Wolves of Paris

by Tori Knightwood

  Lucien felt better and was itching to get out of the house. Since it was just the two of them, they took his motorcycle.

  Somehow Ryenne had known Lucien would have a motorcycle. He seemed the type. And the tight jeans, black leather jacket and shiny black helmet made him look made to ride a motorcycle.

  Damn, he was sexy on it. And the appreciative glance he gave Ryenne while she put on her own helmet showed he felt the same way about her.

  Lucien wove through the mid-morning traffic in Paris and Ryenne held tight to his waist, enjoying the feel of him, relieved he was better. It didn’t hurt that they were driving through one of the most beautiful cities she’d ever visited.

  When they arrived at the building, it was old stone, like so many in Paris, four- or five-stories tall, and had a shiny brass name plate in front, claiming it to be the French headquarters for Lord Enterprises. They pressed the doorbell and waited for a click before pushing open the glass door. Walking up polished stone stairs to the reception area, Ryenne felt the power of the place like a suffocating presence. Time and wealth had given the Fangs respectability.

  A woman with a severe chin length bob of black hair, piercing blue eyes, and a pointy nose greeted them with a lifted eyebrow.

  “We’re here to see Charles Renardin,” Lucien said in French.

  “Un moment,” the woman mumbled. She picked up a phone and muttered in rapid French. Listening for several seconds, she then hung up. “Monsieur Renardin is not here.”

  They knew he had been heading out of town when they saw him last. “When will he be back?” Ryenne asked.

  The woman transferred her cool gaze from Lucien to Ryenne. “He will not be back. He no longer works for Lord Enterprises.”

  Lucien and Ryenne shared a glance. Charles didn’t work here anymore, but they had just seen him two days ago. What could have happened in that time?

  They left the severe woman behind and went outside.

  “We just rejected Renardin’s offer and he has already quit?” Lucien asked.

  “Or was fired,” she added.

  “Do you think they’re connected?” Lucien asked.

  “He didn’t land your company, so they got rid of him?” she wondered.

  Lucien shrugged.

  “Harsh,” she said, “but possible. They’re Fangs.”

  A man exited Lord Enterprises and joined them on the sidewalk. “Monsieur Malraux?”

  Lucien nodded.

  “I am Jean Grieux, Managing Director of Lord Enterprises in France.” The man was about the age of Françoise and Mathieu, his gray hair slicked back from his wrinkled forehead. “I hear you were asking for my former colleague, Charles. Is there something I can help you with?”

  “No, thank you,” Lucien replied. “He paid my family a visit the other day and my mother treated him a bit... harshly. We wanted to make sure there were no hard feelings.”

  The man nodded before turning his full gaze on Ryenne. His eyes were amber, like Lucien’s. Unlike Lucien’s, which were warm and golden and welcoming, this man’s eyes were fiery. His mouth lifted in a rigid smile that made Ryenne’s blood turn to ice. “And you are Mademoiselle...”

  “Ryenne Cavanagh. I’m a friend of the family visiting from New York.”

  A light clicked on behind Grieux’s eyes and his smile widened, showing a hint of pointy canines. “Ah, Mademoiselle Cavanagh from New York. Yes, I know who you are.”

  “You do?”

  The man didn’t answer. Flutters of unease tickled Ryenne’s belly. She was used to men underestimating her, but this guy was creepy.

  Grieux turned to Lucien. “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to help you. I’m also sorry your family refused our offer. If it’s a matter of money—”

  “It isn’t,” Lucien interrupted. “We are used to being independent.”

  “Lone wolves, you might say?”

  Lucien arched an eyebrow.

  “Very well,” Grieux said. “I hope we will meet again someday.” He turned on his heel and returned to the building without another word.

  Once the door closed behind him, Ryenne shuddered. “I hope we don’t.”

  ***

  Back at the Malraux house, Lucien paced in the backyard. “I really need to run.”

  “Are you sure you’re up for that?” Ryenne asked.

