Unconventionally Wolf, Julie Steimle [red scrolls of magic .TXT] 📗

Louisa. In fact, I want the Loup Garou to rescind those orders for my brothers and sister to bear children for the pack. I think, also, my father has a right to know who his grandchildren are.”

Mathieu’s spine stiffened as he sat up straighter. But he did not look surprised by the demands. Neither did the others, actually. They shared grim looks.

“And on top of that, I want the Loup Garou to stop looking for Margarete, Genevieve, and Marie,” Rick said. “Leave them alone.”

The French wolves seemed uncomfortable. They shared more glances, as clearly no one was allowed to leave the pack, ever. It was like sacrilege. Rick wondered if the Wolverton wolves were the same. If that were true, then maybe his father’s efforts to keep him from them was truly the best idea after all. And yet, even Mrs. Blithe, who had been human, said wolves often came and left the pack—so probably not.

“And what would we get in return?” Mathieu stiffly gazed on Rick as if the last request had been ridiculous.

Rick smirked at him. “Respect. And maybe we will start up business with the Loup Garou again.”

“Maybe?” Louis balked. “What kind of agreement is that?”

“You,” Rick said to him with bite, “have betrayed my father’s trust already once before. Why in the world would he trust the Loup Garou to keep its word now?”

 They paled. At least they felt some shame.

“A heretic would not understand,” Louis muttered.

Breaking into a laugh, Rick propped his hands on his hips and stared at him, and them. “You are so arrogant.”

They flustered. The ladies especially.  

“I have gone among several different packs in my short existence, but yours…” Rick shook his head. “Has anyone ever told you that you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar?”

“We’re allergic to honey,” one of those she-wolves protested—that one similar to Genevieve. He couldn't remember her name. None of them really had spoken, after all.

Moaning, Rick groaned out with a weary look at her, “It’s a metaphor. It means—”

“We get it.” Mathieu rose, gazing more squarely at Rick. “We have been condescending towards you and your father. And you have taken insult.”

Rick looked to him specifically. “The first time I met you, you had tracked me down with my brothers and strong-armed me into a car so you could take me back to the pack where you all expected to bully me into mating with your she-wolves. That alone was insulting. I am not a pawn in your pack’s mating game. And I don’t want my brothers and sisters to be one either. And you bruised my neck, by the way.”

Mathieu nodded. He didn’t have a response. He didn't look all that repentant though.

“That’s it?” Louis turned to his pack member. “No more argument?”

“He has made his stance,” Mathieu said, with a terse glare for him. “And we must bring it back to the elders.”

The ladies frowned. The other he-wolves were genuinely disappointed. It was all over their faces.

“However,” Mathieu gazed straight on Rick, “We are concerned about your welfare—as a lone wolf. You may never find a mate out there in the world.”

Concerned. Rick loved how they played on words to try to elicit some kind of emotional response. Rick snorted, shaking his head. “No… the pack does not care about me. Only that they let a mingled-soul alpha wolf escape your claws.”

They all paled. It was entirely different than before, though. Somehow Rick got the impression that he had just walked in on a secret kabbala ritual.

Mathieu looked around at the mostly empty foyer and leaned near Rick. “You… You know those words?”

Rick nodded. “Sure. A pack in…" Rick hesitated realizing he didn't want the French to know about Wolverton, "…the South told me all about it. I went hunting with them last summer.”

All the wolves stared at him, pulling back. A couple of them smelled him.

“Hey!” Rick jerked away, arms raised.

“He doesn’t smell like another pack is on him,” whispered one of the she wolves.

“I wash!” Rick barked back, recoiling from her.

Mathieu lifted his eyebrows, thinking on that. Then he said, “I’ve heard rumors about you which I thought were improbable but…” He stared at Rick’s eyes. “Huh. Perhaps another pack is chasing you as well.”

Rick paled. Was it obvious? When his father had arrived in Alabama, he seemed to know what had happened long before Rick had told him.  

Mathieu slowly smiled with nods, his eyes deepening as he grew smug again. “Tell me, when you hunted with the pack, did you sing to Diana?”

Blinking at him, Rick shook his head, realizing that they knew about him joining the pack hunt. Dazed that they could tell, Rick thought back on those two days, recalling the full bonfire ceremony which the entire town had been involved in—including them singing and howling at the moon. He murmured, “They didn’t worship Diana. Just the moon.”

“Same thing.” Mathieu shrugged as if it really was irrelevant. His smug grin spread almost fondly on Rick, as if he had finally decided that he liked him. “You attended a moon ceremony and then a hunt. Right?”

Rick stiffened. So, he hadn’t been sure. It had been a guess.

“You hunted with the pack, right?” Mathieu said again. “Killed… oh, a deer or a goat with them?”

Of course he had. The pack hunt has been amazing. It had made him feel so entirely wolf. He had belonged, if only for a short time. But hearing Mathieu talk about it, it sounded sinister—almost satanic. It had just been a hunt with wolves. Not some kind of sacrifice. It just had that stupid bonfire where men stood opposite women and howled at the moon while in their natural glory. A hedonistic game.

“You mated with one of them,” Mathieu whispered.

Rick’s face immediately flushed. He didn't answer.

“Oh.” The two she-wolves emitted comprehending gasps. They blushed, stepping back from him. They even started to giggle as if someone had just told a dirty joke.

