Wolver's Reward (10 page)

"
We're safe. You are not. Run
!"

She might have run in circles. She didn't
know. Her wolf sense was buried beneath the imperative of flight.
Run. Run. Run!

Reb ran until she leapt a fallen branch and
her foot hit a hole on the other side. Her body tilted and she
fell, skidding along in the dirt and weeds. The wind was knocked
from her lungs and with it went the panic. Hopelessness and fear
were left in its place.

Her hand felt something hard beneath it and
she clawed it from the ground. She curled into a ball and clutched
it to her as if it could bring her comfort. A broken sob escaped
her lips.

~*~

A sharp, anguished cry halted River's shift
before it began. He stumbled and almost fell with the sound of the
fleeing girl's pain. Hand touching ground to regain his balance,
River pushed off and ran on, increasing his speed to meet the
increasing ache that gripped his heart.

He'd heard that kind of cry before. He'd
heard it in the silence of the night while the rest of the world
slept. He'd seen it in the eyes of a pup too frightened to make a
sound. He'd felt it each and every day he'd been on the run with
pups too young to fend for themselves. It wasn't the kind of cry
that came from a physical wound. It couldn't be swallowed and
endured. He'd tried to swallow it. He knew.

He heard no other sound, but he was close
enough to trace her whereabouts by her scent. It was fresh and
clean and pure like water bubbling from a spring on the mountain he
once thought to call home.

All thoughts of vengeance were forgotten when
he found her curled in a tight ball on a bank of mossy ground. Her
eyes were closed and her breath came in short, sharp bursts. The
knuckle of her right hand was gripped so tightly between her teeth,
blood ran from the fingertip. She was trying to swallow the pain
and he couldn't let her do it. She had to let it out.

With a quietness born of long practice, River
moved to stand beside the girl and gently bent to one knee. He
allowed himself a moment to close his eyes and breathe deeply of
her scent. He held it inside him and like that spring of pure
water, felt it wash his anger away. He released that cleansing
breath and laid a comforting hand on her shoulder.

That was when she hit him.

Chapter
7

Pain pierced his cheek. "Damn it to
hell!"

River grabbed her wrist before she could hit
him again with the rock she held in her hand. She glared at him,
bared her teeth, and tried to bite the hand that held her wrist. He
held it away and squeezed until her eyes widened and she dropped
the rock. It was a small rock, but it was sharp and she wielded it
like an ax. His bleeding cheek stung with the proof of it.

He eased his grip when the rock fell. "I
won't hurt you," he started to say and that was his second
mistake.

Hands now free, she attacked. She punched,
slapped, kicked, and bucked her body upward in a frenzied effort to
get away. She tried to bite him again.

She was a woman gone mad with terror and that
was the only reason River didn't let her go. In her madness, she
would run, not with purpose, but blindly and running blind in the
woods would get you hurt or worse, killed. For her, running blindly
could lead her to a place that would be worse than death.

Those howls from the woods on the other side
of the parking area were the howls of Alphas in search of prey and
she was the prey. Word must have gone out through the mental
connections with their packs that the female had escaped and was on
the run. How long would it be before they realized they were
hunting in the wrong direction?

River tried to calm her, but his words had no
effect, and when she struck a particularly tender spot over his
ribs, he gave up nice and resorted to brute force. He grabbed her
hands, crushing them in his much larger ones, and forced them up
beside her head which was thrashing from side to side. One of her
long legs came up, knee locked, and she kicked him in the head with
one of those damned orange sneakers. It was like wrestling with a
goddamned octopus.

When the leg dropped in preparation for
another upward swing, he used the lull to swing his own leg over
her. He straddled her, right below on her hips where he could
control both legs and torso. He didn't want to hurt her, only
control her movement, so he kept most of his weight on his knees.
That was his third mistake.

She could still move and his straddling
position allowed her bucking hips to drive her crotch up into his.
River's body responded.

