Wolf's Clothing, page 22
Someone pounded on a door. “Riley.” Julie’s voice. Riley tensed in Trent’s arms. “Don’t sulk. Open the door.”
“Be still.” Trent whispered. “If you don’t help me, I’ll—I’ll tell the cops that Logan was responsible for my disappearance.”
Riley squawked, the angry sound muffled by Trent’s hand, but he stopped struggling. God, he believes I’d really do that? How big a dickhead does he think I am?
Easy answer—the one who’d announce his fuck buddy status with Logan in a crowded bar three days before his wedding.
“Rile, come on.” Julie’s voice turned wheedling. “You know I’m only doing this for your own good. You’ll thank me when you see the finished video. Videos.” Her heavy sigh was clearly audible. “Fine. I need to have a little chat with Heather, but I’ll be back later, okay?”
Julie passed by, muttering, “Wedding day divas.”
After her steps died away, Trent took his hand off Riley’s mouth. He didn’t fight it when Riley wrenched away.
“Just freaking brilliant. Getting kidnapped on my wedding day was so not on my agenda.”
Trent blinked. “I didn’t kidnap you. I need your help.”
“So you threaten Logan to get it? What are you, twelve?”
Fuck my impulse control. Why don’t I ever think first? Self-disgust burrowed into Trent’s gut like a sandworm. “No. I’m twenty-seven. Or twenty. You tell me.” Although what twenty-year-old—who wasn’t also a sociopath—would threaten his former best friend with police action? God, I suck.
Riley’s eyebrows shot up. “I . . . Wow, I guess you do have the whole college-kid vibe. Even I look older than you, but I thought it was genetics.”
“When you figure it out, let me know.” Because I seriously need a maturity upgrade. Later, though. Right now he had no fucking time. “But in the meantime, this is a life-and-death matter. I’m serious. You’re the only one who can help me, and I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure you do.”
Riley glared at him. “Exactly how much help do you think I can give you stuck in here with the ice machine? Need some rocks to go with your bourbon? Because I’ve got to say, this plan is worthy of someone who’s had way too much to drink.”
“What plan? I’ve got no plan. I haven’t got a fucking clue. All I’ve got is you.”
Riley crossed his arms. “That remains to be seen.”
Trent growled and slammed the ice machine with one palm, causing a rain of ice cubes to rattle down onto the grate. “I have no idea how to help Christophe, and I’m afraid—”
“Wait. Christophe’s in trouble?”
“Yeah. Didn’t I say?”
“No, you jerk, you didn’t. If you had, I probably would have helped you in the first place. He’s my friend too.”
“Oh.” Why didn’t I think of that? Damn twenty-year-old brain strikes again.
Riley rolled his eyes. “Yeah. Oh. So what’s the matter?”
Trent eyed Riley. He definitely had the hot-nerd vibe going, and he’d totally sussed the ghost war, but would he think Trent was a nutcase like half the adult population of the planet? Still, who cared, as long as he helped Christophe.
“The thing is, it’s sorta crazy.”
“Thinking you could get away with abducting me is pretty crazy.”
“I wasn’t abducting you, and I mean like really crazy.”
Riley tapped his foot. “If you’re in such a hurry, maybe you should spit it out. What’s wrong with Christophe?”
“Well.” Trent rubbed the nape of his neck. “He’s kind of a . . . a werewolf.”
Riley’s eyes widened, then he blinked rapidly. “Say what?”
“He’s a werewolf. You know—man by day, wolf by night. Except that’s not quite how it works because I’ve seen him at night and he’s been fine, and it’s daytime now and he can’t shift back for some reason. And these two assholes are trying to frame him for killing sheep—wait, one of them’s his brother, I think, and the other guy is one sick, twisted bastard—but his brother took his signet ring and—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Riley made a T with his hands. “Time-out. Rewind to the main point here. He’s a werewolf. An actual shape-shifter?”
“Dude. I just said.”
“Oh my God.” Riley tried to get by, but Trent blocked his way. “I’ll help, of course I will, but I need my laptop.”
Trent’s eyebrows lifted. “You brought your laptop to your wedding?”
