Wolf Hunt #1 Read online

  Wolf Hunt

  Wolf Hunt Book One

  RJ Blain

  Wolf Hunt

  Wolf Hunt Book One

  by RJ Blain

  What should have been a preliminary scouting job for a future art heist turns into Declan McGrady’s worst nightmare when he discovers the gallery’s owner has exotic—and live—tastes. Breaking a group of werewolf women out of a hostage situation is above his pay grade, but he’s left with no choice.

  Worse, what he doesn’t know might kill him—and dump him back into the world of black ops at the cost of his freedom or his life.

  Copyright © 2018 by RJ Blain

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover Art by Rebecca Frank (Bewitching Book Covers)

  To Elric,

  * * *

  Rest well.

  * * *

  ~StabbyStabby

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  About the Author

  Magical Romantic Comedies (with a body count)

  From Witch & Wolf World

  Other Stories by RJ Blain

  Witch & Wolf World Reading Order

  Chapter One

  I’d sold my dignity for half a million dollars, and I regretted it.

  At least I’d been smart enough to insist my client pay in advance for the preparations required to storm the castle, including the arrangements for the yacht and its captain, and I believed the captain had ulterior motives.

  Benjamin Scully’s offers to handle all of my transportation to and from his property stirred my suspicions. Unfortunately, old habits died hard, and I refused to drop my guard, aware anyone might be an enemy waiting to backstab me.

  Scully’s castle perched on a cliff somewhere along the coast of France but belonged in Transylvania. All I needed to creep me right out of my skin was a good shake of thunder and a flash of lightning.

  Fortunately for me, the skies were clear, the day was young, and the ocean was calm.

  Swimming back to America sounded like a better and better idea. But no, instead of turning around and heading home like a smart man, I straightened my back, lifted my chin, and stepped over the ledge of the yacht, lifting my skirts and showing off my ankles and three-inch heels so I wouldn’t trip over the hem.

  “Mademoiselle.” The man wearing a black suit at the end of the dock greeted me with a smile and held out his arm for me.

  I had a mile-long list of things a lady didn’t do, which was partnered with the substantially shorter and a lot less entertaining list of things ladies did do. Going over my mental checklist, I flashed the man a smile, accepted his help, and stepped with care so I wouldn’t fall into the ocean.

  “Thank you,” I murmured. I longed to call him a cantankerous spotted liver, but cursing at the servant of the obnoxiously wealthy American playing a French lord was on the list of things a lady didn’t do.

  If I wanted my half a million, I needed to play my role perfectly, and that meant no one could learn who I really was or why I was scoping out a French castle.

  “His Lordship is waiting for you, Mademoiselle Lenore. I trust you had a pleasant journey?”

  Engaging in polite conversation was on the list of things a lady did do and sighing wasn’t, which left me with the option to smile until my jaw ached. I’d spent a month practicing pitching my voice and sounding as feminine as possible.

  It was a good thing I was a tenor.

  “It was lovely, thank you.”

  Lovely wasn’t the word I’d use for the transatlantic cruise from New York City to Hamburg, Germany. Who could’ve predicted that a late-season hurricane would unexpectedly wander into the North Atlantic and cause trouble?

  Reenacting the sinking of the Titanic topped my list of things never to do again. At least the cruise ship had waited until after the storm had blown over to give up the ghost and sink to the bottom of the Atlantic.

  Instead of having a week to prepare, I had had a day to perform and execute a modern-day blitzkrieg through Hamburg and transform into Cinderella. At least my heels weren’t glass, though I would’ve given anything to have a pair of my preferred boots instead.

  What had I been thinking when I had accepted the job to gain access to a French castle and take notes and pictures of the owner’s collection? Why had I thought it was a good idea to do it in a dress?

  Why hadn’t I talked myself out of the plan in the two months I’d spent earning my mark’s favor?

  I’d sold my dignity for far too little, and if I wasn’t careful, I’d sacrifice my reputation right along with the remnants of my morals. It’d been difficult enough to smile while other men tried to take me to bed, and I hoped I never heard another catcall aimed at me. As it was, the leering stares of the marina workers were permanently seared into my memories.

  I really needed a new plan. I needed a new life, too. Half a million dollars would go a long way towards accomplishing that, at least. I had five hundred thousand reasons to smile, pretend my name was Lenore Faraday instead of Declan McGrady, and act like I admired and respected Lord Benjamin Scully, businessman and collector of unusual art.

  “Please call me Barnet, mademoiselle.” The man’s soft voice dragged me back to my miserable reality. I’d somehow navigated the dock on autopilot without tripping over the uneven planks or breaking an ankle.

  One thing was certain: I had a whole new appreciation for the effort women went through to dress up. It took me an hour to prepare for a black-tie event, but it had taken me almost five hours to become Lenore—five hours I never wanted to repeat.

