Wolf With Benefits

  “Good morning, you two,” Jackie greeted them. “Waffles and bacon for breakfast. How many do you want, Ricky? One or two?”

  “Try six,” Toni stated as she reached for one of the plastic cups on the table and the pitcher of orange juice.

  “No big deal.” Jackie laughed. “I had to feed that lion security guard. My God, could he eat.”

  “You do know, Miss Jackie, you don’t have to feed the team.”

  “I don’t mind. At least for breakfast. I don’t do lunch or dinner. That’s what takeout and delivery services are for.”

  Ricky sat down at the table, nodding at the Jean-Louis Parker siblings. They continued to eat, lost in their own thoughts, it seemed. Until Kyle bit into a piece of bacon and then asked, “So Freddy tells us he caught you defiling our sister.”

  Toni choked on her orange juice, quickly slapping her hand over her mouth and turning away from the table so she didn’t spray everyone sitting there.

  “Well—” Ricky began, but Cooper cut him off with a raised hand.

  “Kyle,” Coop said, “do you actually know what defiling means?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “No, you don’t,” Oriana told him.

  “Shut up. I do, too.”

  “You don’t know anything. You’re an idiot.”

  “And you’re getting fat!”

  “Kyle!” Toni, Cooper, and Cherise all yelled in unison.

  “She started it!”

  Jackie put a plate piled high with waffles and another plate piled with bacon in front of Ricky. Smirking, she winked at him and whispered, “Just stay away from my mate while he recovers.”

  “Recovers?”

  She glanced at her now arguing offspring and leaned down to whisper in Ricky’s ear, “Recovers from finding out his daughter has fallen for a wolf. Something I’m sure he’ll blame Irene for. She’s a bad influence, don’t you know? At least that’s what my mother always said.”

  When she pulled back a bit, Ricky softly asked, “You sure about that? The falling, I mean. Because I can’t really tell.”

  “Because you’re male and all of you are hopelessly stupid.” She smiled at him and went back to the stove.

  By the time Ricky dug into his waffles, Toni and her siblings had stopped arguing but were now staring at him.

  “What?” he asked around a mouthful of his food.

  “Are you really going to eat all that?” Coop asked.

  He shrugged. “I’m hungry.”

  In the backyard, while the rest of her family was still in the kitchen, watching Ricky Lee dig into his third helping of waffles and bacon, Toni faced her best friend.

  “What did you say to me?” Toni demanded.

  “The wolf . . . he’s in love with you.”

  “Shut up.”

  “You shut up.”

  “He’s not in love with me.”

  “You’re stupid. You’re a stupid head.”

  Toni pinched her lips together. It made her frown and look fierce when what she was really doing was trying not to laugh.

  “You might as well just face it. The wolf’s locked on target. And I think that target’s your big ass.”

  “My ass isn’t as big as yours.”

  “I’m compact and powerful. You, however, are a jackal and should look more like Oriana. But if she had that ass, she wouldn’t be anyone’s prima anything.”

  “Such a bitch.”

  “And very good at it.”

  “I’m about to do something, Livy, that you’re going to hate me for.”

  Livy studied her a moment, black eyes narrowing. Then, the honey badger begged, “Please don’t.”

  “I have to.”

  “No. You don’t have to. We can just let this go.”

  “We’re not letting anything go. I’m not letting anything go. Not now. Not ever.”

  Disgusted, Livy snarled, “Then just get it over with.”

  So Toni did—by hugging her best friend.

  “Thank you so much for taking care of those little bastards that I love.”

  “You know I didn’t mind.”

  “I know.” She hugged Livy tighter. “But it means the world to me.”

  “Whatever.”

  “You know . . . you don’t have to feel ashamed if you’re into me. Apparently a lot of people are right now.”

  Hissing, Livy shoved a laughing Toni away.

  “You’re such a freak,” she accused. “And I told you I’d protect them.”

  “I know.”

  “I mean, I may be a cold, heartless bitch, but once I make a promise, I keep it.”

