Wolver's Rescue (39 page)

Whoops and hollers followed the cubs to the
truck.

Begley grinned. “Wish I was that age again.
Then again, maybe I don’t, knowing all the crap I’d have to look
forward to.”

He wore a battered wide brimmed fishing hat
with colorful hand-tied flies attached and a bulky vest with what
looked like a dozen patch pockets, all bulging with something or
other. Bull bet there were poles, creels, and waders in the back of
the vehicle.

The Alpha kept walking, expecting Bull to
catch up. The sun set and the little Alpha kept walking. He kept
asking about the land, about the mountains beyond, and about the
damn fishing. There was nothing Bull could do. Begley was his
Alpha. That didn’t, however, stop Bull from thinking about Tommie,
and their mating. He listened to Begley’s ramblings until he could
wait no more.

“
I’m being mated tonight,
Alpha,” he finally blurted.

“
And you didn’t invite me to
the party? I’m insulted. You know how much I enjoy a good
time.”

“
I had my reasons,” Bull
started to explain only how did he explain that he was going to
mate the wolver he was sent to eliminate.

“
I’ll just bet you did,” his
Alpha laughed. “I guess we’d better be gettin’ back then. Wouldn’t
want to keep the lady waitin’. You are planning on introducing me,
ain’t you?”

“
Yes, of course.” Right
after the deed was done. Before Begley could ask any more
questions, Bull plunged ahead and away from the subject of mating
and Tommie.

“
You’re good at finding
Mates. How about Alpha’s?”

“
I found you, didn’t I?”
Begley laughed.

“
I’m not talking about me.
I’m talking the Big ‘A’, the leader.”

Begley laughed harder. “Sometimes I think
that big ‘A’ stands for big Ass. Why’re you askin’?”

“
Because I’ve found a pack
that needs one. It’s small and it’s not really a pack yet, but they
need to be. They’re not what you’d call normal or average, but they
have good hearts, and they’re loyal, and they’ll stand for any
Alpha who’s willing to stand for them. They deserve a chance at a
better life than the one they’ve been handed. There’s an older
wolver who’d make a great Second. His mate, Cora, is one of the
finest females I’ve ever met.”

He started to list the others, but stopped
before he got to Eli. He couldn’t explain Eli and he wouldn’t
chance Eugene sending someone else out to eliminate the problem
because he Bull refuse to. If it ever came to that, and Bull hoped
it wouldn’t, he’d do it himself, with respect, because Eli deserved
better than to be taken out like a dog.

“
But this new Alpha,” he now
added to his list of requirements, “he’d have to be tolerant, real
tolerant,” he emphasized. “He’d have to be the kind who sees
strength as more than physical. I won’t have Samuel looked down on.
I won’t have any of them looked down on. They’re worth more than
that. They deserve more than that.”

“
Just where is this
almost-pack you’re so concerned about?”

“
Right here, up at the
house. Those three cubs are a part of it. That’s the other thing I
need to talk to you about. Once they have an Alpha and settle on a
name, I want to deed this land over to them. To the pack, not the
Alpha.”

“
And what about you? You’ve
sunk every dime you’ve earned into this place. You’ve spent almost
twenty years setting yourself up to go rogue, to spend your days
alone up there like some hermit.” Begley laughed at Bull’s
surprise. “You think I don’t know? I’m your Alpha, son, and I know
your heart. What do you plan to do with the rest of your
life?”

“
Keep working for you, I
guess.” The next few years would be hard for the pack. A little
extra cash would help.

“
Can’t do this work
forever,” Begley said flatly. “What are you going to do when you
get too old?”

Bull tried to make a joke of it. He laughed
awkwardly. “Take your job, I suppose.”

Suddenly, Eugene Begley puffed up with power
so strong it drove Bull to his knees. “This ain’t no laughing
matter, boy. Tell me what you want.”

Bull felt his wolf rebel against the force
that was holding him down and he used that rebellion to fuel his
own anger. “This is more important than what I want. They’re more
important than I am. They need this. They need to know they’ve got
something to hold on to. They need someone who’ll look out for them
and lead them and protect them, sometimes from themselves. They
need someone to tell them and show them that they’re worth it. I’ve
talked it over with the woman who’s waiting for me back at the
house, to be mated,” he added, just in case Begley had missed that
part, “and she agrees. These wolvers need a home to call their
own.”

