Her Perilous Wolf by Julie Steimle (best e book reader TXT) 📕

“Welcome to the party,” Bobo said to Vincent and Vicky, clearly leading Audry down the slope to the back end of the cabin. “Feel free to get drinks and mingle.”

“Uh, where are you taking Audry?” Vincent asked, following—though Vicky happily got herself a drink and introduced herself to a cluster of guys who were entertaining a group of gals.

Bobo looked back and said, “You can come too, I think.”

So he did.

They went down and around the building where on the beach side some people were playing night volleyball. Vincent noticed the long-sleeve guy had finally taken off his shirt. And Randon was with him. That guy Chen was flirting with a group of ladies, and Selena was entertaining a cluster of men, looking super hot in her summer dress. But Rick Deacon was sitting on the porch, a can of soda in his hand and an expression of someone who had been brooding. He lifted his head as if he had smelled Audry before he saw her.

Rick sat up straight. His eyes then flickered to Vincent. He rose from his seat. “Hi.”

Both Audry and Vincent nodded back.

“Uh,” Rick looked around for an extra chair. There were only two. Lifting his eyes to Audry again, then Vincent, he nodded to himself then said, “Care to take a walk?”

Gazing at him, at his open shirt which was a white, summer, short-sleeve one, buttoned up halfway, she nodded. “Ok.”

He pointed away from the cabin and down the beach.

All three went together.

Rick did not say much of anything until they were far enough for a normal conversation to not be overheard. With a look to Vincent, he said, “Um, Tom said you were watching us, uh, playing frisbee.”

Vincent cringed, ducked his head apologetically, and nodded.

“What exactly did you see?” Rick asked, watching him carefully.

Drawing a breath, Vincent shrugged. “I saw… you, a Chinese guy, and a bunch of dogs playing together. We just wanted to know how many dogs you had there.”

Yet Rick looked to Audry’s eyes. He shook his head. “That’s not what you want to know.”

She took a short step back from him. “I saw the wolf.”

Rick closed his eyes. He exhaled.

Vincent gazed awkwardly between them.

“And?” Rick asked, waiting for more.

“Why did you make him wear boxer shorts?” Vincent asked.

Rick peeked open one eye at him, amused if not astonished.

Audry rolled her eyes.

Witnessing this, and him, Vincent shook his head. “No way.” He pulled Audry another step from Rick, standing between them. “No. Way.  It is not possible.”

Audry exhaled. She rested her head on Vincent’s back, whispering, “What if it is?”

Taking in the pair of them, Rick nodded and stepped further back from them. He held out his arms. “Just say it. What do you both think?”

“I don’t believe it,” Vincent said, looking Rick up and down.

Rick cocked his head to the side. “Then why do you stay with your cousin? Why don’t you just enjoy the party and let her and me talk? If I am not what you won’t openly say what I am, then she is perfectly safe with me—because I would never hurt her.”

“I don’t know that,” Vincent exclaimed, his hand shaking. “Besides, I’m staying with her because she is scared. I think she has heatstroke and—”

“Vincent.” Audry, gently stepped from behind him taking hold of his hand and squeezing it. “I’m sure I don’t have heatstroke. I just need to…” she lifted her eyes to Rick who watched her with wolfish stare, “…find out the truth.”

“Then you find it out with me here,” Vincent hissed back, holding tight to her hand. “Alright?” He then glared at Rick. “Can you just dispel something for us? Audry’s had a difficult summer and—”

“Dispel what, exactly?” Rick asked, not wanting an explanation or a copout.

Huffing, Vincent said, “Audry’s got this funny, crazy notion in her head and—”

“I want to hear her ask it.” Rick looked pointedly to Audry. “It’s her question. She should be the one to ask me.”

Vincent glared at him. However, Rick was right. This, speaking for his grown cousin thing, was silly-childish—the kind of thing kids did in Jr. High. They had to handle it like rational adults.

Audry nodded, but her hands were shaking. Her eyes raked over Rick’s face, his hair, and his visible scars. “Tell me the truth. Are you the wolf?”

Rick’s eyes widened a bit. His breath grew heavier as if his heart had started to beat harder in his chest. He then lowered his head and nodded.

“I don’t believe it,” Vincent murmured.

Lifting one eye to him, Rick said, “Are you the kind of man who believes only his eyes? Or are you the kind of man who even when he sees, he does not believe?”

Vincent stared at him. “What?”

Shaking his head, Rick looked to Audry. “You see it now. The way you look at me. I can tell.”

“Did you attack your mother?” Audry asked in earnest.

“No.” Rick shook his head. “I was just as surprised as she was. It was my first full moon. I changed, and I didn’t even know what was happening.”

“But you scared her,” Audry argued, shivers running up her arms.

“Not on purpose,” Rick protested. His face contorted with intense remorse. “I’d never been a wolf before then. I thought I was talking to her and—”

“Wait, wait, wait! Stop!” Vincent got between them, shaking his head. “I’m sorry. I can’t buy this.” He pointed to Rick. “You’re just talking.” He pointed to Audry. “And you’re just buying it! He is not a werewolf!”

Audry stepped back. She looked to Rick who also made distance from Vincent.

“You need proof,” Rick said. He shook his head. “I almost never do this—except…” He looked to Audry. “Don’t scream.”

