Wolver's Reward (36 page)

Excited, his wolf tore after her, passed her
with a playful woof and a leap, and took the lead. When she veered
from the path he wanted her to follow, he forced her to turn. There
were things he wanted her to see. He showed her where the elk fed
and the deer hid. He showed her where the rabbits lived in their
underground city.

He listened to her wolf laugh as he chased a
mouse beneath the damp covering of the forest floor. He pounced
repeatedly, more like a cat than wolf. She yipped her delight in
the silly display and joined in the fun. It was River's turn to
laugh when he caught the mouse and tossed it to her. It was the
traditional display of wolvers to feed the one they loved. No one
else would ever know, but maybe, when she looked back on her life,
Reb would remember the silly wolf who showed her his love with a
mouse.

Instinct made her wolf catch the tiny rodent.
Her human squealed and made her drop it. River realized she didn't
know what to do with it. Up until now, her pack had run in a park
with manicured lawns and undergrowth trimmed away from beneath the
trees. She'd never run wild, but she needed to learn.

River caught another and swallowed it down
whole, sipping the tail in like a strip of spaghetti. Mice were
good to eat and according to Kat, Wolf's Head's teacher and Mate,
many full blooded wolves lived on the little creatures when larger
prey was scarce.

He caught a third and howled his pleasure
when, with only a slight hesitation, the white wolf swallowed it
down. Reb stretched out her forelegs and keeping her rear end high
in the air, she bowed her thanks for the praise and then took off
running before he could find her another mouse.

They stopped and drank from a cold, clear
stream. The taste of it reminded the human River of Reb's pure and
soul cleansing kisses.

If River were given a choice free of Fate and
Destiny, he would have spent the rest of his life here in these
mountains with Reb by his side. He understood Nature with her
balance of cruelty and bounty. He had no understanding of the
concept of God, but if he did, he would have seen a life with Reb
as heaven.

It was all over too soon. The moon reached
her zenith and too quickly started to descend. It was time to come
home.

Reb refused to go. She danced around his
insistence that they leave. She ran from him when he tried to turn
her in the direction of home. She had no wish to return to that
life. She wanted to stay here with him. As good as that made him
feel, River knew that this night must end. He nipped at her flank,
not hard, but impatient. She yelped, louder than the nip warranted.
All night creatures stopped their chatter and movement at the
sound.

It was then River heard it, the soft brush of
canine paws in the growth beneath the trees. He snarled as he
caught the faintest scent on the breeze. It was a scent he'd
imbedded in his memory.

Once again, Fate had kicked River in the
teeth. Donavan had found them.

Chapter
28

Reb was only teasing when she yelped. She'd
never run alone with anyone, male or female. She was always with
the pack, always did what they did, which pretty much consisted of
trotting over the grounds of a local park for a few hours and
sniffing at squirrel paths. That was for dogs.

What River showed her was for wolves, and she
was enjoying it. This was what her father had spoken of. This was
his dream and for the first time, Reb understood it. As difficult
as the adjustment might be to living without the amenities found in
collegiate suburbia, this was where she was meant to be. Who needed
supermarkets, museums, and movie theaters when you could have this?
She wanted to prolong the experience until the moon called her
home.

River's reaction to her teasing was
disappointing. He'd been having fun, too. His carefree enjoyment of
the world around them was part of her pleasure. He was free and
relaxed. This was where he needed to be, as well. She almost yipped
at him again to demonstrate her discontent, but caught herself in
time.

He wasn't watching her, but the trees. Eyes
intent, his nose lifted, searching for scent. His lip curled just
enough to expose an upper canine. His eyes shifted, just a glance
her way, and then moved back to the trees.

Reb moved stealthily forward until she was by
his side. He silently snarled at her and nudged her with his snout,
not playfully as before, but impatiently. His wolf was no longer
wild and beautiful. It was frightening. He nudged her again, this
time angrily. Her wolf interpreted the confusing signal.

"
Run
."

Run? And leave him alone to whatever danger
he perceived? No!

Reb stood her ground and lifted her head as
he did. Mouth open to taste the scent as well as smell it, she drew
in air that carried with it the thousands of odors that pervaded
the woodland. Dead leaves, squirrel, raccoon, deer droppings,
River. Her wolf's brain sifted through the innumerable smells that
assailed it, searching for the one that didn't fit. And there it
was. Not it, but they. There were eight of them and they all
smelled of Donavan.

Fear bordering on panic seized her. Donavan
was here!

"Father! Help!" she cried out in her mind in
the hope that her father was close enough to hear through the
connection he shared with his pack. Her wolf echoed the call.

"
Alpha! Help
!" Not father, but Alpha,
the leader of her pack. Images of the route they'd taken flashed
before her mind's eye.

River's body suddenly relaxed from its frozen
stance, but not because the danger was past. Like a fighter in the
ring, he loosened his muscles in preparation for their use. They
were coming. He was ready. He could not fight them all.

Reb opened her mind further to the females
and broadcast to them as well. It was emotion, not images or words,
but if one of them was close enough to feel it, they would pass the
message along.

River nudged her again, no longer urging her
to run, but demanding she change her position. Reb wanted to stand
by his side, shoulder to shoulder. He snarled and nipped at her and
this time it hurt. Reb leapt away from the sharp display of teeth.
Her wolf understood where she did not.

"
Let go
," it insisted.
"
Wolf
."

All her life, she heard the Law; the wolf
must never rule the human, but now Reb's mind screamed the
opposite. Listen to your wolf!

"
Wolf fight
."

Reb let her human reasoning fade back. Wolf
instinct took over. She moved as River wanted her to, behind him,
bodies aligned, her nose to his tail. He was the stronger, but her
position was not one of protection. He knew he couldn't fight them
alone, but he would have been willing to do so for her safety. She
didn't run. Now she must fight.