  “Of course, Barnet. I’m quite grateful Lord Scully had the time to see me.”

  “He is always eager to meet another lover of the arts. Please, come this way. The lift is waiting.”

  The lift was the sort of thing I expected to crumble into the sea right along with the rest of the cliff and the castle. If I’d been offered the option of steps, I would’ve taken them in a heartbeat. At least that way, if I fell to my death, I’d only have myself to blame.

  “Do not worry. The lift is quite safe.”

  Barnet’s scent soured from his lie, but I didn’t call him on it. I had bigger problems to worry about, including my first face-to-face meeting with Benjamin Scully.

  The game was on, and it had been far too long since my last hunt.

  Lord Benjamin Scully, an American businessman with a crooked nose, met me at the top, opened the curved door of the lift, and gestured for me to step out onto the deck stretching out over the cliff. “Miss Lenore, it’s a pleasure to meet you at long last.”

  “The pleasure is mine,” I assured him, hoping my perfume masked the annoyance in my scent should he also be some form of supernatural. He didn’t smell like a werewolf. My mother had been a witch, and it was only a matter of time before I ran into someone with a better-than-human sense of smell. I fought the urge to bare my teeth, growl, and ram my fist into the earth-vexing coxcomb’
s face.

  Instead, I smiled and met his gaze. The photographs I’d been given of my mark matched the man, right down to the streaks of gray in his hair, his black suit with white shirt and black tie, and his frown. He looked me over head to toe before his gaze settled on my fake breasts.

  Was I the only one who noticed the uncomfortable silence? Scully seemed enthralled by my breasts, blissfully unaware I was one hundred percent man underneath my sky blue, puffy, and frilly dress.

  My breasts were a work of art; the artificial silicon insets attached to the bra digging into my shoulders, which pushed them up and gave them the right amount of jiggle to look and feel real enough to give me a solid case of the creeps.

  Fortunately, my dubious non-quite-human heritage put me on the lean and almost feminine side. Lazing about had trimmed my muscle to something a little closer to a lady’s build, although my two months of planning and preparation hadn’t been enough.

  The puffy sleeves on my gown, a monstrosity straight out of the Elizabethan era, hid the evidence of my masculinity well enough while offering a certain measure of protection from the fall chill.

  It had seemed like a good idea at the time. A French Castle with an American playing at being nobility called for appropriate attire. I wanted to blame alcohol for my poor decision, but I didn’t drink.

  Alcohol made me do really stupid things. I did enough stupid things without any help.

  Two months of planning had led to meeting the businessman and collector in his castle where he kept his prized collection. I shifted the straps of my purse on my shoulder, wondering how women dealt with the annoyance of carrying one day in and day out.

  I was never going to take a woman’s preparations for granted ever again. I wouldn’t dress up as a woman again, either, especially not after experiencing the horrors of having my beard and mustache waxed off to make certain they didn’t make an untimely appearance at five o’clock.

  While my mark’s quiet scrutiny annoyed me, I passed the time studying the grounds in front of the castle; a hundred yards of lush lawn separated the building from the cliff. The main structure rose seven stories, although the spires decorating each corner towered twice as high.

  “Like what you see?” Lord Scully linked his elbow with mine and gave a gentle pull in the direction of the castle. “Please, let me give you a tour. You have no idea how honored I am that you would travel all of this way to see my art collection.”

  “No, Lord Scully, I’m the one honored.” It took all of my will to keep my voice as high-pitched and feminine as possible. “Yours is a collection any true lover of the arts would wish to see in their lifetime. Thank you so much for your invitation.”

  I smiled. Under the guise of slipping his hand to my back, Lord Benjamin Scully copped a feel of my ass, and it took every bit of my willpower to keep my wolf in check. I’d make the human pay for it somehow.

  My client never said I couldn’t pocket something from the slug’s collection. He’d get their half a million worth of photographs. If I took a little extra on the side that didn’t show up in the pictures, well, what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

  The Monet painting hanging in the foyer drew my eye, and I stared at it, my mouth gaping open as I took in every inch of its splendor. The vivid colors and distinctive strokes drew me to it, and Lord Benjamin Scully made a pleased noise in his throat when I stepped to it, my heels clicking on the marble floors.

  I knew every public Monet like the back of my hand; rare pieces of art made me forget myself, filling me with a fidgeting excitement and desire to possess one of my own.

  The style was distinctly Monet, and I got as close to the painting as I could without breathing on the canvas and potentially ruining it. I narrowed my eyes, drew in a deep breath, and focused my attention on the scents in my nose.

  An unpleasant heat tainted Scully’s scent; lust and arousal coming from him were the last things I wanted to face, ever. I had a feeling the man-harpy scoped out my ass since he could no longer enjoy my breasts.

