Wolver's Reward (9 page)

Her Alpha raised his head and gave a sharp
bark, before returning to his defense. Assured that he was holding
his own with the help of his Second and one of the females, the
Mate ran for the RV.

River followed her and pushed her aside when
she would have joined the battle that was raging at the vehicle's
door. She snarled and snapped at his efforts to protect her. River
blocked her path, baring his teeth and daring her to defy him. She
snarled and snapped again. This was followed by a whine that
combined both fear and anger as she pointed with her snout toward
the RV. Someone was in that RV, someone the Mate wanted protected
at all costs. She wouldn't rest until she knew that someone was
safe.

Members of a pack could communicate with each
other through the power of their Alpha. It was a kind of wolver
shorthand combining thought, projected images, and body language.
River was an outsider and therefore forced to rely solely on the
language of wolves, a much more primitive method.

"
She-wolf
," his wolf translated and
then added as a clarification. "
She-cub
.
Mate
."

Of course. The Chase. The Mate's daughter was
in that RV. That's what this whole shit storm was about. River felt
like a fool for not seeing it sooner.

He chuffed at the Mate and took a step toward
her, tossing his head as he did so, telling her as best he could to
step back. He would take care of it.

She hesitated, then slowly nodded her regal
head, and took a step back. Permission granted.

River didn't hesitate. He turned and raced to
the RV where two female wolvers fought to keep a single intruder
from the door. Bloodied and torn, they were losing the battle. It
was only a matter of time. River dove at the attacker, aiming for
the vulnerable hamstring of its hind leg, but the animal turned on
some sixth sense of survival and met River head on. It was like
getting hit by his old security chief, a freight train with teeth,
and it was the chief's training that saved him.

He didn't fight the impact, but rolled with
it, bringing his hind legs up to protect his belly. He could almost
hear his mentor shouting in his head.

"Offer him your throat. Let him think he has
you. Now turn and give him a mouthful of ruff. Sure it hurts, you
whiny assed pup, and it'll hurt a lot more if you don't get out
from under him. He's too heavy to throw. Roll. Roll. Use your head,
damn it, or die."

With the gray wolf tearing at the thick ruff
of fur at his neck, River twisted his head, knowing that his body
would follow. His attacker came with him and when they were side by
side like two lovers entwined, River struck out with his forepaw
and caught the larger wolf's underjaw. The snarling mouth snapped
shut with a clatter of teeth. The move bought River the moment of
time he needed to roll again in the opposite direction. He
scrambled away, lungs gasping to capture needed air and had barely
gained his feet before the larger wolf was charging again.

"Retreat! Retreat!" he heard Ryker's lessons
screaming in his head, but River was no longer listening.

All the anger and hatred and helplessness of
the cub he once was boiled up inside of him and he stood his
ground. Sides heaving, he let the older, heavier wolf come. Let the
battle scarred creature think his power and prowess would win.
River played the role of beaten and defenseless just as he'd played
it for most of his life. He lowered his head in defeat.

The attacker snarled in triumph and leapt.
River drew back as if he would fall in an impact absorbing roll as
he had before, but the move was a feint. He dove forward instead,
turned on his back as he did so, and skid beneath his enemy.

Too late, the gray wolf understood what was
happening and he clamped his jaws on River's tail. The pain only
added to the force of the younger wolf's upward rake of his hind
claws along the old one's belly. Flesh tore. The wolf screamed.
River kicked out again, then turned and crawled from beneath the
collapsing body. He howled his victory to the moon, but his triumph
was cut off by a scream from the RV.

The Mate, still alive but bloodied, was
crawling toward the steps of the open door where another kind of
battle was raging within. A furious storm of pots, pans, shoes, and
things moving too fast to recognize flew by the door. A male voice
shouted curses as he batted the bombardment away.

The Mate whined and looked at him with fear
filled eyes.