“I bring my laptop everywhere. You never know when you’ll need it. Like now. Come on.”
“Wait.” Trent stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Julie said she’d be back to check on you. We need to go somewhere where we won’t be disturbed by her or sixty-two other people with wedding on the brain, including Logan. Especially Logan.”
Riley blushed and cleared his throat. “Okay then. We’ll go to Julie’s room. She’s never there.”
Trent ducked his head out the door. When he saw that the hallway was empty, he gave Riley a thumbs-up and they darted across to Riley’s door.
“Good thing I always keep my key in my pocket, or your little abduction would have gotten more publicity than you want. I’d have had to ask Julie or Logan for a spare key.”
Riley dipped his key card in the slot and let them both in. The room was sunny and spacious, a tux hanging in the open closet, a laptop on the desk under the window. He strode across the room and tucked the laptop into a messenger bag. Slinging the bag over his shoulder, he grabbed another key off the desk and held it up. “Julie’s room. Let’s go.”
He led the way to the door and peeked out. “All clear. Her room’s up one floor.” Riley started down the hall but Trent stopped him. “Not the elevators.” He nodded at the emergency stairs next to their old friend, the ice-machine closet. “Stairwell.”
Trent held the door for Riley, then eased it shut behind them. None too soon. Before they’d gotten two steps up the stairs, the familiar tromp of multiple feet approached. Jesus, this guy has more visitors than Disney World on the Fourth of July.
Trent urged Riley up the first half flight faster, breathing easier as soon as they’d rounded the landing.
When they got to the third-floor door, he caught Riley’s arm again. Riley peered at him over the top of his glasses.
“Try using your words, Trent. You don’t have to manhandle me. Just say ‘wait’ and I’ll wait.”
Trent let go. “Sorry. Words haven’t worked so well for me for a while.”
He poked his head out the door and when he was sure the corridor was empty, he beckoned to Riley, who scurried over and opened the door to Julie’s room. The place was pretty much a mirror of Riley’s, except that the closet held a rather severe dress instead of a tux.
“You still haven’t told me how you know Christophe is a werewolf. I mean, did you see him shift?”
“No. But how many wolves do you know who carry around beer mats from Stumptown Spirits?”
Riley blinked at him. “Uh . . . none. That is, I don’t know any wolves at all.”
That’s what you think, dude. I’ve seen how Logan acts around you.
Trent dropped into an overstuffed chair in the corner while Riley set his laptop up on the desk. “He was supposed to meet me last night at one of the cabins, but he didn’t show. Then, when I was sitting outside on our patio, trying to figure how the hell to get back to Portland—”
“You weren’t going to stay for the wedding?”
Trent smiled apologetically. “Yeah, sorry about that. Wasn’t in my plans. After the last time I saw you, I didn’t think I’d be particularly welcome.”
“Um . . . well . . .”
“Logan said it’d be okay.” Trent shrugged. “Didn’t feel okay to me, although Christophe had hopes I’d change my mind. Hell, he bought me a fucking suit.” Trent gestured to his clothes. “Guess he disapproved of my usual style.”
“Uh-huh.” Riley pulled a legal pad and a pen from his bag. “Okay, so you’re on the patio. Go on.”
“Yeah, and this wolf creeps out of the bushes, staring right at me.”
“How do you know it wasn’t a German shepherd or a malamute mix or something?”
“Have you ever stared down a wolf? Trust me. It was so not a dog. Anyway, he has this beer mat between his paws. Makes sure I see the Stumptown logo, then he flips it upside down. On purpose.”
Riley stopped scribbling notes and tilted his head. “And this is significant . . . why?”
“On the night we met, I did the same thing at the bar. Christophe matched it. So I knew it was him, and when I put my hand on his back—”
“You touched a wolf? Because of a freaking beer mat? Jeez, I don’t think you’re twelve, let alone twenty. More like three. Your prefrontal cortex is nonexistent.”
“Look, he wasn’t threatening, okay? But he wanted me to come with him, so I did.”
“He— You— Do you even— Augh!” Riley clutched his hair.
