Big Bad Beast Read Online Free

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    “But do me a favor, Dee,” he said. “Until I get this straightened out, don’t get into it with the cats.”
    Dee stared at him and asked with all honesty, “What makes you think I would?”

C HAPTER 2
     
    T he first punch to her face sent Dee-Ann stumbling. But that wasn’t surprising. They didn’t call the tigress Marcella Malone “Bare Knuckles” for nothing. And Dee’s big mistake had been turning her back on her. She knew better than to turn her back on the treacherous feline and former Marine originally from Mineola, Long Island, New York. Or, as Dee used to put it when they trained together—“that Long Island whore.”
    It had been a lot of years since they’d seen each other, since they’d started together in the Marines Corps’ shifter-only Unit until their commanding officer had placed them on separate teams because, as the polar bear had explained, “Some dogs and cats will just never get along.”
    “I’m sorry, Dee-Ann,” the feline told her without any remorse whatsoever. “My fist slipped.”
    “It happens,” Dee replied seconds before she swung her own fist, connecting with Malone’s face.
    The She-tiger snarled, her head coming up, blood streaming from the cut on her cheek, eyes turning bright gold and angry. Seemed fair, though, since Dee had the same amount of blood coming from her nose.
    The pair sized each other up. Dee quickly remembered all the strengths and weaknesses the She-tiger had. About Dee’s age, thirty-five or so, Malone had come into her full adult power with strong arms and thighs. She’d be fast, but her stamina would be nothing like Dee’s. At six feet, Malone weighed a bit more and had more curves in her human form. She still kept her black hair with white and red streaks long, and Dee had no qualms about using all that hair to her advantage if she had to.
    Their teams spread out around them in a circle and Dee knew on some deeper, more humane level that this was wrong. They were here on a hot, late-June night in this Brooklyn warehouse for bigger issues than a bitch-fight between former Marines. But Malone had always brought out the worst in Dee. The absolute worst.
    So ignoring the bigger issues—like what had happened to the fight ring that was supposed to be having an event tonight at this location—the two She-predators removed their jackets and brought up their fists.
    Malone was and always would be a brawler. It ran in her tiger bloodline. She was the daughter of one of the greatest early shifter hockey players, “Nice Guy” Malone. And, like her father, she’d gone from the Marines to playing right defenseman for the Nevada Slammers. She was pretty good, too, but spent a lot of her time in the penalty box because she simply couldn’t stop from beating the hell out of people when they irritated her.
    But hockey wasn’t all that Malone was part of. She also worked for Katzenhaft Security or KZS for short. The feline nation’s security team. Dating back several hundred years, KZS had bases all over the world, their job simply to protect all felines. It was rare for Dee or the Group in general to come face to face with a KZS team. Especially when dealing with hybrids. The cats were notorious for having no interest or patience with mixed breeds of any kind. As it was, they barely tolerated the feline crossbreeds—tigons, ligers, cheetah-leopard crosses, etc.—but when fellow felines bred outside their species or KZS teammates were dealing with canine mixes in general, they often showed more disdain than usual. Which meant they normally didn’t involve themselves with hybrid issues.
    Until recently. Something that made Dee-Ann all sorts of distrustful.
    That two-ton truck Malone called a fist rammed into Dee’s cheek, followed by a right cross to her already battered nose. Dee ignored the little yellow birds twirling around her head and blocked the next punch with her right forearm, smashing Malone’s nose with the palm of her hand.