The battle behind them was winding down and
in spite of his sympathy for the Mate, River had to fight down the
urge to join it. He sighed and in a burst of light, brought himself
home to human.

"I got it," he whispered to her before he
leapt up the steps and through the open door.

The girl had run out of ammunition and was
now in the narrow hallway, grappling with a man twice her size.
River couldn't see much of her beyond the broad expanse of naked
back, but he recognized her scent. It looked like she was putting
up one hell of a fight and he almost felt sorry for the guy.
Almost.

"
She-cub
.
Mate
."

"I got it," River said, this time to his
wolf. Their sexy thief was the bait in this Chase. Her scent and
the white dress kind of gave it away.

With another exhausted sigh, he leapt to the
man's back and crossed his arms afore and behind the guy's neck in
a move he'd used on one of the guys at the bar, but this guy was
wolver, not human. He didn't pass out. He thrashed and fought
against the hold. River was thrown from side to side. His body was
hammered against door knobs and drawer pulls. A mirror broke. The
battering worked. River's grip slipped and he fell back.

His opponent roared with his freedom, turned,
and continued his attack. River slid on a pile of something silky
and slick, and fell heavily onto his back. He landed in a pile of
kitchenware. The wolver immediately fell on him, pounding his fist
into River's face. Arms crossed to shield himself from the blows,
he searched for a weapon and found one a few feet beyond his reach.
Ignoring the blows raining down on his body, he turned, crawled,
and silently screamed when a fist of iron pounded into his lower
back. He caught the handle of the iron skillet, and turning again,
swung it with all of his might.

Now it was his opponent who fell back, but
falling back wasn't enough. River kept pounding until the wolver
stopped moving. Only then did he look up to reassure the girl.

She wasn't there. The open emergency window
in the bedroom at the back told him she had escaped. River figured
she was now in the safety and comfort of her parents' loving
arms.

"Good," he mumbled as he staggered to the
door, "because if I got to her first, I'd have to kill her. This
whole fucking disaster was all her fault."

The howl of a wolf picking up the scent of
prey sounded from the woods beyond. It was echoed by another. River
ignored it. It wasn't his fight.

"
She-cub
.
Mate
."

"I figured that out, pal, and I don't care if
she's the fucking Queen of Sheba. We are fucking done here. We are
going to our fucking truck. We are going to get in. We are going to
fucking drive away. We will never fucking stop to help another
fucking soul, wolver or human, in our entire fucking lives. Got
it?"

"No!" the Mate cried softly in a fully human
voice.

Holy shit. River winced with the expectation
of a lecture on his language. He'd heard them often enough from
Kat. The Mate couldn't have heard him, could she? He'd been
speaking in his head, the same head he reluctantly stuck out the
door to see what was going on. She was speaking to her Alpha.

His relief was short lived, however, when he
saw how she clutched the pack leader's arm, and pointed across the
parking lot to a figure in a white dress entering the woods beyond.
Orange neon sneakers flashed beneath the white as her long legs
stretched out in a run.

The girl was as graceful as a deer and fast.
He had to give her that.

The Alpha rose painfully to his feet. "Don't
fret, old girl, I'll..."

"Drop dead before he gets there," River
thought. With a dead Alpha, the shit would really hit the fan.
Again. He stepped from the RV and raised his hand as he skirted the
couple. "I got it," he said aloud. Another set of howls sounded
from the woods. "You need to gather your people and see to your
wounded." He looked around the field beside the parking lot where
other wolvers were doing the same. A curling tendril of warning
crept up his spine as he counted the survivors. "And then you need
to run," he said.

The Alpha looked him up and down with raised
eyebrows and an incredulous look on his face. He waved his hand as
if to reject River's offer and suggestion, but the Mate caught the
hand in hers and brought it to her lips for a kiss.

"Don't say it," she whispered and River saw
her faint smile against the Alpha's palm. "In spite of what you see
and as strange as this may sound, I think we need him, dearest. Let
him go."

