Most Eligible Wolf by Julie Steimle (the best e book reader txt) 📖

And though that Audry had said she was not interested in Rick, she was friends with his friends, and she was exactly the kind of girl Daisy knew Rick would be into. The fact that he wasn’t all over that Audry was a mystery, according to Farkas.

“She’s a vegan,” Tola laughed, savoring Daisy’s humiliation. “She hates him for being a wolf.”

“Are you kidding?” Daisy snapped back. “She loves the wolf.”

But Tola kept laughing. “But she hates the man. I asked around. She hates rich men. The chick is a hippie. She likes the wolf because she likes animals.”

Daisy clenched her teeth more, growling in her throat. “Which is why he likes her.”

“He likes her because she dug a bullet out of leg. It isn’t romantic,” Farkas retorted. He shook his head. “Look. The only reason he didn’t climb all over you was how you were all over that Audry. If you had left her alone you’d be in bed with him right now. It was your jealousy that ruined it for you.”

Bristling, hairs standing up on the back of her neck, Daisy didn’t like being contradicted—even though she knew Farkas was right.

“Look,” Farkas said. “It’s not over.”

“I lost the balm,” Daisy complained, deflating a little. “I misplaced it.”

Huffing, Tola took a jar out of it from her purse. “I have some, you twink. Get a brain.”

Growling at her, Daisy plucked it from her fingers. All the ladies had the balm. It was a valuable tool for a she-wolf.

Farkas moaned. “For pity’s sake. Why do you girls get so catty? You’re wolves, aren’t you?”

Both ladies shot him a dirty look. But Tola tossed her hair and strutted off. Daisy huffed then shook out her damp hair. They had to use bathroom soap to rinse off her skin from the honey-laced smoothie. A mild rash stretched where it had touched her, and she was now busy rubbing on salve to calm the burn. It wasn’t too bad, though.

“Look, we have to change tack,” Farkas said. He looked to his buddies in the pack. “Wulf, give me what you think are our barriers to communicating unhindered with Rick. Lobo, think about what our liabilities are. And Lukas, I need you to think of where Kurt would go if he also was looking to contact Rick. What does Kurt know about Rick that we might not?”

Wulf Woods nodded to Farkas and then to the rest of them, grimly shaking his head. “Ok… the barriers I see are that Rick is now surrounded by at least one demon who claimed to be CIA, a possible cop, and that weird guy who smells like a cat.”

Farkas nodded. “Anything else.”

“That Audry—we should leave her alone. It was a bad move for us to linger there.” Wulf glared at Daisy, “It was a bad call to harass her.”

Daisy’s mouth popped open in protest.

“We freaked her and her crew out,” Wulf said. He then nodded to Farkas, “Thomas and I got the impression that girl Audry is pretty quick.”

“Not a just quick,” Tola interjected. “Brave. The woman digs bullets of werewolves’ legs.”

“I don’t think she knows Rick was the wolf, though,” Farkas said.

“Just wolves then,” Tola said. “But most humans aren’t like that. How many human females do you know who would do that—and take his picture to boot.”

One of their group raised a hand. He was a quiet one.

“Thomas?” Farkas pointed to him, wondering if he was answering Tola’s question.

“Rick talked about that guy Tom to Kurt,” Thomas Blaidd said. “I don’t think we want to upset that Tom. We play things straight. Set up a meeting with his friends, present the facts and tell him the truth.”

“But those guys will stop Rick from coming with us,” Lukas protested.

“Then Rick doesn’t come with us today,” Thomas replied.

Everyone seemed disheartened by that, but it was a fact they had to accept.

Farkas nodded. “It was a longshot to begin with. The guy is always surrounded by guards, you know. They pretty much keep him prisoner under his father’s orders.”

“So unfair,” Daisy muttered.

They all shrugged.

“That’s just the way it is,” Farkas said. He sighed. “I think we need to let the elder’s know that Rick is still under watch and won’t be able to rejoin the pack until… I don’t know, until he’s graduated from college.”

“It’s been four years!” Daisy protested. “Isn’t that the end of college?”

Tola snorted.

Daisy shot her a dirty look.

Snidely, Tola lifted her chin and said with a dry look at Daisy, “Seriously, if you think you are a fit mate for an alpha wolf like him, you really ought to study more. He’s going to be a CEO. That means he needs a Master’s Degree—specifically a Masters of Business Administration.”

Daisy snarled at her, face coloring. She really wasn’t interested in that sort of thing.

But all the boys smothered chuckles.

“You need to do your research,” Tola said superiorly.

Farkas pointed to Lobo Vilkas for his turn.

Lobo, who was a slower speaker, said, “Daisy is a liability.”

“Hey!” Daisy protested, rising.

He gazed at her unapologetically. “No. We have to admit the truth. If we want to reach out objective, we have to separate ourselves from Daisy and her ambition.”

Daisy growled.

“Because Rick still sees us as friends,” Lobo said. “And Daisy is a threat to—”

“I am not a threat to him!” she protested, looking hurt.

“Did you see how scared he was?” Lobo shook his head. “He was terrified that he was going to fall for you again. Daisy, you have to admit that he never wanted to get you pregnant. He was extremely resistant back then. And he is still of the same mind.”

“But he and I are—” Daisy looked like she was about to weep.

“I know, moon-bonded,” Lobo said. “But he will have to come to you in his time. Not yours.”

