Sworn to the Wolf (23 page)

“If fear of painful, violent death doesn’t convince you, let me add that I’ve got quite a dossier of information about you and your
business
dealings, with names and dates even. This dossier will be mailed to the federal prosecutor’s office and all major newspapers should any harm or threat of harm come our way. Now, I don’t want war with you, Pietro, I have no intention of turning you in. You’re in your neck of the woods and I’m in mine. I think it’s best if the two don’t meet, don’t you?”

“You bastard! You’ve messed up years of plans. Julia’s marriage was necessary for business. What am I supposed to do now?”

“I don’t give a crap, Pietro. Find another woman. Mine is taken. Now do I have your word that you’ll call Vargas back home or do I need to take care of him and then mail this information? Afterward I’ll hunt you down and kill you slowly.”

“Fine. I’ll back off, but you’d better hope we never meet in a dark alley.”

Laurent threw back his head and laughed, sharp white teeth gleaming. Rain had to join him. Her father had no idea. “I don’t think I’m the one who needs to be worried about such things. Now I’m going to hang up. My wife and I are going to live our life without interference or threat. I have friends who could and would take up my cause should I be harmed in any way. Don’t let pride get in the way of continuing to breathe.” Laurent hit the
off
button, terminating the call.

Andreas grinned and slapped him on the back. “Glad you’re on my side! Well done.”

“My hero,” she said, feeling the weight of worry lift from her shoulders. “Now I need to talk to Emma about setting up prenatal care and I need to call The Holt and arrange to have my other paintings that are at Drew’s to be delivered to them for my show. I need to choose a postcard for the showing and...I need to vomit,” she said, rushing out of the room.

Laurent bolted from behind his desk and followed her.

Coming out to see what the commotion was, Kari made him stop pounding on the bathroom door. “She’s just got morning sickness, Laurent. Let her be for a few minutes.”

As promised, Rain emerged after a few minutes, paler but smiling. “I’m okay.”

“The hell you are. I’m taking you back home. You need to lie down. You can have the phone in bed with you to make your calls. I want you off your feet.” He crossed his arms over his chest and tried to look commanding and pretend fear hadn’t just nearly knocked him to his knees.

Andreas came into the hallway. “You might want to sit down and hear this first. I just got a call from Grey Barton. You aren’t going to believe this but vampires exist.”

“What?” The room erupted with confused voices. Laurent picked Rain up and sat down on the couch in the living room with her in his lap. Anna appeared and brought her a cup of tea. Rain sipped slowly as she listened.

“They want to negotiate a treaty with all shifters. Apparently they’ve been here as long as we have. They have territories like we do, with an Alpha, only he or she is called a
Maître de Sang
or Master of Blood. French tradition as well, oddly enough. Anyway, they just got exposed and someone from the federal government has approached their grand council, which is in New Orleans.”

“How very Anne Rice,” Kari said, fascinated.

“Well, it gets worse. The same contacts from the federal government called on Grey this morning. There is now official knowledge of
our
existence.”

“What does this all mean?” Rain asked.

“Well, it means that the world just got more dangerous for us. Humans aren’t always open and accepting to ideas that scare them. Different scares them. We’re different. Grey’s setting up a committee to deal with this. If we’re outed we’ll have to mount a public relations campaign, lobby for civil rights, that sort of thing. I’m not sure whether I’d advocate for Pack members to out themselves as Were. It might be better to live as humans still. At least for a few years.”

“Wow. This puts having a child soon in a whole new light,” Rain murmured sleepily.

“I need to meet with an architect and the same builders who built Jack’s and Sean’s homes. I want our house finished as soon as possible and I want it wired with high-tech security gear.” Laurent stood, still holding Rain, and said to Andreas, “I’ll be back in a few minutes, I just want to get Rain settled in.”

“Put me down, Laurent. I can walk.”

“No. You’re sick and carrying my child. I’m going to take care of you and you’re going to let me.” He growled and walked out of the lodge and down the path to their cabin.

He settled her into their bed and brought her some water, a big glass of milk and some crackers and cheese. “Here’s your phone, a notepad and pen. Call the lodge if you need me. I’ll be back down to check on you in a while.”

“Laurent, love, I’m fine. I’m better than fine actually. Why don’t you come over here and let me show you just how fine I am?” she purred.

“Stop that! I have work to do and you need to rest. If you take a nap I’ll come back and see to my husbandly duty later on.” He winked and blew her a kiss, knowing that if he got any closer to her, her scent would drive him back into her arms and he’d never get any work done.