He took another step back from them. Then he shook himself as if having a convulsion. Hair immediately sprouted all over him like fast growing grass, as he fell on all fours—his legs thinning and thickening in the right places until he was standing on wolf paws. His face formed a wolf snout. But his hair was the same color and texture as he became a complete and real wolf—in the same clothes.

Vincent fell backwards into the sand. Audry slapped her hands over her mouth.

The wolf sat down his rump and lowered his head. Then he spoke with the human voice she knew, maw moving, “It was just two people playing frisbee. Chen and myself. All the other dogs were Chen.”

Audry’s eyes widened on him. It most definitely was her wolf, from his size, to his fur, to his scars. It really was him.

“It was a pack of werewolves that attacked us in Germany,” Rick-the-wolf said to her. “Rhett wasn’t lying to you. He saw the wolf because I was there. He just didn’t know I was a wolf until that pack went after him, and I was alone trying to stop them—at least until my other friends could finally get there and rescue us.”

The wolf then shook off all the hair and stood up on the beach as a man once more. He lost his tail. A pile of reddish brown fur was left all around him on the sand. Rick shook out his shirt and dusted off the rest of hair. He peeked up at them, guarded.

Vincent’s eyes went wide on Rick, his mouth open.

Rick looked to him, then up to Audry as he said, “I was trying to keep you safe from the world I live in.”

“The world of witches and curses and hunters…” Audry murmured, her gaze raking over him more as what she had just seen in all logical reason should not have happened. A man does not become a wolf. That was not real. At least, not in her reality.

“Yeah.” Rick nodded in earnest, glad she understood. He looked to Vincent and shook his head. “You two are good people. You come from great families, and follow worthy paths for life. I don’t want to ruin that. Now I can’t help what I am. Neither can my friends—”

“Those from Gulinger Private Academy.” Vincent found his voice, though still unable to stand.

Rick nodded to him. “Yes. It is a school where we protect and educate children afflicted by the supernatural, as well as from the mafia. The second is a favor for the government in agreement to keep everyone safe.”

Vincent paled. They were connected with the government?

“What about the SRA?” Audry asked. “They’re government, and they are tracking you and everyone you are connected to.”

“Which is exactly why we need to talk,” Rick said, nodding, taking a step closer to her.

Vincent quickly got up, holding onto Audry. “Wait. What is the SRA?”

“The Supernatural Regulators Association,” Rick explained. “But they’re not really government.”

Yet Audry cut in, “It’s a union for monster hunters. I thought they were nuts but—” she stared at Rick. “You’ve never harmed a soul.”

Rick shook his head, almost as if he were blushing, though they could not tell in the dark. “Not directly, no. But people who are connected to me and my family do get hurt. Which is why I want you to forget, or pretend you did not find out the truth.”

“You want her to lie for you?” Vincent asked. He started to feel sick.

“No,” Rick said, shaking his head. “I want you to lie for you. The SRA are unscrupulous. They would use you as bait to get to me.”

“Bait?” Vincent was already confused.

“Audry.” Rick nodded to her, his grays gazing in earnest at her. “Do you remember Stewart McGivens? From that one party?”

“I know him,” Vincent said. He was an old fraternity brother of his, but Rick clearly did not know that. Audry didn’t either.

Rick nodded, taking a breath. “Ok, good. Then you can confirm all this with him. Stewart knows what I am.”

“No way.” Vincent’s eyes went wide again. Stewart had not said a word, even at that party when he had first met Rick.

“Does Kim know?” Audry asked. “His wife?”

Rick shook his head. “No. Kim is safely ignorant—as are most of those in our old Junior League. The thing is, uh, way back when I was I still at Gulinger and I was attending Junior League functions with Selena, Stewart was a real good friend with this jerk there who was stalking Selena—I think you met him. Ewan Steed?”

Audry nodded, she recalled Ewan very well, and ‘jerk’ was fair description of him.

“Well, at that time Stewart had learned from the SRA what I was, and he was helping Ewan get Selena back from me—which did not happen because we weren’t actually dating. I was body guarding Selena because he would not leave her alone. It was all for show to get her grandparents off her back about marrying in her social class. But anyway—”

“What is she?” Vincent asked, looking back to the building where he had last seen that Mediterranean-looking woman. “There is something different about her.”

Rick nodded to him. “She’s part siren—uh, sea nymph. She could drown you with a cup of water, or talk you into walking off a tall building, if she wanted. There is something in her voice and, for that matter, her general presence that tempts men in particular.”

Audry shuddered, recalling how her family reacted when Selena had showed up at the family’s cabin.

“She liked me because she could not bully me with her voice. Wolf hearing,” Rick explained, rolling his eyes about more than just Selena. “The point is, the SRA used Stewart as bait. They were after me, but they did not care if Stewart got hurt in the process. In fact, they wanted me to bite him so they had excuse.”

“They what?” Vincent looked lost.

“So they could shoot you.” Audry nodded, following him. She knew some of their rules. She had read through their website out of curiosity once, though she had merely considered them insane believers in occultist things.

“Exactly,” Rick said. With a look back to the cabin, he heaved a sigh. He seemed weary of it all. “We should head back.”

“Can I ask another question?” Audry