Ruffled, upset, and not ready to give up, Daisy stared at the ground.

“When he sees that you truly are the only choice for him, he will hunt you down and be yours forever,” Lobo explained.

Tola huffed, folding her arms in disgust.

“You might have to leave the pack,” Lobo added, “that is until his father passes on—or when we can convince them to join us—”

“That’s not going to happen,” Thomas said.

They looked at him with dismay.

“Why?” Farkas asked, really getting annoyed with Thomas’s dry attitude.

Shaking his head, Thomas said, “Because, you guys forget that Rick’s best friend is the leader of the Holy Seven. If Rick hunts down Daisy to take her as a mate, the Holy Seven might put up with her, but they won’t put up with him just joining our pack.”

They all shuddered, thinking on it.

“You are a kill-joy,” Wulf said, pointing at him.

Thomas shrugged. “I’m sorry, but those are the facts.”

Farkas looked to Lobo again. “Any other liabilities?”

Lobo shook his head. “No. But I do have a recommendation for what we ought to do.” He looked to Daisy. “I suggest she go on her own. If Rick comes to her, then fine. But we should approach him without her and make our plea.”

Fakas nodded. He then turned to Lukas Tracker, pointing. “So where do you think Kurt would go if he also was looking to contact Rick?”

Lukas cringed, ducking his head between his shoulders. “Like I said before we came here, Kurt would look for Rick here in New York—like at this convention. He wouldn’t go to Massachusetts, though he might try to find him at Brown University next. If Kurt hasn’t already met up with him and those Blithes haven’t made any arrangement with him already, then we can warn Rick and arrange to get them back.”

Luko Hunter raised his hand. He had been quiet up until then, but now he cleared his throat and said, “I thought I saw Kurt.”

“What?” They all rose and stared at him.

“Why didn’t you say something?” Farkas shouted.

Daisy stared in disbelief, “Were you covering for him?”

Groaning, Luko moaned out, “No. I thought I saw him the same time that Tom Brown came around and drove us off from the Rick-wolf tee-shirt booth. It was near that booth.”

“We can’t go back to that booth,” Tola muttered.

Luko nodded. “Which is why I didn’t say anything. But I think Kurt might try to linger there like we did.”

“Ok,” Farkas shook his head. “This is what we do. Some of us split up and look for Kurt. All of us keep our distance from that booth, but one of you needs to see if Kurt is there. Daisy, you stay out of it.”

“Ah…” Daisy’s mouth opened in protest.

“No.” Farkas pointed at her sharply. “You’ve done enough. Those shenanigans with that animal worker was your doing. So it was your fault things went bad.”

“Our fault,” Thomas spoke up dryly. “We all shouldn’t have been hanging around that booth. It was a bad move.”

“Fine,” Farkas snapped. “The point is, we split up to look for Kurt. But I want, oh, three of us to go together as emissaries to talk to Rick.”

“And ask what, exactly?” Daisy leaned back, smirking at him. “If he is not gonna come back for me, he is not going to come back to the pack.”

“That’s true,” Thomas said. 

Sighing, Farkas replied, “I know. We’re going to talk to him about Kurt.”

“And not the rest of them?” Daisy asked, almost laughing.

Shooting her a sharp look, Farkas shook his head. “No. Kurt will lead us to the rest of them. We tell him how Kurt ran off. That is all he needs to know.”

“Make sure he knows how worried we are for Kurt,” Thomas said. “He really bonded with Kurt, you know.”

They nodded.

“And his lousy mother,” Daisy muttered.

They looked to her.

Daisy shrugged with a don’t-be-naïve look. “Mrs. Blithe tried to stop us from getting together, you know. She left him her bible.”

Farkas snorted. “The police probably took that into evidence too.”

They split up straight away. While the others broke off on their hunt for Kurt Blithe (who had left the pack along with his mother and his brother and sister), Daisy stayed in their hotel room, which was not far from the conference center. The conference itself was being held in the lower rooms of the hotel. They had initially gone back there so she could recover from her allergic reaction to the honey in the smoothies, but now it was just a good home base.

The need for this rescue mission was incredible. The pack was, and had been, fully autonomous for decades. And though they had small crises from time to time (such as when Rick had stumbled across their village and a hunter had followed him, causing several of them to get wounded in the crossfire and drawing the attention of unwanted lawmen in their territory), their village had held strongly together against the ages of humanity and their persecution of wolf kind. But when those Blithes had run away from their father—who was incidentally abusive to Mrs. Blithe—their town had once more been thrown into the attention of local human law enforcement and therefore unneeded trouble.

It was all Mrs. Blithe’s fault.

Yes, they knew Mr. Blithe was a boorish, abusive wolf. He didn’t deserve the family that he had. But wolves needed their pack. And that human mother had grabbed her kids and ran into the wide and dangerous world.

They just wanted their wolves back.

And Mrs. Blithe had to be punished.

The woman had called the police on her husband after he had hit her for the umpteenth time, which brought those outsiders into their town—a complete break of pack rules. Everyone had been on edge when the outside police’s presence invaded that home to answer questions with the intent to form charges against her husband. But of course the police saw more ‘offenses’ around the town—especially since they were ‘squatting’ in yet another of the hundreds of ghost towns across America. And though occupation was nine-tenths of the law, the officer had said, they were still there illegally. Of course the town had to relocate after that. But it was their second move in four years—the first due to that hunter following