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 toget 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.

“Fine!” Zubachev roared, and she could tell saying that clearly pained him. Which, Toni would privately admit, she kind of enjoyed.

She stopped howling, and Zubachev said, “I will talk to Yuri about meeting with you about bastard freak.”

“That’s all I ask.”

“But you will not make that noise again.”

“Okay.”

“Because it annoys.”

“I know. It is annoying.” Then again, so were bears being bigots.

Ivan pointed at a black bear. Toni felt kind of bad for that bear. Height-wise he was considerably smaller than the grizzlies and polars. But width-wise . . . he was built like a mountain. “Help the canine down.”

“I can do it.” And she did, moving expertly down the statue until she was on the ground.

She stared up at the bear. “So what’s next?”

“This way, little dog.”

“Or you could just call me Toni.”

“Could. Won’t.”

Deciding not to argue the point, she followed the group down the giant hall. It reminded her of Versailles in France with its stately marble floors and floor-to-ceiling mirrors lining the entire hallway. Everything was ornate but a little too much for her taste. But as they began walking, Ricky and Barinov came charging out of one of the large rooms, their weapons drawn.