The Mane Squeeze. Shelly Laurenston

his cousin couldn’t handle this. Or maybe Van should say that Alder wouldn’t handle this, his opinion on hybrids having been made quite clear over the years. Yet Van understood what his cousin didn’t when it came to hybrids—an attack was rarely just an attack when mixed breeds were involved. “Get my cousin on the phone.”

      His assistant sighed. “Which cousin, sir? At last count, you had—”

      “I know how many cousins I have.” And why did he allow his wife to hire his assistants? They were all like her in tone but without the added benefit of a great ass and genius-level IQ. “Get me Ulrich out of New York on his cell and put him through to my office.”

      Cousin Alder wouldn’t like it, but it was time to see what Alder’s youngest boy, or as Alder liked to call him, the “useless, worthless, prissy boy” was truly made of.

      CHAPTER 6

      Gwen sat on the top stair of the porch, her elbows resting on her knees, her chin resting in the palm of her hands. She stared off into the woods.

      She stared and she sulked. She hated when she sulked.

      As it grew later, finally drawing to a close this hellish day, Blayne sat down beside her, resting her elbows on her knees, her chin in the palm of her hands. She stayed silent a good five minutes, which for Blayne was pretty much a record.

      “What’s wrong?” Blayne finally asked.

      “Nothing,” Gwen answered. “I’m just sitting here. Staring.” Maybe hoping a bear would wander out of the woods to say “hi and I’m sorry I broke my promise.”

      “How’s the leg?”

      “Healing.” Although it did feel like rats were inside her calf, tearing the flesh apart with their teeth and then sewing it back together with a giant needle and some thread.

      “Hurts like a bitch, huh?”

      “I haven’t started screaming yet, have I?”

      “You have a point.” Blayne took a deep, satisfied breath. “It’s really beautiful here, isn’t it?”

      “Yeah.”

      “Beautiful house,” she sighed. “Great weather.”

      “Yep and yep.”

      “And that grizzly—”

      “Left me!” Gwen screamed out, startling the birds from the trees.

      Lock brushed the attacking bees off his face and dug into the hive again, pulling out the honeycomb. He shook off the clinging bees and broke off a piece. Ric sat down against a tree opposite from Lock that was close enough so they didn’t have to scream at each other, but far enough away to help Ric avoid the rampaging bees.

      Once he seemed comfortable, he observed, “You’ve stripped the trees of their bark quite nicely.”

      “Yeah,” Lock mumbled around the honeycomb. “Sorry about that.”

      Ric shrugged. “My father had them imported from Japan for a tidy seven-figure sum, had them featured in that Vanity Fair article on him and the Van Holtz dynasty, and got an award from the Tree Rescue Foundation for his efforts to resurrect nearly extinct trees—but I’m sure he won’t be too upset.”

      Lock winced. “Now I feel bad.”

      “Don’t,” Ric said good-naturedly. “Now—” Ric cringed when Lock bit into a honeycomb and spit out a bee he’d started to chew on “—Adelle is going to make her honey-glazed chicken. Unless you’re all honeyed out.”

      Lock stared at his friend, and Ric nodded. “As I thought. So dinner is set. But before we go back, perhaps you can fill me in on why you’re sitting out here, tearing the bark off trees and abusing bees.”

      Ric cringed again when Lock spit out another bee.

      “What?” Lock demanded, tired of being judged for his eating habits. “Would you prefer I eat them?”

      “No, no. You keep doing whatever it is you enjoy doing. No matter how vile.”

      Lock stared down at the remnants of the hive and admitted what was bothering him. Something that even honey wasn’t curing. “I should never have left her.”

      “Did you have a choice?”

      “If I wanted to fight a polar.”

      “Weren’t you the one who told me that when it comes to bears—bigger wins?”

      “Yeah.” And Toots was definitely bigger. “But I promised her I wouldn’t leave her. I guess I just feel like I let her down by not being there when she woke up fully.”

      “Okay, so maybe you did let her down a little. But I’m sure when she calls, you can explain—”

      “Calls?”

      “To thank you, of course. It’s proper etiquette to send a thank-you note or call after someone saves you from a violent Pack, Pride, or Clan attack.”

      “I’m sensing she didn’t get much shifter etiquette training in Philly. Or, now that I think about it, any etiquette training in Philly.”

      “But you did give her your number? Or you got hers?”

      Lock stared at his friend. “My number?”

      “You didn’t give her your phone number?”

      “She was wounded. It didn’t occur to me.” When Ric sighed, his disappointment clear, Lock threw in, “And I’m sure that cat wouldn’t have let me leave anything for her anyway.”

      “What did the cat look like?”

      “I don’t know. He was a little thing. Tiny. Lion…I think. You know, the breed with all the hair.”

      “Tiny. Right. The world is filled with tiny lion males. And the only tiny lion I know of this close to my territory is Brendon Shaw. And, if I remember what you told me correctly, he’s the one you beat up at Jess Ward’s wedding. Something I’m sure he did not forget since last you two met.”

      “He didn’t. But I didn’t beat him up,” Lock quickly added. “I…I simply threw him five…or maybe it was fifty feet into a tree.”

      The two friends gazed at each other for a long moment.

      Finally, Lock shrugged. “That does make it all kind of awkward, doesn’t it?”

      And that’s when Ric started laughing.

      “You don’t want to talk about the bear?” Blayne asked.

      “No.”

      “But you just yelled about him. So maybe we need to discuss—”

      “No.”

      “Okay.” The sun began to slowly set and that’s when Blayne abruptly turned to Gwen and spewed out in one, never-ending sentence, “My father wants to retire and he wants me to take over his business and I’m moving to New York and I want you to move with me so we can be partners and run the business together, preferably in Manhattan rather than Queens, because you’re my best friend and I love you and it’ll be great!”

      Gwen continued to watch the sun go down behind some trees. “Only you, Blayne,” she said calmly, “would spit out life-changing decisions like bullets from a tommy gun.”

      “Is that a yes?” Blayne asked, with that hopeful eagerness that never seemed to die a humane death.

      “No. That’s not a yes. And what makes you think you need a partner to run your dad’s business? You’re smart, Blayne, no matter what Sister Mary Rose told you. You’ll be fine.”

      “In business terms, I’m a big-picture thinker. I have big plans for this business. But details, Gwenie, are not my friends.