Okay. So he’d have to kill the boy. He could. Grigori had killed before. Never family, but that didn’t mean much when the boy was messing with his house.

“I thought you said you were on vacation.”

“I am.” He started pulling the couch again. It wasn’t that Grigori worried the boy would damage the couch or his walls because he knew Bold was too uptight and persnickety to do that. No, for Grigori it was about the principle!

Maybe if he choked the boy out? At least then he’d sleep.

Before he could put his plan into action, he heard a grunt behind him. He turned and saw Norm Blackmon standing there. Even stranger, Irina Zubachev stood behind Norm. A meaner grizzly sow he didn’t know. Of course, she was one of the Kamchatka bears. Descended from tough, brutal Russian bears that were known to not only eat humans when they were starving, but even when they merely had the munchies. And although they’d grown up in Ursus County together, Grigori could not think of one time the woman had ever been to his house. Ever.

“What?” he asked both of them.

“This is for Speck,” Norm said, walking in with a big box.

“Don’t call me that,” the boy muttered, finally putting down the couch.

“And this is for Blayne,” Irina said, making both Grigori and Bold gape at her. If there was one thing everyone in town knew, it was that the Zubachevs hated, loathed, despised canines and, at their mildest, had merely torn the legs off a few rather than their heads. Grigori wouldn’t think about what Zubachevs had done to canines at their worst. “Tell her I’ll have that deep conditioner for her tomorrow.”

Bold stood next to Grigori now. “Is that all for her hair?”

“And yours. She’s right,” Irina told the boy flatly. “You got frizz issues. A little conditioner will do you good.”

With that Irina walked out and Norm dropped the box at their feet. “Take this. It’s from Blayne.”

Bold pulled the envelope off the top of the box, opened it, and read out loud, “For my sanity and everyone else’s, please use these.”

Norm was already grinning, and Grigori joined him when Bold opened the box and pulled out a primo set of skates.

“I’m on vacation,” the boy complained, and Grigori looked desperately at the sloth bear standing next to him.

Bo flew head first out of his uncle’s house, over the porch, and into the snow. The hockey equipment followed, painfully colliding into his back and skull.

“Are you trying to tell me something?” he yelled at the two older bears before the door slammed shut in his face. “That’s just rude!” he quoted Blayne.

Bo sat up. “Fine. They don’t want me here. I won’t stay here.” He stripped to his boxer briefs, put on all the gear except the skates and socks, and walkedto the pond on his uncle’s property, which was his favorite pond anywhere in the entire world.

And for the eight years he’d lived in Ursus County, this was the pond he’d come to every day in the winter, like clockwork, by six a.m. Summers were tougher, of course, and he was forced to use the indoor rink to practice, but he’d made friends with the maintenance guys, and they’d let him in to practice. Day after day, summer after summer, until Bo had earned a set of his own keys.

He dropped his equipment and sat on the ground to get on his socks and skates. He felt real excitement as he did, already looking forward to some time with just himself, his stick, and the ice.

Bo stepped onto the ice and took in a deep breath. Blayne had been right. He did need this, whether he was on vacation or not.

Grinning, he put his helmet on and started off with a few drills.

Blayne ran up the hill and stopped at the very top. She panted hard, hands on her hips as she looked over the beautiful countryside. This hill was the highest and she could see the ocean on her right. If she looked straight down, she could see one of the huge man-made saltwater lakes, three polars sitting by it, stretched out and quietly contemplating . . . what? The true meaning of life? Mathematical theorems? Some great science experiment?

Bears were so smart, they could be thinking up the next great thing. She bet it was great to have a brain like that, to be able to think like that. Blayne always wanted to be a genius. To be able to spout theorems and equations the same way she could quote bad horror films and every episode of Seinfeld. Unfortunately, her brain didn’t hold on to things for very long. At least not important things.

Not like bears anyway. Smart, thoughtful, caring bears.

And that’s when she saw a seal pop up through a hole in the ice, and one of the bears grabbed it by the head and dragged it out. The seal squealed, but the polar bit into its head, holding it and running because the other two polars came after him. Even more horrifying, she had the feeling they were playing, as opposed to a more typical life-and-death struggle that she might catch on the National Geographic Channel. When they started to play tug with the still breathing but soon-to-be-dead seal, Blayne turned away and started back down the hill. When she got to the bottom, she froze, surprised and concerned.

“Hi, ya,” she said, crouching down. It wouldn’t approach at first, watching her closely. “Where did you come from, little guy?” She smiled and opened her arms. “Come on.”

That seemed to be all he needed, the mixed dog ran forward and into her arms. She immediately noticed three things. This mixed canine had been through hell and back, his leg had been broken and no one had bothered to fix it, and some brain trust had mixed a pit bull and wolf together. To create what? The ultimate fighting breed?