Laurent locked the door behind him and went back up to the lodge. Anna promised to take by some food and check on Rain later.

Emma came by the cabin and checked Rain over an hour later. “You should only be sick for about a week or two, another plus of the werewolf pregnancy. I’ll see you weekly to monitor blood pressure, which can be a problem for us. Eat when you feel like it. I’ve brought a prenatal vitamin for you that’s been formulated just for us.”

“Laurent is carrying me around and this morning when we were, um, having sex in the shower, he freaked out about hurting the baby and was gentle. Um, a little too gentle. Anyway, is sex okay?”

Emma laughed. “As you’ll have noticed, werewolf males are dominant and protective of their Mates. Laurent will continue to act this way. Sean did it, drove me crazy! Devon did it, Andreas did it, Jack did it—it’s who they are. But you’re really healthy and sex is just fine. In fact, I think we talked about this the other night. Your libido is going to go through the roof. Pregnancy for us is a major hormonal deal. Not only will you want sex all day and night but your mood swings, especially in the last two months, will be trying. And Laurent’s will be too. It’s going to threaten him because you’re going to throw off a lot of hormones and it’ll attract the other males. It’ll be irrational and annoying but you’ll have to deal with it. Kari was lucky, Andreas didn’t really have much of a problem because he’s the Alpha, but Sean was a snarling asshole who picked fights with every male who even looked my way in the last few weeks.”

“Yeah, definitely dominant but really, really sexy. Can I do anything to ease my mood swings or stop his? I’m a little freaked, I have to admit, to think of him being angry and jealous. I did that, I don’t want to ever deal with that kind of man again.”

“Oh honey.” Emma patted her hand. “Laurent isn’t your ex. He’s a werewolf. A very dominant, high-ranking werewolf, which makes his personality very strong. You two will spat a lot during the end of the pregnancy but he’s not the type to lose it like that. He’ll be pissy and the other males will give him space because it’s what they all do. Hormones are hormones, not a lot you can do about that. And you’ve got a lot of them. You toss out a lot of sex and it already affects the males. No, don’t apologize or feel bad, you’re not doing it to provoke it’s just who you are. I just wanted to warn you up front. Sometimes no one tells the converted wolves anything and we have to deal with this stuff blind. There’s no need for that when we can share information. He’ll get grumpy, you’ll fuck.” Emma shrugged. “You love each other, you’ll make up and tomorrow is another day. Now I want you to rest up and try to get some fresh air later today, a walk around the lake, even a run. Your wolf will handle the sickness better than your human.”

Chapter Ten

The weeks passed quickly and the date of Rain’s show came. Laurent, Rain, Emma, Sean, Kari and Andreas all came to Seattle a few days early, staying in the apartment and enjoying the city.

Rain had started to show and Drew made a dress just for her, for the show. It was a deep red with beautiful white hibiscus flowers silk-screened onto it. It had spaghetti straps and hugged her breasts but a high empire waist camouflaged her burgeoning belly. The hem had white beads hanging from it, lending a bit of fancy. Kari dressed Rain’s hair into a chic bun at the base of her neck and Drew brought her a red hibiscus flower that they tucked into it. The finishing touch was the ruby and diamond earrings Laurent had given her as a congratulations gift for her first show.

“You look beautiful,” he murmured to her as she came into the living room where everyone else waited, ready to go.

“Thank you.” She caressed the line of his jaw and kissed the cleft in his chin. She turned to Drew and smiled. “Thank you for this dress. I feel so pretty in it and I barely show, which will be nice, as it would be hard to explain why I look so knocked up.” She laughed and Drew kissed her cheek. “Shall we go then?”

They decided to walk over to The Holt as it was only a few blocks south. Rain caught sight of the group in a window as they all passed. Under the silvery light of the moon and stars each couple looked positively beautiful as they walked arm in arm.

When they got there, Rain ducked off with Diane. She wanted to check the placement of each painting, make sure the height and distance between them was just right. Diane was an expert and of course Rain was pleased by the look of everything.

Half an hour later the doors opened up and the show began in earnest. Pretty much the entire Pack showed up at The Holt that night, touching Rain deeply with their show of support.

“Rain? My god, woman, you look beautiful. Marriage agrees with you!”

Rain turned to see Harrison standing there. Crying out happily, she rushed to him, enfolding him into a big hug. “Harrison! I’m so happy you came. I’ve sold four paintings already, isn’t that amazing?”

