Hot and Badgered. Shelly Laurenston

      Betsey knew, though, that Charles would never let his granddaughter go into the cruel system of foster homes and state-run lives. That was not the best world for any child, but definitely not for a shifter. And for a hybrid shifter . . . nightmares were made of how badly those situations could end.

      Still, to send the other two girls away simply because they weren’t blood related or wolves . . . could Billy really be that cruel?

      Who was she kidding? Of course, he could be that cruel!

      The three girls stood in front of Billy now and he smugly stared at them, the corners of his mouth slightly turned up, his eyes heartless.

      If Betsey had thought she could sneak away without being seen, she would. She didn’t want to watch this.

      “I hear you girls have had a bad time of it lately, huh?”

      The girls stared at him, but said nothing. But the middle one, she suddenly waved at him. As if in greeting. Surprisingly—and just downright annoying—Billy winked back and pointed his finger at the girl. A move he considered “sexy.”

      Yuck.

      He went on. “Look, I’m sorry to hear about Carlie. I always liked her. A weird wolf but fun. Ya know?”

      Of course they didn’t know! They were kids! Idiot!

      Billy leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands in front of him.

      His “sincere” look.

      “I know this will be hard for you guys to understand but . . . you can stay,” he told the oldest, an adorable brown-skinned girl with lots of curly hair and a pretty face. “But you two can’t. I know,” he continued, “I know this is hard to hear. But you might as well learn now how the real world works.”

      Something told Betsey these girls already knew how the real world worked.

      While Billy blathered on, the middle girl sat her younger half-sister down on the bench beside Billy and abruptly walked off.

      She moved over to the bushes and flowers that had been planted around the yard wall, head down, like she was searching for something.

      And while she looked, Billy talked to Charles’s granddaughter. Just like her grandfather, her face revealed nothing. It was blank. Impassive.

      The middle sister, a very tiny Asian girl with black hair that had a white streak through it, picked something up and returned to her sister’s side. Together they gazed at Billy until he noticed that the middle girl was holding something in her hand.

      His smirk turned into a full-blown smile. Betsey had never met someone who enjoyed bringing out the worst in everyone like Billy did. Even desperate children who’d just lost their mother! “Is that for me, sweetheart? You going to hit the big, bad wolf with that little rock?”

      He leaned in and his voice became so hard. Harder than Betsey had ever heard it.

      “You swing that thing at me, little girl, and you’ll be on the first bus to the closest foster agency. Maybe, after a few years, you’ll meet up with your loser mom in prison. You can have a mother-daughter reunion behind bars.”

      If Billy was hoping to make the little girl cry, he failed. She didn’t cry. She just slowly blinked and kept staring at him.

      Then, without a word between them, the two oldest girls faced each other.

      Charles’s granddaughter nodded once and the middle girl pulled her arm back and with some mighty force for a kid, she swung her fist with the rock in it.

      Knuckles made contact and Betsey blinked in shock when she heard something break in the oldest girl’s face just before she hit the ground.

      The youngest glanced up at the sound, but her expression was passive as well. Billy, on the other hand, reared back in shock.

      “What in holy—”

      While he was busy trying to figure out what was going on, the middle girl grabbed his left hand—and now Betsey understood the weirdly timed wave earlier—and placed it on the bench. She raised the rock and brought it down hard—onto Billy’s knuckles.

      Billy howled in pain as the middle girl tossed the rock across the yard. Then, as if some silent cue had been given, she and the youngest burst into copious, dramatic tears.

      The kind of sobbing that would get the attention of any She-wolf in a twenty-mile radius.

      All the adults at home appeared in the backyard. And what did they see?

      Two little girls sobbing hysterically. Another little girl nursing her bleeding, broken cheek while bravely attempting to hold back tears, and Billy . . . with busted knuckles.

      The middle girl’s knuckles were also bruised and bloody, but she held her baby sister close and had her hand curled into a fist and pressed against the child’s side, ensuring that none of the adults could see it.

      Charles moved through the adults until he stood front and center. Betsey had never seen the older wolf like that. He’d always been the calm one. The rational one. He was the great peacemaker of the Pack, making sure the small group didn’t get into any fights they couldn’t possibly win against Packs bigger and meaner.

      But now . . . Charles was beyond angry. His brown eyes narrow, his breathing heavy, his entire body stiff, a slight tremor running through him every few seconds. And all while he gazed down at Billy.

      Searching the crowd and seeing no friends, Billy shook his head and raised his hands, palms out.

      “Wait a second, I didn’t . . . it wasn’t me!”

      But with his hands raised like that, all anyone could see was the blood dripping between his fingers and slowly pouring down his wrist.

      Desperate, Billy pointed at the middle girl. “It was her!”

      As one, the adults all looked at the little Asian girl holding onto her baby sister. And, for a split second, Betsey saw the middle girl’s face harden in a way that was a little too adult for a kid so young. The adults never saw it, though, because the youngest girl placed her sobbing face right in front of her sister’s. Done on purpose? Betsey wouldn’t have thought so. She seemed too young, but after everything that had happened . . .

      “It was!” Billy insisted. “It was her! I would never hit a kid! I wouldn’t!”

      With a nasty snarl from the back of his throat, Charles reached down, grabbed Billy by his leather jacket, and yanked him off the bench.

      The adults dragged Billy out, leaving the girls alone.

      The oldest pulled the youngest girl onto her lap, her arms loose around her waist. The middle girl moved closer, finally resting her head against her sister’s arm. For a brief moment, the girls looked their age, but they also looked weathered. Life had been hard on them already and the oldest didn’t even look thirteen yet.

      Charles returned to the backyard. He was scowling and now there was blood on him. He walked up to the girls and glowered down at them as was his way. Betsey was sure he had no idea how he must look to people who didn’t know what was going on in his head. But the three sisters gazed back at him without flinching.

      Sighing, he started to turn away, and Betsey knew he was trying to figure out what to do next. What to do about the two girls who were not his blood. Not related to him in any way except that his daughter had made them her own. But before he could walk away, the youngest girl reached out and gripped his forefinger with her hand, small fingers squeezing tight.

      And like that . . . Charles suddenly had three granddaughters instead of one.

      He reached down and picked up the youngest in his arms.

      “Let’s get you a room and something to eat,” he suggested, although it sounded like the orders from a drill sergeant.

      The eldest grabbed her grandfather’s forearm and