Bridenapped The Alpha's Choice (13 page)

Jarrod’s eyes were cold. “That’s right,” he said. “They can’t.”

The two men circled each other, eyes locked, fingers flexing by their sides. The air seemed to crackle as they tried to hold back their beasts, as if an electrical storm were centered on the clearing, whipping the dried leaves up in little eddies. Mary took a step forward – with no idea what she intended to do – but Angela grabbed her arm and held her back with a strength that was ninety percent fear.

The skin of Earvin’s face was rippling as his wolf tried to fight its way to the surface, the ends of his fingers elongating as they sought to become claws. His jaw looked misshapen and too long. It was clear he was barely hanging on to his self-control.

“Did you really think they’d break pack law for you?” Jarrod continued. “Maybe if you were a true Alpha.”

Earvin gave a low, deadly growl, his eyes going wolf, and Mary felt the hair on her arms and at the nape of her neck stand on end in a primal response to a sound that she instinctively knew meant sudden, bloody death.

Jarrod gave a mirthless grin. “A true Alpha rules through loyalty,” he said. He allowed his face to go furry, his fangs descending and vicious claws bursting from the tips of his fingers. “A true Alpha rules through trust. But you, Uncle Earvin? You rule through fear.” When he spoke again, his voice was harsh and distorted. “Because you’re
weak
.”

Earvin gave a howl of rage and hurled himself at Jarrod, fully transforming in mid-leap. Jarrod went wolf just as quickly, and they hit the ground together, rolling over and over, snarling and snapping. Earvin’s wolf was smaller, but he was driven by anger and madness. He swiped his claws across Jarrod’s flank, leaving long, parallel gashes that gouted dark blood onto the forest floor. But Jarrod was younger, stronger…and Earvin had betrayed his pack and threatened his mate. With a surge of strength and a howl of triumph, he threw Earvin off, sending him tumbling through the fallen leaves with a sickening cracking sound.

Earvin lay panting, his form strangely twisted. It looked like his back was broken – something that shifting wouldn’t heal.

Jarrod walked slowly across to him, his flank dripping blood, panting from the exertion of the fight.

He stood over his uncle, who growled and snapped at him even in that moment of complete defeat.

Their gazes locked. Jarrod’s gaze was sad, questioning. In Earvin’s there was nothing but thwarted rage.

Jarrod lowered his great, shaggy head, and tore out his uncle’s throat.

Duane stopped at the road to stare in wonder. He put his foot on the road. It was so hard, and it went off into the horizon for such a long distance. He sniffed at the air. Roads smelled funny, and he could smell other funny things, like weird kinds of smoke he’d never smelled before.

The baby in his arms moved and made a faint noise.

He turned and began walking north at a fast pace, then broke into a trot. That was where the town was. He didn’t know how he’d find a doctor; he’d figure it out when he got there.

He hadn’t walked far before he heard a car coming, and his heart began to beat faster. Would the people in the car know he was a wolf? Would they shoot him? He looked all human, he was pretty sure.

The car pulled up alongside him…and his heart sank. It was Mr. Tompkins and his sons and Bruce, all crammed into the front seat. One of his sons was holding a gun to Bruce’s head.

They stopped the car and climbed out, with Clem dragging Bruce by the arm. Duane felt rage flow through him, and fur sprang from his flesh.

Bruce was crying hard.

“Let him go,” he snapped at Clem. “He’s just a kid.”

“Get in the car, you ungrateful bastard,” Mr. Tompkins snarled at Duane.

“Don’t do it!” Bruce yelled at him. “He’ll just kill us all anyway! Run with the baby! Run, Duane, do it now!”

“Shut up!” Mr. Tompkins screamed at Bruce.

Clem rapped Bruce on the head with the butt of his gun, hard, and Bruce cried out, and Duane yelled in fury.

Then Bruce partially shifted, turned, and bit Clem’s hand so hard that Clem dropped the gun, screaming. Blood gushed out of Clem’s wrist.

“Run! Save the baby!” Bruce screamed.

We’re all going to die.

Duane closed his eyes and turned and ran blindly down the road. He heard shots, four or five of them, and he kept running, wondering when he’d feel the pain of gunshots blooming in his body, and he prayed they’d at least let the baby live.