Bull could feel the call of the moon,
stronger than he’d ever felt it before. He thought it might be
because he was doing the right thing. Eugene Begley probably
thought he was crazy for making this sacrifice, and maybe he was,
because it didn’t feel like a sacrifice at all. He’d failed his
parents and his siblings. He’d failed his first pack and he’d spent
most of his life trying to make up for it, but nothing he did ever
had. This was his redemption. Those wolvers would say that he saved
them, but the truth was that they’d rescued him. They’d reminded
him of what it meant to be wolver; to care about something above
yourself.

“
Moon’s rising, son, and
I’ve got one more question.” Begley’s voice sounded far away. “What
about Thomas Mortimer Bane?”

“
Thomas Mortimer Bane is
taken care of.”

And that was the most important thing of all.
Tommie would have a home, too. She would have a pack that would
love her and protect her and show her what it meant to be a
wolver.

“
Good God, William, you
didn’t kill her, did you?”

The moon was rising higher. Her call was
getting stronger, and the power of it was awesome in its intensity.
Bull wasn’t sure how long he could hold out. Eugene’s power was
holding him down and the moon was calling him to rise. Bull had no
strength left to avoid Begley’s question.

“
No, I didn’t kill her.
She’s not feral. She’s wonderful and I love her more than life. She
needs time to learn. She needs time to get to know her wolf and
she’ll do that. She’s the strongest wolver female you’ll ever want
to meet and she’s mine. You asked what I wanted for me. I want you
to leave her alone, Eugene. I want her to be my mate. I want to see
that she’s happy. That’s what I want.”

Eugene’s power lifted and the little wolver
began to laugh. “That big Ass I was talking about was you, William
Bulworth. I’ve been waiting a long time for you to pick your head
up out of your sorrow and see what goodness the world has to offer.
You won’t ever sit in my chair. You were never meant for it. You’ve
got another job that needs doing.”

It was the last thing Bull heard before he
was lifted by the moon’s call to be the Alpha of his pack.

~*~

Tommie felt it. The women in the room all
felt it. Something remarkable and frightening was happening to
Bull.

She’d been watching out the upstairs window
ever since Cora had bustled in going on about an Alpha in a big
truck. She said Bull didn’t look happy about it. Watching through
the window, Tommie could see by the way he walked and held himself,
something wasn’t right.

It looked like Bull was shouting at the
smaller wolver and then all of a sudden Bull was on his knees and
the moon rose and the two were surrounded by an eerie light. Bull’s
head snapped up like he was looking at the rising yellow orb in the
sky. His chest was thrown out and his arms were flung back and it
looked from her vantage point like he was in pain.

And that was when Tommie started to run and
because she was running and crying Bull’s name, the others
followed. Alpha or not, she didn’t care. If the wolver valued his
nose, he’d better leave her Bull alone.

Her wolf was running in circles inside her,
yipping and howling with excitement. She wanted out.

“
Mate. Mate. Mate.
Alpha
!”

After running across the field, Tommie was
breathing heavily by the time she reached him, but breathing more
easily, too. Whatever the power was that held him had let Bull go.
He was still kneeling, but his head was bowed forward and his arms
hung at his side.

“
I don’t want this,” he was
saying.

The other wolver, the one Cora said was
Bull’s Alpha and therefore Eugene Begley, laughed. “Of course you
do, son. It wouldn’t have happened if you didn’t.”

Tommie skidded to a stop, sliding to her
knees. “Bull! Oh, Bull, what has he done?”

“
Not a damn thing,” Begley
chuckled. “That’s not in my power to do. My job’s just to get the
ball rollin’. Your job’s to have the fun.”

“
Fun? Fun?” she cried
angrily. “You think this is fun?” Her lips pulled back from her
teeth and she snarled.

“
Spitfire.” Bull’s voice
sounded like it came from far away and she immediately turned to
him. “I’m sorry,” he said and reached for her and she clasped his
hand.

And pulled it away so fast, she fell back,
clutching her hand to her chest. No, no, no!

“
Yes, yes,
yes!
” her wolf howled. “
Alpha!
”

Bull had become the thing Tommie dreaded.
He’d become an Alpha like the one who died by the shack. The
feeling was the same when he touched her. Or was it? She looked at
her hand and then at Bull’s astounded face.