  “I’m completely healed now. There’s just stiffness in my muscles because I haven’t run as a wolf in a long time. And, other than going out on the motorcycle today, I haven’t gotten any exercise since before the stabbing.”

  “What are you going to do? It’s still full daylight.”

  He nodded. “There are parts of the Bois de Boulogne that have dense enough trees and few people. I could run there.”

  “Is it safe?”

  “Not one hundred percent.” His eyes sparkled. “Want to come along?”

  “I can’t keep up with you as a wolf.”

  “We could jog together to the dark, quiet area, and then I’ll shift and we can continue to jog. I don’t want to go fast yet anyway, I just want to stretch my muscles.”

  Lucien wanting exercise was a good sign. His healing had been slow but, hopefully, he was now on the mend. On the other hand, it was only the afternoon and she worried he’d get caught. At least wolves were common enough in France.

  In the end, she agreed because she couldn’t resist his smile.

  After changing into workout clothes, Ryenne put on a small backpack to hold Lucien’s clothes after he shifted, and they set off across the street in front of the Malraux building and across the Boulevard Périphérique into the Bois de Boulogne. They set an easy pace through the park until they reached a thick, dense area of trees.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  She grinned. “I’m always ready to see you naked.”

  Smirking, he stripped and handed her his clothes, which she stuffed into the backpack. He shook himself until his body began to shimmer. The cracking of bones and joints accompanied the changing shape of his body and the growth of hair all over him. Within minutes, a large gray wolf stood on the forest floor next to Ryenne.

  A few months ago, Ryenne would have been freaked out by the sight of Lucien in his animal form. Now, she had gotten used to seeing her hot boyfriend as a massive, powerful, gray beast. There might always be a twinge of fear at the sight of a wolf—who could blame her after what wolf shifters had done to her family—but the sight of Lucien as an animal no longer repulsed her.

  The run felt good. Ryenne had been cooped up along with Lucien and she had missed the endorphin high and the liquid feel of her muscles after a workout.

  When they returned to the house, Françoise met them in the entryway. The expression on her face stopped them in their tracks.

  “What’s wrong, Maman? Is it the girls?”

  Ryenne didn’t know if he meant his nieces or his sisters, but either choice was bad.

  Before Françoise could answer, Inspector Côtard came out of the office.

  This couldn’t be good. “What are you doing here?” Lucien asked.

  “I have some bad news,” he said, his lined face gray and tired. “We pulled a body out of the Seine earlier today and I need you both to come with me.” He glanced between Ryenne and Lucien, making clear which two people he meant.

  “Can we change first?” Lucien asked.

  Côtard gave a curt nod. “Make it quick.”

  In Lucien’s room, they stripped out of their sweaty workout clothes and put their jeans and t-shirts back on.

  “Who could it be that they need me, too?” Ryenne wondered aloud. “I only know your family here.”

  Lucien nodded. “And if something had happened to one of the girls, Maman would have said so. I’ve never seen Côtard so jumpy.”

  “And why in such a rush? Their dead body isn’t going anywhere.”

  They pushed their questions aside and joined Côtard in his vehicle, a dusty red Citroën that had seen better days. Côtard wouldn’t say anything,
so Lucien filled the time by telling Ryenne the history of morgues in Paris. “The original morgue was on Île de la Cité, in what’s now the Palais de Justice,” he explained. “Unidentified dead bodies from the streets and the river were displayed on black marble slabs for public viewing.”

  “That’s disgusting,” she said.

  “It was so the public could help identify them, but they also considered it like going to the theater.” Lucien kept his arm around her shoulders, which helped keep a sudden chill at bay. The day was hot and a little humid but the idea of people staring at dead bodies for entertainment made her cold.

  Côtard took them to the city morgue, no longer a public attraction, and showed them into a sterile viewing room. An attendant lifted a sheet from the head and shoulders of a man with a thin pale face and red hair.

  “Shit,” Ryenne said. “Renardin.”

  ***

  “I assume the cause of death was the bullet hole in his chest,” Lucien said several minutes later at a nearby café. Côtard had wanted to make sure they wouldn’t be overheard. The Fangs had friends everywhere, possibly even within the police.

