The Alpha's Choice

by Jacqueline Rhoades

  "I'm going out to look."

  Poor Mrs. Martin looked truly alarmed. "You can't. He said to stay here."

  Kat grinned. "Ever hear the words you're not the boss of me?"

  "Don't claim to be, but the Al… Mr. Goodman, he…"

  "Isn't the boss of me either."

  Technically he was, but at the moment Kat didn't care. He was probably going to fire her anyway.

  "You don't know these woods. You'll end up lost, too."

  Kat grabbed her keys off the rack by the back door where Charles had hooked them along with several others when he returned from pulling her car into the barn along with his truck. She dangled the keys from her finger for Tilda to see.

  "I won't be running around the woods. I'll stick to the roads. If Buddy comes across one, he'll probably stick to it, too, and try to follow it back here."

  "Wait!" Tilda raised her finger and hurried to the bedroom off the kitchen, returning with an old purple umbrella, the kind you didn't see any more with the deadly silver point at its tip. "Just in case you have to get out of the car," she said, holding it out to Kat.

  Kat took it as an offering of approval and thanks for what she was doing, though the woman couldn't say it out loud.

  Without it, she would have been soaked by the time she entered the barn, soaked and already shivering with cold. She couldn't imagine what poor Buddy must be feeling. Hauling back the doors on their screeching metal rollers, the first thing she saw was a very sleek and very expensive Mercedes roadster and just beyond it a metallic blue Tahoe. Kat couldn't imagine owning either one and wondered which one Charles drove here and which one he kept as a spare for weekend pleasure.

  Beyond them was an older pickup truck with huge tires. It was obviously a work vehicle if one took into account the ladders, buckets and tarps in the back and next to that, the old beat up rust bucket Tilda and Buddy had arrived in. Next to that was her own little rust bucket that had served her faithfully since she bought it used ten years ago.

  Kat tossed everything that filled her front seat out onto the floor. She would pick it up later when she had time. For now, finding Buddy was priority number one.

  Chapter 8

  Kat searched for hours along the half mile lane that led to the house and five miles in either direction once she got out on the county road. She followed every side road and lane. Steven's Bridge, Duck Creek, Twenty Mile, Old Mill; the names became familiar as she traveled them over and over.

  Twice, heart thumping in fear of what she might find, she stopped her slow crawl and got out of the car to investigate the ditches that ran alongside the road when her eyes detected something not quite right. The first was a dead deer, decaying and bloated, and the second, a bag of garbage tossed by a passerby and torn open by some wild creature in search of a meal.

  Twice she stopped for odd flashes of bright light from the edge of the trees and once, left the car at the side of the road to run across a stubbled field to find nothing when she could have sworn she saw a man.

  Every hour or so she stopped by the house to check in with Tilda and the news was always the same; no word from Charles, no sign of Buddy. Each time, Tilda begged her to stay. Each time, Kat refused and Tilda exchanged Kat's empty travel mug for one filled with coffee.

  Kat was wet, muddy and tired, but she wouldn't give up. The rain had stopped, but the sky was still overcast and full darkness was falling fast. Her gas gauge showed almost empty as she swung onto Fulton's Bend, a narrow gravel road she'd learned would bring her out to the county road about a mile beyond the turnoff for Hell Hall, the facetious name having taken on a more sinister connotation when she thought of the possible outcomes of Buddy's disappearance. This would be her last pass before she ran out of gas.

  Charles must be exhausted. While she was riding in semi-comfort, he was tramping through the woods and fields on foot. He too, was MIA and Kat thought it odd he hadn't checked once with Tilda to see if Buddy had returned on his own. As much as she wanted not to, Kat was worried for his safety, too.

  He was arrogant and rude and since Tilda and Buddy's arrival had gone out of his way to ignore her existence and yet she couldn't get him out of her mind. It was as if after that one wild and passionate encounter, he was inside her, had become an intrinsic part of her and she didn't like the feeling at all.

