The Loup Garou Society, Julie Steimle [reading tree txt] 📗

they had assumed that their tech could not possibly ever be used against them. Deacon Enterprises had a branch of tech research specifically for home security and signal scrambling. He did not like being spied on. And he figured the wolves he knew would not either. It was something he had intended to sell to civilized wolf packs once this entire deal was all over.

“Then where would he be?” Monsieur Blanc asked. 

“I don’t know,” Mr. Deacon replied, feeling comfort in that.

The white haired representative of the Loup Garou elders stepped closer to him. “Then call him.”

Squaring his shoulders, lifting his head, Mr. Deacon smiled wide. “No.”

Remy set a hand to his forehead, emitting painful exhale.

“I told you,” Mr. Deacon said. “I will not force my son to comply. He has made his choice.”

“It is a foolish choice,” Monsieur Blanc said though his teeth.

“I bed to differ,” Mr. Deacon replied, meeting his gaze strongly.

Just then, that man Remy got a call. He quickly answered it. Everyone in the hotel room seemed to hold their breaths as they listened in. Remy spoke in a hush, frowning as he listened to the one calling him.

“…I see. So, she went home alone then?”

They could not overhear the response.

“Alright, I’ll call the house next,” Remy said. “Thank you.”

“Who was that?” Monsieur Blanc asked him.

Wearily, clearly trying to keep professional, Remy replied, “It was Roland. He said Margarete went directly home and alone. The houselights went off at their usual hour. There was no meetup like I had suspected.”

“So then, where did he go?”

Mr. Deacon wondered why Howie would trust any one of them that would make the other wolves assume his son would go to a wolf’s home. Howie wouldn’t do that. He was street smart. He had lived in New York City for pity’s sake.

“We’re still checking the hostels,” Remy said to Monsieur Blanc.

“We’ll get a report on those soon,” the man-wolf in leather cut in, glancing to Remy in support. Mr. Deacon wished he would put on a shirt. That man-wolf looked foolish.

Monsieur Blanc nodded. He then turned his sharp eyes onto Mr. Deacon again. Mr. Deacon waited for whatever new kind of harassment the man designed to put him through next.  

Remy dialed another number on his phone. It took a while, but finally someone picked up.

“Genevieve.” He breathed hard, staring into space as if his life depended on the right answer from her. “…Yes it is me. I know… and I am sorry. I know I woke you, and it is late. Look. I need to know if Margarete is home, or maybe you can just hand the telephone to her so I can talk to her.”

He listened. As he did, his face almost automatically went white. Remy sneaked a quick peek at Mr. Deacon, then a more terrified one at Monsieur Blanc and Madame Freyna.

Remy whispered into the phone, “What do you mean she is sleeping over at a friend’s place? She just got home a few minutes ago.”

Everyone perked their ears.

“Yes, everyone is listening.” He massaged his forehead, which Mr. Deacon found odd. His son Howie did that when stressed or worried, or just fighting a headache. For a moment, he felt like he was watching Howie, only older.

“I see.” Remy then took in the expectant looks of everyone there. “Well, can you give me the address?”

Silence.

“Yes, I know I can call her,” he said. “But what good would that do? She’d lie to me.”

“What is this all about?” Mr. Deacon asked, approaching him but looking to the elders. “Who is this person he is talking about? Why is he so worried?”

Remy pulled back, looking like someone stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Monsieur Blanc turned to him, drew in a deep breath and said in the gravest of voices, “It is possible that your foolish son may have been lured away by a dangerous and disgruntled Loup Garou.”

“What?” Mr. Deacon stepped back. This was not expected. His son was smarter than that. He almost grabbed Monsieur Blanc’s suit front, but restrained himself. He was outnumbered after all.

He overheard Remy say, “Call me when she returns. She may have done something you both will regret.”

Remy then pressed END.

“Call her,” Monsieur Blanc ordered.

Remy nodded.

Monsieur Blanc then looked to another in his group. “Track it.”

The phone rang several times before going to voicemail. And when tracked with a device Mr. Deacon thought highly suspicious, the phone GPS showed that she was at her house.

The Loup Garou shared looks.

“Someone should go to the house,” one of them muttered.

“Genevieve might have lied,” another chimed in.

“Either way, it looks like Margarete has gone rogue,” Monsieur Blanc said, his face grim. “Again.”

Remy closed his eyes, shutting off his phone.

“Someone needs to find her before that boy ends up in the Seine.” Monsieur Blanc gravely turned to face the others. He then nodded to Mr. Deacon. “We will find him and rescue him. You have our word.”

Not sure how to take that, Mr. Deacon nodded. A rogue disgruntled Loup Garou. And he had not gotten a call from his son yet. It wasn’t midnight either. He wondered if he ought to break their rule, just this once.