  “Awww. Can I hug you again?”

  “No.”

  Toni laughed until she saw her father walking toward her, the dog her mother had brought in for her own selfish reasons right by his side. She kind of liked that her father had his own companion while he was in New York. Although he had lots of friends in their home state, he didn’t have any out here and didn’t feel the need to make any. So the dog, and probably Coop, gave him some relief from keeping the kids from killing each other.

  “Hi, Dad.” Toni smiled at her father but he didn’t respond, simply wrapped his arms around her and hugged her close.

  “Uh . . . Dad?”

  “My poor, poor baby. I blame Irene for this!”

  Toni looked over at Livy, but her friend was about to get into a fight with a rude squirrel who kept mocking her from a high branch.

  “You blame Irene for what?”

  “For this . . . this . . . this nightmare.”

  Oh, boy. “Dad—”

  “You know he’s not like the Van Holtzes, don’t you?” Her father pushed her away so he could look directly into her face, but he continued to grip her shoulders. “He’s not a chef or cultured in anything that doesn’t involve a banjo.”

  “Dad!”

  “I’m just letting you know what you’re in for. Because I think you’re under the misconception that wolves are better than they are. But they’re not.”

  “Dad, you’re taking this too seriously.”

  “It’s all my fault,” he went on. “I should have stopped this from the beginning. But I thought he’d be able to distract you from that ridiculous full-human you were still mourning. I didn’t know you’d get serious about him!”

  “Dad, I wasn’t still mourning anyone.”

  “But you’ve been so down the last few months.”

  She shrugged and admitted, “I was starting to think that my entire life was going to be taking care of my siblings. I love them all, but spending every day ensuring there’s enough money for facial reconstruction for Kyle after he pisses someone off is not my idea of a satisfactory life goal.”

  “I’d never allow that. Don’t get me wrong. I can’t imagine running this family without your help, but I had no intention of letting you become anyone’s permanent nanny. You deserve, more than anyone, to have your own life and your own family.” He paused a moment, then added, “A family made up of un-spoilt jackal children.”

  “Dad.”

  “I’m just saying that you take a risk when you start mixing breeds.”

  “This from the man who used to spend entire nights outside bars so he could get tickets to Dead Kennedy concerts? Where did my soulful, liberal dad go? Besides,” she added, “we both know that being a purebred doesn’t ensure anything, either.”

  And to illustrate, she looked over at the best friend she’d entrusted her siblings to the last few days.

  Livy had shifted and was now high up in the tree, fistfighting with a squirrel. Livy’s shifted form was huge compared to a full-blood honey badger, but a hundred-pound ratal shifter was still tiny compared to the lion, tigers, and bear shifters. Of course that difference never stopped Livy from taking all of them on at one time or another.

  Honestly, Livy would fight the Queen of England if she thought the woman stared at her too long.

  “That’s not a fair comparison,” her father argued, b
ut he winced when Livy lost interest in the squirrel and discovered a beehive a few branches higher.

  “Uh-oh,” her father sighed out. “I’ll get the Benadryl cream from the first aid kit.”

  He headed toward the back door, but stopped, faced her, and smiled. “I love you, baby.”

  Toni grinned at her father’s warm words, ignoring the sound of a breaking tree limb as Livy slammed into the ground, the hive caught between her claws.

  “I love you, too, Dad.”

  He started off again, giving a wave. “Good luck at work today.”

  As her father walked into the house, Ricky Lee was walking out.

  “Mornin’, Mr. Parker.”

  “Whatever,” her father growled, before moving around the wolf and going into the house.

  Ricky Lee looked at her and grimaced. She felt for the guy. No one wants to face down a canine father after he knows you’ve been fooling around with his daughter.

  “Guess he’s mad, huh?” Ricky asked once he stood in front of her.

  “Just worried about me. I tried to tell him it’s not serious, but he doesn’t believe me.”

  “Of course he doesn’t. I don’t believe you.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I’m not hung up on you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  “I wasn’t. But what if I’m hung up on you?”