  She felt used and humiliated, a been-there-done-that sensation she had no wish to repeat. The first time was in high school when the football team's star running back asked her out and dated her regularly, only to leave her with her first formal dress hanging in her closet with the new shoes and bag to match two days before Homecoming. His grades were solid and the two papers she'd helped him with would carry his eligibility through the season. He didn't need her any more.

  He didn't feel the need to tell her that, but the blond chick with big boobs and bigger hair that ended up on his arm for Homecoming couldn't wait to give her the news.

  It happened again when she was a college freshman and let's not forget The Bastard who waited until the final med school bill was paid before he told her he'd fallen madly in love with a twenty one year old nurse.

  No, being used wasn't a new experience, but it had never felt quite like this.

  Charles had treated her like some two bit tramp, a quick fuck, a dirty little secret not to be exposed in respectable company. Okay, they didn't quite get to the fuck part, but they would have if Tilda hadn't shown up when she did.

  During those other times, Kat hadn't known she was being used, not until the end when it was too late and therein lay the difference between this and those other times. What did she expect throwing herself at a man she barely knew? Sure, she'd slept with men she didn't love. She wasn't sure she was capable of such a strong emotion, but she'd known them and cared for them and certainly hadn't thrown herself into their beds after knowing them for only a few hours.

  Charles wasn't the cause of her humiliation. She was. She'd never acted that way in her life. People farther up the social ladder made assumptions about girls raised in her part of town and she'd always gone out of her way to prove those assumptions false. She wasn't a skank. She wasn't loose with her favors. She wasn't a tramp.

  Until today when she sure as hell acted like one. Worse, those incredible feelings were still there even after Charles had metaphorically slapped her down and put her in her place. She still felt a sexual tingle when he came within a few feet of her. Thinking of him now made her insides quiver.

  Damnit! What was the matter with her? She would have to be very careful when she was around him. If he didn't fire her. If he didn't send her away to where he thought the children should live. If he let her stay.

  The little red finger of her gas gauge was bouncing above the E. With luck she'd be coasting back to the barn on fumes. She was close enough now she could walk it with ease if she ran out of gas.

  With the coming darkness, she'd slowed to a crawl, squinting into the dusk to see beyond the almost useless beam of her headlights. She was so used to staring out and seeing nothing of interest that she almost missed the shadowy shapes of people in the middle of the field to her left. She stopped and stared and then backed up and angled her car so the headlights shone on the men.

  They were concentrating so hard on what they were doing they didn't notice they were being observed or else had no fear of being watched. Her stomach clenched when she realized whatever they were kicking and poking was alive, an animal of some sort. It rose up and tried to crawl away, but a brutal kick from one of the men sent it sprawling back down with a howl of pain. She heard one of the men laugh. The cruel sound of it set her in motion.

  Kat scrambled for the glove box and the small black canister within and looped the cord over her wrist. She grabbed the tightly furled umbrella for good measure. Leaving the headlights on, she ran from the car and across the field.

  "Stop! Stop it! Leave it alone!"

  She was almost on top of them before they turned. The older one took a step
toward her while the younger turned back and kicked the animal again. It whimpered with the blow.

  It was a dog, a big dog, so covered in mud she could barely see the white fur beneath, but what stood out more than its bedraggled coat was the blood matting its leg and the iron jaws clamped around it. The poor thing had been caught in a leg hold trap.

  Kat's vision blurred to red.

  "You bastard!" she screamed and swung the umbrella with all her might.

  It clipped the kicker behind the ear and sent him to his knees over the struggling animal. The older man continued his advance, arm raised to hit her with a back handed fist. Kat swung the umbrella again and it was enough to interfere with the blow, but not enough to prevent its connection. Her head exploded with pain. She staggered back and fell, but she kept her grip on the umbrella and stabbed out at the man looming over her with his fist raised again.

  The point caught him in the side just below his ribs and above the waist of his jeans. He bellowed in rage and pain, grabbed the umbrella and wrenched it from her grip, hurling it behind her. Kat flipped onto her stomach and clawed at the muddy ground in a futile attempt to scramble away.