* * * * *

The leader of the Enforcers looked down at Earvin’s body, then looked at his men. Then he directed his gaze at Jarrod.

“It’s nothing personal,” he said to Jarrod. “I regret that we need to kill you. You fought well. But if we let you live, then our lives are forfeit.”

Fear rushed through Mary. There were too many of them. Too many for Jarrod and Craig to defeat. And they were too deep in the woods to call out for help. Nobody would hear them.

“That is what you deserve,” Jarrod growled at him.

“What he did was right. He weeded out the weak, and he made our pack stronger,” the man said. “He brought honor to our pack.”

“He never understood what real strength is,” said Jarrod. “And nor do you.”

“I hope I at least get to make them bleed before I go down,” Angela said. Her voice shook. She was scared, but her eyes were resolute.

“Get behind me,” Briony said, her eyes glittering with tears. “Run if you can. I hoped to meet my real son, but at least I’ll die in a way that honors him.”

Jarrod didn’t look back at them, but he didn’t waver. “You see who I have behind me?” he said.

“Where the hell is Constance?” Angela demanded suddenly. “She was right by those bushes before…where is she now?”

As if in answer, a chorus of howls ripped through the air, and suddenly the clearing was full of wolves. Female wolves.

Very, very pissed-off female wolves. At least a dozen of them.

Briony shifted and joined them in attacking the treacherous Enforcers. The air was filled with screams, and howls, and the scent of blood.

A small, dark wolf bowled over one of the Enforcers. He went wolf quickly, but it was too late. She took the nape of his neck in his jaws and shook him like he was a puppy. His neck snapped with a horrible crunching sound and he went still.

Not all of the fights were so easy.

On the other side of the clearing, a mother tore out an Enforcer’s throat as he stood at bay, massive, his hackles up.

One of their number had her belly torn open before a pack of vengeful defenders took him to the ground.

Within minutes, it was done. The Enforcers were dead, the women were wounded and limping, Jarrod and Craig were bleeding from multiple wounds.

Constance ran over to scoop up the baby that Petra had been holding, and rocked it in her arms and kissed its little head as it wailed.

“We’ll find a home for you, little cub,” she promised it.

Duane sat in the steps of the place that they called the Rec Center, turning his new father’s cell phone over and over and staring at in amazement.

There was a big party to welcome him and all the other boys home. Because this was their home.

His whole life had been filled with lies. Humans didn’t kill wolf-people, and they were called werewolves, not wolf people.

There were packs of wolves all over the place.

The people from the pack who’d come to rescue him and Bruce and all the other boys had told him all about it. They’d killed Mr. Tompkins and his sons because they’d tried to shoot at the pack with their silver bullets. They’d taken the sick baby right to the hospital, and also Bruce, who had a lump on his head where Clem had hit him.

And then they’d brought all the wolf-boys here, to a place called “Upstate New York.”

That’s where he learned that he had been stolen from this pack when he was a baby, and he had a mother and father, and they’d raised another young man that they thought was their son. For eighteen years, they’d raised him. And now they said Duane could live with them and be their son too, and now they’d have two sons, and Duane would have his own room, and go to school and live there forever.

“Girl werewolves,” John, who sat next to him on the steps, whispered to him. “There are girl werewolves here too. We could marry them someday.”

Duane stifled a laugh at the thought. Then he grew serious.

“If I got married and had a cub, I’d kill anyone who tried to take it from me,” he said, and John nodded, his face grim.

John was happy and sad at the same time, because he’d found out that he had a mother but no father. His father had died in an accident, and he never even got to meet him. But John got to live with his mother too. All of the wolf-boys did. There were twenty-five of them, and they all got to live here on the pack lands.

He looked over at Bruce, who was grinning so hard he looked as if his face might split open. He was holding on to the hand of a woman named Constance, who kept laughing and crying and then laughing again. Another little boy was holding Bruce’s hand and staring at him in wonder. He kept reaching out and touching Bruce’s face with his free hand.

Constance was Bruce’s mother, his real live mother. And he had a brother named Bill, who was also five years old, so now he had a brother and a mother and his own house. And books. He had so many books. Pack members had heard that Bruce loved books and they’d brought him boxes and boxes of them. Bruce had offered to share with all of the boys.