  My wolf whined in my head, voicing his desire to come out and rip the human’s face off for daring to admire my human body in such a way. He wanted to find us a proper mate, a woman who would remain with us for the rest of our life.

  The businessman wasn’t even on my wolf’s radar, for which I was eternally grateful.

  I filtered out the man’s scent and focused on the painting, searching for the non-visual cues it was a fake, and I found it in the fresh bite of oil paints. Over time, the scent of the paints changed as time did its work. Sometimes paintings were restored, renewed to their original glory, but the thought of anyone diluting the splendor of an original Monet made me shiver.

  I examined the brush strokes, appreciating the care the impersonator had taken mimicking Monet’s style. Close, but not quite his. Drawing closer, I took another sniff.

  New paint and thinner taunted my nose, further adding to my disappointment.

  I stepped back, narrowed my eyes, and examined the forest and stream scene, the vivid colors, and the wistfulness I always associated with a real Monet. Sighing my regret, I canted my head in Lord Benjamin Scully’s direction and said, “Someone studied Monet’s style and created a piece worthy of him. It is such a shame it’s not a true Monet.”

  Instead of the anger I expected from the man, he laughed. The sound grated on my nerves, and my wolf growled his discontent in my head. “I remembered your love of Monet. Forgive an old man’s testing. It is rare to find a true collector of the arts.”

  “You’re hardly old.”

  He chuckled again. “You are charming, my dear, but I am fifty to your twenty-three.”

  I blamed my werewolf heritage for my ability to trick people into believing I was so young. I clasped my hands in front of me, fiddling with the band circling my right ring finger. Six different cameras sewn into my gown, set to photograph images in twenty second intervals, gave me complete coverage of my surroundings. Another camera, embedded in a hair clip near my ear, recorded everything, although due to data limitations, I’d have to pull the intel off its internal memory chip after the job. My ring also hid a camera, and I aimed it in the direction of the fake Monet before tapping the sensor at the bottom of the band.

  “It’s a really good fake, I’ll give you that, Lord Scully.”

  “Please, call me Benjamin, Lenore. You do not mind me calling you Lenore, do you?”

  I minded in more ways than one, but I smiled so I wouldn’t growl at the man. “I don’t mind.”

  It was a damned good thing my perfume reeked and Lord Benjamin Scully smelled like a regular human, else he might’ve detected the sourness of my lies in the air.

  I would need to squirt myself with more of the wretched perfume in my purse to get through the rest of day at the rate things were going. I didn’t need another werewolf coming along and figuring out I was poking my nose in places it didn’t belong.

  Lesson learned: half a million dollars was not worth the job I had to do at the French version of Castle Dracula. I turned in a slow circle to take in the rest of the art hanging from the wood-paneled walls. Most of the pieces seemed modern with a focus on spring landscapes, each boasting a bronze placard declaring its artist and origin.

  Once again, I was left to my devices while the castle’s owner watched me with an unnerving amount of lust stinking up the air. I hadn’t even made it out of the castle’s foyer, and I wanted to heed my wolf’s instincts to run for another country.

  I didn’t recognize any of the artists in the foyer, although I liked a few of them. I took pictures, careful to make sure my ring’s gem would capture painting and placard.

  Hopefully the chandeliers would offer enough light for the paintings to show in the digital images.

  “What do you think of them, Lenore?”

  “The spring theme is welcoming; cool yet warm. These are modern pieces. A choice to showcase the blend of antiquity and modern interests?”

  With half a milli
on dollars, I could retire and become an interior decorator. Interior decorating could be lucrative, couldn’t it? It sounded substantially safer than being stalked around a castle by a perverted marmot.

  Killing my mark wasn’t an option. My wolf wasn’t too happy with me over that, but he didn’t fight me, either. We’d come to a few agreements on things over the years, including who—and what—we hunted. Humans weren’t on the allowed list of edibles.

  He wasn’t too happy with me about that, either, and his growls filled my head.

  Lord Benjamin Scully sighed, came to my side, and placed his hand on the middle of my back. “I have more exotic tastes, but such things are expected of a man of my position.”

  I wondered if a high heel could pierce through a man’s dress shoe if I stomped hard enough. “Of course. There are always expectations. Perhaps they don’t have the exotic allure of a Monet, but they are still lovely pieces.”

  “Paris is full of amateurs capable of decent pieces. I am looking for something more.”

  “Like an original Monet?”

  “Exactly. I intend to fill these halls with an original of all of the masters.”

  The man had expensive tastes, I had to give him that. “An ambitious goal, and a very expensive one. Have you had any success yet?”

  “I’ve acquired a few pieces,” he evaded, and the lust in his scent faded under new odors.

  Wariness. Anxiety. Something else lingered in the air, too, something my wolf couldn’t identify.