The crowd of wolves trickled out. But as the other wolves discussed guard duty at his door for his ‘protection’, Mr. Deacon felt his cell phone vibrate in his pocket. As a rule, their phones were almost always on vibrate. They were on silent when they actually hunted. Glowing cell phone screens and the sound of vibrating tech would give them away in most situations and was not helpful.

He slipped his phone out of his pocket and checked it.

Howie’s first text came.

 

All fine. I skipped out on the party. I’m doing my best, so don’t worry.

 

Mr. Deacon tried to hide his relief, knowing his son at this particular moment was ok. It sounded like him at least. Not a fake. So he wasn’t kidnapped.

 Then the next one came.

 

I met one of my sisters. And you are right. Our family needs our help.

 

Met one of his sisters? Mr. Deacon looked up to the Loup Garou who were still discussing security detail. They had mentioned this Margarete and had described her as a disgruntled member of their pack. Indeed, that very well might be family. But did that make Howie safe? He wasn’t naïve, but he was kind to a fault sometimes. It came from being best friends with a pastor’s son… though also from rooming with a mischievous half-imp back at Gulinger. Mr. Deacon was never sure which one influenced his son the most. He hoped Howie wasn’t acting too rashly.

Then he got this text:

 

Did they tell you that Remy is your son yet?

 

Startled, Mr. Deacon jerked up his head to look at the remaining wolves. But Remy was gone—probably following after Monsieur Blanc like he always did. Two man-wolves remained, and stood at the open door.

“No.” Mr. Deacon marched at them and shooed them out. “I am tired, and you are not standing there like prison guards. OUT! I want my privacy.”

As such a forbidding man and wolf, both wolves fled as if they had been made of paper. Mr. Deacon locked the door. Then for added measure, he shoved a chair in front of it.

Looking at the text again, Mr. Deacon sat in that chair.

 

Did they tell you that Remy is your son yet?

 

Would they have ever told him? All those years he had come to Paris… All those years he had seen that particular young wolf working for the Loup Garou elders like a busboy and then a personal assistant—his son? Of course they wouldn’t tell him. They probably enjoyed ordering Remy around without him knowing who the boy was.

Then he wondered if it really was the truth. It could have been just a story that Margarete had told Howie to gain his trust.

And yet… Remy did seem a little like Howie. They had a similar way of standing, though Howie was more confident. Remy was browbeaten, though still strong. And their face shape was also alike. But then Mr. Deacon chuckled, realizing that Howie took after him in that respect. All of Howie’s coloring, from gray eyes to his rusty brown hair, was from his mother’s side. He realized now that Remy looked like him. Maybe Remy’s hair and skin coloring was after his mother. Remy’s eyes were the same amber as his own.

Howie was really doing it. He was finding them.

Mr. Deacon drew in a breath and heaved it out again. His scheme was working.

Rendezvous

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Six

 

 

Rick had slept like a log. When his alarm on his phone beeped him awake, he sat up dizzily, slid off the bed in the dark, and stumbled around for a light. Since there were no windows to that room, he could not see where he was going. He bumped into shelves and the ladder in front of the door, and he almost knocked over and broke the bottle he had set on the handle. Rick caught it before it hit the ground.

Then he groped for the switch, which was next to the door.

The light blinded him almost immediately, and he almost dropped the bottle to shield his eyes.

Groaning, Rick yawned and stretched, setting the glass bottle on a near shelf. Then he sniffed himself. He wished he had his clothes. Unfortunately, there had been no time to fetch his bag from the car’s trunk during his escape… even if he had been able to pick the lock.

He dropped to the bed and scratched his head, feeling groggy. Rick was never fond of jetlag, though he didn’t mind so much traveling. It reminded him of the days when his father and mother were still married. As a family, they had gone together to places like Berlin, Hong Kong, and Moscow. He was fond of Dubai, but he had not been there since he was thirteen. And he missed their summer trips to Cancun, Mexico. They had gone everywhere with his dad on business, his father always slipping off for three days around the full moon for short ‘private meetings’ not realizing that he had been transforming into a wolf and hunting during those times. Now Rick knew better.

Funny thing was, now that he thought about it, whenever his father had visited France, he had never been brought along, except to Nice or near the Belgium border. Never Paris. His mother occasionally went with his father to Paris, but he always ended up with their butler/manservant/jack-of-all-trades and current steward, Henry, on some trip in England. Though, once he and Henry went ahead to Rome where his father and mother later joined them. Rick wondered if back then Henry knew that his father was a werewolf. He probably had. Henry was in on the family secret long before Rick was. He had, after all, provided Rick the first furry animal for him to hunt in their family gym, and cleaned up all the blood afterward while Rick was traumatized by the experience. Looking on it now, Rick wondered where the Paris wolves hunted on the full moon, and what they ate. They must have owned land or gyms of their own for that purpose.

And thinking of eating, his stomach rumbled.

Sighing, Rick got