Grimm Wolf - Julie Steimle (fantasy novels to read .txt) 📗

salt-and-pepper hair. She leaned near and whispered in strong, French-accented English, “Monsieur Blanc of the Loup Garou Society is summoning you.”

Pulling back toward the mattress, Rick winced. “What? No. Look, tell Monsieur Blanc I am convalescing. I can’t leave the hospital, and I am in no mood to talk to the Loup Garou.”

“This is not a request,” she said coldly, rising.

Shooting her a dirty look, Rick tried to sit up better. “I am not beholden to the Loup Garou. I am not a member of your pack.”

“You are in Paris,” she bit back, but did not get closer to him. “Therefore you will answer to the Loup Garou.”

“Tom!” Rick raised his voice.

Tom jogged in, glanced once at the nurse then plopped on the end of Rick’s bed. “What?”

“Can you escort this wolf out of here?” Rick pointed to the nurse.

“Wolf?” Tom lifted his eyebrows.

Nodding, Rick said to the she-wolf’s shock, “Yes, she apparently is an emissary of the Loup Garou Society. She claims they have summoned me.”

“Oh.” Tom then turned toward the nurse, grinning crookedly. “Sorry lady, but you are not permitted in this room. H. Richard Deacon is currently resting. You can submit your requests in writing to the HR department.”

She gaped, staring first at Tom who was in sunglasses and a suit again, a nice clean one, and then at Rick who was waving good-bye from his bed. Tom easily shoved her out, then closed the door behind him while he also exited the room. Rick knew he was heading out to speak to the staff about who can and cannot visit his wounded friend. When he returned, he shut the door and sat on the end of the bed to talk to Rick.

“So… that wolf pack found you.” Tom huffed in annoyance.

“I told you staying in Paris was a bad idea,” Rick said. “You knew why.”

Nodding, yet irritably, Tom then chuckled. “Yeah, but how was I supposed to tell your friends? You hadn’t given me permission yet to talk about those French wolves or your connection to them. Am I allowed to now?”

Cringing, Rick really wished they had just gone on to England. But his friends had been right. He was unconscious when they had reached the hospital, and he was in dire need of blood. They didn’t think it wise to wait any longer. However… that was finished. He was no longer at death’s door.

“We need to leave Paris now.” Rick started to tug at all his tubes to get them out.

Tom sprang up and pushed him back down. “No, no, no. You stay here. I will guard you.”

Groaning, Rick shook his head. “Come on! This is a bad idea. I know they’re going to send more people now that they have found me. We need to check me out and get me home. I can get a saline drip or whatever in Massachusetts.”

“Better in New York,” Tom muttered, still preventing him. “You’ve got witches in your hospital back in Massachusetts.”

Rick painfully laughed as Tom, of course, was right. But then he thought of Emory and Rhett. “How about England? I need to see those guys. I need to apologize.”

Tom climbed off the bed, shaking his head. “No. Not yet.”

It surprised Rick. He stared at Tom. “Why not?”

Cringing, Tom backed away with a painful, almost agonizing shrug. “They need time to process what happened to them. And that means they need space.”

The silence of his unspoken words sank into Rick. He closed his eyes, shuddering. “From a werewolf, you mean.”

Cringing more, Tom nodded.

The beeps of the machines was all the sound in the hospital room again. Rick closed his eyes, wishing the last two days away. If he could only just rewind that trip. If only they could have skipped Cochem. Or just switched to Italy. He didn’t know any werewolves in Italy, packs or singular ones. Italy would have been safe.

“How long do you think…?”

“I don’t know,” Tom said, shoving his hands into his pockets. “I had just spoken with Peter on the phone, and he says Rhett is going to need major surgery on his leg. Possibly amputation. The tourniquet cut off more blood flow than… well, I think you understand.”

Rick clenched his jaw, wishing even harder they had never even come to Europe.

“I know you’ll want to pay for it and everything,” Tom murmured low, “But, uh, they’re already showing signs of PTSD. And Peter is not sure how they’ll react when they see you. They’re still kinda freaking out that you are a werewolf.”

Nodding, Rick knew they would. They probably felt betrayed. Lied to. He had when he had first found out he was a werewolf. It took forever to get over his anger at his father. And his mother had not wanted to see him for years. It had been an accident of chance that he had been able to find her and reconcile with her. And she still wasn’t used to his wolf form. 

“Look,” Tom said, “We can—” The door opened behind him. He quickly turned around as things happened quickly. Rick sat up, recognizing the scents of those who had stepped in. Tom opened his mouth in protest, but immediately Rick heard an electric zapping sound.

Tom collapsed, dropping to the floor, out cold.

Looming in the doorway was Daniel Deschamps, that giant lumberjack-like werewolf whom had met as part of a Loup Garou delegation at his first environmental convention while in his freshman year of college. With him were two others. One was a wolf man he had not seen since he was last in Paris back when he was only seventeen years of age—a curly haired dude with wolfish mutton chops who dressed a bit like a rock star wearing an open leather shirt. The other was someone he had seen at that same party way back then, but hardly knew. All three were huge. And behind them was that same nurse, this time with a wheelchair.