“Hey, take it easy. You’ll give yourself an aneurism.”
Riley let go of his hair and stared at Trent. “Logan said that very same thing to me after he told me you’d displaced Danford Balch.”
“Then I guess you’d better make sure you never go off your blood pressure meds. Forget about judging me for what I did or didn’t do. The point is, he led me to this other cabin. His brother was there, and another guy who had the same Eurosexual vibe that Christophe has, only his was creepy and sleazy. Christophe’s is—”
“Hot,” they said together.
Trent grinned. “I promise not to tell Logan you said that.”
Riley turned to his laptop, but shot Trent a sly sideways glance. “Tell him. It does him good to remember he’s not the only wolf in the pack.” He tapped the table with one finger. “‘Wolf in the pack.’ Hunh. That explains so much.”
“If you say so. Anyway, we were out there overnight. I figured he’d, you know, change back at dawn or some shit, but he didn’t. Then that sleazy guy takes off in his fucking Ferrari and Christophe chases it up the mountain.”
“I think you’re leaving out a few significant details here.”
“We’ll get to those. Why didn’t he change back? Isn’t that how it works? I mean, full moon, blah, blah, blah.”
“Not all werewolf or shifter stories are the same. The legends vary about why they might shift and what the triggers could be, as well as what the remedy is. Go on.”
“When we got there, Christophe’s brother—Anton, his name is—had this roaring blaze going in the fire pit on the patio of his cabin. He had a bundle of Christophe’s clothes with him and he burned them. The whole lot, although he took a little too much satisfaction out of ripping the shit out of some of them first. Oh, and he kept Christophe’s signet ring. Put it on his own hand.”
Riley’s eyes narrowed. “Clothing. There are stories about werewolves whose shifting is controlled by clothing.” He typed furiously. “More than one. I think—yes. Two are connected with the Arthurian cycle, but there’s a Breton story. Marie de France wrote of it in the thirteenth century. Bisclavret.” He met Trent’s eyes and they both goggled. “Clavret. Bisclavret. Why didn’t I ever see the connection before?”
“Maybe because you don’t normally wonder whether any guy you meet is secretly a werewolf?”
“Did they say anything else?”
Suddenly unable to sit still, Trent stood up and paced across the room. “Anton and the sleazy guy . . .” He snapped his fingers. “Etienne. They talked about killing some livestock and making it seem like a wolf had done it.”
“These guys were speaking English?”
“No. French.”
“But you understood them?”
“Hey, I squandered the best prep school education money can buy. Just ask my father.” Trent peered out the window. Jesus, the sun was almost right overhead. The hurry, hurry alarm in his head stepped up its game. “Afterward, the sleazy guy—”
“Etienne.”
“Yeah, he makes Anton blow him.”
“Oookay. TMI.”
Trent snorted. “Tell me about it.”
Riley swiveled the laptop and Trent sat on the bed so he could see the screen. “This is the story. This baron, Bizuneh, is the Bisclavret, which means werewolf in Breton. He has to transform into a wolf for three days out of every seven. Could that be it?”
“You tell me. When you were dating him, did he disappear three days a week?”
Riley blushed. “We weren’t that serious, but I don’t remember him being missing for long periods at regular intervals.”
Trent narrowed his eyes, wondering whether Logan would notice if his fiancé was missing chunks of hair at the wedding. “Uh-huh.”
“You know,” Riley drawled, “if we’re going to get anything done, we need to let go of the fact that each of us screwed the other one’s—”
“You said you weren’t that serious.”
“We weren’t serious, I didn’t say we were celibate.” He held Trent’s gaze. “Nor were you and Logan.”
Trent told his inner jealous asshole to stand down. For now. “Point taken. Go ahead.”
“The baron’s wife didn’t know about his nature, and when he told her, she freaked. The big dope even told her the secret to changing back, which was that he needed to put on the clothes he’d been wearing when he shifted.”
“How the fuck can a wolf put on clothes? Wouldn’t the lack of opposable thumbs be a roadblock?”