  Toni took a step back. “But you’re not.”

  “I told you he was.” They both looked over at now-human Livy, her hands still claws, her naked body covered in marauding bees while she gorged herself full of larvae-filled honeycombs. “You canines never listen to me, even though I’m always right.” She held her claw out, opened it. “Larvae?”

  Toni shuddered. “No. But thank you.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Ricky led Toni and Vic Barinov down the hallway to his hotel room. “A quick shower and change of clothes and we can head over to the Sports Center.”

  “Or I can just go by myself and meet you two there lat—”

  “No,” both men said.

  Ricky opened his door and walked in, holding it open for Toni and Barinov.

  “Until we find out why someone broke into your house,” he told her, “you might as well get used to both of us tailing you around.”

  “I don’t need protection. My siblings do.”

  “And they have it.”

  Toni faced him. She’d been a little short with him since he’d told her he might, possibly, just be getting kind of serious. Whew. It was a real good thing he hadn’t told her he was definitely serious about her. She would have really been pissed then.

  “Look, I don’t know these people watching my brothers and sisters. I don’t know what kind of job they do, if they’re the right fit for the particular sibling they’ve been placed with—”

  “The right fit? They’re bodyguards.”

  “I found that lion male crying.”

  Ricky cringed, but Vic said, “It’s not his fault.” He shook his head. “It was those weird little twin girls.”

  Toni glared. “Those weird little twin girls are my sisters.”

  “Well, their Russian is excellent, but using it to convince that lion they are speaking in tongues and the End of Days are upon us does seem cruel.”

  Toni rubbed her forehead. “I’ll talk to them and tell Kyle not to keep showing them The Omen!”

  Ricky threw his bag aside before asking, “The original or the remake?”

  “The original,” she replied, walking around his couch and dropping back onto it. “The remake just didn’t work for me. Although my favorite Gregory Peck movie will always be Boys from Brazil.”

  “I never saw that movie,” Ricky said as he wondered why Vic kept silently motioning to the other bedroom in Ricky’s two-bedroom suite.

  Toni gasped. “Seriously?”

  Vic made an hourglass motion with his hands, and Ricky realized that the hybrid was telling him there was a woman in his other bedroom. He immediately thought of Laura Jane and began quickly moving toward the room so he could get her out. Now.

  “It’s such a great movie,” Toni went on. “You’ve gotta see it.”

  Ricky was only a few feet from the bedroom when a voice from inside said, “It is a good movie.”

  Ricky stopped, froze really, and stepped back. “Momma?”

  Toni stood as the She-wolf walked out of the bedroom. She was tall, powerfully built just like her son with a face that would be pretty if she smiled more. Something told Toni this woman didn’t bother to smile. The question was why. Was she miserable for a reason? Or did she just like being miserable? Toni wasn’t quite sure . . . yet.

  “Momma, what are you doing here?” Ricky asked her.

  “Can’t a mother come to see her son?” She looked Ricky Lee over. “Especially when he’s busy having tiny hybrids beat up his ex-girlfriend.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t pretend you didn’t hear me, boy. I saw that girl’s face. Now, I don’t like Laura Jane and never did, but having some other girl slap her around—”

  “Momma, I did no such thing. I haven’t even been here.”

  She grunted and that’s when her gaze locked on Toni. “And who’s this?” she asked, motioning to Toni with a sweep of her hand. “Is this that tiny hybrid?”

  “I’m not a hybrid,” Toni replied. “I’m a jackal.”

  “The devil’s pet.”

  “Momma,” Ricky glanced at Toni. “This is Antonella Jean-Louis Parker.”

  “Toni for short.” Toni came forward and held out her hand. “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Reed.”

  “It’s Miss Evans, Miss Tala Evans. I’m a wolf, why the holy heck would I bother gettin’ married?” She walked past Toni without shaking her hand. “And why is Laura Jane’s momma calling me and telling me that my son is lashing out at her idiot child?”