Rick stared, backing away. “Now wait a minute—”

“You have been summoned,” that guy with the rock star look said, gazing darkly on Rick. “And you will not deny—”

“Dude! I’ve already had a hellish three days. Come on….” Rick snatched his saline bag off the hook and pulled back to get away. He had to get out and run.

They advanced on him.

“You will come willingly, or you will be tazed,” Daniel Deschampes said.

Shooting him the dirtiest look, Rick then peered over to where Tom lay unconscious on the floor. “Ah man… Tom?”  

Tom did not wake.

The three he-wolves grabbed him. They even took the saline bag. Rick didn’t have the strength to fight, though he tried.

Disconnecting and turning off the machines, the Loup Garou wolves forced Rick into the wheel chair. The nurse—who apparently was a real nurse at that hospital—pulled out a syringe and shot into one of the tube drips for the saline, a sedative. In seconds, Rick could no longer sit up on his own.

“Oh crap…” He murmured as his breathing slowed. His head felt heavy.

They wrapped a hospital blanket over his bare legs and wheeled him out of the room. Weakly, Rick looked back at Tom who remained unconscious on the floor.

They steered Rick through the halls and out of the hospital without hardly any interference from doctors or nurses, taking him to a van outside. Rick was in no condition to run, let alone stand. Escape was not possible. And as they lifted him into the van and strapped him into a seat, taking the wheelchair along, Rick closed his eyes and prayed for help. None of his friends were with him now. And only Tom knew about the Loup Garou.

“Wake up,” Rick murmured, unable to move, his head lolling against the headrest as one of the he-wolves climbed into the driver’s seat. “Wake up… dammit. Tom…”

“You have been a bad wolf,” that rock star wolf said, climbing into the seat next to Rick. His breath stank of peppermint and recently chewed meat.

Gazing at him through bleary eyes, Rick mumbled, “This is kidnapping.”

Laughing, pulling the van doors closed, the guy said, “That’s what you said last time.”

“So you haven’t improved much,” Rick muttered.

The he-wolf snorted, then gestured for the driver to go.

“Ne pas narguer le, Theon,” Daniel Deschamps said from the passenger side seat. “Il est toujours un Deacon. Vous savez que c'est pourquoi ces Allemands n'ont pas réussi à le tuer.”

Theon snorted more. He then pushed Rick’s face, grabbing his nose next and pulling on it. “Tu te moques de moi? Il est si faible en ce moment, il ne peut même pas m'empêcher de le faire.”

Rick could not lift his hand to stop him. That jerk Theon tugged on his ears next, then his hair, pulling up from his scalp. Rick’s teeth elongated from the pain, and he snapped at Theon’s hand.

The French werewolf jerked back his hand, his eyes wide with shock that Rick would move.

“Je te l'avais dit,” Daniel Deschampes said with a degree of smugness, then looked back to the road.

They drove through Paris with deliberate speed—not quite fast, but carefully. There was no way Rick could slip out for an escape. He had slipped into unconsciousness twice during the trip—and they had unintentionally woken him when they arrived at the Loup Garou headquarters when Daniel was lifting him out of the van to the wheelchair. And even then, he could hardly lift an arm, let alone stand on a leg to run away. They could kill him easily.

Rick silently prayed once more for help. “Please, God…”

“You are praying to the wrong deity, heretic,” Theon said, walking alongside the wheelchair as they headed to the building. “You should have put your faith in the goddess. And now you have to pay for your sins.”

Lifting is eyes darkly on that wolf, Rick breathed out, “There is no way I am going to pray to some damn elf.”

The wheelchair lurched to a halt.

“What?” Daniel Deschamps, who had been pushing it, bristled.

“Il est un hérétique,” Theon said with vanity, shaking his head at him. “Je te l'avais dit. Ces Deacon sont. Et il recevra sa juste récompense.”

Daniel Deschamps continued to push the wheelchair towards the building, nodding. But he was growling in his throat. “Bien. Il sera puni assez tôt.”

“Be more honest,” Rick groaned out, understanding their French. They had called him a heretic. “And call me infidel. I never believed in your damn goddess. And I don’t want to.”

The wheelchair halted once more. The he-wolf pushing it hunched down, hissing into Rick’s ear, “Do you really want to dig your grave deeper, Deacon? You are already in for grievous punishment for bringing hunters against your fellow wolves.”

Growling, but weakly as he could hardly lift his head, Rick replied, “No. Against man-eaters who were trying to kill my friends.”

With a pompous snort, Theon laughed out. “Humans are not fit to be wolf friends.”

A snarl built up in Rick’s throat as he heaved his head off the back of the seat with the desire to bite that foul wolf.

Daniel Deschamps pushed him back down in his seat then shoved the wheelchair quicker to the door.

The other he-wolf opened it.

Rick wished he had the strength to run. He knew he was going back into a den of dangerous wolves. And this time, he would not be able to get away. They would kill him. Though Tom knew about the Loup Garou Society, Tom did not know where they were located in Paris, and it was not in any internet directory. It was a wolf secret entirely.

They pushed the wheelchair further into the building, taking Rick not to the lounge where he had been last time he visited the Loup Garou in Paris, but even deeper into the building to a larger room. They knocked on the door and were immediately let in.

Inside, the room was like one of those large medieval type arenas with wooden seats all around, gazing down on the center square—only this floor was nice, with slick marble tile like it was a ballroom. The lights