Wolverton by Julie Steimle (best romantic books to read TXT) 📕

with his wallet. All his cards were out, as well as his money. Luckily, the money was still there.

“I’m Mac Ulfur,” the giant said, extending a hand to Rick.

Shaking it, Rick felt overwhelmed, yet happy to have his things back. He grabbed his pants as soon as he could and pulled them on. But his shirt had blood splatter on the front and around the neck. “Ugh.” Rick lifted it up, staring at it. It definitely looked like someone had slit his throat.

“It can be washed out,” Mac said. “In cold water. And with soap. I don’t think it’s completely dried yet.

Rick nodded, deciding to go to the bathroom to find a sink to do just that.

“Why did you hunt with it on?” Kurt asked, amused, and following him.

Shrugging, Rick snatched up his wallet and all the cards, counting them to make sure everything was there. “I usually don’t. But, last night was an emergency. I was in a rush.”

Mac nodded. “Completely understandable.”

Kurt shrugged.

While in the restroom, Rick rinsing out the bloodstain in cold water under Mac’s direction, rubbing the fabric together to get it all out, Kurt asked, “How do rich lone wolves like you hunt?”

Scrubbing, Rick said, “Well… we try to find forested areas when we can and hunt there. But when we are in the city, we rent out gyms and bring in a chicken or a rabbit to hunt.”

“You rent a gym?” Kurt laughed. “What if someone is in it?”

Rick shook his head, amused. “No one but us is in it. We rent the entire building. Dad can afford to do that.”

“Really?” Kurt stared.

Mac nodded with a knowing look. “Mr. Deacon owns factories around the world. Our branch serves the greater part of the south. He’s got others in the north and out west. He’s a billionaire.”

Rick decided not to correct him, but they had more than just a billion or so in their fortune. It was embarrassing to talk about money.

“So you really have traveled all over the world,” Kurt murmured gazing enviously at him.

Rick nodded. “Yep. We’ve been all over.”

“Do the hunters follow you everywhere?” Kurt asked.

“Hunters?” Mac stared at Rick, his eyes raking over the scar on his shoulder and back.

With a nod, Rick explained, “There is a worldwide monster hunting union called the SRA—”

“Supernatural Regulator’s Association,” Kurt explained for Mac’s benefit.

“Good memory,” Rick laughed, nodding. “Anyway, they have a database on different targeted individuals, and they track where high profile werewolves go every full moon.”

“Do they know you are here?” Mac asked, truly concerned now.

Rick shook his head. “Nope. I really doubt it. Dad didn’t tell anybody about this scheme he had for me to visit and work at this factory except Henry, our steward, and the boss man Mr. Whidbee himself. And he did it all by courier, so no intercepted messages or anything. In fact, I am sure my father warned Mr. Whidbee that there are crazies who might make an attempt on my life and my safety was in his hands.”

“Which is why he is going nuts looking for you.” Mac moaned with a hand to his head.

Nodding, Rick chuckled. “Yep. And Mr. Whidbee doesn’t know I am a wolf.”

Mac shook his head tiredly. “Which explains his big mistake.”

Kurt snorted, standing back toward the bathroom stalls. “Major mistake. But, how many of your father’s employees know that you and he are werewolves?”

Rick shrugged and lifted up his wet shirt to examine the stain.

It was mostly gone. He could not quite get the edges of the blood stain out. But they were extremely faint, so it did not make that much of a difference.

“Seriously?” Kurt stared. “What about that guy Henry?”

“Oh, Henry knows.” Rick lowered his shirt, thinking about pulling it on. He wrung it out a few more times over the sink to get out the rest of the water. “He was with me when I had my first transformation.”

Both wolves went silent. The bathroom echoed. The drips of water from his shirt and faucet seemed incredibly loud all of a sudden.

“What?” Rick asked.

Mac peered into his face, trying to read it. “Didn’t you—”

“When did you have your first transformation?” Kurt stared, his face wrinkling in confused concern. “I mean, I don’t remember mine.”

“Oh.” Rick stared back. “That’s right. Most wolves change on their first full moon when they are pups.” He shook out the shirt, getting off the rest of the damp that he could. Then he pulled it on. “I had my first transformation when I was thirteen. My father didn’t even think I was a werewolf, though I had all the allergies—so he never even told me I was one until after the fact.”

They stared more.

“It scared the crap out of my mother,” Rick murmured, remembering the entire day vividly. “…Because she didn’t know either. Dad always went away on the full moon on ‘business trips’.”

“Oh.” Kurt stepped back. He nodded. “That’s why you said that to my mother.”

Rick shrugged. “My mother divorced my father over it. And I haven’t seen her since.”

They stared in silence.

“I’m so sorry,” Mac reverently murmured.

Gazing at him, Rick chuckled painfully. “I must be a freak among werewolves. The one who never knew and changed in puberty.”

“That isn’t so rare,” Kurt said.

Rick blinked at him, staring as he pulled back. “What? Really?”

Nodding, Kurt then gestured for them to leave the bathroom, since Rick seemed finished. “Yeah. Some wolves have a delayed reaction to the moon. I know a few guys who didn’t change until they hit puberty.”

“So I am not so weird,” Rick murmured. He also felt relieved.

