Most Eligible Wolf, Julie Steimle [important of reading books .TXT] 📗

Matt added, thinking about the kind of trouble that was.

Rick nodded to him. “Yeah. And that. I want to help them.”

“The pack?” Randon asked, confused.

“The Blithes,” Rick said earnestly. He then shook his head. “Mrs. Blithe is human—like my mom. She was tricked into marrying a wolf—a lot like my mom. I gotta make good by her. Especially since Mr. Blithe is a nasty sort of wolf, and not in the slightest bit reasonable like my dad.”

“She’s a captive?” Tom murmured, his eyes widening.

“An escapee, now,” Matt replied, nodding.

Rick nodded also. “Exactly.”

“What can you do to help her?” Randon asked, wondering how a person could hide from a werewolf pack that was searching for you. That idea kind of freaked him out, actually.

“What can’t he do?” Tom snorted with a mocking look Rick’s way.

Matt raised his eyebrows. It was good point. Rick was stinking Rich and knew a lot of people around the world—including the Monkey King in China.

“I need to talk to Dad,” Rick said. “And we gotta find Kurt before they do—even if he isn’t at the convention. You guys can help me with that, right?”

Matt frowned. “I’ll have to see what I can do. I’m not supposed to be using police resources for personal projects.”

“You could talk to Officer Johnson who tends to—”

“No, no,” Matt cut Rick off. “Officer Johnson has been sticking strictly to homicide lately. I’ve actually been fielding his supernatural connections these days.”

“Really?” Rick looked surprised. Officer Johnson had always been their go-to guy in the NYPD. This was change. He was about to mention Joshua Johnson, his son, next, but he was sure JJ was also sticking to Homicide.

Matt grinned. “Me and Jessica, yeah.”

Rick laughed, realizing that both Matthew and Jessica really were an upgrade to a poor harried, yet sympathetic cop. He then winked. “Don’t get too comfortable with Jessica. I think Abey is getting a tad too jealous. On the China trip, he actually thought Jessica was getting too ‘cozy’ with you.”

Delivering Rick a dry look, Matt said, “That was your shenanigans and nonsense and you know it. You wanted him to be jealous so he’d do something rather than take his gal for granted.”

“But now they are engaged, and I don’t want you to have trouble,” Rick explained with a crooked grin.

Matt waved it away. “No worries. I’m used to being passed over by awesome women.”

Rick closed one eye, and smirked at him. “Are you counting Eve on this one?”

Matt shrugged, but he was smothering a laugh. “What can I say? If she wasn’t so into Hanz, I’d be your competition.”

Rick laughed. As much as he liked Eve McAllister a ton, the actuality of him ending up with her had never really been that great. She was only ever interested in him as a friend, and his addiction to Daisy now precluded his attraction to Eve. Matt probably had a better chance with her anyway. Eve liked ordinary humans, especially the virtuous ones. That was the impression that Rick got of Hanz Johaansen when he had finally met him.

The guy Hanz was a tall dignified sort of man of Nordic stock. He wasn’t quite Thor level manly, but he carried responsibility like a second skin. An active church goer, Hanz had even dedicated two years of his life to missionary service before returning to college to his pre-med program. Eve loved that. The most interesting thing about him was that Hanz didn’t come from a well-off family. He was a self-made man. In fact, he had paid for his own education through years of hard work. He was there at the university on a merit based on scholarship, and he totally deserved it. Rick could not blame Eve for being totally and entirely gone on the guy. He himself kind of wished he was like Hanz. Hanz inspired people that way.

But Rick’s current problem in more mucky realms of life as a less pure individual fraught with heaps of difficult-to-ignore temptation drew him back to the unfortunate present. The Wolverton pack were trying desperately to get him, along with Kurt and his family, back into their pack. And the temptation to go with them was almost overpowering. He was glad his friends were there to prevent him. However, Rick felt the opposite for Kurt and the rest of the Blithes. He was determined to save them from his fate.

“I’m going to find a private place to call my dad,” Rick said, nodding to the others.

“Don’t go too far,” Matt warned, looking about the convention center.

Rick nodded, searching for a recessed doorway. His mind went over all the places he knew he could take Mrs. Blithe for safety. The Colorado pack came to mind, but he quickly brushed it off. Despite that Luko, Susi, and Kurt would have liked to have been safe among some other wolves, Mrs. Blithe would not have wanted to go from one pack to another. And she didn’t deserve to be surrounded by wolves the rest of her life.

Odd Conversations

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Eight

 

 

Troy was late. But he told himself that his friends would not mind so much as long as he came. They had not really hung out since that ski trip two years ago. A lot had happened since. Mostly college for him, but for his friends he knew they had been seriously busy with life-changing things—especially his best friend Randon who was finally free from his witch mother and sister and had no need to hide anymore, and Rick who finally found his mother.

