“You know, Santiago, you should feel damn proud of yourself.”
“Oh? And why’s that?”
“Because this is the first time Fallons Department Store ever had tigers, lions, she-wolves, a couple of cheetahs, and a few bears all in the same place without beatin’ the hell out of each other.”
“I thought these places were neutral ground for you shifter types.” She liked this place. It reminded her of Neiman Marcus or Bloomingdales. Big, spacious, with all the great designers.
“They are. Humans shop here, but it’s run and owned by shifters. Still, we can usually smell each other. The lions stay away from the tigers. The hyenas away from the lions. Etcetera, etcetera. This is the first time that I can recall this level of inter-mingling.”
“How many of these stores are there?”
“All over the states and Europe.”
“Cool.” Maybe she could drag Sara’s ass to one close to the Pack den and get the woman some hot clothes without the Harley-Davidson logo on them. “I find out something new every day.”
Kisa sat on the couch. “Like what else?” The more Angie talked to her, the more Kisa opened up. Like a turtle sticking her head out of her shell.
“Well, I had no idea Manolo Blahnik made size thirteen shoes.”
“Well, they don’t make them openly. But the bears and wolves have huge feet,” Reena whispered.
“We heard that,” one of the bears growled.
Angie stood up, laughing as Reena’s head slammed against the couch. “Sorry.”
She headed off toward the bathroom, stopping several times to dissuade two women to never wear orange again and to urge a wolf to consider waxing her brow into two distinct ones.
She reached the bathroom, her hand on the door, when her hackles raised off her neck. She remembered feeling that way before—when she’d turned around to find a hyena female standing behind her outside her shop.
Angie turned slowly. A different female stood behind her this time, but a hyena just the same. She could tell the difference now.
The woman didn’t speak, but she bared her fangs. A whole mouth full of them. Little, needle-sharp fangs that could easily tear the flesh from Angie’s body.
What a pleasant thought.
The hyena took a step toward her and Angelina tensed her body, ready to start hurting anything that got near her. Most normal people would run. But Angie didn’t run unless someone told her too. Otherwise she stood around and started swinging. Since neither Sara nor Miki were there to tell her to run that meant one thing, and she balled up her fists preparing to let them fly.
“Is there a problem, Angelina?”
Sahara Lyon stepped around the corner, a she-wolf female beside her.
“We thought we smelled somethin’ funky,” the she-wolf grumbled. “So we decided to come check.”
The hyena female stared at Angie. She knew that look. The look of someone desperate to kick the living shit out of her. She’d seen it more than once over the years. And Angie bet her face mirrored the exact same sentiment back to the hyena. She could almost taste the beating she’d planned to give her. She could practically feel the flesh and bone give as she laid into her.
“What will you do?” Angie whispered. “So close and yet you just can’t get near me.”
The female took another step toward her and Angie thought she might have goaded the dumb bitch into a fight. But to Angie’s eternal surprise, Kisa stepped in front of her. Big tiger fangs bared. She opened her mouth wide, a tiger growl ripping through the store.
Angie glanced at Sahara who shrugged in mutual surprise.
Kisa grabbed the woman by the throat, yanked her close, and then threw her. The hyena flew over several racks and into a few other hyena females. Racks hit the floor, glass broken, clothes damaged. Angie winced. Well this is gonna cost.
The hyenas picked up Angie’s challenger, not even stopping to brush the glass off, quickly moving toward the escalators as Kisa walked back to Angie. “I think I’m going to get that blue dress I tried on.”
“You do that, Kisa. It looks really good on you.”
The tigress walked off and Angie glanced at Sahara. “Okay. She’s a little scary.”
“A little?”
Nik stood on Main Street next to his brothers. “When did you first see ’em?”
“Just today.”
Male hyenas. Weak, subservient bastards. Probably from one of the Raleigh Clans.
Nik watched them skulking down the street, trying to fit in. But every shifter in town watched them walk by and smelled that they didn’t belong. Hyenas didn’t live this far away from a city. Which really wasn’t very surprising. One breed at a time they’d happily fuck with, which was easy enough to do in a town like New York or San Francisco. But two, three, six breeds all managing to live together in a small town in the middle of nowhere? No. Hyenas stayed near the big cities where they felt safer and could do more damage, usually steering clear of the small shifter-filled towns.
“What do you want us to do?” Alek asked.
“Do what the South is famous for. Run their asses out of town.”
His brothers grinned.
Chapter Thirteen
Nik threw open his front door. “Angie?”
“Kitchen.”
He froze. Kitchen?
Nik walked toward it with trepidation, but as he neared, he smelled food. And it smelled really good.
He found Angie sitting at the kitchen table, her feet up on the sturdy wood. The latest copy, he assumed, of Mademoiselle Magazine open on her lap. The relief he felt at seeing her safe practically knocked him back out the door. When his brothers pointed out the hyenas in town, he immediately feared the worst. And seeing female wolves and lions hanging out in front of Fallons Department Store simply confused him.
“What’s that smell?” He liked that he didn’t have to start every conversation with the usual pleasantries. In fact, he got the feeling Angie hated pleasantries.
“My kick-ass spaghetti with meat sauce.”
“You can cook?”
She glared at him. “Yes. I can cook. I often choose not to, but I can cook.”
He folded his arms in front of his chest. “So why have you chosen to cook for me?”
“You know, to thank you for your wonderful hospital—”
“Angie.”
“All right, all right!” Wow, that didn’t take much turning of the screws to get her to break. “I went into town with your sisters and there was a small problem with hyenas and Kisa. Then a fight with the lions and the bears, and then the cheetahs pissed off the wolves…anyway, Fallons will be charging about two grand to your personal account.”
Nik forced himself not to smile. “You rack up two grand on my account and all I get is your lousy spaghetti?”
He barely ducked that magazine in time. “My spaghetti is not lousy.” She swung her feet off the table and stood up. “And you’re going to eat it and you’re going to goddamn love it!” She pushed past him.
“Goddamn hillbilly,” she muttered while stomping to the stove. She had on shorts. Nice.
“Well sit your hillbilly ass down.”
He pulled his chair out and dropped into it. “It’s ready?”
“Nearly.” She dropped a plate in front of him. “But to get you started, here’s salad.”
She turned to walk away, but he grabbed her wrist and yanked her onto his lap.
“Where you goin’?” Somehow he knew there was more to this story.
“Get your cat paws off me.” She laughed, struggling to pull away from him.