CHAPTER 25

D ee woke up on Fourth of July morning alone. But on the pillow next to her was a note and a granola bar.

Had to run into town with Stein for more breakfast food—damn lions! We’ll be back soon. Please eat this until I return. I’m afraid you’ll start feeding on your own muscle mass if you don’t get some food in you.

Chuckling, Dee sat up and ate her granola bar. She was nearly done when she heard the howling from beneath her window.

“What?” she asked her cousin once she’d opened the window.

“Couldn’t you put on a T-shirt or something?”

“It’s not like you haven’t seen my tits before, Sissy Mae.”

“That’s not the point. There’s a time and place!”

“When did you become Sally Etiquette?”

“Just get your suit on. We’re hittin’ the beach.”

“I just woke up and—”

“Not a request. Just move your ass, cousin.”

“Fine.”

“I know it’s fine. In fact, it better be goddamn fine!”

“Heifer.”

“Rich man’s whore!”

“At least mine can cook the food he eats. And replaces it, too.”

“Now see, Dee-Ann Smith. That was just mean!”

Ric adored farmer’s markets. Fresh produce and dairy and relatively friendly people, and a healthy mix of full-humans and shifters. It was perfect. Even his cousin’s constant complaints couldn’t bring him down.

“Do you think Dee’s more a roses kind of girl? Or lilies?” he asked.

Stein stared at him. “Honestly? I think a machine gun and ample ammo is more your scary girlfriend’s speed, cousin.”

“See how you are?” Ric shook his head. “She keeps telling me I shouldn’t be so tough on you, and here you are, talking shit about her.”

“I wasn’t talking shit about her. God, please don’t tell that woman I was talking shit about her.

She’s liable to cut my head off and wear it on her jacket as a brooch. And you are being too tough on me. I haven’t had a moment to relax or enjoy the pool, get in a little tennis, nothing, since I’ve become your indentured servant.”

“You owe me, Stein. Don’t forget what you owe me.”

“How can I? You won’t let me.”

“Is it so impossible for you to realize that you have to work your way back up? That you’re still not going to get a kitchen when you haven’t been trained?”

“How is washing dishes and scrubbing floors training?”

“My best cooks started off washing dishes and scrubbing floors.”

“They’re also not blood relations and they’re mostly immigrants.” Ric faced his cousin, butdidn’t say anything. He let Abby do the talking for him. She’d tagged along with them for the trip since she’d been up bright and early, eating food she’d dug out of the trash.

Why she felt the need to do that when she had an entire refrigerator of fresh food at her disposal, Ric had no idea. Although they were low on things because of the cats, they still had food.

Abby snarled and snapped at Stein, nipping at his feet and forcing him to back up several steps.

“This is Abby Vega,” Ric told his cousin. “I’m thinking right now she does not like you.”

“Great,” Stein sighed. “I’m stuck on the politically correct team.”

“Does it ever occur to you that sometimes you shouldn’t speak?” Hannah asked Stein, standing off to the side. She’d come along because she seemed to fear she’d have to, in her words, “talk to Dee” at some point today. Ric wasn’t sure what Hannah was so worried about. If she was afraid she’d have to have some big, psychological discussion with Dee-Ann Smith about her inability to shift to her hybrid form when seriously threatened by hyenas, she was wasting her time. Dee didn’t have big, psychological discussions. That’s what Ric liked about her. His friends talked to him all the time about their problems, and although he didn’t mind, he enjoyed Dee’s lack of complaining. Besides, it was fun trying to figure out what had pissed her off at any given moment and how he could fix it.

“I didn’t know you were capable of creating a sentence, sub-adult,” Stein shot back. “I thought you could only brood and glare. Ow! Motherfu—”

“Stein,” Ric warned.

“She’s eating my leg!”

Abby had latched on to Stein’s leg, and was doing her best to rip out his calf muscle.

“Then maybe you should be nicer.”

“You really hate me, don’t you?”

“If I hated you, cousin, I would have let Dee-Ann tear your colon out when she had the chance.”

“What about bread?”

Ric and Stein looked over at Hannah, surprised by her sudden question.

“What about it? Ow! Get off me, crazed female!”

“Are you going to provide bread? Because if you think any is left after those cats wake up, you’re delusional.”

“She’s right,” Ric agreed. “But I don’t have time to make bread this morning.”

“They’re selling fresh French bread right over at that stall.”

“Bought bread?”

“You act like I just suggested roach-infested bread from Satan’s bakery.”

“I do fresh or I don’t do bread.” All right, kind of a lie, but she didn’t need to know that.