The Alpha Won't Be Denied (11 page)

              Virginia sat at the edge of the clearing, in wolf form, staring at the main lodge. Carver had slept on the couch last night, and had been curt with her this morning.

Her secret meeting was tomorrow; should she just leave after that? Or should she tell Carver first, and at least give him the opportunity to make a choice?

              Carver and the other men had received a report that the monsters had been spotted in the forest several miles to the east, so they’d all headed over there. That had given her the opportunity to sneak out, shift, and hang out in the woods so she had some time to herself. Carver would blow a gasket if he knew she was in the woods by herself, but she was very close to the main building. She could see it from where she was sitting.

              She heaved a sigh, pacing back and forth in the snow.  The more time she spent with him, the more she realized that she could see herself spending a life with him. He was sexy. He was funny. He challenged her, but in a good way.  She needed to be with a strong man; she had a strong personality herself, and if she were with a weaker man, she’d run right over him and they’d end up hating each other.

He didn’t actually try to boss her around and run her life.  Ever since the monsters had been sighted, he’d hovered over her protectively, but that was what an Alpha was supposed to do. She could hardly fault him for caring about her safety.

              A gust of wind blew a terrible scent into her nostrils, and she froze where she stood.  Then she started to run, but before she’d made it a few dozen steps, the beast was upon her. How had it moved so fast?

              To her utter shock, it didn’t attack her. Instead it grabbed her and slung her over its shoulder, then ran to the west at top speed.  It was incredibly strong and incredibly fast.

              They ran and ran, the beast’s feet crunching through the snow, leaping over fallen logs, dodging around boulders.  It shouldered through thick forest and branches whipped her face.

              Finally they came to a clearing, and she saw that they’d stopped at the bottom of a stony hill with a small cave system inside.  The beast carried her in and set her down, blocking the exit.

              There was another beast there, lying on the ground, panting.  It had a bullet wound in its flank, which was festering. That must have happened when the sheriff and his men had shot at them yesterday.

              How was it not dead? Silver was deadly. Then again, it was only deadly to shifters, and God only knew what these beasts were. Not shifters, that was for sure.

              She looked more closely at the two animals in the dim light of the cave. The monsters were covered with thick black fur, and their shape was like nothing she’d ever seen before.  They were somewhat human in form, although bigger, probably seven feet.  They were hunched over, and their faces were lumpy and deformed. They looked somewhat ape-like and somewhat wolf-like.  They had large pointy ears and intelligent yellow eyes.

              The bones of small animals littered one corner of the cave.  The female lay on a bed off moss and leaves. This was where they lived, then, bringing their food back here.

              The beast who’d kidnapped her pointed at his wounded companion. A female, Virginia saw. His mate?

              She knelt down next to the female, feeling the feverish heat radiating from her body. This beast knew that she was a healer; he had scented it somehow. Was that why he’d been sniffing around her cabin? But he’d been sniffing around since she got here – before the female had been wounded.

              Whatever. She was a healer, and she had a patient.

              She put her hands on the beast’s flank and closed her eyes. As she did, she forced herself not to shudder in revulsion.  It was wrong. Its cells were distorted, mutated.  She concentrated on the healing instead, burning out the infection, killing the invading bacteria, and knitting wounded flesh back together. The animal’s hide sealed itself and the fever that had raged through its body cooled.

              The female slowly rolled over and moved into a crouching position.

              Virginia glanced up at the male, wondering what he would do next. Would he kill her now?

              He looked at her and gestured at himself. He wanted healing too?

              She put her hands on him and felt his wrongness cascading through her mind, his furious cells rebelling, but there was no sickness.

              She pulled her hands back and looked at him.

              He made a sweeping gesture, indicating himself and then the female. 

              She looked at him, puzzled. “Do you want me to cure you of…being a beast? Of whatever is making you what you are? I don’t know how.” He just looked at her. Could he understand her words?

              She shrugged and held her hands open, palms up, signaling her helplessness.

              The beast waited a long, long moment, and she stood there, breathing in the foul scent and trying not to gag.  Finally he hung his head, in a clear sign of dejection and defeat, and moved out of her way, unblocking the cave exit. She could see moisture leaking from his eyes and running down his furry cheeks. He was crying, she realized, stricken.

              “I can try to find help for you,” she said. “There are other healers out there, with different expertise than me. We can try to fix this.”

              He just stood there, not moving, and finally she left the cave.  A new understanding was dawning. The creature had smelled or sensed that a healer was there, and had wanted her to heal him and the female. That was why he’d gone into her room, and sniffed around the cabin.

              Why had they never approached Natasha for help? she wondered, as she headed back towards the honeymoon lodge.

              Her heart was heavy. She was leaving patients behind, patients who needed her help.  They could have killed her, and they hadn’t.  They had attacked the sheriff and his deputy the day before – but only because they were being hunted.

