“Of course not! It’s just . . . why make the situation worse? Right?”

“If I go home, I’m not coming back, and you’ve got that stupid wedding meeting you keep insisting I need to come to, so—”

“Just make yourself scarce. Out of your office. For a little bit. I promise, me or Bo will track you down when it’s safe.”

“It’s safe now,” Livy reasoned. “I don’t have a problem talking to some bitchy cats.”

“Livy!”

Rolling her eyes, Livy grabbed her camera off the desk and her backpack. “No need to get hysterical, Mighty Mutt. I’ll take the back stairs down and see if I can get some random shots of the gymnastics team. If you or Bo don’t know where that is, ask one of the other hockey players. They do know where to find the gymnasts.”

Blayne snorted. “Thanks, Livy.”

Livy walked out of her office and down the hall to one of the stairwells that could be used during an emergency. It was a quick way to get back up to the street and out of the building without alerting the full-human populace to the presence of people who ranged in sizes from five feet to more than seven-and-a-half and had eyes that reflected nearby street lamps. Very important during night games.

Livy had only made it one flight when she heard female voices coming the other way. She sniffed the air and immediately scented She-lions.

Yeah, Malone might be currently showing that Pride Livy’s empty office to prove she wasn’t there, but cats were always smarter than that. Whoever was in charge had sent a separate bunch up another way to see if they could track Livy down.

Grinning, she eased open the door she’d stopped in front of and stepped out of the stairwell. She carefully closed the door and waited. The She-lions were loud and so busy shit-talking about what they were planning to do to “that little rat girl”—and the other name for honey badgers was ratel, not rat—that Livy didn’t actually have to strain her ears to know when they’d passed, nor did she worry too much about their scenting her out.

Yeah. You could always tell the city shifters from the country ones. The country ones knew how to actually hunt.

Livy heard the door close on the floor she’d just escaped from, and she went back into the stairwell. She went down another flight of stairs and opened the door.

But before Livy could step through, she was flying back and down the stairs she’d been tossed on until she hit the wall.

Laughing, she looked up the stairs to tell the cats to fuck off . . . but it wasn’t bitter She-lions blocking her on both the stairs leading up and the ones leading down.

There were bears. Big, brooding bears. And she quickly figured out how much trouble she was in when one of the bears walked down the stairs, crouched in front of her, and greeted her in Russian with, “Hello, little badger. You should have left your father dead and stuffed.”

Blayne was starting tothink that having Cella handle this wasn’t any better an idea than having Livy handle it.

She-tiger versus She-lions had begun to get pretty nasty, pretty fast.

So she was grateful when she saw Gwen come through the training rink doors for their three o’clock meeting with Cella’s mother, who was now part of the current argument going on.

“What the hell is this?” Gwen asked, dropping her backpack to the floor. Gwen had just come from a job and was also dressed in her work clothes like Blayne.

“The sisters and cousins of the Howler Livy got into it with at last night’s bout.”

“Why are Cella and her mother arguing with them?”

“Cella offered to handle them.”

“And you agreed to that?”

Blayne shrugged. “It seemed like a good idea at the time. It’s not like Livy’s going to pay for anyone’s medical bills.”

Gwen rolled her eyes. “Is that what this is about?”

“Pretty much.”

“You make everything so complicated,” Gwen complained.

“What did I do?”

Her best friend walked away without answering, but she pointed at Bo and Lock, who were eating ice cream and watching the fight with obvious bear-enthusiasm.

“You two . . . go get Livy.”

“Can’t we watch the fight?” Lock asked.

Gwen stopped, put her hands on her hips, and glared at her mate.

“Okay, okay. It was just a question.”

Lock got up and gestured to Bo.

Bo shrugged. “What do I need to go for? He can bring back Livy without me.”

“Do you really think the rest of their Pride isn’t around here somewhere looking for Livy right now? They’re She-lions. That’s how they hunt. So get off your ass, Novikov, and find her before the rest of the Pride does. Then escort her back here; you’ll be her protection.”

Sighing, Bo stood.

“She’s two floors down photographing the gymnasts,” Blayne told them. And, as Livy had suggested, it had been Bo’s hockey teammates who’d told her where to find the gymnasts.

Gwen was near the arguing cats when one of the She-lions shoved Cella. Knowing exactly what that would lead to, Gwen ran between the females, slapping her hands against Cella and holding her back. Then she did what Blayne knew her best friend in the universe would do. Gwen turned just her head one hundred and eighty degrees until it lined up with her spine and told the She-lions behind her to, “Back the fuck off!”

The She-lions roared and scrambled away from Gwen and her “freaky little neck thing.” Freaky it might be, but that move had ended several fights over the years and scared off more than a few drunken frat boys, as well, without either Gwen or Blayne having to bloody their claws. So Blayne definitely saw it as a hybrid benefit.