  “We think so,” Côtard said. “It will be a few days before we have the autopsy report, but between the bullet to the heart at close range and drowning, take your pick.”

  “Why did you need us?” Sipping coffee couldn’t fight the cold that had seeped into Ryenne at the sight of Renardin. He had been no friend to them, but the timing was suspicious. And she kept seeing Grieux’s fiery eyes boring into her as he told her he knew who she was.

  “As you could see from the condition of the body, he hadn’t been in the water long. He was found by some tourists on a boat tour just before noon. He had a wallet on him that survived the dunking in the Seine enough to provide his identity along with a piece of paper with your names scrawled on it along with your address and phone number.”

  “What names?”

  “The two of you.”

  “Not the business name?”

  Côtard shook his head.

  “Not the rest of my family?”

  Côtard shook his head again. “You two. First and last names.”

  Lucien sighed with relief. Ryenne was also glad the Fangs seemed less interested in Emma’s sweet little girls.

  Côtard drove them to the Malraux house where the family was gathered again on the back patio for drinks. Lucien filled them in.

  Emma gave a sly smile. “Looks like Ryenne might be in the crosshairs now, too.”

  Lucien responded to her in French in a harsh tone, too quickly for Ryenne to make out any of the handful of words she’d learned.

  Emma looked down, hands folded in her lap, and kept quiet for the rest of the evening.

  But her comment needled into Ryenne’s brain, joining other bits of information and memories of Grieux. Ryenne had been targeted by the Fangs in Kenya, but they had largely left her alone since then, other than turning on the Malraux. Some members of the Malraux clan thought this was Ryenne’s fault, despite Lucien having been included in the events in Kenya. But now it was like her presence in Paris had become known by the Fangs.

  Were these Fangs as controlled by Mr. Lord as Stephen Muteti had been? Stephen had planned to turn her into a shifter, at Mr. Lord’s order, he claimed.

  Would the French Fangs try to turn her... or kill her?

  Ryenne wasn’t sure which prospect she feared most.

  ELEVEN

  The next morning, Ryenne and Lucien sat in the kitchen, having a leisurely breakfast of croissants and pains au chocolat and the dregs of Françoise’s pot of coffee. Dany had gone out to meet Guy and some of their friends. Françoise was in the office catching up on paperwork.

  The phone rang in the office and Ryenne could just barely make out Françoise’s voice. After a minute or so, there was a harsh exclamation that Ryenne didn’t know but, judging from Lucien’s reaction, it was one she should learn. He jumped up, his face frozen in surprise and fear.

  Ryenne followed him to the office where Françoise stood next to the desk, shaking. Lucien went to his mother and wrapped an arm around her. “Maman, what’s wrong? Who was it?”

  “It was your Monsieur Vanier,” she said. “Lord Enterprises is officially requesting to buy Malraux Frères.”

  “What?”

  “He’s their lawyer. Did you know that?” she asked.

  Ryenne and Lucien stood silently, but confusion churned inside Ryenne. They’d only known Vanier was a lawyer; nothing about his clients. Maybe they should’ve suspected when Renardin turned out to be a Fang.

  “He’s a Fang lawyer and he says he has papers for us to sign.”

  “What kind of papers?” Ryenne asked.

  Françoise stared at her with a vacant expression. “Papers to sign over our business to the Fangs. He wanted to make an appointment. He was calling to make an appointment for us to sign the papers, as if we had already agreed to this. Why would they think that?” Her voice rose with each new question and her tone became more strident.

  Ryenne had never seen Lucien’s mother like this.

  Lucien attempted to console her and Ryenne came around the side of the desk to sit in front of the computer. She typed in ‘Grieux’ and ‘Lord Enterprises’ and found a link to an employee page on Lord Enterprise’s website with a formal picture of the man they had met yesterday. His gray hair was slicked back from his forehead, and his amber eyes were dead. The site confirmed what he had told them yesterday. He was the Managing Director of Lord Enterprises in France.

  “It’s Jean,” Françoise said suddenly.