Well, shit. Sex had been the last thing on
his mind until his damn cock stood up and saluted like a soldier at
attention. After that, it was hard to keep his mind off the lithe
body that squirmed beneath his. Her shoulders rounded each time her
hips thrust up, but when those thrusting hips returned to ground,
her shoulders fell back too. In response, her back arched and River
was confronted with a pair of perfect breasts. They were small and
round, with tiny nipples that rose to sharp peaks. He could see
their outline through the gown she wore. The gown wasn't sheer, but
it was light weight and clingy and now that he was paying attention
to it, looked as soft and silky as her skin.

Realizing her bucking had stopped while his
mind was wandering over the wonders of her body, he looked up and
into big brown eyes darkened by fear and something else he couldn't
define.

Her face was almost heart shaped with a broad
forehead and tiny pointed chin. Unlike her long, slender body, her
cheeks were plump and flushed to a rosy red that reminded him of
the roses Kat grew under the front windows of Hell Hall. He
couldn't remember their name and suddenly felt that he should. That
color needed a name since her lips shared it in a darker shade. But
maybe that was because she licked the upper one with the tiny tip
of her tongue before drawing the bottom one in with her upper
teeth. Shiny, white teeth, he noted, that weren't quite even, but
were perfect anyway. That mouth fascinated him, as did the
sprinkling of freckles over the bridge of her nose. He leaned in
closer, his lips and tongue torn between the choice of touching
those freckles or tasting those lips.

His cock throbbed against her belly, an
instant reminder that this wasn't why he was here. He maintained
his position, though, telling himself that the pleasurable
sensation was secondary to keeping his erection hidden.

His wolf snorted with laughter. River tried
to ignore it.

"Don't be afraid," he told the girl.

"Easy for you to say," she whispered back.
Her scent was tinged with a confusing mixture of fear and lust.
Lust?

His wolf wagged its tail.

"You're not an Alpha. Mating me won't make
you one," she warned.

River reared back to a sitting position. Who
said anything about mating? What did she think he was, some dumb
shit pup that didn't know the facts of life? He couldn't read very
well, but you didn't need to read to know the difference between an
alpha male and an Alpha with a capital. This was only his body
reacting to the full moon above him and the hot little piece below.
Bad timing, but...

"
Alphas."

At his wolf's warning, River was instantly on
his feet pulling her with him.

"We have to go," he said, not looking at her,
but into the trees and listening for the sound that had alerted his
wolf. He heard it. They were still a ways off. They had time.

"Now." He started to move, but she
resisted.

"Wait." She bent to pick up the three brown
envelopes that lay beneath her. They bulged with the cash the
Alphas had paid for the Chase. "We need it," she said at his look
of disgust.

There wasn't time to argue. He tugged her
hand again and started to run. His mind raced past his stupidity
for playing games when they should have been moving. It got stuck
on where they could run. They could move faster as wolves, but the
girl couldn't shift. The Alphas behind them were running as wolves.
No matter how strong or fast, his human form couldn't outdistance a
wolf. There had to be another way and he had to think of it while
there was still time. He stopped and turned her to him before
dropping her hand.

"Take off your dress."

"No!" She clutched the front of it in her
fist.

River walked away from her, scanning the
trees and listening. While he watched and listened, he fumed and
mentally threw his hands in the air. Women! Not five minutes ago,
she was ready to get naked and now she was Miss Modesty.

"We need to lay a false trail. It isn't
foolproof, but it's the best we've got."

He heard her move behind him and then she
threw the dress over his head.

"There. Happy now?"

"No," he said and threw it back. "Wipe
yourself down with it."

"Excuse me?" They were speaking in whispers,
but her outrage was clear.

"You were hot. You're still wet. We need the
scent."

He heard her quick intake of breath and then,
"I think I hate you."

