The Alpha's Choice

by Jacqueline Rhoades

  "Seat belt," Charles ordered as he climbed in the driver's side. He frowned as he jerked the seat back as far as it would go which apparently wasn't far enough because he muttered something about a piece of shit car.

  "But it's my piece of shit, so watch your mouth," she snapped without thinking. "You don't like it, you can walk."

  She turned in her seat to check on Buddy and heard Charles sputter. She couldn't tell if it was indignation or a laugh and didn't care. She was still trying to make sense of what was before her eyes.

  Charles threw the car in gear and said, "As soon as we get there, I'll carry him upstairs. The wounds need to be cleaned…"

  "You'll carry him to the kitchen," she said, staring out the window, "You'll lay him on the table. He'll be easier to work on and it won't be so back breaking. Is there a doctor or a vet you can call or is this all on us? Because I can stitch, but I can't set bones," she said earnestly.

  Her autopilot mind didn't even register the absurdity of the questions. When Charles didn't answer, she looked over at him. "Well?"

  He was staring at her with a dumbfounded look on his face. "You're taking this all pretty well," he said.

  Kat thought about that and nodded. "I suppose I am," she told him truthfully, "Though I'm not sure how else I could take it. Like you said, Buddy needs our help. There'll be time enough later for me to fall apart." She pointed at the windshield. "Keep your eyes on the road. It won't help if you run us into the ditch."

  "You must have questions…" he began.

  "I guess I do." She had a hundred questions and by the time her befuddled mind was working smoothly again, she'd have a hundred more. Right now, she needed to sort out the most important ones, the ones that would help Buddy. "First off…" she began.

  "No," Charles cut her off.

  "What do you mean 'no'? I haven't asked anything yet."

  "The answer to your first question is no, you won't turn because he bit you. It doesn't work that way."

  Kat looked at the back of her hand where a thin line of blood defined where Buddy's razor sharp tooth had broken the skin. She hadn't thought of infection until Charles brought it up.

  "Nice to know you're not a mind reader," she said wryly. "I wasn't thinking of biting. I was thinking of changing. What's the chance of him changing while I'm stitching?"

  "He won't change. He can't. And you won't be stitching."

  "Really? Why not?" she asked curiously, "Is he stuck this way? How does he, uh, do you, uh, change, anyway? Is that the right word? Change? Does it hurt? Do you think like a man or an animal when you're, uh…?" So much for holding her questions.

  "Over the moon."

  "Is that what you call it? Over the moon? Over the moon." Kat tested the words out several times before nodding her head. "I like it," she said and then she frowned, "I can stitch, you know. My grandmother taught me. Brandon thought it was horrible when I told him about it. She'd use white cotton thread and a sewing needle."

  "Brandon?" Charles said the name as if he didn't like the taste of it.

  "My ex fiancé, the doctor." It was the first time since he left that she referred to him by name instead of The Bastard and she was pleased and not a little surprised that mentioning him didn't hurt that much anymore.

  "Ex," Charles said and nodded, "Good. Good that you can stitch, I mean. Just in case."

  He pulled the car up as close as possible to the front door where Tilda met them with a cry of anguish.

  "He's alive," Charles assured her as he rounded the car and opened the back door. "Get hot water, towels, any antiseptic you can find. We've got to clean him up before I close him up."

  Tilda froze mid turn. "You? Are you sure?" She stepped back as Charles pushed past with the limp wolf in his arms.

  Kat watched Charles' shoulders sag as he continued on to the back of the house, evidence that Tilda's words only added to his burden.

  "I'm not that boy any more, Mrs. Martin," he said. "I can take care of the worst of it and if I can't finish, Kat can take care of the rest."

  Tilda's eyes slid to Kat. The worry in them didn't lessen, so Kat smiled to reassure her.

  "I can sew a fine seam as my Grams used to say. Come on now, worry won't fix it." It was another thing Grams used to say. "You go gather up the things we'll need and I'll go help Charles get Buddy settled and put some water on to boil."

