CRACK!!! BOOM!!!
Lighting zig-zagged across the darkened roiling skies and thunder clapped over a battered and beaten New Orleans.
A tall stately man with waist-long ash blond hair stood by the large mahogany desk staring out at the pounding rain that was beating and lashing on the window pane.
His face was strong, his shapely lips proud, his nose noble. His deep amber eyes were narrowed with worry as his fists clenched and unclenched.
"Hubert. Any word from the guardsmen?"
His manservant Hubert Renfrey gave a quick bow.
"No, Your Royal Highness."
"Keep looking!" He snarled. "The child can't have gone far. I want him found before the hurricane hits."
"Yes Sir." The manservant bowed and turned away.
The Grand Duke of Faria, Cedric Blaxtone, was normally a cool and reserved man who did not raise his voice. This was something of an anomaly that indicated the level of his concern.
Hubert took himself out of the room and heaved a sigh.
One moment, the Little Lord Devin was playing in his crib. The next moment, he was gone. The nurse had come screaming into his study crying her eyes out, saying she could not find the boy anywhere.
Hubert had immediately fired her on the spot and threw her out of the house as soon as a taxi could be hailed to take her away. She didn't know it but he had done her a huge favor.
Hubert shivered. Had the Duke confronted her, it was likely she would have faced a much worse consequence for having lost the boy.
Hubert clicked his tongue with irritation and heaved a great heavy sigh.
Many heads would roll tonight for this, and if he wasn't careful, even he would be hard-pressed to keep his own head secured on his shoulders.
Inside the library, the Duke of Faria gripped the back of his chair with shaking fingers. His amber eyes glinted darkly as his pupils began to enlarge.
Although storm clouds had obscured the sky, there was supposed to be a full moon today. This was most likely why the boy had run off.
He was too small to have any control over the instinctive moon-phase shape shift and the thunder and lightning didn't help either.
It had probably stressed the child, and without anyone there to help him control his instincts, he had most likely morphed into his wolf form.
Cedric heaved a sigh and took off his jacket. Those useless guardsmen were never going to be able to find a wolf child in this kind of weather.
It was going to take a wolf to find another wolf.
As he pulled off his dark tie, his canines began to grow. He quickly unbuttoned his starched white shirt, revealing a chest full of pale silvery blonde hair.
He threw off his shirt just in time to save it from ripping into shreds as he began to increase in size from his normal six-foot-two frame to over seven feet tall.
By the time he had take off all his clothes, he was no longer fully human.
The window slid open and a large silvery blond fury form slipped out into the pouring rain.
As the wind blew sprays of rain into the room, the papers on the burled mahogany desk scattered about the floor, dancing with the wind gusts.
A few minutes later, there was a discrete knock on the door.
Without waiting, the door opened and Hubert entered.
He took one look at the wind and rain lashing into the room and went to shut the window, being careful not to latch it. The Duke would need to be able to reenter when he was done with whatever task he needed to do.
It was noon, but the sky had gotten quite dark from the storm.
Hubert turned on the Tiffany lamp in the corner and then went about the room, picking up the scattered papers and bringing them back to the desk in a neat pile.
On his way out the door, he reached over and gathered up the clothes that the Duke had thrown onto the wing chair by the fireplace.
The Duke would need a new set of clothing to be brought into the office, ready and waiting for him when he returned.
Hubert stopped and stared out the window at the pouring rain.
He would also need a stack of warm towels.
===========
"It's raining wolves! Arooooooh it's raining wolves! Arooooooh! I'm going to go wild and free and get myself soaking wet!!!"
Talia Fabian whipped her head back and forth, bellowing along with the song that was playing through the car speakers as she drove her SUV down the road that would take her out of the city.
The windshield wipers were keeping pretty good time as it beat to the rhythm of the music but it was barely able to keep up with the rain.
The deluge was coming down pretty hard and making the windshield blurry and hard to see through, but Talia was feeling quite happy today.
In fact, she was super happy!
She had just gotten a $100 bonus from her job working as a vet tech for being the best surgical nurse the veterinarian had. It wasn't much, just enough for her to be able to save up for a nice little vacation!
Unfortunately, she had to use that brand new hundred-dollar bill to evacuate from this stinking city like rats fleeing a sinking ship!
CRACK!!! CRACK!!! BOOOOM!!!
"AAAAHHH!"
Talia screamed as lightning flashed again, splitting the sky into jagged pieces.
She reached out to calm her pounding heart. The boom was so loud it scared her damn near to death.
The wind decided at that moment to lash one side of her SUV, shaking it like a leaf as she tried to keep the steering wheel steady.
"Damn hurricane!!!" She cursed as she tried to maintain control of the car. The thunder claps from the storm were getting louder and more frequent.
CRACK!!! BOOOOM!!!
Talia clenched her teeth and turned up the volume of the music.
"It's raining wolves! Arooooooh it's raining wolves! Arooooooh!"
She yelled out the song at the top of her voice. "Tall, blond, rough and large. Fangs and claws that's tough and hard !!! It's raining wolves!"
She continued to sing at the top of her voice to keep her spirits up and to drown out the sound of the storm, but her spirits began to falter when she saw the traffic up ahead.
Too many people were all trying to jam onto the road at the same time. If she didn't get out of this highway, she was going to be stuck for the rest of the night in the car, squeezed in between all the other cars.
Without hesitation, Talia spun her steering wheel and drove her SUV onto the shoulder of the highway. She turned onto a rough deserted rural road, leaving behind the congested highway full of cars.
Through the drenched windshield, the landscape began to turn greener as huge dark trees with hanging Spanish moss dominated the view.
The rain was turning into a torrential downpour. It was so heavy that she could barely even see in front of the windshield, even though the wipers were going as fast as possible.
One moment there was nothing on the road and the next moment, something was running across the front of her car.
Talia gasped and jammed both feet on the brakes.
SCREEEEECHHHH!!!
==============
The wind began to pick up, howling like a tortured animal across the cityscape. It was barely noon but getting darker as Hurricane Fiona began to reach landfall.
Under the gnarled twisted limbs of the wizened Louisiana oak trees, Cedric Blaxtone stood for a moment, sniffing the air and the ground.
His glowing amber eyes glinted with razor-sharp intelligence as he moved through the undergrowth of the oak forest with their Spanish moss draping on the tree limbs.
The moss tendrils reached out with their clammy wet tendrils, touching their slimy fingers onto his shoulders as he passed by.
CRACK!!! CRACK!!! BOOM!!!
He needed to hurry.
The torrential rains would soon hit and would obliterate any scent that still lingered on the wind and the ground.
With a growl, he jumped up onto the tree and grabbed it with his strong powerful forelimbs. In a flash, he was gone, leaping and soaring from one branch to another with inhuman speed.
Strong gusts of wind whipped his long silvery blond fur about his body, tumbling it in all directions. His bright amber eyes flashed and blurred with the speed at which he was traveling.
As Cedric moved through the trees, he scanned the forest for any signs of the boy but everywhere he looked, all he could see were large dark grotesquely tortured limbs of ancient oaks.
His fangs bared as he inhaled, tasting the scent around him to relocate the boy's scent.
GRRRRRRR…
There it was.
The boy's scent was not strong but it was still there.
He was on the right track.
His lupine nose smelled heavy moisture in the air. The rain was starting to pelt down in large fat drops.
With the strength of a demigod, he made quick time as he launched himself full speed through the rough wet terrain. His paws gouged into the soaked ground, leaving huge claw marks as he thundered through the undergrowth.
He had to hurry. The rain was quickly taking away any smell that the little boy had left behind.