  “You know him, Maman?”

  “Yes, we all grew up together. Him and your dad and Mathieu and me. We were all friends. We went to high school together.” Her voice trickled away.

  “What?” Lucien prompted.

  “We were all friends until your father and I fell in love.”

  “So, this Jean liked you?” Lucien asked, clearly uncomfortable.

  “We had all been friends and I never thought of him as anything else. Then your father and I fell for each other and pushed our other friends away. We were young and in love and selfish.”

  Ryenne nodded but she didn’t understand, having never felt it.

  “We were our own entity, Françoise and Michel. Mathieu was always there, of course, because he was Michel’s brother. But I didn’t notice Jean had stopped hanging out with us until he turned against us.”

  “Turned against you, how?”

  “Little things at first, snide comments. The Grieux and Malraux packs had always gotten along fine, but suddenly Jean acted like our families were enemies and he wasn’t allowed to be friends with your father and Mathieu anymore. I didn’t think much of it at the time. We continued with our lives. Michel and Mathieu joined the family business and took it over when your grandfather died, and I went to university in the city. When I finished, I joined the business as well. Over the years, occasionally I would find a dead housecat in front of my house, and because of a comment Jean once made about cats, I wondered if he had been responsible.”

  “When did you last see him?” Lucien asked.

  “I haven’t seen Jean Grieux in thirty years, maybe closer to forty.”

  “But you recognize him from this picture?”

  “Oh yes. He always wore his hair that way and his eyes haven’t changed.” Françoise shuddered. “When we were young, I didn’t notice his eyes could take on that inhuman, dead quality. Not until he decided he hated us. At other times, it was like they were aflame. It was what I remembered most about Jean.”

  A treacherous thought crossed Ryenne’s mind. Could this be the real reason the Fangs had targeted the Malraux? Maybe it had nothing to do with Ryenne. She wouldn’t say it aloud because Françoise didn’t need another reason to hate her. But she couldn’t help but wonder.

  If so, Ryenne could stop feeling guilty about dragging Lucien’s family into whatever war the Fangs had with her.

  Ryenne’s p
hone buzzed. Glancing at the screen, she headed out of the room. “It’s Gavin. I’d better take this. He should be leaving any minute for the wedding and probably needs a pep talk.”

  She messaged him back, then ran up the stairs to set up her laptop for a video call. When his face popped up on her screen, his hair was sticking up in multiple directions.

  “What’s with the bedhead, Gav? Shouldn’t you be ready for the wedding?” She glanced at the time on the computer and did some quick math. “Get moving. You’re going to be late.”

  “I’m not going,” he said.

  “Why not?”

  “You know why. I can’t do this without you.”

  “Way to make me feel guilty,” she said with a heavy sigh. “You know I wish I could be there with you.”

  “That’s not what this is about. I get why you’re there, and I’m okay with it. In fact, I think I should join you.”

  “What?” The memory of Grieux’s fiery stare flashed through her mind. “It’s not a good idea, not a good time. We’re in danger.”

  “Where else in the world would I be safer than with you?” he asked.

  “Please, Gavin. If you don’t want to go to the wedding, then don’t go, but the answer isn’t coming here instead.”

  A message popped up on the bottom of the screen and she sighed. Her nerves were frayed and she didn’t know if she could take anymore.

  “It’s Mom. Don’t make any decisions, Gavin. I’ll call you back.”

  He smirked and ended the call. Her stomach sank. She knew that smirk. He wasn’t going to listen to her.

  She answered her mother’s call and her stomach sank even lower at the sight of her mother’s furrowed brow and under-eye dark circles. Willow Cavanagh had always been one of the most beautiful women Ryenne had ever known. Right now, her beauty was marred by worry.

  “Mom? What’s going on?”

  Her mother waved her hand at the screen. “I just wanted to see how you are.”

  “Bullshit, Mom. What happened?”

  Her mom sighed. “I got another letter. In fact, since we last spoke, I’ve had a few letters.”

  “From the same person, I assume.”

  “I think so. They’re signed T.O. again as in the last one.”