“It’s only what I expected. Your art is going to be in high demand. As for my being here, I wouldn’t miss it for the world. In fact I just saw Laurent over there and he invited me up to the new house once it’s finished. Something I’m definitely going to do because I’ve missed you,” Harrison said, squeezing her hand.

“I’ve missed you too. Andreas has your photographs up in his office and I see them daily. Makes me miss you even more.” She looked around excitedly. “I can’t believe it. Our house is about halfway done already. Laurent wants it finished as quickly as possible so those guys are out there day and night and on weekends working on it.”

“I can’t wait to see it, cupcake. Oh look, I just saw Diane put a sold sign on two more paintings,” Harrison said, motioning with his chin. He didn’t say that he was the one who bought
Crazy Diamond
. “Oh I see some old friends just arrived. I’m off to tell them to buy your work now before it becomes too expensive.” He grinned and she kissed his cheek.

“Thanks. For believing in my work and being so supportive. It means a lot to me.”

“Kid, I’m your number one fan,” he quipped and headed off in the direction of a gaggle of professional-looking men.

Laurent approached and put his arm around her. “Are you all right? Not too tired?”

“I’m fine. Stop worrying. I even wore flat shoes for you,” she said to him, touched as always that this man cared for her so much. Suddenly she stopped and stood motionless. Tears sprang into her eyes and she looked up at Laurent, amazed. “I just felt the baby move,” she whispered to him.

He looked at her, wonder in his eyes. “Our baby.” He put his hand on her stomach and kissed her nose. “Have I told you how proud I am of you?”

“Only about a hundred times but it never gets old,” she said, eyes dancing.

“Rain, you’ve officially sold out! Only an hour into your first show. Congratulations. I know you’re going to do the same in Portland too.” Diane Holt hugged her.

Rain was floating on air by the time they were finished. She’d made more money in one night than she had in years. Not only that but she had the business cards of several people interested in commissioning her work
and
another show in four and a half months. Things were going so well. At long last she was living her dream and had a wonderful husband and family and a baby on the way. Life was beautiful.

With a laugh she stepped out onto the sidewalk, dancing ahead of the group of wolves who were on their way back to the apartment for a celebration. The night air felt alive on her skin.

Laurent approached and she smiled up into his handsome face. Suddenly things slowed. Laurent’s smile crumpled into a mask of rage as he looked past her to the street. Rain began to turn to see what he was looking at when hands grabbed her, yanking her into a waiting car. The door slammed behind her, over her fear she felt a sharp pain in the back of her head and then nothingness.

* * *

Laurent Cole let out a howl of frustrated rage that raised the hair on the neck of every human within hearing distance as he took off running after the car that had Rain inside. Andreas sprinted at his side and he could hear Phillip on the phone calling 9-1-1, reporting a kidnapping. He felt like ripping trees up by their roots when the car got on the freeway on-ramp and sped away, out of his reach.

He crumpled right in the middle of the street, great wracking howls of fear and rage tearing out of his mouth. Ryan and Drew helped him up and back onto the sidewalk, rubbing his arms and back nervously, trying to calm him.

“I’ve called the police, Laurent. They’re coming. See, that’s the squad car parking. Come on. Let’s go and talk to them. Skye and James have gone back with Archer and Bert to get some vehicles and make some calls,” Phillip said, helping him to his feet and toward the squad car. Andreas accompanied them, lending his strength.

“Sir, I know this is hard but we need to get all of the information we can as quickly as we can.” The officer was brisk and efficient and Laurent worked to keep it together and concentrate.

Laurent and Andreas gave a description of the car that took Rain and Laurent told them that she was pregnant. They asked if he knew why someone would do it and he debated with himself whether or not to say anything about her father because the information he had about Pietro Margoles was his only leverage. Carey approached and squeezed his arm, cautioning him. He said that she had an ex-fiancé who might be angry that she left him but that he didn’t know much else.

When the police had gone Laurent got into the car that Skye was driving and pulled out his phone, punching a series of numbers.

“This is Laurent Cole, put him on now,” he growled when Pietro’s assistant answered.

“He’s busy.”

“He’s going to be dead and you’ll all be in jail if you don’t put him on the phone right now,” he screamed into the phone.

“Why are you bothering me?” Pietro barked, annoyed.