He had missed Rick’s panel, which he honestly was sad about because he wanted to see the future CEO at work. In his mind, Rick was still that incorrigible thirteen-year-old kid who snuck out of windows to watch the Macey’s Thanksgiving Day parade, skillfully dismantled security systems, went off to rented-out gyms on full moons to hunt rabbits, and obsessed with basketball—not always in that order. The angsty guy was now a responsible adult taking on the world, and Troy wanted to see it for himself.

Troy marched through the large convention hall, gently rubbing his hand over his bandaged (and perpetually sore and currently not leaking) vampire bite-wound on his neck. Those wounds never healed. But when it wasn’t leaking, he knew he was safe from vampires, and so he walked around the place with confidence. Of course in daylight that wasn’t a problem anyway, as vampires (contrary to modern TV and movies) could not abide even a smidgeon of sunlight. But it was a sign there were no vampires sleeping in any near hotel room either. That said, looking for a werewolf, a half-imp, a witch’s familiar, and a psychic in a huge crowd of humans was not an easy thing.

Up until he saw the booth.

Troy lurched to a halt, staring at the tee-shirts that displayed the rust haired wolf he had seen so many times on so many full moons in the past. The wolf looked war weary and scarred—but it was definitely Rick.

“Hey, you seem familiar,” a woman at the booth said. She seemed familiar too, though Troy did not know from where exactly. She was a pretty kind of gal. Granola pretty—the kind of gal who liked camping and hiking, though her bushy brown hair was not quite in braids as one would expect from that kind of person, but hastily tied back to keep out of her face. He doubted he met her in this city as generally he hadn’t been back to New York since he had graduated from Gulinger—mostly because New York City was where his parents (who were the vampires who had bitten him) lived. And he had never been to NYU.

Troy approached the booth. “Uh… sorry?”

She smiled, pointing. “You are another friend of Rick Deacon’s aren’t you?”

“Not another one,” one of her booth-mates said.

Troy laughed. “I take it some of my friends have been here then?”

“Which group is he friends with?” one of them asked, flinching.

The woman who had first addressed Troy, nodded. “Yes. Rick Deacon, his friend Randon, and Tom Brown were here not too long ago.”

“Not too long ago…” Troy murmured, thinking. He looked to her. “Do you know where they went?”

The others in the booth looked immediately relieved. Troy was not going to linger and being one of ‘those friends’ apparently did not bother them as some other friends of Rick.

The woman pointed the way.

However, before heading in that direction, Troy’s eyes went back to the wolf tee shirts again. He gestured to them. “How much are they selling for?”

She smiled. “Twenty dollars.”

Chuckling, Troy dug out his wallet. As he fished up the money, he said, “How did you get the wolf to—?”

Moaning, she replied as if it were the thousandth time she has had to answer that question, “It was on the ski trip when I met you. If you recall, I tranquilized the wolf and dug a bullet out of his leg.”

Troy blinked and stared at her. He finally recognized her. “Oh yeah… the vegan.”

Her booth-mates laughed.

The woman hung her shoulders and moaned, gazing skyward. 

But Troy smiled. Not only had she saved Rick’s life from silver poisoning, Rick had also told them about the previous night the hunters had come around and how she had been instrument in catching those who had shot him. Looking at the tee shirts, Troy saw apparently she was fond of the wolf.

“Did you say you were one of Rick Deacon’s friends?” A young man somewhere in his late teens approached Troy from around the side of another booth. He had a tanned, backwoods roughness to him, though he had all his teeth and was quite healthy. His eyes looked a little haunted, though

Troy pulled back, eying him carefully. “Who’s asking?”

Sighing, the young man peeked over his shoulder as someone in that booth remarked that he was back… just like ‘that Wolverton group’. The young man flinched at the sound of that name, but quickly looked to Troy to see if he knew about those others also. Hesitantly, he said, “I’m looking for him. My name is Kurt. Kurt Blithe. And I need his help. We were friends once.”

Frowning a little, Troy remained cautious.

But Kurt gestured to him to come closer.

However, Troy had learned a long time not to get into biting distance of people, regardless that vampires were not awake it the day time and they were currently in a public place.

So, stepping from the booth into the shadow of the other one, Kurt whispered, “Look. I don’t think Rick would have mentioned to me to anyone. I am part of a past I am sure he is trying to forget. But he is the only friend of mine I can trust right now, and my only hope. Please. Can you find him and give him a message for me?”

This time Troy did step closer. The guy was not going to bite him and he seemed genuinely in trouble. Admittedly, he was going only on personal impressions and not any real evidence.

“Ok…” Troy watched him carefully as he took another step nearer. He glanced to the NYU booth behind him to make sure no one was overhearing them. And though all the others were not listening in, that one vegan lady seemed to be hiding that she was.