Wolf Bride (17 page)

Luke

Kristina had been right about a lot of things, but this was the biggest. Evelynn French was nearly impossible to get to in Chicago. I’d been a very patient hunter in my pursuance of avenging my almost wife, but still my soul was clean and my hands empty of the gratification that would come with making her safe once and for all.

I’d acclimated to life in the city as I had to, and procured an entry level job in one of the many lumber yards the French family owned. Quickly, I’d moved up to foreman and was being eyed for a numbers job at a desk. Why? Simply put, because no human could do the amount of work I could in the same amount of time.

My big break came yesterday when I’d been invited to make an appointment with Mr. Barron French, the man who started it all. He was gathering under him a small group of professionals to break out on his own and open a lumber yard under his name, and rumor was he wanted me working for him, not his mother.

Dissention in the ranks only boded well for me.

So with the last of my cattle money, I’d purchased a dark suit and top hat and here I stood, eying the mansion of the man who’d seduced Kristina. It must be nice sitting up in his fancy tower while his spoils were hunted like dogs.

A butler answered the door and took my hat and coat before leading me to a parlor where four men sat around a table playing cards, drinking fine scotch, and smoking giant, hideously fragrant cigars.

“McClinton, you’re the last one here,” said a man who stood to shake my hand. “Barron French.”

“Brian McClinton. Pleasure,” I said, shaking his offered palm firmly. I’d used that false name so much in the past months, it’d become natural for me to answer to it.

The man stood shorter than me with thick brown, wavy hair and dove gray eyes. I supposed he was a well-built man if you ignored his slight paunch and the stagnant smell of one who smokes too much. Maybe it was a new habit he’d formed after his fling with Kristina.

“Sit down and have a drink before we talk business, McClinton,” he said. “Refreshments are over there.” He pointed to a long table piled high with pastries and meat pies, exotic fruits and silver platters of sliced roasted meats.

His snack table was richer than the best Christmas dinner in all of Colorado Springs. Damn, I missed home.

I sat between two older gentlemen who were dealt into a game of poker. Introductions were made, but I didn’t catch their names. I was too busy trying to figure out what a seventeen year old Kristina had seen in such a pompous man.

Scotch would hamper any plans I had, so I sipped it slowly and tried not to gag on the smoke that stifled any chilly breeze that flew in through the open window. Chicago as a whole stunk mightily to a man with a sensitive nose, such as myself. Any city did. I didn’t know how Da managed to live in the city limits of Boston.

An hour into our conversation, the door behind Barron opened and the man who walked through it could’ve been the one to ruin everything. Matthew Streider closed the door gently behind him. I stood in a rush and turned for the refreshments table. Feigning interest in the wide assortment of colorful pastries, I strained my sensitive ears and listened attentively to the long haired man who whispered to Barron.

“Sir, she’s asking for you. The baby is keeping her very sick and—”

“What does she want me to do about it?” Barron interrupted in a furious whisper.

“Nothing, sir. She just wants you to come to her. She hasn’t seen you in days.”

“Surely you can quiet a fretting woman, Streider. If you can’t figure that out, then maybe you should go back to work for my mother.” A long and pregnant pause was filled with the unwitting laughter of the other guests. “Fine,” Barron hissed.

Streider’s boot steps retreated to the door.

“Gentlemen, you’ll have to excuse me,” Barron said in a put upon tone. “I have a wife who apparently needs me to tuck her in at night. Helpless little creatures, aren’t they?”

I stifled the growl that bubbled from my throat. Had he talked about Kristina in such an inconsiderate manner when they were together?

Stacking food upon my plate, I pretended not to hear their exit until I was sure Streider was out of the room and unable to identify me as the murderer of his former boss’ hit man. That would definitely complicate things.

Eventually, Barron returned and the evening dragged. I was unable to find an opportunity to talk with Barron in private, so I had to make my move at the end of the night, when the rest of the company said their goodbyes.

“What do you say to my proposal,” Barron asked. “It would pay a good amount more than you’re getting right now.”

“That’s the truth, Mr. French.” I smiled at the last two gentlemen as they headed for the door. “But I like to know what kind of people I’m working with. Now your momma, she’s an honorable woman.”

Barron snorted. “Not so much.”

“What I’d like to know is if you’re an honorable man.”

“Well enough. What exactly would ease your mind, Mr. McClinton?”

Steadying my pounding pulse I lowered my voice. “Now I’ve heard a disturbing rumor or two around town that says you kept a mistress a couple years back. A pretty little thing who was a housemaid to your mother.”

Barron’s face went pale and his eyes darted around like he was nervous. “That’s not appropriate talk for mixed company.”

I made a show of looking around. “Ain’t nobody here but me and you,” I said, letting the comfort of my natural drawl come out. “So how I heard it, you had quite the torrid affair and when your mother found out, she tortured the poor girl.”

“I wouldn’t say tortured her, but she sent her away, yes.”

“To a brothel, to work as a whore.”

“What? What’re you saying to me right now?” His voice shook with fear or shock or maybe a little of both.

“Evelynn French, your mother, sent your young mistress to work men, and every two weeks, she’d come and make sure she was still there. And if ever she stopped whoring, your momma would have her killed or her mother framed as a thief. Am I close?”

To the man’s credit, he looked completely taken aback. “Kristina?” he whispered.

I struck while he was still dazed. “Hers is a happy ending for now though. She escaped your mother’s spies and made her way south. And just when she thought she was safe from the ruin you’d clouded her life with, your momma sent men to torture her. They took her in the night, and beat her face until it was unrecognizable, and then they tied her to the back of their horses like some animal and dragged her through the mud, barefoot, for nearly six hours. You can ask your man Streider all about that. Ask him where he got that scar on his hand.”