River didn't wait for the Alpha's nod. He was
already trotting toward the parking lot. More howls sounded behind
him.

A small compact car careened through the
entrance, moving way too fast. The driver then hit the brakes way
too hard, and the vehicle spun in a cloud of flying dirt and
gravel. It came to a halt facing the opposite direction. The doors
flew open and, like clowns from a circus, six wolvers emerged from
a car built for four. River recognized the flannel shirted driver
as one of the thieves. She recognized him, too. Like the Alpha and
Mate, she looked him up and down and except for the addition of a
derisive smirk, her look was much the same as her Alpha's. What was
wrong with this pack? Had they never seen a wolver covered in the
filth of battle before?

She looked like she was about to speak, but
River had no time for her bullshit. "Your Mate is injured. Your
Alpha's almost dead." That wiped the smirk from her face. "Get your
injured loaded and out of here before your enemies get reorganized.
Meet me where you stole my truck and for fuck's sake, don't travel
together and don't stop." He started moving away, but called over
his shoulder as he started to run. "Gather what dead you can.
Everybody's." It was important that they leave no signs behind.

He took off in a ground covering run toward
the spot where he last saw the flash of neon orange disappearing
into the trees.

The anger was filling him again only this
time it had a focus. He licked his dry lips and tasted the coppery
tang of blood, his own or another's. It didn't matter. This whole
night was a waste of good wolver blood and for what? Money? Power?
A Mate, so their packs could breed more with a thirst for the same?
He wanted no part of it. He would find the girl, bring her to the
rendezvous, and then he was done. It wasn't his fight.

Overhead, the full moon shined down upon him,
renewing his energy and filling him with her power. This was what
he wanted. This was what he needed. He needed to run beneath the
moon's healing light. He needed to be free of all the bullshit he'd
just witnessed. He needed to release the anger growing inside him.
He needed to go over the moon.

~*~

Her father's voice had set her in motion.

"
Run. Run fast. Run hard. I go to the Mate.
Run!
"

He was her father, but he was her Alpha, too,
and she had no choice but to obey. She heard the chaos outside the
RV, felt the terror of the females on the other side of the door
and knew she'd find no escape through there.

She backed away and was halfway down the
short hall, when she heard him again.

"
Run. Escape
."

The door crashed open and a man crashed
through. The sounds of the snarls and howls of those outside
increased tenfold, so loud she could barely hear her father's
order.

"Run. The Mate lives. Run!"

It was too late. The man, naked and ugly,
with the snarl of a wolf still on his human face, advanced. His
lips peeled back from yellowed teeth in an abhorrent rictus. He
reached for her with hands spattered with gore. He wasn't one of
her prospective mates, but he thought he could be.

"I'll be the Alpha now," he said.

Panic rendered her mind incapable of all
thought, but one. "No!"

He took a step and her body, frozen in her
revulsion, broke free and moved, too. She tore at the doors to
either side of her in the narrow passageway. She threw whatever her
fingers grasped; canned goods, paper, pots and pans. There was
nowhere to flee, no door strong enough to hold him back for the few
seconds she needed to escape. She emptied another cabinet and
another.

He seemed to enjoy her fear and fight as he
batted away the bombardment. She would lose this battle which was
no battle at all. Her armory was empty.

Another body entered, not as large as the
first. She couldn't see who it was, friend or foe. She only saw the
coppery arms wrap around the first attacker and haul him back. They
grappled and her father called again.

"
Run
."

Reb ran.

First to the tiny bedroom that her parents
shared. She climbed onto the bed and released the emergency window
that was there in case of fire. She pushed it free and fell to the
ground.

"
Run."

Reb hoisted the hem of her dress and ran.

The crunch of gravel and dirt beneath her
feet became the softer sound of dirt alone. Vines and brambles
reached for her ankles. Trees, brush, tangles of vegetation flew
past her vision. She was oblivious to it all. The blindness of
panic engulfed her, leaving her with only the sound of her father's
fading words.