"
Alpha! Help
!"

They came at River and not at her. She was
the protected prize and not the defender that stood in the way. A
large gray came at River's hind quarters. Reb darted forward,
slashing at the animal's snout. He pulled back in surprise, but her
attack wasn't enough. He lunged again.

Behind her, she felt the shove of a snout, a
body pressing between River and herself. They were trying to
separate the two. She wanted to turn and defend her flank. She
couldn't. Another had joined the gray at River's rear end. She
attacked, more viciously than her first stroke. She aimed for the
closest eye. The wolf moved and she captured its snout. This time
she did not withdraw. With more force than she knew she possessed,
her jaws clamped down. She tasted blood.

And the blood tasted like victory. Fear
receded. Cold rage replaced it. Keeping River at her flank, she
moved with him, one fighting unit moving with the other. She
slashed, she tore, she felt the crunch of bone between her powerful
jaws. Pain slashed her outer flank, surprising her with its sharp
heat. In that split second of distraction, she was torn from
River's side. She was rolled to her back by a powerful blow. She
leapt to her feet, ready to charge back into the fray, but her way
back to River's side was blocked.

Two of the attackers were down, one badly
injured, one unmoving. Two blocked her way. River was fighting
three alone. She tried to maneuver around her captors, but they cut
her off at every turn. She slashed and attacked, but they had room
now to evade her snapping jaws. They kept her pinned in place and
thwarted her every attempt to return to River's side.

River fought on with cold, hard
determination. Blood spattered his thick coat and strong muzzle,
both darker and more gleaming than the fur beneath it. There was no
way to tell if the injuries were his or from those he'd inflicted.
He was a whirling ball of fur and fury.

At her howl of rage, his power increased. It
spread like a blood red fog surrounding those he fought and
spreading beyond to the two guarding her. One of his attackers
hesitated at the release and that hesitation cost him his life.
River's jaw slashed and tore at its throat.

There was hesitation in her own guards and
Reb took the opportunity to do some slashing of her own. It wasn't
enough to drive them away, but there was satisfaction in the
wounding.

River continued his onslaught, moving with
savage precision. Reb began to feel like victory might be possible
if only she could find a way to join the fight. Three attackers
were down, two guarded her, two fought River and one of those was
failing badly.

Seven attackers. There should be eight.
Knowing her guards wouldn't harm her, Reb looked around for the
eighth. She couldn't find him and she began to worry about what
that meant. Fear returned when one of her guards lifted his snout
and cocked his head to the side. He was listening, and then she
heard it, too. More wolves were coming. Her guard's lack of fear at
the sound increased her own.

"
Help! Alpha! Attack!
"

Reb called and called while River fought. Her
frustration grew beyond anger. It erupted without thought. This
time, she did not allow her guard to dance away from her attempts
to free herself. She lunged, attacked, and when he moved away, she
kept going. Muscles wound tight, she sprang forward. He rose on
hind legs to meet her leap and they fell. She clawed and scrambled
away, tumbling painfully when her forelegs crumpled. Her tail was
trapped by the jaws of the one she fought. Reb rolled and kicked
out at the face containing the jaws. The grip on her tail
loosened.

More wolves came through the trees
beyond.

"
Run
!" She heard the first order as
raspy and indistinct, a wolf's voice she'd never heard before, but
it demanded her obedience.

"
We come. Run
," came the steadier
command of her Alpha, her father.

The two commands forced her to run. She had
no choice. The Alpha must be obeyed.

Her guards weren't prepared for her reversal
of direction and their distraction gave her a head start. Reb ran
like she'd never run before. Her feet flew over the ground, leapt
before the thought entered her mind, slid around obstacles, and
clawed their way over mounds of dirt and rock. Behind her she could
hear the sounds of continued battle and a sharp cry, cut in half by
her gasping lungs, escaped. River was alone. Forced to follow her
Alpha's demand, she'd left him behind.

She'd left him! Her body stopped mid leap,
turned in the air, and landed facing the direction from which she'd
come. Through the trees she saw the large male tearing in her
direction. It wasn't one of her guards that she half expected to
see and was prepared to fight. This wolf was heavy set and tawny
colored. Even from this distance, she could see he was older and
showed signs of scarring. It was Donavan.

There was no returning to the battle now. Her
only hope was to run. He would not mount her as a wolf. Such a
thing was an anathema to every wolver and would serve no purpose if
he wanted her as his Mate. The moon was sinking fast. With its
passing from the night sky she would come home to human. She had to
outrun him and find a place to hide. She was running out of
time.

Reb ran as if a hound of hell were after her,
which in fact, was exactly what Donavan was.

~*~

River's cry to flee must have gotten through
to Reb. He saw her change course and run. He had no choice but to
fight on as other wolves descended on the scene of battle. His
battle was lost. Fate had finally won, but he wouldn't leave this
world quietly. He would not give her that. He would fight as he
always had from the moment he'd stabbed the old Alpha with a
kitchen knife. He would inflict as much pain and damage as he could
before Fate had her way.

He fought his way through the last two of his
attackers and took on two more. Turning to deal another death blow,
his victim was taken to the ground by another. Lawrence, body newly
muscled by hard work and training, dove into the wolf's throat
while behind him, the shorter and pudgier body of Arnold went for
the underbelly.

All around him, Sweet Valley wolvers worked
in pairs and units. Their human training transformed to wolf. It
wasn't smooth or graceful. They were awkward and ungainly in their
movements and maneuvers. But it worked. Half of them had tasted
blood lust before. Others never knew they had it in them. They knew
it now. They outnumbered the intruders and they were taking no
prisoners.