Barron’s nostrils flared and his voice shook. His rapidly racing heart was the easiest thing to hear in the room. “I thought you said it was a happy ending.”

“It is,” I growled. “A man saved her, but your mother sent more and more men to hurt her because she had to ruin the life of the servant who almost ruined her family’s name. But now the girl’s disappeared into the world where no one can find her but your mother and her spies.”

Barron slumped into a great oak chair propped in the shadows of great tufts of priceless curtains that adorned a towering window. His green color said he needed a bucket.

“If you ever had a tender feeling for Kristina,” I growled, “you’ll find a way to call your mother off her trail and let her heal. Let her live a life you came so close to ripping away from an innocent because you couldn’t keep your pecker in your pants.”

Barron shook his head slowly back and forth. Back and forth. “I can’t call that woman off. She’d kill me, her only son, if she thought it would bring her a profit. I can’t help you.” His voice dropped to a tremulous whisper. “I can’t help her.”

“Then tell me how. How do I save the girl?”

A fine sheen of sweat dotted his brow and he dropped his voice even lower. “There is a way.”

****

The click of the lock on the door wasn’t the only noise on the abandoned street, but it was the loudest. The butler had handed me my top hat and jacket, and I stood here, staring at the closed door, pondering what possible reason Barron could have for throwing his mother to the wolves, so to speak.

It was likely a trap. Family didn’t give over family this easily, even in the cutthroat world of Chicago society.

I turned and made fresh footprints in the falling snow down the walkway to wait for one of the servants to bring my horse around front. Reaching out to catch an oversized snowflake on the tip of my finger, I leaned against a towering stone lantern post. I had no choice but to walk right into that trap, but I didn’t have to do it alone. The time had come to use the gifts the animal inside of me offered. If I couldn’t use them in a time such as this, there was no benefit to being a werewolf.

The McCall family was an impressively large pack of five brothers and their father. Why they’d decided to settle on the outskirts of a thriving city like Chicago had always been beyond me, but to each his own. Now, the McCall family was friendly with Da but they didn’t run things like the Dawsons did. They weren’t a careful breed and if I had to guess by the way they acted, I’d say their wolves ran their lives and pushed their human nature to the smallest crevices of their mind they could manage to shove them.

I’d contacted Mr. McCall the moment I came into town. It was a common courtesy to let packs know if you were in their territory and why. I’d given him my reasons, and he’d all but salivated over the prospect of a hunt. Not an animal one, mind you. The McCalls, on occasion, were man-eaters—the monsters that generated legends and conjured nightmares.

I’d told them I’d have to see where my hunt led, but if there was need enough, I’d let them in on it. With a foot in the stirrup, I mounted a horse with a coat as dark as the moonless night, and thanked the servant.

If I was going to willingly walk into a trap set by the French family, a clever werewolf would invoke the help of a pack.

The ride home was a long one at our slow pace, but my longing for fresh air outweighed the chill. I’d been in the city way too long and changed only when the pain grew so great I couldn’t stand it anymore. Far out in the woods I’d run, giving my wolf a night before I locked him up again and caged us both in the big city. My soul longed for the mountains and the empty dirt roads and the endless woods that surrounded home.

It longed for the last place I’d been with her.

A penniless couple huddled together against the gate of some giant house. Through the windows a party could be seen with eating, drinking, dancing, and merriment. I stripped out of my jacket and hat and handed them to the man, who immediately gave the coat to the woman clutching his arm.

I told them, “Wear these tonight, but sell them first thing in the morning so no one accuses you of thievin’.”

“Thank you, sir.” The man’s voice and uncovered hands shook with the cold.

The woman leaned forward. “Won’t you get cold tonight?”

“Won’t need a jacket where I’m going,” I said with a wink. Hell was probably plenty warm. “Take your woman to an inn and get a room for the night. It’s only getting colder out here.” After I dropped the rest of the money from my pocket into his outstretched hand, I tipped an imaginary hat and nudged my horse toward the other side of town.

As I rode along, the houses changed from the upscale mansions with gables and stretching porches on pillars with perfectly manicured yards and winter rose gardens, to modest homes where small families worked their fingers to the bone to survive.

I lived beyond that.

When I’d ridden into town, I’d tracked down a room above a shop where the rent was cheap and the neighbors rowdy. Flickering oil lanterns on posts tossed shadows over the filthy streets and drunkards who lay passed out in shallow alleyways. And down the street from my temporary home was a brothel. Kristina never told me the name of her previous home, but I liked to imagine it was here, just a few buildings down from where I slept at night. Even if it was out of my way, I always rode an extra street to turn around and pass by the brothel after work at night. There was always a raucous crowd of drinkers, and the piano played at an almost constant volume, and it gave me comfort to envision being close to a place she’d touched.

One day.
I frowned and rubbed warmth back into my cheeks with the palm of my hand as I passed the brothel. One day to plan what I’d wanted to accomplish for months. Avenging her torment had been the only thing to keep me focused on anything other than the gut wrenching agony that tore at me whenever I gave my loss a voice. A sliver of fear snaked through me. What if I accomplished my task, and all that was left was the heartache? What if I could never be happy again?

After handing the reins over to an underfed stable boy, I climbed the rickety stairs and opened the door to my cage. The room was small, simple, and square as many cages are. It smelled of wood rot and I could never quite get the feel of filthy moisture off my skin no matter how hard I scrubbed. A small, bug infested bed took up the corner under the window and a wooden chest rested against the foot of it, just waiting to be opened. Tonight was its lucky night.

The lid whined as I lifted it and when all of the clothes from my old life were laid across the bed, I touched the leather of my holster with a sense of relief that covered me like a warm blanket.