Stepping away, Rick glared at them. “I am not with that pack.”

“Really?” Mathieu chuckled. “Well, perhaps not now. But if you got a she-wolf pregnant, that would change the game. Especially if the pack wanted to keep you.”

Removing himself farther, his hands trembling, Rick said, “I think this conversation is over.”

“Wait until I tell the elders,” Mathieu called after him.

Rick stiffened where he was. He had almost been to the stairs to go up. But he looked back. “Are you intending to blackmail me?”

Mathieu shrugged, pretending innocence though his face belied him.  

Walking up to him, Rick growled. “Hear this, no scandal will stop me from tearing your throat out if you mess with my family.”

“And that includes your she-wolf, right?” Mathieu replied with such satisfaction that he was getting the upper hand.

Of course it did. It was all about her. His father could handle a stupid scandal. His three sisters were also quite safe from such a thing. But Rick was worried about Daisy and the baby. Stuck between two wolf packs was a dangerous thing. They could get hurt.

“I mean it,” Rick snarled.

“Oh… His addiction is a she-wolf,” Louis muttered, savoring this. He then looked to the she-wolves with them. “Too bad ladies. He’s already bonded. No doubt his father is trying to break it up, but it is too late.”

Hearing him, Rick spun around. “What do you mean bonded? There is no such thing. That’s fiction and—”

“It’s not fiction,” said one of the she-wolves—the one similar to Margarete. “If a pair of wolves mate under the full moon after a hunt, sometimes it creates a life bond which cannot be broken. You’ll be a slave to her forever. Her scent alone will drive you mad.”

Rick felt like she had thrown the furniture at him. Her words trapped him under their weight. That was exactly how he felt when he thought of Daisy. Exactly.

“Well, I guess this means we can’t tempt him with a better chance at a mate,” Mathieu said, glancing to the ladies.

Narrowing his eyes at Mathieu, Rick then looked at the two she-wolves. He snapped, “Is that why you brought them along?”

Mathieu apologetically shrugged while the other he-wolves nodded with almost pornographic smirks.

“We had been profiling your type,” Louis drawled out. “But I guess someone beat us to the trick.”

“My type?” But Rick’s head was swimming. He felt so lost. At that moment he just wanted to find the Wolverton pack and get back with Daisy. Had he really bonded with her to the point of no return? Did he no longer have a choice in his mate? Was that why those two she-wolves, though both attractive, smelled off to him?

“Yes,” Louis said, grinning with enjoyment at him. “You seem to be attracted to women who are not flamboyant. Down to earth. Pretty, but not with a lot of makeup. Someone sweet, and yet I think, a reader. You also like the athletic type for some reason. We have found pictures of you with various women of this type. There is one very pale one, who looks like a vampire—”

“Eve,” Rick muttered, wondering if she would ever forgive him for sleeping with a girl out of wolfish passion.

“—who doesn’t quite fit, so we must assume she has an amazing personality.”

Rick glared at him. “Eve McAlliser, the girl you are mocking, is a vimp. That means if you insult her, she could reach into your chest and rip out your heart without you even knowing she was there.”

Louis stared. For a second he looked like he might wet himself.

So did the others.

“You don’t know my type,” Rick growled. “You will always get it wrong.” He turned to walk away. Yet in the second his lifted his eyes to the stairs, he noticed what looked like that McDillan relative and that other hunter whose wolf whistle had burned up.

The delegates of the French pack were about to go also, not quite as upset as they had been earlier—considering their meeting an interesting discovery that clearly they believed could eventually be worked to their advantage.

Rick immediately whipped around and pulled them back to their corner. “Wait!”

“Do you have more to discuss?” Mathieu asked, clearly confused.

Rick feverishly shook his head. He silently gestured to the stairs where the hunters were coming down. Those men had not seen him yet, but he could tell that somehow they had tracked him to that floor. But he had no time to ponder on their methodology.

“Hunters,” he whispered.

The Loup Garou stiffened. Their eyes wildly stared toward the descending twosome.

Rick pulled them all further into the shadow. “Ok, this is what we are going to do. I will run distraction—”

“You will what?” Louis and Mathieu stared in shock. The others trembled, pulling back.

Growling at them, Rick said, “As much as I don’t like the Loup Garou right now, you are wolves. And I protect wolves.”

They stared with an overwhelm of amazement, shivers going down their arms. It was likely they had never known a wolf like him before. Or they had assumed things about him which were entirely untrue. 

“Now, I am going to draw them away,” he said. “Don’t move from here until they have followed me. Then walk slowly, as if you aren’t aware of what they are. Calm-like. Got it?”

They nodded.

Rick quietly walked along the wall to get as far from the pack Loup Garou representatives as he could so the hunters’ eyes would be draw away. Then, he marched straight to the opposite stairs, going up.

“Deacon!”

Rick turned for a dramatic look, pretending to be surprised, then darted up the rest of the stairs, going faster.

The hunters who had gone down at a lazy, tracking pace now rushed to the bottom floor, ran across and went up again after Rick. They were fit enough that they could have caught up with him if he hadn’t already known the floorplan of the building. But he had also studied that the night before, and was well prepared for any escape paths he might need—just in case. In this case, he took another route to