              Still, there was the matter of that family who’d been killed long ago. Had they done that? She didn’t get that impression from them. They hadn’t even done that much to her room when they’d entered it. They’d knocked some things over, but that could have been because of their large size and clumsiness. 

              Would they have burned a house down? Was there even any proof that they were the ones who had been at that scene?

              She wondered if they would know enough to flee that cave, now that she knew where their lair was. She somehow doubted it.

              She stopped, pacing restlessly. She had to go with her gut on this one. Those things weren’t dangerous unless they were being directly attacked, and they wanted help. She wasn’t going to say anything to anyone about them yet. Now she knew where to find them, at least.  And perhaps, now that they knew she couldn’t fix whatever ailed them, they would stop coming around the lodge.  They were a good hour’s run from it.  She was pretty sure that the only reason they’d come so close was because they’d scented her when she and Carver had gone for a run in the woods.

              After all, if they had first been seen in town ten years ago, and hadn’t been seen since, as a rule they must try to avoid all contact with shifters.

              She began rolling around in the snow to get their smell off her, until her fur was soaked.  She rubbed up against tree bark. Then she ran towards the river and dunked herself in the freezing water.

              She was thoroughly chilled as she ran back to the lodge, but the scent was gone.

              When she got there, she hurried to the main lodge, shifted, and dashed inside, picking up the clothing she’d left in the mud room.

              Carver was in the lounge with the sheriff and a group of the sheriff’s packmates. They were drinking Irish coffee and sitting grouped around the fire. Virginia couldn’t help but notice that the packmates were gathering around Carver, asking him questions, while the sheriff sat off on the sidelines, looking disgruntled.

              Carver looked up as she strolled in.

              “Where were you?” he asked. “Is your hair wet?”

              “I just went for a very brief run near the cabins,” she said.  She held up her hands. “If you don’t want me to do it again, I won’t.”

              “I don’t.” He frowned at her. “We didn’t have any luck today. Can I talk to you for a minute?”

              She nodded and followed him out of the lounge. As they left, he called out to the men there, “I’ll meet up with you this evening for the patrol, and then we’ll go out on the hunt again tomorrow.”

              “I think you just handed the sheriff his testicles in a box, figuratively speaking,” she said as they headed for their room.

              Carver shrugged. “His fault. He really should step down. He’s a weak Alpha.”

              “Him and his wife both need to retire,” Virginia said, shaking her head. “I don’t know what the hell is wrong with them.”

              Once they were in their room, he shut the door and turned to Virginia. “You were gone for a while. I was about to send out a search party for you. Did you really just go for a short run near the cabins?”

              She shook her head. “No, I went for a long run, but it was in the opposite direction from where you guys said the creatures were.”

              His voice was harsh with anger. “Why would you take a risk like that?”

              She paused for a moment. “I was upset when I left the lodge, because of how we’re getting along right now.” That was actually the truth. She didn’t want to have to lie to Carver.

              “If you’re upset, you just need to talk to me about it. Not put your life at risk.” He stared at her. “I made your family a promise. If anything happened to you, not only would your father issue me a Death Challenge, but I’d accept it and not fight back.”

              She gasped in horror. “No!” she cried out involuntarily, her eyes filling with tears at the thought of Carver sprawled on the ground, blood pooling around his cooling corpse.

              He managed a smile. “Well, at least you care about me a little bit.”

              “Good God, Carver, do you think I don’t care about you? Of course I care about you, you enormous jackass.”

              Now his smile was a full-on grin. “Oh, terms of endearment, I like it. Say some more sweet things to me.”

              “You’re a complete jerk, and a stubborn moron, and you frequently drive me crazy and make me want to brain you with a lamp.” Now he was laughing. “But what stops me is the realization that you’d actually have to have some brains for that to work.” She smiled at him. “Okay, my turn. Feel free to insult me all you want.”

              “You’re a beautiful, sexy, infuriating, kind, generous, mysterious, she-wench who is far too nice to shifters who don’t deserve it.”

              “That’s all you got?” She raised her eyebrows in surprise.

              “’Fraid so.”

              She moved closer to him and circled her arms around his waist, leaning in to him. She felt the thick, throbbing length of his erection pressed against her stomach and sucked in her breath, her body going liquid with desire.

              He pulled her closer to him, the muscles of his arms bunching. 

              “I’m sorry I can’t tell you everything,” she said. “I don’t want us to fight. Overall, I feel like we’re really getting along. I don’t hate being married to you anywhere near as much as I thought I would.”

              At that, he threw back his head and roared with laughter. “I’m restarting my list. Of reasons I am going to spank your ass.”

              “All right, I kind of miss you all the time when you’re not with me,” she grudgingly admitted. “Every single second. Don’t let it go to your head. And I hate that you slept on the couch last night.”