Bruce dragged Constance over to where Duane was sitting. “She’s really my mother,” he said. “I really have a mother!” At that, Constance started crying again, but it was the weird kind of thing where she was smiling while she cried. Bruce dragged Constance over to a table that had cakes and things called donuts on it, and Duane smiled as he watched Bruce wheedle her into letting him have his fifth donut of the day.

And Duane smiled even wider when Bruce broke the donut in half and gave the other half of it to Bill.

The sick baby was in the hospital with its mother and father, who were named Briony and Frank. The doctors said it would get better, but it would have to be there for two weeks.

All the people who’d known about the baby-stealing had been executed, he’d been told. That meant they’d been killed.

But that was a sad thought, and he wanted to enjoy today. He saw his mother and his father and his brother standing over by a table of refreshments. They waved at him, urging him to come over.

He stood up, and John stood up with him. “Let’s go get some of that pizza stuff,” he said happily. He looked around and grinned. “You know, I think I’m gonna like it here,” he said.

* * * * *

The drawing room was bathed in the light of the morning sun. It was a new day, the best day that the pack had seen in many years – Earvin’s reighn was over and all of the stolen wolves were back with their family.

“I can’t believe it’s finally over,” Mary marveled. Jarrod flashed her a grin and tightened his arm around her shoulders.

“Well, I can’t believe that you’re picking blue bridesmaid dresses when blue isn’t my best color,” Regina said, shaking her head in disapproval. “I mean, I guess the wedding can go ahead as planned, but I’m doing you a big favor, I hope you realize that. I’m going to go find something else to hack into.” She turned and walked off, her face puckered in disapproval.

“She kind of grows on you,” Mary said to Jarrod, who made a sour face.

“Like mold?” he said. At Mary’s playful smack, he sighed. “Sure,” he said. “She’s great.”

Regina’s family had been so mortally offended by Regina’s new attitude that they told her that she couldn’t come back home. Mary had prevailed on Jarrod to let her stay on pack grounds until graduate school started. Regina was planning on getting a master’s in computer forensics, and using her trust fund money left to her by her great-aunt to pay for it. She was also regularly chatting with the boy she’d liked from her computer class in college, which really horrified her parents, because he didn’t come from money.

“I have something I want to show you,” Jarrod said, leading Mary out of the room. Since he was heading towards their bedroom, she had a pretty good idea what he wanted to show her. Not that she was objecting.

“Are you happy?” he asked her.

“I have literally never been happier.” She meant it, too. It wasn’t just that she and Jarrod were together now. Angela and Craig were blissfully happy and talking about getting engaged. Regina had escaped from her overbearing parents and was going to have a career, one that she actually enjoyed. Everyone had their children back; it was bittersweet, of course, because some of the wolves were twenty years old, and the pack members had missed out on their entire childhoods.

The wolves who’d had their children stolen from them had been permitted to carry out the execution of the remaining pack members who had been in on the conspiracy. Mary had chosen not to attend; she couldn’t even imagine the savagery of that scene.

“If you ever get mad at me again, you will tell me why?” Jarrod’s tone went a little stern.

“For the millionth time, yes. I swear.”

“You’re not upset that the wedding had to be put off for a month?” he asked.

“Not at all. This was a really emotional month for the pack members. Everything needs to settle down and start to get back to normal before we can concentrate on a wedding.”

They paused at her bedroom door and he swept her into his arms, and planted a passionate kiss on her lips. She pressed up against him, breathing in his spicy, masculine scent.

“Mmm,” she smiled at him. “You taste good.”

“Do you want me to make you a kirtle to wear at our wedding?” he murmured against her mouth.

She pulled away from him and laughed. “Dear God, no. I looked them up online, and that would not be a good look for me. But it’s sweet that you offered.”

“What about cubs?”

Mary leaned back and looked at him, smiling. “Don’t you think we have enough in the pack right now? Dozens of them, from newborns to twenty-year-olds.”

Jarrod nuzzled his face against her neck.

“You don’t think there’s room for another one or two?”

He swung open the doorway, and led her into their bedroom. The sweet scent of roses swirled through the air as they stepped through the doorway. The bed was entirely covered with rose petals.

Bed of roses. From the poem.

“We could get started now,” he said to her, and tumbled her on to the bed.

THE END