“Right. Well, what you need to keep in mind, Toni, is that no matter what the bears here say, all they care about is keeping their territory safe, playing hockey, and making money off hockey. Keep that in mind, and you should be just fine.”
The front doors to the palace opened and very large males began to walk through those double doors. Toni had assumed the double doors were there just to look fancy; now she realized they needed to be there to allow males that wide to enter and exit the building.
Toni nodded and reached for the door handle. By the time she was stepping out of the car, Ricky was there, his hand pressed into the small of her back.
“No matter what,” he told her, “just remember I’m here. Vic is here. You’re not on your own, darlin’.”
“I know that,” she said honestly. “Because otherwise I would have made a wild run for the woods by now. Jackals are brave when our pups are around, but we’re not stupid.”
Toni headed up the stairs with Barinov leading the way. He spoke in Russian to the bear standing at the top of the stairs, a grizzly who was surrounded by a bunch of other bears that ranged from grizzly to black to polar to speckled.
“Ivan Zubachev,” Vic finally said in English, “this is Antonella—”
Zubachev cut Vic off with an angry snarl. “That American bitch, Malone,” he grumbled in an impossibly low voice, “sent this dog to talk to Yuri Asanov. Greatest hockey coach to ever live?”
Toni fought the urge to roll her eyes. She had to agree with Kyle. She simply did not understand the love of sports.
Instead of pointing that out, she said, “Miss Malone apologizes for being unable to attend, but she had a prior—”
“I don’t want to hear! Your mere presence insults this team. Insults Yuri Asanov. Go, pet doggy. No one wants to talk to you.”
“Wait a minute.” Toni couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “I do understand you’re upset about this, Mr. Zubachev. But I am authorized to negotiate with Mr. Asanov and the team.”
The bear glowered down at her. He had to be at least eight feet tall while human. She didn’t even want to imagine how big his bear form was.
His lip curling, he growled, “I hear dog barking . . . but it means nothing to me.” He gestured with his hand. “Go, little dog. Go play in next town with other dogs. There’s no place for you here.”
With one last glower, Zubachev turned on his heel and stalked off. The rest of the bears followed him.
Rage ripped through Toni’s system. She heard roaring in her ears. And as she saw those double doors begin to close, the proverbial leash she’d always used to keep herself calm in any situation snapped.
Ricky stared at the empty spot where Toni had been standing. Usually he reacted quickly in dangerous situations, but he had to admit he just never expected anyone to suddenly bolt after bears. Away from bears, yes. But after?
“Fuck,” Vic snarled. The hybrid charged up the stairs after her, but by the time he got to the doors, they were shut in his face and locked.
“Can we kick in the door?” Ricky asked as he ran up behind Vic.
“This palace was built by bears just before the Russian civil war hit Siberia in 1918. And none of the things that happened in the rest of Siberia happened here, because no one could get past the bears who guard this territory or their incredibly strong wooden doors.”
“We can’t just leave her in there.”
“I don’t think we have a choice.” Vic shrugged. “But her mangled body should be tossed out here anytime now.”
Ricky gawked at the man. “Not. Helping.”
Toni was aware that hands were grabbing for her as she moved around unbelievably large men to reach her goal. But she was fast and she was scrappy, so she ignored those hands until she’d gotten to the front of the group and jumped in front of Ivan Zubachev.
She stopped and held out her arm, palm out. “Hold it just a second, Poppa Bear.”
Zubachev did stop walking, but his expression suggested he wouldn’t wait for long.
“You’d do well to move from my way, little, tiny dog.”
“I thought I was here to talk business.”
“That cat bitch was supposed to come. And yet she is not here, but you are. I don’t talk to dog.”
He started to move forward so Toni took several steps back, her arm still held out. “You don’t want to talk to dogs? Do you think I want to talk to you? Do you think I’m comfortable around human beings this large? I’m not. But I have a job to do, so I sucked it up and I came here. And now you won’t even talk to me. How is that acceptable?”
“I don’t talk to dog,” he repeated, and Toni knew he was serious. He was not going to talk to her simply because she was canine.
Bigots!
So if the bear was going to be as difficult as all stubborn bears could be, then Toni was going to be as difficult as all dogs could be.
“Leave by door,” the bear said, walking around her with the others following. She watched them all lumber by and, once they were a healthy distance away, Toni yipped. Several times.
The bears stopped. Zubachev covered his ears, spun to face her.
“What is that noise?” he bellowed.
“That’s how jackals talk. I’m a jackal, not a dog. Dogs bark. Jackals yip.”
“Well, stop it!”
Toni shook her head. “No.”
She yipped again.
Zubachev dropped his hands to his sides and took an angry stepped forward. “Stop it,” he ordered. “Or we make you stop.”
“You’d have to catch me first, and I can assure you . . . jackals are way faster than bears. Because we have to be. And this place you have”—she raised her arms and spun in a circle—“has wonderful acoustics. I can hide all over the place and just make this noise all . . . day . . . long.”
Then she began yipping and yipping and yipping.
Ricky and Vic pulled away from the door.
“Good God, what is that noise?” the hybrid demanded.
“That’s the soothing sounds of your local jackal.”
“Are they cries for help?”
“Nope.” Ricky shook his head. “Just her saying ‘hi.’ ”
Vic’s eyes narrowed. “It makes me want to kill.”
And that’s what was worrying Ricky. Especially when he heard the distinctive angry roar of bears coming from inside the building.
“She’s going to get herself killed,” Vic warned.
Ricky stepped back and studied the front of the building. “Come on. We’ve gotta find a way in.”
“Make her stop!” a polar screamed at Zubachev in Russian. She knew what he was saying only because he used phrases that one of Coop’s piano teachers, a great player from Moscow, had used. Usually just before the man whacked her brother’s hand with the riding crop he kept on him at all times. Toni had let that go the first time it happened, but the second time he’d done it, she’d decked the prick and that had been the end of her brother’s relationship with that particular piano teacher.
Zubachev tried to grab Toni, but she was, as she’d said, too fast for him. Plus, unlike many canines, she’d taught herself to climb when she was eight because a rich cub from the Pride near their home had told her dogs couldn’t climb. Toni had felt it was her duty to prove all cats wrong.
So she now stood comfortably on top of one of the big statues lining the marble hallway.
“You know how to stop me, Ivan.”
The grizzly glowered up at her.
“You know how to stop me,” she repeated. When he still didn’t reply, she began to howl for her siblings. It was a sound that her family always found soothing. It meant that someone was there to watch out for you, to care for you. Others, though—like bears, lions, hyenas, cheetahs, leopards, et al.—found the sound so painfully annoying that they couldn’t get away from jackals fast enough.