Ricky’s brother Rory Lee sat at his big office desk
and looked back and forth between Ricky and Reece. “He’s useless to me,” Rory
told him. “Useless! I can’t use him for that job tonight.”
Ricky Lee knew as soon as he saw Reece’s wounds
that he would end up having this conversation with their eldest brother, Rory.
It was something to be expected. Rory Lee Reed was the oldest and the most
uptight of the three of them but Rory had always felt it was his role to take
care of them— even when they didn’t need it.
Now, true, one could make an argument that Reece
Reed always needed someone to take care of him because he seemed to stupidly
stumble into deadly situations. But the truth was, their youngest brother knew
exactly what he was doing and enjoyed every minute of it. And Rory enjoyed
acting put-upon.
And what did Ricky enjoy? Well, as it turned out,
Ricky enjoyed watching Rory get all upset while Reece willingly walked into
stupid situations to get his ass kicked. It entertained him. Like NASCAR and
good American beer.
Reece said something and Rory looked at Ricky.
“What did he say?”
“You didn’t understand that?”
“With his jaw wired and his throat still recovering
from that nicked artery? No.”
“I could.”
“Ricky,” his brother growled, “you’re irritating
me.”
“Reece says he can do the job fine.”
“How? His jaw is wired shut! Because you didn’t
keep him out of trouble like I told you to!”
“I’m not my brother’s keep—”
“Shut up!” Rory put his elbows on his desk and dug
his hands under his baseball cap and into his hair. He scratched his scalp and
made lots of snarling noises.
Poor guy. He took all this so seriously. The
minutiae of it, anyway. Ricky and Reece only took their cases seriously. They
cared about the clients, wanted to make sure they were as safe as possible.
That was their job after all. Protection specialists. That’s what their
business cards said. Honestly, the Reed boys couldn’t have a job more perfectly
fitted for their natures. When their Packmate, Bobby Ray Smith, had been
discharged from the Navy, he and his best friend, Mace Llewellyn, started this
protection agency. Their older Tennessee Packmates and kin were none too happy
about the idea but Ricky, Rory, and Reece all felt that it was getting a bit
crowded in Smithtown, Tennessee, so they’d taken Bobby Ray up on his offer to
start fresh in New York. It had been a good decision for all of them.
Llewellyn Security was doing really well, their
business growing every day. Though most of their clients were shifters, they
happily took on full-humans. Heck, money was money. And the more money they
made from the full-humans and the richer shifters, the more they could help out
those shifters who didn’t have the money to pay but desperately needed their
help. The one thing Ricky truly loved about his kind, no matter the breed or
species, was their willingness to protect each other. Sure, lions might fight
wolves, wild dogs might fight hyenas, and bears might slap around everybody,
but when their kind faced real danger from the outside world, from the
full-humans or the full-human governments, they all worked together. It was
just understood that all Pack, Pride, or Clan issues took a backseat to the
survival of shifters worldwide.
Yet while the bigger shifter-run organizations like
The Group or KZS handled big scale situations that might involve one or more
governments, it was the smaller companies like theirs that handled individual
cases. Because the less full-humans saw any evidence of the existence of
shifters—the less full-humans had to die in tragic “accidents.”
Mace Llewellyn walked by Rory’s office. He was
staring down at some paperwork and barely glanced at them, grunting out a,
“Hey,” before walking on. It would have been meaningless if Reece hadn’t
gurgled a return greeting at him.
Mace walked back several steps and slowly looked
into the office until his eyes rested on Reece. “What’s going on with his
face?” he asked.
“Jaw’s wired,” Ricky told him, not one for beating
around the bush.
“Why’s his jaw wired?”
“Fight with Novikov.”
Closing his eyes and letting out a big sigh, the
lion male demanded, “How many times are we going to have to talk to you about
not fighting with Novikov before a big job?”
Reece gurgled something and Ricky translated, “He
didn’t start it.”
“I don’t care!” the lion
roared.
Ricky looked at Reece. “He doesn’t care.”
“Is something wrong with his ears?” Llewellyn
asked. “Has Novikov hit him in the head so many times that he no longer
understands English?”
“Just trying to be helpful.”
“No. You’re trying to piss me off.”
Maybe a little . . .
Llewellyn pointed at Rory. “Fix this, Reed. Fix.
It.”
Once the lion stormed off, Rory glared at his two
younger brothers.
Yeah, he looked mighty pissed.
“It’s no big deal,” Ricky said. “You just have to
find one backup. I’ll still be there.”
That seemed to be something Rory might be able to
tolerate until Reece’s eyes rolled to the back of his head and he passed out in
the chair. Sweat beaded his forehead, and his entire body sporadically shook as
it worked to heal itself.
The fever was actually a good thing for shifters.
It allowed their bodies to heal quickly and with little additional damage. But
healing shifters couldn’t be left alone. They had a tendency to shift to their
animal form and back to their human form several times over. Nothing harder to
explain to the general public than coyotes found hanging out in a restaurant’s
cold storage or bears hanging out in someone’s pool. So Reece couldn’t go home
alone and, at least in the beginning, Ricky couldn’t ask one of the females of
the Pack to take care of him, because the fever could make a body a little . .
. amorous. Now, if their baby sister, Ronnie Lee, was around, she could do it.
Fever Love, as it was sometimes called, was never directed at one’s kin. But
the other females in the Pack were fair game, and Reece had had enough trouble
with them in his past. Which meant that Ricky would have to take his brother
home . . . now.
Looking at Rory, his brother watching him with a
slight sneer to his lips, Ricky argued, “I’m sure finding one more backup
shouldn’t be too—”
“Get out.”
“But—”
“Pick up that idiot and get the fuck out of my
office!” Ricky shrugged. “All right.”
Standing, Ricky grabbed Reece’s limp hand and dragged
him out of the chair and out of the office. He’d pick him up off the floor when
they got to the elevator. Right now it was just kind of funny passing all those
offices with his brother dragging along behind him.
That wasn’t a good attitude, was it? No. Probably
not. Fun? Absolutely!
But not a good attitude.
The Goalie by Heather C. Myers
Take The Shot (Philadelphia Bulldogs 1) by Danica Flynn
Badger to the Bone (Honey Badger Chronicles #3) by Shelly Laurenston
Alien Minds (Dimension Drift #1) by Christina Bauer
