Wolf with Benefits

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

As soon as Toni stepped off the small plane in Siberia, she remembered to turn her cell phone back on and it immediately began to go off with texts.

Toni had turned off her phone before she got on the plane in Long Island. She always turned it off when she got onto flights. She didn’t use it for entertainment like most of the universe. It was strictly for communication. Usually, this wasn’t an issue. But that’s because she traveled with most, if not all, of her family at the same time. However, right now, her family was back in New York and eight hours behind her current time zone, which meant that by now . . . they were just starting to get the full Novikov organizational treatment.

And after reading the first couple of texts, she knew that they were not enjoying it.

Toni stood in the middle of the tiny airport and quickly responded to Oriana, then Cooper, then Kyle. She was about to respond to Troy when a hand pressed against her back. Without thinking, she spun and swung her right fist.

Shocked but instinctively blocking that wildly swinging fist, Ricky quickly stepped back, his eyes wide.

“Oh,” she said, pulling her hand back and scratching her neck. “Sorry.” She turned away from him and began typing again on her phone.

“Are you all right, Toni?”

“Yeah. I’m fine. Just . . .” She got a reply from Oriana and ended up shaking her phone in her now-sore fist and gritting her teeth. “Ridiculous, demon children!”

“Ooookay.” Ricky stepped closer to her but didn’t touch her this time. “We have to go.”

“Go?” she snapped. “Go where?”

“We’re taking a helicopter to Lake—”

“Christ! Now we have to get on a helicopter?”

“Well, to get to this particular location—”

Fed up, “Oh, whatever!”

She stormed off, just expecting Ricky to follow.

Ricky watched the She-jackal march off as Barinov eased up behind him.

“What the hell—” the hybrid asked.

“I have no idea. I’ve never seen her like this before.”

“Well, she needs to calm down, Reed. If she goes at the bears like that . . .”

“I know. I know.” He shrugged and started to follow. “Maybe she’s just tired. We were on a fourteen-hour flight, then that six-hour flight on a smaller plane.”

“Should we get a hotel tonight and wait before we meet with the bears?”

“They’re expecting us tonight, I think. Plus, I’m afraid what she’ll do if we try to stretch this out the tiniest bit.”

The males arrived at the row of glass doors where people came and went. Toni stood on the other side—screaming.

“Are you two coming or what?”

Ricky glanced at Barinov. “Maybe a good night’s sleep is what she needs.”

“Or some puppy Prozac.”

“Stop.”

The helicopter flew them to a small full-human city just an hour or two outside a little-known and never discussed shifter-only territory.

“I have a car waiting,” Barinov told them. He carried a small bag in his hand and led the way to a Range Rover that looked as if it could handle all sorts of terrain.

Ricky held the door open for Toni and she got inside, leaning back into the comfortable seats and resting her bag next to her.

“How are you holding up?” the wolf asked her.

Toni texted Kyle back, informing him that it was definitely illegal to put anything in anyone’s food that “might make them, ya know . . . kinda sick.”

Making someone “kinda sick” was not okay!

She reminded Kyle, once again, that if he ever went to jail for anything, no one in the family would pay to have him bonded out. No one.

Hitting SEND, she finally looked up at the wolf and asked, “What?”

“I said how are you holding up?”

“How do I look like I’m holding up?” she snapped, because it was such a fucking stupid question. “I’m exhausted. I’m stressed out. And I just want to get this stupid trip over with.”

“All right then.” He gestured out the front window. “Vic here tells me we’re almost at the hotel.”

“Hotel? Why are we going to the hotel first? I thought we were going straight to meet with the bears.”

“Nah. Not tonight. It’s way too late. A good night’s sleep and—”

“You’re not listening to me,” she told the wolf. “I want to see the bears. I want to see the bears tonight!”

Ricky stared into the backseat at the She-jackal he was beginning to believe was losing her dang mind. And whether she was or she wasn’t, for safety reasons, there was no way he could let Toni meet up with those bears tonight. It would have to be tomorrow after she had a shower, some sleep, and maybe some valium if he could get his hands on any.

“That’s not in your or the team’s best interest, Antonella.”

Toni dropped her phone in her lap so she could ball her hands into fists. “I want to see the bears now. Now! Do you hear me? Now!”

“Not going to happen, so you might as well just suck it up.”

“I hate you!”

“Well, I’m not liking you much right now either, darlin’, so that only seems fair.”

