The Frenchman Read online

  The sun was close to setting now and the French sky came alive with shades of violet, crimson, and deep blues that put all the flowers in his gardens to shame. Man was fortunate to watch a sunrise or sunset, but so much more was the loup-garou who could enjoy it for a thousand lifetimes.

  Each evening, almost ritually, John stood on the veranda that overlooked the valley and watched the sunset, so special and unique to that day. In that moment when the light sank below the tree line, he would whisper a good night to his beloved. Annalette had been gone for many years now, leaving him with a son he could be proud of and a legacy of hope for all loups-garous.

  He remembered how she insisted that the chateau and the academy was his dream and his alone. John knew better than any that none of it would have been possible without her. If she had never come into his life with her wild soul and Romani spirit, he would still be in England, ignorant and blind to the truth of what he was.

  That was why he led these boys deeper into the forest, toward the rest of the pack that waited at their usual meeting spot. Each of them donned their dark trousers in preparation for the change night, though those would have to be shed shortly before. Their chests were bare to the evening winds that slivered through the trees, but John did not worry about their health the way Noelle did. Somehow, she expected them to come back with terrible colds during the winter months when they trudged through the snow without shoes. She knew what they were, but had only been employed at the chateau for a little over a year. She was not used to their ways just yet.

  John glanced over his shoulder to check on the youngest members of his pack. He spotted Darren’s dark shock of hair beside Johannes’s blonde and watched how they talked and smiled to one another. The tales that the other boys spun were far more exaggerated. They had to be. At least, John hoped.

  “Would you like to tell me what happened in your own words?” John asked his son who walked beside him.

  He could hear Bart grinding his teeth together, a sign that told John he did not want to speak, but he would anyway. “There is nothing to tell. They disobeyed and I put them in their place.”

  John smiled. “Are you too prideful to tell me the rest, or do you think I’d scold you for not keeping them all together in the first place?” When Bart didn’t reply, he continued. “I don’t mind the boys running off to catch their own game every once and a while, especially if they’re hungry. I don’t intend to starve them.”

  “It wasn’t just that,” Bart replied. He turned his dark eyes to look upon his father, the eyes that so resembled his mother’s, and there was a hint of concern in the way his brows tilted. “Darren… he has dominance.”

  John quickly looked back to the boys once more and Darren met his gaze for a fleeting second before he turned back to Bart. “You know this for certain?”

  His son nodded.

  “How was it?” John asked, intrigued and partly thrilled by the aspect of having a true potential alpha in his pack. Fermin certainly had the qualities of an alpha, but he had not shown the dominant trait yet. He was still a follower, trailing after Bart or John. He had the better likelihood of becoming a beta than an alpha, unless he began to show other signs.

  “It was untamed, unrefined. He slung it at me with barely any control or precision. But, the power was still there. It took a bit for me to bring myself to fight back.”

  “Darren has only been a loup-garou for less than a month,” John remarked. “It seems almost impossible that he would know how to summon such strength so soon.”

  “What’s more is that when he caught the deer, he took no part of it. After he killed it, he just let Johannes take what he wanted.”

  John narrowed his eyes upon Bart. “No,” he denied, stricken by the queerness of it all.

  “Truly. He just stood there. I think he was in shock. I saw him take the kill and it was… for lack of a better term, beautiful. It was perfect. Some of the other boys struggle to catch rabbits without tripping all over themselves like newborn pups.”

  “He did have to survive on his own for three weeks. Perhaps he learned to hunt then,” John offered. He was perplexed by the notion that this new loup-garou could have the spark of dominance great enough to send his son, a seasoned beta, scrambling for control.

  What was more disturbing was Darren’s lack of selfishness. If his wolf was in control when he took the kill and he has the dominance of an alpha, he would have denied his friend to even get near the carcass before he took a share for himself. Yet, he let Johannes have first pick. It didn’t make any sense.

  He didn’t have much time to think, because a skitter of tension made its way from the very back of the line, right up to John and he froze in place. No others would feel that shift because they did not have his experience, but he knew what was about to happen.

  The rest of the boys stopped with him and he looked to Edmund, whose night it was to change. He showed no signs yet, nothing but the usual nervousness that came with knowing what was to come.

  No, it wasn’t Edmund who was about to change.

  He looked to Darren and saw his face contort with discomfort. John wedged his way through the group of boys, parting them like Moses parted the Red Sea. Bart stayed close behind him just as Darren let out the first groan and nearly crumbled to his knees.

  Johannes helped him to the ground when John came to him.

  “Darren, look at me,” he said, taking the youth by the shoulders. The young loup-garou looked up, his eyes glowing gold in the waning light. “Just relax and let it happen. The more you tense, the more you’ll suffer and the longer it will take. Do you understand?”

  He nodded as the first wave came and he cried out. The rest of the boys behind him shuddered and backed away from the scene.

  “Bart,” he ordered, “start the change in the rest. We’ll have to shift a little earlier than expected.”

  It was unorthodox, considering that the sun’s light hadn’t fully dissipated yet. They still had a few miles to go until they reached the meeting place, but if they could all cooperate, they could reach there in time to join the rest of the pack.

