Most Eligible Wolf - Julie Steimle (e novels to read TXT) 📗

the wolf. “Like I said before, you don’t sound much like a wolf preservationist.”

With a glance to Kurt who was laughing at what she had said, Rick moaned as he answered to the ceiling, “I am doing my darndest to preserve that wolf—as I told you.”

“Make that eight shirts,” Matt said, cackling, a wicked look forming in his eye.

“Gah!” Rick grabbed his hair, groaning. He marched away from the booth in huff. Apparently that had pushed him over the edge.

Randon and Tom quickly chased after him, latching onto him again so he could not get away. So did Kurt. Matt remained behind, laughing at his private joke. Audry could hear Tom singing the words to that eighties song… “I’m too sexy for this shirt. Too sexy for this shirt… so sexy it hurts!”

“Shaddap!” Rick shouted.

It was the most perplexing behavior. Audry just didn’t get it. The weirdest things upset him.

Her eyes set on Matt. She sighed as she dug up and counted eight larges and rolled them together to hand to Matt. When she passed them over in exchange for cash, she said, “Though I like the fact that you are supporting the cause—you really are doing this to bug Rick, aren’t you?”

Matt laughed. “Too obvious?”

She nodded. “Though I don’t get why it bugs him. Not exactly. Something about keeping the wolf safe… though I swear he just seems embarrassed—like I took a nude pinup of him and am selling it.”

Matt blinked at her, his face showing astonishment.

That wasn’t right, was it?

She glanced back at the wolf on the hanging tee shirts. “It is a good-looking wolf, but in the end it’s just a wolf.”

“Right…” Nodding, Matt grinned at her. He took the shirts, saluted and said, “Well, I am sorry you will be missing the wedding. Jessica is fond of you. And honestly, I think it would be kind of cute if you and Rick got together.”

Audry automatically laughed at that, imagining it and all their future arguments. “Are you kidding? A cynical vegan—as he likes to call me—and a what? A rich playboy?” She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

With a sigh, Matt saluted her again. Yet he paused yet once more before and said, “Don’t think of him as a playboy. You should know that is not true. He is not a playboy. If anything… think of him as that wolf.”

With a nod, he finally walked away.

What a weird thing to say…. Rick. As that wolf?

Audry gazed at the wolf, his soulful eyes and scars. It reminded her of the kooky dreams she had had ages ago when doing her Master’s research on his land that winter a while ago. She had dreamed he was the wolf and the wolf was him. What a funny notion…

“Ooh.” Jandra stared after him. “Too bad that boy doesn’t have the hots for you.”

Audry flushed chuckling. Matthew Calamori was a decent guy, but not really her type. He was a city boy and a completely straight shooter—despite how much he was teasing his friend. And she wanted a guy who didn’t mind rolling around in the dirt a bit and had a slightly mischievous side. She was forever drawn to troublemakers besides. Her fatal flaw. And Matt was a cop. Not a good match.

“He’s trying to set you up with rich boy, eh?” Jandra asked.

Chuckling, a little mystified, Audry nodded. “Yeah.” Yet she shook it off. “But then almost everyone who is close to Rick tries to. It’s weird.”

“They must really like him then,” Jandra said, smiling at Audry. “Because you are one smokin’ gal.”

Audry laughed, sure Jandra was teasing.

She went back to the boxes to sort out the remaining shirts.

There were only a few left in the boxes. Nearly all the posters had sold out. So did all the postcards. Audry figured they should keep at least one tee-shirt and one poster for display as they still needed a draw to the booth for information and donation sign-ups.

As she sorted out which ones they had left, Audry’s hand set on a small rock-hard thing in the bottom of the box. Ducking her head in, she pulled the box out from under the table. Her fingers around the hard thing, her eyes focused on the little jar of balm in her hand. Daisy’s balm. That succubus had forgotten it.

Gently screwing off the lid, Audry sniffed the contents.

Nothing really. It still mostly smelled like a weak insect repellant, if that. Oily.

Audry was half-inclined to drop it in the nearest trash bin, but something in her made her to tuck it into her jeans pocket and keep it. Despite Daisy’s failed scheme to seduce Rick as a demonstration of her sexual superiority, Audry could tell the balm actually had some effect on him. The entire encounter had been surreal. For one, Rick’s behavior had changed upon catching the scent of that skank. And two, that during Daisy’s attempt to seduce him, he kept peeking to her (Audry) as if she were an anchor to sanity. Audry thought it was weird.

So it was possible that the balm did increase the scent of that woman’s pheromones. There were scientific studies about how scent affected pairing up among animals, and among humans. Perfume did serve a function, after all. So, feeling the balm in her pocket, Audry decided to keep it—for experimental purposes of course. But… what if she used it as perfume on a date? Or at a party to see if it attracted any men. Or saved it for her wedding night?—if that ever happened. There was no point in discounting something until she had tried it. Simple as that.

But not tonight, Audry told herself as she went back to work.

Maybe later.

*

“I can’t believe I had to bail you all out of jail!” Wilk MacTire tromped out of the NYPD police station toward the parking lot, broiling inside. His sister the only one who had not been arrested.

“At least they didn’t press charges,” Tola said, rubbing in lotion over her rash.