Frustrated, Toni tried to roll down her window by pushing on the button. Ricky didn’t know what was going on, but the window didn’t go down. That’s when she started punching the window with her fists.

“Hey,” Barinov said low. “Reed.”

“What?”

“You know what’s going on here, don’t you?”

“No,” Ricky quickly shot back. “That is not what’s going on here.”

“Are you kidding? What else could it be?”

Ricky shook his head. “It’s something else. Exhaustion or sudden onset of mental illness. That’s it.”

“You’re serious?”

“I’m very serious. I’m telling you, it’s not . . . that.”

Ricky glanced into the backseat to see Toni pawing at the window with her hands because she still couldn’t get it to open.

“I’m trapped,” she snarled at the air. “Trapped!”

“Nope,” Barinov muttered. “It couldn’t possibly be that.”

They reached a large hotel that straddled the border between full-human and shifter territory.

Toni stepped out of the vehicle and looked up at the building. “Here?” she asked. “We come halfway ’round the world and you bring us to a chain hotel? We might as well have met them on the Jersey Turnpike.”

Ricky looked at Barinov. “Could you get us checked in?”

“Sure.”

Once the hybrid had gone inside the hotel, Ricky faced her. “Look, darlin’, I’m tryin’ desperately not to get real cranky with you. But you are pushing my last redneck nerve.”

“What does that even mean?”

“It means we’re in a foreign country and in a hostile part of said foreign country, at least where our kind is concerned. My whole goal is to get you home safe and sound. Your father made it clear that he would accept nothing less. And getting you home safely means that you don’t piss off bears. And the way you’re acting right now . . . you’re gonna piss them off.”

“Fine.”

Ricky frowned. “Fine?”

“Fine.”

Maybe she was being a little . . . terse. Toni was willing to admit that. She probably just needed some sleep. It had been an excruciatingly long trip and dealing with the texts from her siblings hadn’t helped.

Ricky nodded. “Then let’s go.”

They entered the hotel and Toni was pleasantly surprised to find that the interior had a wonderful look and feel to it. Like a hip, sixties apartment, but nothing felt dated or old. It actually felt quite modern and European. She loved it.

Not that she’d admit that now to Ricky.

By the time they reached the front desk, Barinov had already gotten their rooms. His Russian was fluent and his accent almost as good as the twins’—although their accent was flawless after watching some Russian language movie on cable one afternoon. More than one person had asked Toni and her mother what Russian adoption agency they’d used.

Barinov handed Toni her electronic key and, without a word, headed toward the elevators. They went to the ninth floor and walked down the hall.

“This is your room,” he said, briefly stopping in front of it. “I’ll be in the room to your left. Reed in the room to your right. If you need either one of us—”

“Oh, please.” Toni used her keycard and went inside. She closed the door in the faces of the two males, not even in the mood to say good night. She stepped farther inside and took a good look around. She was as impressed with her room as she was with the hotel’s lobby. This would be a nice place to stay for the next few days.

Placing her bag on the dresser, Toni sat down on the bed. Her cell phone vibrated and she sighed. She’d gotten three texts at the same time. Oriana informing Toni that she could not “exist under this regime!” Kyle begging her to re-think her stance on his sketching a naked Novikov. And Bo Novikov imploring her to get her little brother to stop asking him about sketching him naked. “It’s beginning to make me uncomfortable.”

Unable to answer any of those texts, Toni tossed her phone on the bed and fell back against the mattress. She could do this. She would do this. All she needed was a little room service and a good night’s sleep.

Vic focused on Ricky.

“What?” Ricky asked him, annoyed although the hybrid hadn’t actually done anything yet.

“Are you going to admit the problem now?”

“She’s just tired,” he said again. “By tomorrow, she’ll be—”

“Even worse.” Vic briefly pursed his lips. “I always thought you weren’t as stubborn as your brothers. Guess I was wrong.”

“No call to get nasty.”

Shaking his head, Vic headed toward his own room. “See you in the morning.”

“Yeah.” Ricky waited until the door to Vic’s room closed, then stood in front of Toni’s door for several more minutes. He stared at it, debating with himself if he should stand out here all night or not.

When he didn’t hear anything hysterical coming from inside, he decided to go to his own bed. Room service would be shutting down soon and he really needed something to eat. A steak and fries would really hit the spot.

“All she needs is sleep,” he softly reminded himself. “A good night’s sleep and she’ll be just fine.”