Tentatively, as if she’d been asked to handle
a snake, Tommie reached out to touch his cheek. She lost her nerve
and pulled it back and then, because she had to know, she reached
out again. This time, she forced herself to touch him. Her eyes
almost popped out of her skull. This wasn’t the same at all. It was
wonderful!

Her cheeks flushed, her breasts grew heavy,
her breath was taken away. Something marvelous coursed through her
body and ended up smack dab between her legs. “Bull!”

“
You’d better hold back on
that, son, or we’re going to have us an embarrassing situation
here.”

The sensations subsided when Bull pulled away
to snarl at the other Alpha. “You knew?”

Shocked and embarrassed, Tommie turned to
him, too. “Knew what? What is it? What’s wrong with me?”

“
Well now, I can’t say I
knew, but I suspected. Soon as I got word about her I did a little
diggin’. Seemed to me she’d have to be a pretty strong wolver to
make it that far without the benefit of a pack or going over the
moon. Seemed to me she’d have to be an Alpha’s daughter.” The
little Alpha’s face saddened for a moment. “I am sorry, honey, in
all my digging, I never did discover who your father was, but he
was an Alpha, make no mistake.”

“
I don’t understand any of
this,” Tommie said. “What difference does it make who my father
was? And what the hell just happened?”

Cora stepped forward and put her hand on
Tommie’s arm. She was grinning from ear to ear. “There’s only two
ways you can become an Alpha’s Mate.” She leaned in an aside,
“That’s the big ‘A’, honey,” before resuming her normal voice.
“You’re either a human born to be one or you’re the daughter of an
Alpha and that’s a big ‘A’, too. What you’re feeling is the Alpha’s
magic. It’s one of the ways he knows the woman he’s touching is
meant to be a Mate, and that’s a big ‘M’, too. That Alpha you bit
should have done it, too.”

“
That was why I bit him,”
Tommie whispered, more embarrassed than before.

Cora started to laugh. “I don’t think that
was the reaction he was looking for.”

Ignoring the women, Bull rose to his feet and
advanced on the smaller wolver. He was still angry. “Eugene Begley,
you sent me on a hunt for a male wolver.”

“
I did not,” Begley said
indignantly. “I sent you after Thomas Mortimer Bane. That she was
female was on page two.”

“
There was no page two,”
Bull growled.

“
Because you never read page
two. Why waste the paper?” Begley laughed.

Bull was now towering over the other Alpha.
His jaw was clenched and he spoke through his teeth. “They kept her
in a cage, Eugene.”

“
I apologize, too, for you
being in that cage, Tommie. That, I didn’t know about. If I’d had
any idea, I would have had Bull get you out a whole lot
sooner.”

Power swelled and Bull loomed large. Eugene
Begley didn’t look concerned. The others shrank back from the
explosion that was sure to come, but Tommie raced forward and
grabbed Bull’s arm as if she could hold him back.

“
No huffy-puffy, Bull. It’s
our mating day and I’ve had enough of murder and mayhem. You can
fight with him tomorrow, but not today. It’s a rule. No bloodshed
on Tommie’s Mating Day. I’m pretty sure it’s Primal
Law.”

“
You’re both crazy,” Bull
said. He still looked a little put out, but the huffy-puffy thing
was gone.

Eugene Begley laughed. “Crazy ain’t always
bad, son.” He winked at Tommie. “Beats being boring.”

Bull stood before the small assembly dressed
in a clean pair of jeans and a crisp white shirt. He had several
suits in his closet, two of which were custom made, but he knew
what was in the closets of his wolvers and he wouldn’t shame them
by the comparison.

Tommie stood beside him, prettier than he’d
ever seen her. She wore a little make-up which he hadn’t seen her
wear before and the effect was dramatic. Her golden skin shimmered.
Her dancing dark eyes were lined and the lashes were long. When she
rested them on her rosy cheeks they reminded him of a black bird’s
shiny wings. Her lips were the red of autumn leaves. They matched
her dress which flowed over her slender body like water. She’d
assured him it was made of cotton, but he’d never seen cotton so
sheer. Her hair was the color of dark chocolate, hanging loose over
her shoulders and fluttering wild in the breeze. Someone had made
her a crown of slender vines and berries.