  He grabbed her ankle and twisted her easily onto her back. In spite of her flailing kicks, he held her easily with one hand while the other went to the buckle on his jeans.

  "You should have minded your own business, bitch." He turned to his partner who was crawling away from the dog that now lay still as death. "Go get the fucking truck."

  "It bit me," the partner complained. "The fucking thing bit me." He held his hand to his neck. "It could have torn my throat out."

  "I wish it had," Kat hissed. She stopped fighting and stared at the two men, squinting in the fading light. She needed to memorize their faces. If she got out of this alive, she wanted to be able to identify them, to make them pay.

  Her arm was pinned beneath her and she could feel the canister of spray digging into her back. It was her only chance and only good if she used it while the partner was away at the truck.

  Her captor ignored her comment. "Good," he said, "Give it a taste of blood it might fight harder in the ring. Shame to use a dog that size for bait."

  "That's no dog. It's a wolf, I tell ya, a fucking wolf. I told you there were wolves up here."

  Kat risked another look at the dog, relieved to see its sides heave with labored breath. It was certainly big, bigger than her friend from the pool. Could it be another wolf?

  Beyond the dog, a good distance away across the field, she saw the figure of another man, little more than a darker shadow in the night, running toward them. Her heart knotted in her chest and she shrank with the knowledge that her luck had just run out. Her chance for escape was now reduced to nothing.

  All those nights in the city walking home alone in the dark, she'd often worried that she'd end up raped or dead in some dark alley. How ironic to meet her fate in the peace and quiet of a country meadow.

  Kat's eyes widened and she gasped again as the running man burst into a flash of light moving faster than any man could. The light seemed to leap through the air momentarily blinding her and then the light was gone, leaving in its place not a man, but a beast. The beast soared over the injured animal on the ground, a vicious snarl contorting its face. She knew him in an instant. She knew his golden coat and blazing green eyes. It was her Wolf Lord from the pool.

  Before her captor had a chance to turn, the wolf was on him, knocking him away from Kat and driving him to the ground. Kat rolled in the opposite direction and shoved herself up onto her knees. One foot planted firmly on the ground, she started to rise, saw her attacker's companion fumble with his hand in his pocket. His eyes were wide with panic and his hands were shaking badly as he withdrew the gun.

  In a half leap, half stagger, Kat lunged forward and reached for the arm rising with the gun while she drove her shoulder into the stomach of the frightened man. The gun went off with a deafening roar in the stillness of the night as Kat and the gunman tumbled to the muddy ground inches from the trapped and beaten animal's head.

  The white wolf, and this close she was sure that's what it was, made one last effort to slice its tormentor with its wicked looking jaws, but it hadn't enough strength to finish the job. It collapsed back onto the ground.

  The sight of those jaws snapping so close to his face was enough, however, to send the gunman into a screaming panic. Screeching obscenities, he threw the gun aside and kicked and punched his way out from under Kat who was clawing her way up his body to do her own damage to his face. He ran, stumbled, fell, clambered to his feet and took off at a dead run.

  Kat, screaming obscenities of her own, scuttled after him on all fours, until she too, collapsed face first in the mud. Her nose landed on Tilda's muddy umbrella. Grunting, she pulled herself to her feet and shook her purple weapon at the retreating man.

  "Fucking bastard! Come back here so I can kill you," she shouted irrationally.

  Bright light burst behind her and she spun around to find Charles Goodman brushing flecks of dirt from his bare chest. "I doubt he'll take you up on that offer," he said.

  Kat poked her finger in the air and opened her mouth to speak, closed it, opened it again and closed it once more. Her knees gave out and she sat, splat, in the mud, staring speechlessly up at a man who a moment before was a wolf. Her wolf.

  "I know. Pretty amazing, isn't it. I often leave women speechless."