"Fine. No skin off my snout." He pointed to
the trees. "You're welcome to one of them. It's what you're here
for, isn't it? You pay your money, you get to run. Fucking you
won't make them an Alpha, but one bite'll make you a Mate. Right?"
He nodded. "Good luck with that."

He started to walk away. There was no need to
say it like that. It was mean and he knew it, but her earlier
insult was still biting his ass. Tit for tat. It was said and he
wasn't taking it back.

"Don't leave me," she stuttered. She sounded
as if she might cry, but she sniffed it back and straightened her
shoulders. "It wasn't supposed to be this way."

"Then wipe," River ordered. He didn't know
why he should be so angry. It wasn't his business. Yet here he was,
trying to save her from what she'd asked for. It wasn't his fight.
Unless they caught him with her. Then they'd kill him first before
they went after each other. Then the winner would go after her and
he wouldn't be nearly so gentlemanly when she hit him with a
rock.

"Here," she sniffed. "I wiped."

River snatched the dress from her hand and
walked off. "Stay there. Don't move," he told her when she started
to follow.

"Alone?"

He was tempted to thunk his head against a
tree trunk. "It won't be a false trail if you're on it," he said,
sweetly sarcastic.

"But what if they find me before you get
back?"

River closed his eyes and prayed for
patience, not that it would do him any damn good. The girl was
literally a babe in the woods. In more than ways than one. She was
standing there looking sexy as hell in her silky underwear, and she
was counting on him to come back. It never dawned on her that he
might not.

She trusted him to do the right thing.

Without any clear reason behind the move, he
went back to her, tilted her chin up with the knuckle of his
finger, and kissed her. It was no more than a brush of the lips,
but it was the sweetest thing he ever tasted and that sappy thought
embarrassed him more than sitting up to beg.

"I won't be gone long," he said gruffly, "and
if they find you before I get back, you scream your head off and
run like hell. I'll come running back to rescue you."

She looked up into his eyes and touched his
cheek, a tender gesture that meant more to him than it should
have.

"You can't fight off two Alphas," she
said.

As if he could fight off one.

"Won't have to," he told her. One would have
killed the other before they got here.

Her face paled as if he'd said the last
aloud. She closed her eyes and swallowed.

"I-I never meant it to be this way," she said
when she opened them again. Those tear filled eyes pleaded to be
believed.

"I know, baby. Things don't ever turn out the
way they should." And because he couldn't help it, he kissed her
again. "I gotta go and you need to rest. When I get back, be
prepared to run." He winked, turned, and took off, dragging the
dress behind him.

~*~

Reb watched him move away. His backside was
as magnificent looking as his chest was from the front. Every
muscle in his body was clearly defined, every ropy sinew. He moved
like he was born to the woods, like every cell of his body was
attuned to the world around it. They called it animal grace and
they were right. He moved with the flow of the wind, the bending of
the grasses, and the bowing of the branches around him. He didn't
move through the forest. He became a part of it.

It was the wolver from whom they'd stolen the
truck. How did he find them? How did he get here? She smiled as the
thought crossed her mind that she might as well ask the wind how he
got from one place to another.

He'd found her and he'd promised her he'd
bring her no harm and she believed him, though not at first.

At first, she thought the approaching wolver
was one of the Alphas or another vile creature like the one in the
RV. He'd saved her from that one, too, she now realized. It was his
coppery colored arm that held the beast back.

But she didn't know that when she heard the
faint crackle of a broken twig. She only knew that it didn't matter
if it was Alpha or beast. She wasn't going through with it. Her
residual panic had turned to something else. Her failure at flight
had become a need to fight. Anger fueled the need.

They'd turned her mating day into a
battleground. They'd destroyed every plan she and her father had
made. They'd tainted the honor of her calling to be an Alpha's
Mate. They'd proved to her she was no more than a thing to be used
as a means to an end. She hated them, but more than that, she hated
herself for allowing herself to be used and for using them. She was
no better than they.