’s entire team is mostly made up of hybrids. She’s not alone out there.”

“She’s the new girl, Jersey. Fresh meat.” She shrugged in frustration, knowing there was nothing she could do. “They’ll want her broken in right.”

“So when does the ball come into play?” Jess asked, earning a scowl from Gwen.

“There’s no ball in Roller Derby,” Gwen snapped. “That’s a movie—and I only acknowledge the James Caan version, not that other one.”

“If there’s no ball, then what are they doing?”

“Going around in circles,” Phil explained incorrectly. “Until someone dies.”

Lock could feel the feline bristling next to him, which only got worse when he started laughing. He hadn’t thought he’d be able to convince Gwen to come back in to watch Blayne—watch, not rescue—but he had. Now they sat with the wild dogs, and there was something quite entertaining about watching Gwen deal with them.

“All right,” Gwen said. “Very short lesson in derby before the whistles blow. Four girls from each team that includes three blockers and one pivot make up the pack. The whistle blows, they take off. Two other girls, one from each team, are jammers. When a second whistle blows, the jammers’ whole goal is to get through the pack as quickly as possible. Whoever passes the other team’s Pivot first becomes the lead jammer and she’ll earn points for every player she passes from the other team. This all happens within two-minute intervals called jams, although the lead jammer can call off the jam before then. The whole thing wraps up in about two hours, including time-outs and a thirty-minute halftime break. There. That’s derby.”

The wild dogs stared blankly at Gwen, the disappointment evident on their faces.

“That’s it?” Jess finally asked. “That’s the entire game?”

“It’s called a bout, not a game. And yes. That’s it.”

“That sounds kind of…”

“Boring,” Phil finished for her.

Gwen shrugged. “To each their own,” she said, focusing back on the track.

As Gwen said, five females from each team rolled onto the track. Blayne was among them. She looked terrified as she rolled to a stop, lifting her gaze to the crowd, her eyes searching. She saw Jess and the wild dogs first, her smile painfully forced as she waved at them. Then Blayne’s gaze moved over to Lock and Gwen.

She blinked, her head tilting like a confused German shepherd’s. Then she smiled—and the power of it nearly blew out the stadium lights.

She lifted her arm high and waved. “Hi, Gwenie!”

Laughing, Gwen waved back, but both women jumped when a large hand slammed down on the rail in front of Blayne.

“Who is that?” Gwen asked, her eyes targeting the good-sized player leering down at Blayne.

“She’s one of the Staten Island Furriers.” Jess smiled around her chocolate-dipped banana on a stick, like most canines ignoring the potential risks of eating chocolate. Even her wedding was a veritable chocolate fiesta that every dog attending indulged in. They were fine the next day, but Lock didn’t understand taking the risk. Then again, if someone told him he couldn’t have honey…“Her name is D.F.A.”

“D.F.A.?”

“Death From Above.”

Gwen and Lock looked at the wild dog. “That’s her name?” Lock asked.

“It’s her derby name. And considering her size…kind of fitting.”

“Muzzles on,” one of the refs ordered and Lock could only stare.

“Uh…Blayne’s wearing a muzzle.”

“Yeah,” Gwen clenched her hands together. “I heard some leagues insist on it if wolfdogs, coyote-dogs, or wolf-coyotes play. They have to wear muzzles.”

“Tell me you’re kidding.”

“Nope. It’s the only way the leagues would allow them to play against nonhybrids.”

Well, at least the muzzles they wore were fitted, snapping on to their helmets, the crisscrossed strips of white leather stretching over their noses and mouths and under their chins. Not only did they protect the other players from bites, they also looked pretty cool. Lock’s dweeby side was impressed.

The first whistle blew and the pack of females shot off. Lock and Gwen leaned forward and he wondered if they saw the same thing when it came to Blayne as a player. She had solid strength, holding her own against the other players in the pack, but she was a little timid and she needed more confidence on her skates. A few times it looked as if a strong wind would knock her on her ass.

The second whistle blew and the two jammers sped off after the pack, working their way through when they reached them. The Furriers’ jammer tried to get past Blayne, and Blayne was nicely holding her off so the rest of her team could get their jammer through. But as the pack tightened up, Lock suddenly heard Blayne snarl, and Gwen sat up straight as they watched her best friend lifted into the air by D.F.A.

It was strange how he knew, how he sensed it without actually knowing, what Gwen would do. Automatically his hands reached out and caught hold of her waist as she tried to shoot past him. He yanked her onto his lap only seconds before she could launch herself over the seats and probably onto the track.

Holding Gwen tight, Lock watched as D.F.A. shot out from the pack with a struggling Blayne still in her arms, rolled toward where Gwen and Lock were sitting, and, when she was about ten feet away, shot-putted Blayne right at them.

The entire section instinctively ducked as Blayne’s body flew over the railing and into the protective glass between the audience and the track. He’d never been so grateful for protective glass as he was right now.

Slowly lifting his head, his mouth open, Lock stared at the spot where poor Blayne’s body had hit.

Had he really just seen that? Had he really just witnessed one player throwing another at the crowd? And, more importantly, why wasn’t that player thrown out of the game?

“Do you know her, Gwen?” he had to ask, because D.F.A. had been staring right at Gwen when she’d lobbed Blayne at her.

“No. I’ve never seen her before.”

“Why is she still playing?”

Gwen was sitting up, straining to see Blayne, who’d hit the floor between the banked track and the stadium seats. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No, I’m not kidding.”

“You’ve gotta do a hell of a lot more than toss around a player before they’ll throw you out. Marla the Merciless didn’t even get a thrown out after she took me down.”

Lock didn’t know what to say, but then Blayne managed to get to her feet. She had to grip the railing for several seconds and then she realized she was blind, but that was quickly remedied when she readjusted her helmet and muzzle.

Giving her body a once-over shake, she waved at Gwen again, a happy smile on her face, and rolled off to get back in the game. Admiring the will it took for her to get back in there, the crowd cheered, but none so loud as the wild dogs.

Gwen applauded, but again, Lock knew from her body language how stressed she was. And he didn’t blame her one bit.