“You’d better tell your men to deliver Rain to me, unharmed, immediately. If not I’m mailing those envelopes and then I’m getting on a plane and I’m coming for you. You’ll wish with your last ragged, painful dying breath, after I torture you for a week, that you had done it,” he said in an eerily calm voice, in shocking contrast to his scream of moments before.

“What are you talking about?”

“Don’t fuck me around, Margoles. Rain—Julia—was just kidnapped less than fifteen minutes ago, outside her first gallery showing. She’s carrying your grandchild, old man. If anything happens to my wife you’ll beg for mercy and get none.”

“Someone kidnapped Julia? I’m telling you, Cole, I had nothing to do with it. I told the Vargases that Julia had gotten married and that we’d find another wife for Anthony. I was in the process of working out a deal for Julia’s cousin Andrea.”

“Listen, asshole, there’s no one other than you or your people who would have reason to hurt her. She was a waitress who painted. She has no enemies other than the ones attached to you.”

Pietro Margoles was scared. He’d been in charge for a very long time and he had no plans to give that up. This information could not only end his leadership but could land him in prison. Or worse. He’d heard a lot of death threats over his life, faced down a lot of tough guys and guys who thought they were tough. But he knew, deep in his gut, that the man on the other end of the phone was capable of every threat he’d uttered.

“Let me get some of my West Coast men on it to help find her. Give me your number and I’ll get back to you. I swear I had nothing to do with this. Julia may not be my favorite person but I don’t want her dead and I don’t want my grandchild to be harmed.”

He jotted a note to his assistant, whose eyes widened before she got on another line, dialing furiously.

Laurent could hear the truth in the other man’s words. He grunted and gave him the phone number and hung up. Sighing, he put his head in his hands and tried to concentrate.

“Laurent, let’s go back to the gallery. I saw an alley. We’ll change and see what we can sniff out. We’ll find her. I promise. But we can’t drive around aimlessly, it’s not going to help. We need to see what we can find back at the scene, all right?” Skye said gently.

Laurent took a deep breath and pulled himself back together. He needed to be strong and thinking clearly to save Rain. “You’re right.”

They went back and changed, trotting out to the sidewalk where Rain had been taken. As they sniffed around Laurent smelled Rain, her fear, the rich scent of her fertility. He smelled two men, one very, very angry. After a few minutes they changed back in the alley and walked back to the car.

“I think it’s Vargas. I need to know if he’s back in New York or not and I want to see if we can find something he’s touched to get his scent,” Laurent said as he knocked on the door of The Holt.

Diane saw him and rushed to open the door. “Have you found Rain? Is she all right?” she asked, worried.

“Not yet. Listen, Diane, do you remember a little over a month back, a guy came here looking for Rain? Anthony Vargas?”

Diane shuddered. “Yes, one of those guys who looks nice and well-mannered but after a few minutes you begin to feel his greasiness. Why?”

“Did he give you a card or anything? Something with his phone number on it? Did he touch anything special? We have special scent dogs that I’d like to use if we could just get Vargas’s scent somehow.”

“Yes! I have his business card. I meant to send it to Andreas but I forgot. Hang on a sec, I’ll get it from my office.” She ran into the back and came out a few moments later, holding the card.

Laurent took it. “Thank you, Diane. We’ll call you if we hear anything, you do that too, okay?”

“Of course. You’ll find her, Laurent. She’ll be all right,” Diane said, hugging him and watching as he and Skye drove away.

Laurent took a deep whiff of the card, eyes closed. “It’s him. I can smell him on the card. It’s the same as the scent at the scene.”

“Let’s go back to the apartment. You can call Margoles from there and see what we can do for the next step.”

When Skye and Laurent walked through the door Laurent went straight for his and Rain’s room to call Margoles. Andreas joined him with Phillip, Ryan and Skye.

“Margoles, it’s Laurent. Vargas did it. He’s the one who took Rain.”

“Yes, I’d just come to that conclusion. I did some checking and apparently he’s been...upset that Julia had made other choices.”

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know. We’re looking for him. He’s not answering his mobile. I have people in Seattle who are looking for him now. Trust me on this, Cole, he can’t exist without me finding him.”

“I want him. When you find him don’t kill him unless it has to be done to save Rain. He’s
mine
.”

“Okay. I’ll be in touch.” Margoles hung up.

Laurent leaned back and put his face into Rain’s pillow, breathing in her scent. Andreas sat on the bed next to him, massaging his arm.

“We’ll find her, Laurent. She’s going to be fine.”