  Bart nodded and turned to face the boys, who knew what would happen next. One by one, he went through the ranks and squeezed that tender part of their shoulder to induce the change as they took off their pants to stand naked on the path. Annalette had shown John this trick even before they arrived in France to seek out her uncle.

  When the loup-garou couldn’t change at will, they could be forced by finding that special nerve around the meaty part of their shoulder where their neck began to slope away from the spine. It was painful, but not any more painful than a willing change.

  That was how John knew the boys were ready to move on from the chateau, when they could change at will. It took years sometimes, but once in a while he would come across a prodigy who could master it more quickly than others.

  “Johannes, go to Bart.”

  The German loup-garou nodded and left his friend in the capable hands of the alpha.

  Darren let out an agonized scream as his bones and joints began to pop out of place. John stayed by him, serving as a constant presence to assure him. This would have been his second change and it wasn’t until perhaps the one hundredth before the typical fear and uncertainty would subside.

  The other boys began to voice their own torment, their screams segueing into roars and growls. He could see Darren’s eyes go wide as he beheld the sight of his first loup-garou turning. John faced away from the scene. It was nothing new to him, but the sight of so many dark fur pelts and massive wolf heads with their gnashing teeth would have sent any mortal man running.

  Darren watched them morph and John could almost see their reflection in the youth’s eyes. The human bodies grew nearly twice their size, fur sprouting from their skin, becoming that perfect combination of man and beast. Muzzles extended from their faces, becoming long and pointed like a wolf’s, their hands growing rough pads along their palms and tails lengthening from t
he bottom of their spines to dust the forest floor.

  The display was almost enough to distract him from his own pain, from the truth that he was about to become what he saw. John brought him back to focus with a tiny pulse of dominance that made him shiver.

  “Just relax, remember. Everything is going to be all right.”

  Sometimes, that’s all the encouragement they needed. Sometimes, it wasn’t enough. Darren did not look convinced, but he did relax as John commanded and the fearful tears spilled down his cheeks as the change took its final hold.

  Darren changed in front of John, ripping the pants he had neglected to take off. While the youth was in the throes of his agony, John slipped off his own pants and changed. The boy was fresh, unbroken, and with his reputed dominance, he would not take his orders in his loup-garou form easily.

  Just like with all the others, John would have to break Darren like a man broke a wild stallion. He had learned this hard reality the first time he took a pupil. He ran wild and savage, without discipline or regard for any other living creature. He killed without mercy and John had to clean up the mess.

  The boys were not conscious of their condition as the wolf took over, meaning they would have no logic beyond what the wolf wanted. Breaking was the only way to bridge the gap and give back a piece of their human soul. It would not restore their consciousness, but they would obey their alpha. Only after decades of discipline, would the two minds meld to share a consciousness during the change.

  John changed and stood tall as the other boys followed Bart toward the meeting ground. The alpha’s fur bristled as Darren opened his golden loup-garou eyes and snarled at the stranger in front of him. His fur, black as the night that was closing in around them, stood on end as his lips curled up over his fangs and snapped at John.

  His fur may have been a little lighter, denoting his age, but John was ready to give Darren a thrashing that his wolf would never forget.

  It had been a week since Darren first joined the rest of the pack, but there was still a part of him that didn’t feel quite right. He remembered turning for the second time, but that time seemed so drastically different than the first. When Darren turned that night in Longleat Forest, he didn’t know what was happening. He thought he was dying. When he awoke, the idea that he had turned into a beast was the last thing on his mind.

  The second time, on their way to meet with the rest of John’s expansive pack, Darren was well aware of the harsh reality of what he had become. He saw the other boys change into dark beasts of the night, saliva dripping from their muzzles and eyes rolling inside their wolfish heads.

  After a certain point in the pain, it all went black, but he didn’t need to be conscious to know what happened to him. He turned into one of them. He had turned into a loup-garou. When dawn came, it brought a whole new level of soreness and aches that he hadn’t experienced in his first change.

  Not only that, but something was different in his wolf. It no longer yearned to rebel against Bart or John, but seemed more docile, more meek, and submissive to their whims and orders. In the days following, Darren didn’t question when Bart told him to do something. He didn’t second guess John’s intentions for a certain test or exercise.

  One thing Darren did understand was that there was no fear in the wolf when he obeyed. Only a kind of respect for his beta and alpha. He gladly did as he was told because it was his way of honoring them.

  Darren fought it in the small ways by staying awake an hour past curfew, or slacking off during training when he knew he could do better. Sometimes, he didn’t put so much work into pulling the weeds and trimming the garden as he had before.

  His friendship with Johannes hadn’t faltered, but some of the other boys began to flock to him, especially after the incident at the stream.

  It was one night, when the moon was high in the sky already and its blue and silver rays slanted through the tall windows of their communal dormitory, that Darren received a harsh shake in his top bunk. He jolted awake and rolled over to see two pairs of eyes watching him.

  Fermin and Edmund gripped the edge of his thin mattress and stood on their tiptoes on the bunk below, Johannes’s bunk.