Wilk halted, glaring at her and then at the others. “It was supposed to be a discrete operation. What happened?”

“He has special friends,” Farkas groaned. “One was a cop.”

“The other was a demon,” Wulf said. He looked like he wanted to bite Tom Brown’s throat out. “I don’t know how he did it, but he made things fly at us from off tables!” He was also scratching a nasty rash.

Wilk stared. “That wasn’t made up?”

All of them shook their heads.

He then looked to Thomas. “What about you? You got arrested for loitering outside an apartment of a cop.”

Thomas ducked his head. “I’m sorry. I really thought they had believed me. I practice what to say, and I was prepared. Their psychic friend affirmed I wasn’t lying, and that demon who apparently can read your naughty thoughts didn’t seem like he didn’t believe what I had said.”

“They just didn’t trust you,” Daisy snorted. “Because you are one of us.”

“And what about you?” Wilk turned on her. “I heard you screwed it up big time. You had set Rick on guard because you were jealous of another girl. One that he knew.”

Daisy moaned. “Ugh. Ok. That was a big mistake. I am sorry. But I did get with him eventually.”

They all stared at her, drawing in breaths. She hadn’t told them.

“You did?” Farkas got excited.

Daisy nodded, but not cheerfully. “Yes. The problem was, while we were in the middle of sex, his friends barged in on us and broke us apart. I don’t think I got pregnant. It don’t think it got that far.”

They stared.

“And they…” Daisy shook her head with heavy grief. “And they are going to do everything to keep us apart.”

Wilk stared at his sister. Dismay settled heavily on him. The entire operation was a bust.

“So, now what?” Luko asked.

“You leave him alone,” a woman nearby said.

They all looked. It was a police officer in a blue uniform. She appeared about their age—in her twenties—with brown hair braided back and pinned into a bun, brown eyes, and a healthy tan. She was fit, and somehow she exuded danger. She was not a cop to mess with.

She also wore a red crystal on a chain around her neck.

“Excuse us,” Wilk said, urging his group to move on their van.

“I mean it,” the police officer said, approaching them. “If you mess with Rick Deacon, you are messing with your own lives.”

“Excuse me?” Wilk faced her now, his shoulders squaring as he stood to his full height, taller than her.

“You heard me,” the officer said. “Leave Rick Deacon alone.”

“And who are you?” Wilk asked stiffly.

But Daisy’s eyes went wide. She tugged on his arm for him to listen to her. He ignored her, though.

“Jessica Mason,” the cop said, not using her work title—which was odd. But then she tagged on, “A member of the Holy Seven.”

All the folks from Wolverton shuddered, eyes widening on her.

“I was trying to tell you!” Daisy hissed to Wilk.

“You know her?” Wilk whispered back, surprised.

Rolling her eyes, Daisy hissed, “I did my research on him, fool! She’s his best friend’s girlfriend.”

“Fiancée now,” Jessica replied, her hearing apparently very good. “But I like to think of myself as Rick’s friend also. And I am Audry’s friend—the girl whom you harassed at the conference center.”

They all took a step back.

“You leave that normal human alone,” Jessica warned. “She doesn’t know anything about the supernatural, and we are keeping it that way. You don’t get to mess with other people’s lives just because you want something your way.”

Daisy bristled, her hackles raising.

Jessica pointed her finger at her in particular. “And if you ever mess with Rick like that again, so help me, I will hunt you down myself and gut you.”

“She’s alone right now, you know,” Thomas hissed. “There’s only one of her.”

Wilk shot him a dirty look. “We are in the city! Have some sense!”

“Rick would kill you, besides,” Farkas snapped through his teeth. “Where’s your brain? We should go.”

But Daisy looked like she wanted to bite out Jessica’s throat right there. Wilk had to grab her by her arm to pull her back.

Out of the station walked three other cops. Two looked related like father and son—tall with dark hair, and one was Matt—whose house Thomas had been lurking around after he had followed the tracking device set in the deck of cards he had given Tom Brown.

“By the way, the Blithe family is now under our protection,” Jessica called after them.

A shudder ran through them.

It was over.

The Seven knew about the Blithes, and apparently Rick had betrayed the pack. They could no longer trust him.

“Let’s go,” Wilk said, gesturing to the van.

Only Daisy resisted. The others knew they had lost. Wilk has to steer Daisy to the van, pushing her in. He got in the driver’s seat, and the drove off. It was clear they had to move their location again—and ditch the van, just in case they were being tracked. He knew once you made yourself an enemy of the Holy Seven, it was over for your pack. And he didn’t want it to go that far.

They drove off, heading out of New York City as fast as they legally could go.

 

Elsewhere, in Colorado, the Blithe family stepped out of a non-descript van from a long road trip. Mrs. Blithe gazed at the wide open blue sky and drew in a breath of fresh air. Her frizzy pulled-back hair was sticking up in funny angles from leaning against the window as she had slept most of the way—at peace for the first time in a long time. Her shining blue eyes scanned the mountains on the horizon.

“It is so beautiful,” Mrs. Blithe murmured.

Her daughter Susi, who was about sixteen now, smiled at the wildflowers and the wide open fields. She grinned especially at the horses, hoping that maybe she get to learn how to ride one. Her little brother Luko, who was nine, ran out the van door toward the grass, just glad to be out of the