“Obviously he can’t, not literally.” Riley squinted at the laptop. “But he has to be in possession of them. And the baroness, being a resourceful sort of person, stole the clothes. The baron ended up trapped as a wolf for seven years.”
“Seven years,” Trent muttered. “Why is it always seven years?”
Riley scrolled down the page. “Bisclavret managed to ingratiate himself with the king and accompanied him everywhere. One day they visit the baron’s old home, and Bisclavret attacks the wife, bites off her nose.”
“Ouch.”
“I know, right?” Riley peered at the screen. “The king tortures her to get the full story, which encourages her to produce the baron’s clothes.”
“No shit.”
“Even then, he wouldn’t shift until they put the clothes into another room and granted him privacy.”
Trent tapped his lip with one finger. “I don’t get it. Why the hell did the wife keep the clothes? That’s just begging for a bitch-slap from fate. Why not . . .” he met Riley’s gaze “. . . destroy them?”
“Maybe that’s why Anton and Etienne are being so thorough. They want to prevent the possibility.” Riley’s eyebrows drew together. “Wait. Etienne. Christophe ranted a lot about a guy who’d been at school with him, who was the heir to this other import-export business. I got the impression that their families were rivals socially and professionally, but that they were closely connected. The family was called Melion. Which—” He checked his computer screen again. “Is the name of another werewolf whose shifting was controlled by clothing. Melion’s story was one of two werewolf tales associated with King Arthur. The other was Sir Marrok.”
“So they’re descendants of the werewolf dudes? Then why couldn’t Anton shift and do his own dirty work?”
“Maybe he can’t. Legends don’t always tell the whole story.” He shrugged. “Maybe not all of the werewolves’ male descendants can shift, or maybe there are factors we don’t know about.”
Trent blinked. “But if Etienne is a werewolf too, then he doesn’t have to make the livestock deaths appear to be a wolf attack. He can actually do it. And if he can shift back and Christophe can’t—”
“Then Christophe will be the only wolf in the area when the ranchers go gunning for the predator.”
Trent shot off the bed. “We’ve got to do something.”
“How? You said Anton destroyed his clothes.”
“The ones he must have been wearing, yeah.” Trent slapped his palm with his fist. Think, think. “He bought me a suit. Does that count?”
Riley shook his head. “He may have purchased it, but that doesn’t make it his. He intended it for you.”
“Why the hell does that matter? Clothes are clothes, and it’s not like I ever wore it.”
“We’re talking about tradition. Myth. Legend. These things have rules. You should know. Logan said you were into legend tripping, and that’s how you ended up—”
“Let’s not go into that. I learned my lesson.”
“From everything I’ve read about this type of werewolf, if we can’t find the clothes he was wearing when he changed, we need a garment that’s touched his skin—an intact garment that’s in good shape. You were at his cabin. Did he have any other clothes there?”
Trent guffawed. “A metric fuck-ton. This is Christophe we’re talking about.”
Riley sat up straighter. “That’s good. There’s bound to be something there that he’s worn, something unwashed. He is a guy, after all.”
“Yeah, but he’s super picky about his clothes. I can’t see him packing anything dirty on purpose. Anton mentioned the clothes being clean, but maybe Christophe changed and he didn’t know about it. I’ll go check, just in case. I left my duffel and backpack under a chair on the patio anyway.” Trent froze behind Riley’s chair. “Shit. Anton said he was going to clear out the cabin. I better hurry.” If I’m not already too late.
“Do you still have a key?”
“No. I left it inside. But if I have to, I’ll break one of the damn windows. They can fucking bill me for it.”
When Christophe finally made it to the hillside above the ranch, the morning was well advanced. He’d made poor time, limping heavily, exhausted, and ravenous as he was from the exertion.
Etienne’s wolf scent was strong. He’d obviously marked as many rocks and trees as he could, probably to taunt Christophe with his presence. Perhaps, if Christophe’s wolf were in charge, it might madden him to the point of foolishness. But his human logic prevailed over his wolf instincts. He cared nothing about staking claim to this territory.
However, he cared very much about revenge: for Etienne’s treatment of Anton, for the threat to his father, and for the plot against Christophe’s life.