Mac chuckled, amusement in his giant face. “No. Not very. But you do have unique wolf blood. You are probably a little more wolf than most. It does show in you right now. And I bet as a wolf, you are little more human.”

Rick had heard that said about him before. He was never sure if that was a compliment, or just a description. He’d like to think he had more self-control while as a wolf.

“We called it mingled-soul,” Mac explained. “It also means you are more agile in transformation. It does not take much for you to change.”

That was also true.

“It is also easy for someone to force me to change,” Rick muttered.

Nodding, Mac peered over Rick as if admiring a treasured prize. “It must be annoying, but also incredibly convenient.”

“It is not convenient when a witch or a hunter is blowing a wolf whistle, just so they can have a target.” Rick shook his head as they were entering the main hall again. It was mostly empty, though the elders from the choir box were still there along with those from the first row pews.

“Good thing there aren’t such things as witches,” Mac said.

Kurt shot Rick a look, his eyes asking if that were not true.

“Ah,” the elder called Varu turned on his aged legs and cane and opened his arms toward Rick, “There you are. Very good.”

Almost all the elders crowded around him. Most of them, he guessed were in their sixties, though some looked a bit younger. White haired wolves like Elder Varu were about three or so in the crowd.

“We have a request.” A lady in her late sixties stepped from the group. She looked a little like something from a nineteen fifties catalogue, including the blue hat on her head which was shaped like a small upside down cookie tin. A hat pin was probably holding it in place.

Rick braced himself. Packs were famous for cringe-worthy requests.

Seeing his unease, she lifted her hands. “I know this is forward, and I understand you came here on accident, but—” 

He cut her off. “If this about me helping rejuvenate the pack…”

Their eyes lit up.

“…the answer is still no.”

Their faces fell.

“But why not?” One of the men asked, gesturing to him. “You are a strapping young man, you could have fun, and we need new blood.”

Nodding wearily, Rick lifted his hand to stop them. “I know. I know. You are the third pack that has requested this of me.”

Hope rose in them again.

“But I can’t,” he said. “And I have never done it. I have moral and personal convictions against it.”

They stared, mildly amused and surprised.

Rick explained, “There is a girl I like very much who would kill me if I ever…” He cringed shaking his head as he thought about his friend Eve McAllister, a girl who definitely could kill him with ease. “But really, what kind of man would I be if I got a girl pregnant, at your request, and left the child fatherless to be raised by the pack?”

Again, they did not seem moved. In fact, they gazed at him as if he were being silly. Of course they intended to take care of any offspring he produced. They considered that a given.

Rubbing his forehead, Rick said, “Look. I have no interest in bringing any children into the world until I am legally and lawfully wedded to a woman I love… and that won’t be for a while.”

“That is so old fashioned,” the woman in the fifties outfit said.

He stared dryly at her. The irony was killing him.

“Surely, you would reconsider,” Elder Varu asked, his watery eyes imploring him.

Gazing at him, unmoved, Rick shook his head. “No. I won’t.”

They all nodded, exchanging looks, and stepped back.

“Well, we had to try,” Mac murmured.

“You too?” Rick stared up at him, aghast.

The giant shrugged. “It isn’t every day when a mingled-soul wolf walks into our midst.”

“Did you say mingled-soul wolf?” one of the elders asked, eyes widening. They all stepped closer, examining Rick again.

Rick cringed, groaning. This was going to be a long day. Even among wolves he was still a freak.

Mac nodded.

“Now this truly is a pity,” Elder Varu said, gazing on Rick like he would a lost opportunity.

“And why?” Rick wearily peered back at him. There was so much yearning in the elder’s eyes, but hopeless yearning. Rick could tell they were not going to force him.

Kindly, the old man-wolf wheezed out, “Mingled-soul wolves are like gold set in a broken piece of Japanese pottery. You have heard of those, right?”

Rick nodded. “I’ve… we’ve been to Japan and have a few pieces of that kind of pottery.”

Smiling, the elderly man patted Rick on the shoulder. “Packs sometimes break. And occasionally we need wolves such as yourself to hold us together. You could bring more value to us.”

Rick was suddenly feeling incredibly guilty for saying no.

But he had to stick to his convictions. He knew from experience—not so much his, as his father’s—that agreeing to ‘help rejuvenate’ a pack (which was nothing more than being a promiscuous wolf among the she-wolves so they could get pregnant) was a bad idea. His father had made that error among the Loup Garou when he was young, foolish, and under severe stress, long before he was married and Rick was born. And his father had sired seven illegitimate children, most of which had hated him the majority of their lives. Rick had only found out about them last year. It was actually last summer. And when he had visited the Loup Garou, that very summer they had wanted him to do the same thing. Rick was rather proud that he had escaped. He was even more proud that he was able to rescue three of his half-sisters from the French pack. But, of course, all of that was a family secret. No one knew outside his father and French pack that he was not an only child.

“I thank you kindly for your flattery,” Rick said to them, and he immediately saw their dismay, “but my answer is still no.”

Kurt was chuckling, covering his mouth with his hand. Clearly he found it entirely funny, and almost wished they had asked him for the favor.

Sighing, the elders shrugged.

“I had to try,” Elder Varu said, then shuffled off toward the door with his cane.

The other elders also gave him sorry looks. But they were not going to force him. Already Rick liked them better than the