“Inside!”

Johnny threw up his hands. “I hate when you get like this.” But at least he said it while going back into the house.

“Do you know them?” Jess asked Cherise.

She studied the good number of shifters getting out of luxury cars and limos—double-parking on the street like it was somehow legal—and entering the wild dogs’ rental home across the street.

At first, Cherise shook her head. “No, I don’t . . . oh. Oh.” She pointed at four Asian women stepping out of a red, late-model Mercedes-Benz. “That’s Livy’s mom and aunts.” She lowered her voice to barely a whisper. “Her mom can be a little . . . strong-willed.”

“Is that nice way of saying ‘bitch’?” Sabina asked.

Cherise thought on that a moment before admitting, “I wouldn’t challenge her.”

“You would not challenge bug.”

“Sabina,” Jess warned. “Be nice.” Thinking a moment, Jess turned to Cherise and said, “I hate saying this, Cherise, but when I rented our place to your parents, I didn’t think I’d have to specify no massive honey badger meetings. We have pups to think about.”

“But I doubt my parents would have meetings that involve any honey badgers other than Livy. I mean, my mom was always very nice to Livy’s mother, but only because it annoyed Livy’s mother so much.” She snapped her fingers and reached into the back of her jeans pocket to pull out her phone. “Let me check with Coop.”

She dialed and was silent for a moment. “Hey,” she finally said into the phone. “I’m over at the Kuznetsov Pack house . . . what’s going on? Why are there honey badgers . . . what?” Cherise suddenly blinked, her hand briefly covering her mouth. “What?” she asked again, her eyes beginning to tear up. “How is she? Is she okay?” Cherise shook her head. “Of course, I won’t cry in front of Livy.” But she was crying now. “It’s just . . . yes, I know she hates that! Fine! I’ll tell them. Okay.”

Cherise disconnected the call and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

“Cherise? What’s going on?”

“That’s all of Livy’s family going into the house. Your pups will be safe, and the Jean-Louis Parkers will take full responsibility for the house.”

Jess glanced at Sabina, but her friend was as confused as she.

“Is Livy okay?”

“She’s fine. It’s just . . . her dad.”

“Yeah. I heard he passed away.”

“Yes. We’d heard it was some kind of car accident or something. But . . .” She wiped her eyes again. “Livy found his body stuffed and on display in some woman’s apartment. I guess her family’s here to figure out what to do aboutit.”

Stunned, Jess stared at Cherise. Of all the things she’d expected the jackal to say . . . that was not even a thousand miles close.

“Why don’t you stay here for lunch, Cherise?” Jess asked as more limos showed up across the street. “Maybe even dinner?”

“Shouldn’t I be with Livy?” Cherise choked a bit, seconds before full-on sobbing exploded out of her. “She’s family!”

Jess smirked. “And will you be able to not cry around Livy if we send you back now?”

“Nooooo!”

“Then it’s for the best that you stay here until you can. We’ll let Livy handle this in her own way.”

She hiccupped. “I just feel so bad for her!”

“I know. But the best you can do for her now is let her deal with this herself.”

“But I don’t want you to worry about the house—”

“We’re not worried.” Why would she worry? Honey badgers with a mission had bigger things on their agenda than destroying a house during a drunken spree.

One of Jess’s Pack took a still-sobbing Cherise back into the Pack house and the others followed. Only Sabina stayed behind, the two women staring across the street at the honey badgers entering it.

Jess folded her arms over her chest. “I hope they tear apart whoever did such a thing to Livy’s father.”

“They are Slavs, like me,” Sabina replied. “And the world will bleed for the wrong done to them, my friend. The world will bleed.”

Jess nodded in agreement at her friend’s ominous words and was about to go inside their house when something soft hit her in the back of the head. She looked down and saw a T-shirt, then looked up and saw her daughter standing in the doorway. One chubby little arm pressed against the doorway kept her standing on her stout little legs. With her free hand she pointed at Jess and screeched, “Tuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuug!”

Jess’s fangs were out, but before she could move, Johnny appeared behind her daughter. Still holding his violin and bow, he picked the girl up in his other arm and said, “I’ll play with her. I’ll play with her. No reason for anyone to get hysterical!” And with that he disappeared into the house.

Sabina smirked. “Don’t know why you look like that. You could have nice, boring wild dog with science degree and breed nice, boring wild dog pups. You picked hillbilly wolf with unstable family. Now you have unstable pup. Yet so much shock. Sometimes you make no sense.”

Jess watched her friend go inside and thought about how much she hated it when Sabina was right.

CHAPTER 19

Livy hugged her cousin Jake. She was so glad to see him. Last she’d heard, he’d been in Belgium. But here he was.