  Kat squeezed past Charles to pull the chairs away from the table and helped him arrange the wolf with the best access to the damaged leg. Buddy's mouth sagged open and his tongue lolled. His breathing was reduced to a shallow pant and the pink around his mouth and nose and tongue had turned a sickly gray. It was obvious he was in shock and dying.

  They worked together to quickly clean away the mud and the grit from the fur of the wolf and stroked it back from the open wounds. There was massive bruising along his sides and along his soft belly and Kat was concerned he was bleeding inside.

  "Stitching won't fix this," she said bleakly as she stroked the matted fur of his face and ruff. She'd only known the man for a few hours, the wolf not at all and yet her heart was breaking at his loss.

  "No, it won't and in spite of what I said to Mrs. Martin, I don't know if I can. There might be too much damage. I might be too late. I don't know if I should even try."

  Here in the light of the overhead light, Kat saw clearly what the night's darkness hid. The man was tired, worn to the point of exhaustion and she was reminded once again that Charles had been on foot while she had driven.

  "You'll try and you'll succeed," she said with a confidence she didn't feel. She straightened her back and squared her shoulders. "What do you need? Tell me what I can do." She heard Tilda's indrawn breath and left Charles and headed across the hall for the kitchen sink. She turned on the tap to let the water warm. Ignoring the frozen woman with the pile of towels and bottles in her arms, she asked, "Is this okay to scrub with?" She held up the container of liquid soap. "It says anti-bacterial."

  She turned back to the breakfast room for the answer that never came. Mrs. Martin had disappeared and there was a light shimmering inside the room, brighter than that cast by the small chandelier and similar to what she'd seen in the field tonight, though not nearly as brilliant or blinding.

  Was he…? Changing? Shifting? What the hell did he call it? Going over the moon? No, that was the word for changing to the wolf. Oh God, would Buddy change back if the worst happened and he…? Suddenly worried, she inched a little closer, craning her neck out to the side to get a better look and yet frightened by what she might see.

  What she saw was Charles holding a glowing ball of light in his hand. Holding it in his palm, he ran it over Buddy's wolf chest, paused, closed his eyes and frowned in concentration. She inched closer and jumped when she heard a gasp behind her.

  Tilda looked over Kat's shoulder at what Charles was doing to her son. The housekeeper's eyes were huge and frightened.

  Kat gripped the hand that gripped her shoulder. She wasn't sure what was happening, but she understood from Tilda's shaking body that it was important, maybe dangerous, though for whom she couldn't tell.

  Charles ignored them and continued to slowly pass the glowing light back and forth across Buddy's body, spending a great deal of time over the wolf's chest. He stopped his movement now and then to concentrate the light on a single area.

  Kat watched in growing amazement as a dark and swollen area shrank back to healthy tissue. The wolf on the table began to breathe easier and so did his mother. Tilda's hand gently pulled Kat back into the kitchen. Her relief was evident when she began briskly pulling food from the refrigerator.

  "They're going to need food," she whispered, "and Charles is going to need someone to watch out for him. I'll take care of the food. You take care of Charles."

  Take care of Charles? Kat nodded her understanding, but she didn't understand at all until she returned to the smaller room to find him pale and shaking with fatigue. The power he was using was nothing short of mi
raculous, but it was taking its toll. With each pass of his hand, with each flare of the iridescent light, Charles became weaker as if it was his personal strength infusing Buddy.

  He was guiding the light over the animal's mangled leg and she watched in fascination as the deep and bloody wounds closed to faint pink scars. Charles faltered and he gripped the table's edge with his free hand to steady himself.

  "That's it, you're done. Sit down before you fall down," Kat said when he started to sway and she shoved a chair behind his knees.

  Charles tried to wave her out of the way. "I have to bring him home." His words were slurred. He sounded drunk and with the silly grin he wore, he looked it, too.

  "Home?" This was code again, but she was starting to get the hang of it. "You mean make him human? Can it wait? You look like you're about to pass out and if you go down, you're staying down. I'm not strong enough to get you up." She tugged his arm to force him into the chair where he sat, heavily, and gave her another weak grin.

  "You don't have to be strong to get me up, just willing." He tried to wink, but it came across as more of a squint.

