“People who don’t hate you, Livy, are called friends.”
“Whatever.”
Ricky came up behind Toni, smiled at Freddy. “Hey, little man.”
“Hi, Ricky.”
“You ready to go home?”
“I really am. I’m relatively certain . . . this is too much excitement for a seven-year-old.”
Toni, now laughing and crying, hugged her brother even tighter. “You’re absolutely right, little brother. It is.”
“How’s your face?” the wolf asked Oriana while they sat at the kitchen table . . . waiting.
“It’s been better,” she admitted, her nose hurting as it worked to heal. All she knew was that the swelling had better be down before her next class or she would be absolutely livid!
“You know,” the wolf went on, “you’re kind of tough.”
It was a weird statement, but she couldn’t help feeling it was kind of a compliment.
“Thanks, uh . . .”
“Reece. Ricky Lee’s brother.”
“Right. Well, thanks, Reece.”
“Sure. You see, not everyone can take a hit like that to the head.”
“That’s because she has an exceptionally hard head.”
“Shut up, Kyle.”
“You shut up!”
“Both of you shut up,” Cooper warned.
“Have you thought about trying ice hockey?”
Surprised, Oriana, and everyone else at the table, looked at the wolf.
“No,” Oriana finally admitted when he kept staring at her as if expecting a serious answer to that ridiculous question.
“You should. I bet you’d make a mean little forward.”
“I will . . . strange, burly man.”
He grinned. “Darlin’, are you sweet on me?”
Oriana gawked. “No.”
“Don’t get your hopes up, though; you’re a little too young for me.”
Before Oriana could process any of that, Dennis ran into the kitchen. “Freddy’s home!” he cheered. “Freddy’s home!”
The siblings all stared at each other for a long moment. Then, as one, they bolted away from the table and ran out to greet their brother and welcome him home.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Toni reached into the refrigerator and pulled out one of the bottles of orange juice. Now that she was home, and Freddy was safe, she was exhausted. But she still had some things to take care of before she could get any rest so she was hoping a couple of glasses of orange juice would perk her up a bit.
With bottle in hand, she closed the refrigerator door and turned. That’s when she came face to face with Novikov’s fiancée.
“Oh. Hi, Bland.”
The fiancée’s brown eyes narrowed. “It’s Blayne. And you can’t drink that.”
Toni glanced down at the orange juice. “I can’t?” Because she was pretty sure she could.
“It’s been opened.”
“Yes. It has. That’s bound to happen when you have two thousand people in your house.” Because it seemed everyone and their mother had come to Toni’s house, including all the Carnivores, most of Ricky Lee’s Pack, and almost all of Llewellyn Security’s advanced protection team. Plus the wild dogs from across the street kept wandering in and out of their temporary home like they owned the . . . oh, wait. The wild dogs did own the place.
“No worries!” Blayne chirped. “When Bo and I came over here I made him stop so I could pick up several bottles of orange juice for the entire family.” She opened the refrigerator. “This way there’s no problem with—”
Blayne gasped and jumped back, making Toni’s hackles rise.
“What’s wrong?” Toni asked, quite aware she sounded snappy.
“They’ve all been opened. Someone opened each bottle and drank a little bit out of each one.”
Spinning around, Blayne glared at Livy.
Still recovering from her poisoning, Livy sat at the kitchen table, her elbow on the hard wood, the right cheek of her still pale and sweaty face resting on her raised fist.
“What are you looking at me for?” Livy asked blandly, her voice weaker than usual.
“I know you did this,” Blayne accused. “This was you!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Livy said. But when Blayne turned back to the refrigerator to stare at those bottles of juice, Livy looked up at Toni and mouthed, It was totally me.
Toni silently laughed but they both stopped what they were doing when Blayne spun back around, her accusing gaze bouncing back and forth between them.
Thankfully, before the wolfdog could snap her leash, Ricky Lee walked into the kitchen.
“Hey,” he said, smiling at Toni. “My momma’s here and Ronnie Lee’s with her. Thought you could come out to the living room and meet her.”
Toni felt a bolt of panic shoot through her system that did manage to wake her up but also brought out her anxiety. “What? Why?” she demanded. “Why do I need to meet your sister? No. No. That’s okay. I’ll just stay in here and hide. Or maybe I’ll chew on the table leg. It looks like it needs a good chewing.”
“In case you’re not sure,” Livy calmly told Ricky, “she is about to blow.”
“Yeah,” Ricky sighed. “I can see that.”
Ricky didn’t know what the problem was. Toni had gone toe-to-toe with Novikov, Russian bears, Cella Malone. Hell, she’d faced his mother and won her over. So why meeting Ronnie Lee would freak Toni out like this, he didn’t know.
“Come here, darlin’,” he coaxed.
She started to walk over to him but Blayne caught hold of the bottle of juice in Toni’s hands and there was a brief—and rather ridiculous—skirmish between the pair. Blayne eventually won and she held that bottle of juice to her chest like it was the last bit of moisture on the planet.
Shaking her head, Toni walked over to Ricky. When she stood in front of him, he slipped both arms around her waist and pulled her in close.
“All right, tell me what’s wrong.”
“What if she doesn’t like me?”
“How can she not like you? You’re so dang cute. Besides, you already won over my momma.”
“This is your sister, Ricky Lee.”
“So if Kyle didn’t like me, you’d kick me to the curb?”
“Of course not,” she quickly told him. “But if Coop didn’t like you, you’d be out on your ass.”
Coop came through the kitchen door at that moment and said to Ricky, “And don’t forget the power I wield, Wolf Boy of the Lost People.”
Ricky frowned. “I don’t even know what that means.”
Coop opened the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of orange juice—that Blayne quickly yanked from his hand.
The jackal gazed at his now-empty hand before looking at the wolfdog and asking, “Uh . . . Blayne?”
Blayne snarled, forcing Coop to step back, and carried the bottle to the sink.
Coop leaned back against the refrigerator. “I have no idea what’s going on . . . but I’m fascinated.”
The back kitchen door opened and Novikov walked in with Freddy. Both were covered in what seemed to be an inordinate amount of dirt and carrying a battered, dirt-covered notebook.
Toni pulled out of Ricky’s arms and faced the pair. “What have you two been doing?”
“Getting the notebook like you told us to.”
“I said get the notebook. I didn’t say roll around in the dirt like two untrained Labradors.”
“How do you know that’s what happened?” Novikov asked.
“Yeah!” Freddy added with some forcefulness, but when his sister raised an eyebrow at him, he quickly stepped behind Novikov.