              “I hate it too. You know what I miss?”

              “What?”

              A predatory gleam flared in his eyes. “I miss fucking my beautiful wife.”

Chapter Seventeen

              It didn’t take her long to strip out of the clothes she’d hastily donned in the mud room, and by time she was done, Carver was gloriously naked, his erect cock standing up proudly from its nest of crisp dark curls.

He sat on the bed and patted his lap, a wicked gleam in his eyes, his lips curled in a crooked smile that made her heart skip a beat.

He patted his lap and raised an eyebrow. “Just because I want to fuck you doesn’t mean I’m not mad with you,” he informed her. “You shouldn’t have gone running by yourself. I think you’ve earned yourself another spanking, don’t you?”

She started to protest, but then she noticed the determination in his eyes, behind that playful gleam, and she remembered the incredible sensations their spanking session had sent through her the last time.

Adopting a mutinous expression in an attempt to hide the fact that her pussy was suddenly pulsing with desire, she stomped over to him, hips swinging, and positioned herself across his lap. “You are such a jerk,” she taunted him, then squealed and jerked as his palm landed hard on her bottom.

Her flesh was still a little tender and the impact stung, but it was a pleasant ache that spread throughout her body, making her toes curl. The hair on her nape stood on end and every nerve in her body came alive with anticipation as she waiting for the next smack.

Carver didn’t disappoint her. He alternated crisp, controlled blows and kneading her tingling flesh in his big palms until she was gasping and writhing, unsure where the pain ended and the pleasure began. Her pussy was clenching and weeping, her thighs sticky with desire, and she ached for the rock-hard length she could feel pressing against her belly.

Carver grunted with satisfaction and bent down to place tender kisses to her hot flesh. He nipped playfully at her sore buttock with his teeth, making her squeak, then groan as he soothed the skin with patient lapping of his tongue.

He lifted her off his lap and sprawled back on his elbows, exposing the long, muscled lines of his body and the eager jut of his cock. He smiled lazily at her, a look of blatant invitation, and heat pooled in Virginia’s belly and cunt.

She straddled him, moving slowly, taking her time. His shaft nestled in her sopping folds and she ran her hands over the muscles of his chest, kissed his throat, tweaked his nipples between her fingers, making him jerk beneath her touch.

Then she took his hot, heavy length in her hand and positioned him at her tight entrance, quivering around him at the mere thought of him filling her.

She sank down slowly, inch by exquisite inch, moaning long and low with abandoned pleasure as she took him deep inside.

His eyes fluttered shut and he groaned, pushing his hips up to meet hers so that he was buried to the hilt in her throbbing pussy. The look on his face was one of concentration, his brow slightly furrowed as he focused on every nuance of sensation.

Her body clenched around him and he responded with a sigh and a shudder, moving his hands to clutch her hips and encourage her to move above him.

Virginia rose above him, rotating her hips, drawing back until he was barely inside her. Then she sank down again, glorying in his unsteady breathing, his soft moans. It was a heady sensation having such carnal power over this most alpha of Alphas. He might be maddening in his desire to protect her at all costs, but when it counted – when it was just the two of them, raw and naked and vulnerable – he was willing to give her power over him. The thought made her heart clutch in her chest.

As her arousal built, she began to move faster, biting her lip as she found an angle that made his head rub over her G-spot each time she bore down on him. A fine sheen of sweat covered his chest, and she leaned down to lick the salty musk from his skin and nip briefly at one pebbled nipple.

He groaned, then grinned up at her before catching her off-guard with a swift roll of his hips that made her clench around him.

She rose and fell above him, heart pounding in her chest, thighs trembling. She lifted her hands to play with her breasts, displaying them to him, tweaking at her nipples and rolling them between her fingers.

He groaned and flexed his hips again.

Virginia leaned down and took his mouth. She flicked his tongue with hers and suckled at his lips, enjoying the slide of her breasts against his muscular chest and the new angle that abraded her clit every time she moved over him.

Carver wrapped his arms around her back and held her close as her body began to pulse and contract around his. An explosion of pleasure detonated inside her and she cried his name, rolling her hips again and again, unable to get enough of the sensation of sweet release.

As the flutterings of her orgasm subsided, Carver gave a low, tortured groan and spilled himself inside her, pumping his seed into her grasping channel as she panted and whimpered above him.

She collapsed on top of him, spent. Their skin was damp, the air filled with the musky scent of their sex. She wanted to stay there forever.

Every time she thought she knew her husband, she saw a new side to him. A strong man. A stern man. A playful man. A man who would do anything to please his woman.

His woman
… She caught her breath, realizing she was allowing herself to hope. Maybe, just maybe, if she was luckier than she’d ever been in her life, they could make this thing work. Maybe she could be the Alpha’s mate, and still remain herself.