  “Because Laura Jane is a crazy liar.”

  “I thought we agreed on narcissist,” Toni reminded him, but when Ricky’s mother stared at Toni, she added, “You know, it’s all about her?”

  “So were you the one who beat up Laura Jane?”

  “Me? Fighting She-wolves?” Toni shook her head. “No, ma’am. I like my face just as it is. Attached to my skull.”

  “Momma, I’ve been in Russia. I’ve seen Laura Jane once since she’s been in town. I’ve been busy with other things.”

  The She-wolf eyed Toni. “Have you now?” She abruptly faced her son. “You know, I’m not really surprised that Laura Jane is playing these games. That’s what the little bitch does. Just like her momma, that one. But what really surprised me, Ricky Lee Reed, was how defensive your brother got when I mentioned it to him.”

  “Rory?” Ricky Lee shrugged. “You know how he is.”

  “Not Rory. Rory doesn’t even know I’m here yet.” She glanced at Toni. “I think sometimes I make my oldest boy a little tense.”

  “Reece defended me?”

  “He called that little gal all sorts of things that I thought I taught him better about. But he was adamant. Not only that you had nothing to do with it, but he said it was some dark-haired little photographer that just didn’t like the look of Laura Jane’s face. Not that I blame her.”

  Ricky briefly closed his eyes, but Toni outright laughed.

  “Something I’m missing?” Miss Tala asked.

  “It’s nothing, Momma.”

  “And what were you doing in Russia?”

  “Protecting me.” Toni sat on the couch. “From bears. And now, since I apparently can’t take care of myself at all, he’s going to follow me to my day job, too.”

  The She-wolf looked right at Toni. Locked on her. “Is that right?”

  “Uh-huh. I’m just waiting for him to shower and change clothes so we can go.” Toni tapped the watch on her wrist. “Which . . . if you don’t mind.”

  “Well . . .” Ricky glanced back and forth between Toni and his mother. He clearly didn’t want to leave them alone.

  W
hich was probably why the She-wolf smiled and motioned her son away. “You go on, Ricky Lee. I can keep your pretty little jackal company until you get back.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “I said,” his mother low-growled, “go on.”

  “I’ll be right back.” Ricky, with an apologetic look at Toni, rushed into his bedroom.

  The She-wolf sat at the other end of the couch. She grinned and they both looked over at Barinov. The hybrid looked from one woman to the other, pointed at the door, and said, “Why don’t I . . . protect the hallway.”

  Once he bolted for freedom, Toni turned back to Ricky Lee’s mother. She studied the older woman and finished sizing her up.

  “You know, Miss Tala, I’m so sorry you had to come out here for this.”

  “Are you?”

  “Of course! To have to travel all the way here because you’re hearing bad things about your son? Things that aren’t true. He was definitely in Russia with me. We just got back yesterday morning and he was at my parents’ rental home until today. I’m so sorry someone is involving you in some ridiculous vendetta.” Toni leaned in, made sure her face looked appropriately concerned. “Would you like some tea? Or, even better, let’s get room service. I bet an iced tea and some scones would be perfect for such a hot summer day.”

  “You sure are friendly.”

  “I have to be,” Toni admitted. “It’s my job to protect all my siblings. And do you think they appreciate it? No. They treat me like a nanny. Like they hired me for the job.”

  “Well, how many siblings do you have?”

  “Ten.”

  “Good Lord.”

  “Exactly. And . . . they’re all prodigies.”

  “Prodigies? Do you mean—”

  “Geniuses. A scientist, a mathematician, several artists, a future prima ballerina. All of them prodigies. All except me.”

  “I’m sure you have some talent you can be proud of.”

  “I did just get back from negotiating with honey-loving Russian bears.”

  “That’s impressive. I hear Russians are tough negotiators.”

  “It was over a hockey game.”

  “Oh.” They stayed silent for a moment until the She-wolf patted Toni’s knee. “Why don’t we order that room service, darlin’? Seems like you could use some sweet tea and scones more than I could.”