Hot and Badgered. Shelly Laurenston

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      Like Billy Lewis, sitting on one of the benches in the Pack’s backyard, looking over his domain like Richard the Third. But such a weak wolf wouldn’t notice that Betsey was sitting in a tree watching him unless the wind suddenly changed and he scented her.

      She watched as the three little girls came into the backyard. According to what she’d heard when Lotti came to talk to Billy, their mother had been killed and somehow those little kids had made it halfway across the country to the Pack house. Remarkable, really. At that age, Betsey wouldn’t have lasted five seconds without her mother. But these girls . . .

      Billy had insisted on a “private chat” with the pups, and that did not bode well. Billy didn’t like what he called “half-breeds.” An insulting term from an insulting idiot.

      Sadly, Betsey had been forced to endure a “private chat” with Billy herself. It wasn’t nearly as creepy as it sounded, but it was definitely cruel. He’d told her that come her eighteenth birthday, she was out, no matter what was going on in her life or her mother’s. If her mother wasn’t happy about it, she could go with her kid, but that would be up to Betsey.

      A horrifying thought since Betsey knew how much her mother loved her Pack. Leaving it, even for her only daughter, would be too harsh for her. Betsey would never ask that. So, after that “private chat” she’d doubled up on her school work, began taking AP courses, and planned on graduating when she was seventeen. Thankfully, she was smart enough to make that happen.

      But she didn’t know anything about the little girls walking into the backyard to be left alone with Billy. She just knew her heart broke for them. Because no matter what their circumstances—yes, even the death of their mother, who’d been a former Packmate and daughter of the pack’s Beta—it would mean nothing to Billy Lewis. Besides, this might be the chance he’d been waiting for . . . to get rid of Charles Taylor. An old-school wolf that the adults in the Pack desperately wanted as Alpha leader, whether Charles would take the job or not.

      Betsey knew, though, that Charles would never let his granddaughter go into the cruel system of foster homes and state-run lives. That was not the best world for any child, but definitely not for a shifter. And for a hybrid shifter . . . nightmares were made of how badly those situations could end.

      Still, to send the other two girls away simply because they weren’t blood related or wolves . . . could Billy really be that cruel?

      Who was she kidding? Of course, he could be that cruel!

      The three girls stood in front of Billy now and he smugly stared at them, the corners of his mouth slightly turned up, his eyes heartless.

      If Betsey had thought she could sneak away without being seen, she would. She didn’t want to watch this.

      “I hear you girls have had a bad time of it lately, huh?”

      The girls stared at him, but said nothing. But the middle one, she suddenly waved at him. As if in greeting. Surprisingly—and just downright annoying—Billy winked back and pointed his finger at the girl. A move he considered “sexy.”

      Yuck.

      He went on. “Look, I’m sorry to hear about Carlie. I always liked her. A weird wolf but fun. Ya know?”

      Of course they didn’t know! They were kids! Idiot!

      Billy leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands in front of him.

      His “sincere” look.

      “I know this will be hard for you guys to understand but . . . you can stay,” he told the oldest, an adorable brown-skinned girl with lots of curly hair and a pretty face. “But you two can’t. I know,” he continued, “I know this is hard to hear. But you might as well learn now how the real world works.”

      Something told Betsey these girls already knew how the real world worked.

      While Billy blathered on, the middle girl sat her younger half-sister down on the bench beside Billy and abruptly walked off.

      She moved over to the bushes and flowers that had been planted around the yard wall, head down, like she was searching for something.

      And while she looked, Billy talked to Charles’s granddaughter. Just like her grandfather, her face revealed nothing. It was blank. Impassive.

      The middle sister, a very tiny Asian girl with black hair that had a white streak through it, picked something up and returned to her sister’s side. Together they gazed at Billy until he noticed that the middle girl was holding something in her hand.

      His smirk turned into a full-blown smile. Betsey had never met someone who enjoyed bringing out the worst in everyone like Billy did. Even desperate children who’d just lost their mother! “Is that for me, sweetheart? You going to hit the big, bad wolf with that little rock?”

      He leaned in and his voice became so hard. Harder than Betsey had ever heard it.

      “You swing that thing at me, little girl, and you’ll be on the first bus to the closest foster agency. Maybe, after a few years, you’ll meet up with your loser mom in prison. You can have a mother-daughter reunion behind bars.”

      If Billy was hoping to make the little girl cry, he failed. She didn’t cry. She just slowly blinked and kept staring at him.

      Then, without a word between them, the two oldest girls faced each other.

      Charles’s granddaughter nodded once and the middle girl pulled her arm back and with some mighty force for a kid, she swung her fist with the rock in it.

      Knuckles made contact and Betsey blinked in shock when she heard something break in the oldest girl’s face just before she hit the ground.

      The youngest glanced up at the sound, but her expression was passive as well. Billy, on the other hand, reared back in shock.

      “What in holy—”

      While he was busy trying to figure out what was going on, the middle girl grabbed his left hand—and now Betsey understood the weirdly timed wave earlier—and placed it on the bench. She raised the rock and brought it down hard—onto Billy’s knuckles.

      Billy howled in pain as the middle girl tossed the rock across the yard. Then, as if some silent cue had been given, she and the youngest burst into copious, dramatic tears.

      The kind of sobbing that would get the attention of any She-wolf in a twenty-mile radius.

      All the adults at home appeared in the backyard. And what did they see?

      Two little girls sobbing hysterically. Another little girl nursing her bleeding, broken cheek while bravely attempting to hold back tears, and Billy . . . with busted knuckles.

      The middle girl’s knuckles were also bruised and bloody, but she held her baby sister close and had her hand curled into a fist and pressed against the child’s side, ensuring that none of the adults could see it.

      Charles moved through the adults until he stood front and center. Betsey had never seen the older wolf like that. He’d always been the calm one. The rational one. He was the great peacemaker of the Pack, making sure the small group didn’t get into any fights they couldn’t possibly win against Packs СКАЧАТЬ