  "Your come-ons stink, Rover." She pursed her lips in an effort not to smile. This guy was a master of bad pickup lines.

  "Oh come on, you know you were impressed."

  This time, Kat laughed aloud. She stroked the air with wiggling fingers. "I was definitely impressed with the hoo-doo. It was amazing, miraculous, like magic," she said and then she sobered. "That's not the same as being impressed with the guy doing it. Don't let what happened earlier fool you. I'm not that easy to impress."

  "I acted like an ass," he admitted.

  He looked repentant, but Kat wasn't letting him off the hook that easily. "I was thinking dirty dog, myself, but ass will do."

  Charles groaned. "That was low."

  "So was how you treated me this afternoon."

  He let his head fall back and he blew out an exhausted breath. "Yeah, about that. I thought you were one of us."

  "I get that. What I don't get is why you reacted the way you did when you found out I wasn't."

  The albino wolf whined and lifted his head. He looked blearily at Kat and the corners of his mouth pulled back to show a fringe of teeth below the thin pink again lips. He sighed, lowered his head to the table and closed his eyes on a contented sigh.

  "Did he just smile at me?" she asked in a whisper.

  "He surely did. Ole Buddy recognized you right off. He's got a talent for it and good taste." Charles wiped his hand down his face, never taking his eyes from the sleeping wolf. "Look, I need food and Buddy needs to get back to being a man. Can we take this discussion up later?" Charles moved past Kat to the door where he hung on to the jamb to steady himself.

  "What if I said no?" She placed her hand on his chest and looked up into his face.

  "Then we wouldn't have the discussion at all." Charles looked pointedly at the hand splayed against his chest and then into her eyes. "Now, I suggest you take your hand, lovely as it is, off my chest and let me pass or we may both end up in a place neither of us wishes to be."

  Kat wasn't sure where that was, because at that moment, she didn't want to be anywhere else. The same tingle of sexual excitement she'd felt that morning now coursed through the fingers spread over the warm skin of his chest and sent a happy shiver to her core. She snatched her hand back as if burned and stared at her palm.

  "How the hell do you do that?"

  Charles sucked in his cheeks and raised his eyebrows and for a moment Kat had a glimpse of the boy Mrs. Martin must have known; full of the devil and ready to raise hell. Then the glint in his eye faded and he sighed.

  "I'm exhausted. You have no idea how exhausted." He looked back at Buddy sprawled peacefully across the table. "I barely have enough magic left to take care of him. I can't tamp down the call for you, too."

  "Magic? The call?" she asked, though if she thought about it, magic was as good an explanation as any. How else could he conjure up a fiery ball of healing power? How else could he conjure such feelings of arousal in her? Magic.

  Kat stepped aside and Charles moved past her, not into the kitchen, but into the hall where he called back over his shoulder.

  "I'm going to shower and change into something warm. Tell Mrs. Martin to give me twenty minutes and I'll be ready to eat. Then I'll take care of Buddy." He shook his finger over his shoulder. "Then and only then will I take care of you."

  "Oh how I wish you would," Kat whispered as she watched him walk away. Charles Goodman was the stuff of fairy tales; a sexy man/beast/prince who took her breath away and just once she'd like to play Beauty to his Beast. It never dawned on her how out of character those thoughts were from a woman who just found out the sexiest man she ever met was a wolf or from a woman who took such pride in her self-control.

  Chapter 10

  "I get the magic part or at least I think I do," Kat told Tilda while they waited for Charles to return. What she wanted to know was what he meant by 'the call', but Tilda kept evading the answer.

  "I doubt you do." Tilda stirred the huge pot of chili simmering on the stove, releasing the aroma of peppers, onions and tomatoes into the air. "The magic isn't just the healing, though any pack would be fortunate and proud to have a healer for their Alpha. His father had the gift and so did his brothers, but Charles?" She shrugged. "It wasn't the same."

  "You didn't believe he could help Buddy." Kat winced as soon as the words were said. She hadn't meant to sound so accusing and she tried to soften her tone. "You were so worried. I can understand you're having doubts."

