The bobcat blinked. “That’s really more important than your girlfriend?”

Running on years of unplanned training, Toni dropped her book, charged across the room and cut in front of the bobcat, her one free arm stretched out in front of her. She knew her skinny jackal arm and battered shoulder would never stop the player from getting those big hands on the idiot cat but she felt the need to at least try because she above everyone else understood what was going on.

Toni understood drive. The drive that one had to have in order to be the best. Some people were born gifted. But unless you had the drive to make that gift work for you, you’d end up no better than the kid in class with the solid B grades and the good job in real estate.

So while the bobcat didn’t “get” Novikov’s schedule issues, Toni did. She also knew that she didn’t want to spend the rest of the day in a police precinct giving a statement on a tragic shifter-on-shifter murder case.

“When’s your fiancée’s thing tonight?” she asked loudly in an attempt to get Novikov’s attention and keep him on the other side of that very flimsy looking desk. “Eight? Nine?”

Novikov yanked his hand back and, since it had been dangerously close to her face, she appreciated that he had enough self-control to do that.

“Eight-thirty,” he snarled, blue eyes still locked on the bobcat behind her.

“Great. I know a carrier that I use for my family all the time. There’s eleven of us not counting my parents, and regular planes and full-human run airports are not always the friends of jackals with pups. So I can easily get you on a direct flight to Chicago, have a car meet you at the airport to take you right to wherever she’s playing hergame tonight.”

“It’s called a bout.”

Bout? Was she a boxer?

“Okay. Her bout. I can get you to her bout.”

“You can do that?” he asked, looking a bit calmer.

“Just need a phone and a computer.”

The player pointed at the bobcat. “You. Out.”

“This is my desk.”

Toni rammed her free hand against Novikov’s shoulder before he could finish climbing over the bobcat’s desk and strangling the feline to death. She had no delusion that she was somehow physically holding him back. Instead she was trusting his desire not to hurt the one person who might be able to help him.

“Go take a break,” she ordered the bobcat. “I won’t be long.”

“Whatever.”

The bobcat sounded tough but he still slinked around them and then darted out of the room before the player could get his hands on him.

“Sit,” Toni firmly ordered, using the same tone she often used with Kyle.

“I’d be making everyone’s life easier if I just took that cat’s neck and—”

“Sit. Now. Over there by the wolf.”

Novikov walked over to Ricky and glared down at him. Toni thought she’d have to jump between those two when the wolf only stared back. That same placid look on his face. But Novikov, instead of fighting yet another person, just grabbed the chair Toni had originally been sitting in and pulled it close to the desk.

Toni did, however, decide to ignore the fact that the chair had been bolted to the floor. Nope. It was better not to think about that little feat of strength at all.