  “Darren, come with us,” Fermin invited.

  He rubbed the sleep from his eyes as Edmund clarified, “We’re going out to try and change. Come with us.”

  They were insane. Not only because it was the middle of the night, but they could never leave the chateau without someone noticing they were gone. Who in their right mind would want to change at will? Darren was well aware that it was the key to leaving the chateau and returning to the outside world of humans, but he was far from interested in such a concept at this point.

  “You’re daft,” Darren grumbled as he readjusted his feather pillow. “Go back to bed.”

  “So, that’s a no?” Fermin asked, a note of dejection in his voice.

  It had become clearer with each day that Fermin was slowly losing popularity amongst the others. Darren was the new favorite, both with John and the rest. He retained his place of honor near the head of the table and everyone worked to mimic the newest member of their pack. Perhaps Fermin wanted to claw his way back to the top by associating more and more with Darren, rather than putting him down as he knew jealous men would do.

  Why everyone seemed to admire him that much more, Darren might have never known. As far as he knew, he had done nothing special, nothing unique or praiseworthy since he arrived. Yet they flocked to him anyway.

  “That’s a no.” With that, he rolled back over to turn his back to the two and tried to fall back asleep. It was in vain.

  He listened to them sneak out of the dormitory, past all the bunks full of sleeping loups-garous and down the hall that led to the foyer and dining hall beyond. John and Bart’s chambers were on the other side of the chateau, but they would surely hear the front door open. Then, the two insurgents would be caught and thrown back into the dormitory where the boys would laugh and mock them for trying to sneak out.

  Only, that never happened. Even Darren heard the front door creak open and the two boys slip onto the front landing to skip down the stairs and toward the front gardens.

  Darren couldn’t believe it, nor could he allow it. The gentle prodding of his wolf assured him that he needed to go after them. Perhaps not to join in their efforts, but to ensure their safety or convince them to return. John should have been the one to bring them back, but if John wouldn’t, then he would.

  Being careful not to make so much as a whisper of sound, Darren followed their paths and found his way outside into the night air. He wore nothing but his warm sleeping shirt and a pair of knickers to fight off the cold as he tracked down their scents. It didn’t take him long to realize they had rounded the chateau and escaped toward the forest and the training grounds.

  When he came upon them in the meadow where they practiced their precision running, he saw how Fermin watched Edmund as he squeezed his eyes shut, looking more constipated than on the verge of a change.

  “Do you realize how foolish this is?” Darren scolded as a brisk wind snapped at his tunic, pulling it tight against his chest and torso.

  Fermin waved him off. “You’re going to break his concentration.”

  Darren came up and shoved both of them in the shoulders. “You need Bart or John here to look after you. Why sneak out?”

  Edmund turned to him with flashing green eyes and his strong, English jaw set in a scowl. “Well, you’re here aren’t you. That’s good enough.”

  Darren didn’t have a notion why he would say something like that. “I’m not an alpha or a beta. You two have been here longer than I have and should know the rules better.”

  The Frenchman rolled his eyes. “We all have heard what John says about you. That’s why we knew you’d come out here. You’re like an alpha just by coming after us, aren’t you?”

  “Serve and protect, that’s what John always says an alpha should do,” Edmund added.

  Darren d
idn’t want to be an alpha any more than he wanted to be a loup-garou at all, but he had no time to argue. “I didn’t come out to protect either of you. I came to bring your miserable hides back. We need to go back to the chateau before someone sees we’re missing.”

  “Too late,” a deep voice rumbled from the trees behind them. The wind had been blowing his scent away from Darren’s nose, but as soon as it shifted in his favor, he knew Bart was the one who spoke.

  He could just barely see the beta’s dark skin amongst the shadows as he approached. Fermin and Edmund groaned.

  “Did you let him follow you?” Fermin asked, jabbing his finger at the beta as he glared at Darren.

  “I didn’t know he was following.” Darren shrugged.

  Bart towered over the three boys and folded his arms over his thick chest. He could easily beat every one of them into the ground if he wanted. He had done it before. Instead, he simply smiled, as if he was amused by their attempts to thwart his authority.

  “What were you two thinking?” he asked, pointedly excluding Darren from his accusations.

  They explained their endeavor to change at will, but Bart seemed far from mad. He listened to their rushed excuses and occasionally threw Darren in with them, but he was unfazed by it all. If only Bart were so amiable during the daylight hours, training might not have been so demanding.

  When they were finished and left waiting for their punishment, none came. Bart looked to the three of them, then jerked his head toward the forest. “Follow me.”

  Darren did not, even though his wolf was curious to see what the beta had in store. He was having none of this. He didn’t want to change and didn’t want to see the others change. He only wanted to crawl back into his warm bed and sleep until dawn. Unlike Fermin and Edmund, he wanted to be well rested for the following day.

  When Darren turned to the north, toward the chateau, he felt what he came to recognize as the dominance in a loup-garou tickle down his spine. He turned and saw Bart regard him with an expecting look. It was clear he would get no sleep that night.