  Not easily fooled, Tilda gave her a wry look. "You make a poor liar, but I'm mindful of the attempt and shamed to admit you're right. I didn't have faith in my Alpha when I should have."

  "Why? Why didn't you believe?"

  "I forgot for a moment that the boy became a man, maybe because my Buddy never did. That's twice I've doubted him and twice he's shown himself to be a Wolver of his word. I won't doubt him again. He's our Alpha and he's taken us in when we had nowhere to go. The other pack wasn't so kind after my mate passed away."

  Tilda loaded a tray with generous slabs of cheese and turkey and thick slices of bread and a few token carrot and celery sticks Kat suspected were for her. Charles' penchant for protein was a little more understandable now that she knew what he was. Now that she knew what he was?

  "Tilda, shouldn't I be more upset about this than I am?" she asked, a little bit panicked. She was surprised when Tilda didn't laugh.

  "I've only met one other like you," Tilda said in all seriousness, "That was Charles' mother and she spent three days locked in the bathroom. So I'd say you're takin' it pretty well."

  "What about you? How did you find out?" Maybe Tilda was so young she didn't remember.

  "Oh, I was born this way. I've always known." The older woman waited for Kat's reaction with a sparkle in her eye.

  "Y-you, you're not…?" She wanted to say a human, but Tilda was as human as a woman could get. "You're a Wolver? You can do that?" Kat pointed to the room where Buddy lay. "You can go over the moon?"

  "Only once a year unless the Alpha is feeling generous. The men can go over any time the moon is full, but they need the Alpha to do it any other time." Tilda stood with her hands folded in front of her, patiently waiting for Kat to take it all in.

  "So Charles mother wasn't a Wolver," Kat said hesitantly. "She was like me."

  The housekeeper smiled and it changed the whole appearance of her face. She no longer looked dour at all and Kat could see a glimpse of the pretty girl she once was.

  "No, not a wolver, but not full human neither. She was a pretty thing got thrown from her horse when it was spooked by the Alpha running as a beast. Of course, she didn't know that then. The Alpha, he came home in an instant and came a-runnin' as a man and a fine looking man he was, too. Emily always said it was love at first sight. With the man that is, not the beast. Took her a mite longer to get used to the beast." Her eyes on the distant p
ast, Mrs. Martin laughed.

  "Three days in the bathroom?" Kat asked

  The housekeeper nodded. "Yes ma'am. She did a bit of wailing and cried some and wouldn't listen to anyone who tried to offer comfort. She just sat in that bathroom and wouldn't come out."

  "And?" Kat rolled her hand urging Mrs. Martin to continue. "Then what?" She'd half forgotten how this conversation started.

  "Well," Mrs. Martin lowered her voice to a confidential whisper, "Nobody's rightly sure, but we have our speculations. You see, the Alpha wasn't what you'd call a patient man and he finally got tired of trying to sweet talk her through the door and kicked it open. He slammed it shut behind him, but we never heard no hollerin' and when they finally come out, Emily was smiling sweet as could be and happy to be with the Alpha. We figured the Alpha used that charm they're all blessed with and it appeared to work. They had their disagreements as all folks do, but they were as happy together the day me and Buddy left as the day he handed her from that bathroom."

  "Just what kind of charm are we talking here?" Kat asked suspiciously.

  "I couldn't rightly say. No Alpha ever courted me." Tilda turned away to hide her smile.

  "You're not a very good liar either," Kat told her.

  Tilda tilted her head as if listening. Charles sometimes angled his head in just the same way and Kat wondered if these Wolver's hearing was as good as their canine cousins.

  "The Alpha said twenty minutes and it's been a good deal longer than that." Tilda pointed to the door that led to the back stairs. "Why don't you go up there and fetch him down. Your legs are younger than mine and I'd like my boy back sometime before bedtime."

  Kat was sure there was an ulterior motive in the request, but she couldn't very well tell the woman no. She climbed the back stairs and found herself at the far end of the hall from her bedroom. She knocked and called quietly at each door along the hall before opening each one to check within. She wasn't sure which room he had chosen for a bedroom, but she should have known it would be the largest and the best, the one she'd chosen for herself.