  Kat began to shake, not quiver and tremble, but earth quaking shake. She dropped the umbrella as her hands flapped uselessly in front of her face. The unused canister of pepper spray flopped dangerously close to her nose. Her teeth chattered so forcefully she couldn't hear herself think.

  The man who was her new boss, the man that owned that house and those cars, the gorgeous man who made her insides turn to jelly, the man she almost dropped her drawers was…"A W-w-w-werewolf?" she sputtered.

  "No. A Wolver. There's a big difference and we don't have time to go into it now. We've got to get Buddy home or he'll die."

  Charles knelt beside the white wolf and began to feel along the leg held by the trap.

  "Buddy?"

  Kat stared at the mud covered animal, its pale mouth and pink rimmed eyes evidence of its condition. Of course. Albino man, albino wolf. What was she thinking? If Kat could have found her voice, she would have given in to the hysteria rising up through her throat and attempting to form a scream. Fortunately, when she opened her mouth, nothing came out, because she had the feeling once she started, she wouldn't stop.

  "Katarina." Charles' voice was stern and commanding. "You were willing to save the wolf. Come help me save the man. Now!"

  That gave her something other than the bizarreness to focus on. Wolf or man, Buddy was a sweetheart and he was going to die without help. She knelt beside Charles.

  "What do you need me to do?"

  "Hold his leg here and here." Charles showed her where he needed her to steady the leg so he wouldn't do more damage while he forced the iron jaws open. He looked around and shook his head. "The ground was softened by the rain. He must have pulled the spike loose and dragged it with him. Those two must have found him here, struggling."

  At the mention of the two tormentors, Kat became alert and looked around for the one that didn't run off. His body was sprawled a few feet away. "Did you…?"

  "That was the plan, but I didn't have the pleasure. His partner got him first. Shot through the heart."

  He forced the trap open and Buddy screamed and thrashed with the pain of blood rushing back through the mangled limb. Without thinking, Kat threw her body over the wolf's to keep him still. Buddy's head snapped around to lash out at her with bared fangs, one of which scraped the back of her hand.

  Before she could move, Charles' hand wrapped around the wolf's throat and pinned its head to the ground. "No," he said and it was almost a growl. "She's mine."

  Buddy the wolf whimpered and lay back.

  "Yours?" Kat squeaked.

  "Bes
t to keep it simple," Charles said, "Easier for Buddy to understand."

  Chapter 9

  Charles hoisted the giant wolf into his arms and slowly straightened his legs. He started forward, staggered a few steps and then readjusted the weight.

  "Leave that," he ordered when Kat bent to pick up the muddy umbrella. "We can't get any wetter than we already are."

  The rain had started again, a slow drizzle that clung to their faces like cobwebs of mist, but Kat wasn't thinking of protection from the rain.

  "It's Mrs. Martin's umbrella. She's had it for a long time and she'll want it back." It was a handy weapon.

  Kat tried to picture Mrs. Martin using her purple umbrella to protect her little wolves from whatever it was that frightened little wolves and saw nothing peculiar about the vision. By taking the umbrella with her, Kat was protecting them, too.

  She shook off what mud she could and tucked the furled umbrella under her arm. She turned to follow Charles and her toe caught the edge of the steel trap, closed and harmless now that its damage was done. With her free hand, she followed the short length of attached chain to the stake that was supposed to anchor the trap, grasped it and began to drag it along behind her.

  "I said leave that stuff," Charles called back over his shoulder in that you-will-obey-me voice.

  Kat ignored him. Her mind was running on a kind of autopilot where she knew what she had to do, but couldn't articulate why. The umbrella had to go. The trap had to go. The gun had to stay. The body? Every time the word entered her thoughts, her mind shut down a little more. Body? What body?

  Charles already had the unconscious Buddy settled in the back seat by the time Kat caught up with him. He stood aside and held the passenger door for her, the perfect gentleman. She nodded her thanks, slid into the seat and arranged the umbrella along her leg and the leghold trap on her lap as if it was her purse, the perfect lady.