The Alpha's Choice

by Jacqueline Rhoades

  "She's going to get eaten," Dakota said in his froggy croak, "Or at least get beat up. It's what they always do."

  Kat wasn't sure if he was concerned or excited by the thought.

  "They do worse than that," Forest whispered.

  The words and the way they were said broke Kat's heart. Forest was at the age where boys and men should be a fascinating subject of speculation. She should be wondering about first kisses and first dates or if a boy's smile meant he liked her a little bit more than a friend. Instead, she hunched her shoulders to hide her blossoming body and wore her hair dirty and ragged to hide her face.

  That face became bright and animated in the classroom or when she was with Mrs. Martin in the kitchen. It was a beautiful face that went slack and vacant in the presence of any adult male. Forest even became shy around Buddy and River who, to Kat's knowledge, had never been offensive to her. This girl had seen too much sexual abuse and yes, perhaps rape, to instantly change her opinion of men and no matter how gentle, Buddy was a man and a giant one at that and River was a big, rough, boy.

  "Why don't we listen to the story? You may be surprised at how it ends."

  Kat heard a rustling outside the door and glanced up to see Charles' blond head and green eyes pop out and back to hide behind the jamb. She heard a snicker that wasn't his coming from the same direction and assumed she had an audience. River heard it, too, and she felt him stiffen at her back where he always seemed to be, always watching, always waiting.

  She drew the story out as long as she could, switching to a schoolroom lesson when Meadow became too upset at the scary parts. Kat felt bad about adding those parts, but being scared was part of the story and necessary to the lesson.

  "We all know that poor Meadow grew up in the city and had no wood ways at all. I'm pretty sure she would poison us with her choice of mushrooms and it was a good thing there was a path to follow or the poor Miss Red Riding Hood would fall over her own feet." There was some giggling at this reference to herself and even the dour faced River's mouth curled upward a bit instead of his usual downward frown.

  "But that was the problem, wasn't it? There were too many paths turning this way and that and before you know it, Meadow, our Little Red Riding Hood, found herself turned around and completely lost."

  "Are you sure this girl's name isn't Miz Kat?" croaked Dakota.

  "Oh no, Miz Kitty Kat wouldn't be alone in the woods," Buddy said from the doorway. He crossed his ankles and sat with a thump on the floor. "I'd be with her so she wouldn't get lost. She might fall down some, though."

  "Oh, no, it's definitely not Miz Kat," Kat laughed and the silent child on her lap looked up into her eyes and smiled. After a hug, Kat continued. "Meadow was lost and alone and very, very frightened. It was getting dark and the woods called to her with strange sounds that she'd never heard in the day. The path branched off in three different directions and she no long knew which path to choose. She'd chosen so many wrong ones before. Poor Meadow didn't know what to do and she started to cry."

  The real Meadow looked like she was about to cry, too. Buddy crawled over and placed his hand on her knee. "Don't you worry, Meadow. If nobody comes to save you, I will."

  Meadow relaxed somewhat, but her thumb went to her mouth and her tiny finger curled around her nose. With her arm around the child and Buddy's hand on her knee, Kat went on. She tried to sound growly and fierce.

  "Why are you crying? a terrible voice demanded. A mean looking giant stood in the middle of the path. His blond hair was all messy and his face was all grizzled because he hadn't shaved in days," Kat said as a hint to the man behind the door.

  "Stop your crying and tell me what's wrong. Meadow knew who this man was. He was a wolver and she'd heard the stories about how terrible he was. At first, Meadow was afraid to speak, but the big wolver pestered and pestered and finally, Little Red Riding Hood told him."

  "Now that you've told me what the problem is, I can fix it, the scary man told her and quick as a flash he turned into a wolf. Climb on my back and I'll carry you to Grandmother's house. And that's exactly what he did."

  "And then he ate her." Dakota really was a little savage.

  "He did not!" Kat wasn't about to have her story ruined now. "There were bad wolvers in those woods, but he wasn't one of them. He took her straight to Grandmother's house and when Grandmother was fed and cared for, that wolver took Red Riding Hood home and after that, every time Red Riding Hood needed help, he was there. He was the Alpha of a very good pack and guess what?"

  Meadow looked up with her questioning big eyes.

  "When Little Red Riding Hood grew up, she mated that wolver. Yes she did, because she was an Alpha's Mate. And that big wolver whose name was Charles, brought Meadow to America along with his pack and they lived happily ever after. The End."

  Everyone seemed satisfied with her story, including Dakota, which surprised Kat because it included no murder and mayhem. Ranger stared out the window, daydreaming she hoped of being the wolver who rescued damsels in distress. Forest had a faint smile on her face. She was old enough to know it was only a fairytale, but hopeful at the end that it just might be true.

  Buddy sat up and offered his hand to a smiling Meadow to help her slide from Kat's dry lap and Kat stood and stretched, satisfied with a story well told until she turned and found River with his eyes blazing with anger.

  "Why do you tell them that bullshit when you know it isn't true?" he snarled. "That's not the way it is."

  "It was a story, River. I wanted to…"

  "Keep your fucking stories to yourself. They need to hear the truth. The Alpha and his Mate lived happily ever after." He spit the words. "You think you know so much. They think they know it all." He hissed, referring to the others in the house. "A band of rogues can't have an Alpha. Where in hell do they think we came from? We had an Alpha. Ask Forest. She's his daughter and she watched him kill her mother, his perfect Mate. He would have killed us, too, but we ran. Tell her, Forest."

  Forest's eyes were watching the floor. Her lips trembled. Meadow was staring at him with big frightened eyes. The other two boys just stared.

  All her work here today was for nothing. She'd try again. It was all she could do. But worse than ruining her story, she knew Charles was listening at the door. She had to handle this and quickly or they'd be arguing about the boy again.

  "Now is not the time, River. We'll talk about this later and you can tell me…" She placed her hand on his arm.

  Kat didn't think he meant it, not even as it happened. He threw up his arm to cast her hand off and when he did, his arm flashed out and pushed her hard enough to make her stumble back against the chair which crashed to the floor.

  "Get off me, bitch!" River shouted.

  Chapter 30

  "River!" Charles roared the name so loudly Kat was convinced the windows rattled.

  Dakota hit the floor and belly crawled under the table. Forest froze and the pencil she'd been holding in her hand snapped in two. Her eyes were still glued to the floor. Ranger inched his way behind the overstuffed chair and ducked. Little Meadow's thumb plugged her mouth and a puddle formed on the floor.

  Charles stood in the doorway, pointed his finger at the offending teenager, then slowly swung his arm to point toward his office door. He was the ghost of Christmas Future pointing to Scrooge's gravestone. "My office. Now."

  "Honey, it's all right. He didn't mean it. We were just…" Kat tried to explain.

  Charles ignored her, cut her off, in fact. "You, too," he said to her and then to the frozen girl at the table, "Forest, help your sister get cleaned up."

  River curled his lip as he slunk by his guardian and Kat winced when she saw Charles' hand twitch. She tried again.

  "Charles, it was an argument. He's just a boy."

  She saw his jaw tightened and he continued to point down the hall. "Now," was all he said.

  Kat followed River to Charles' office. This wasn't something that should be taken care of in f
ront of the children anyway.

  Charles shut the door behind him. It wasn't quite a slam, but he did it with more force than was necessary. He pointed to the chair in front of his desk and looked at Kat.

  "Sit." He rounded the desk and took his place behind it.

  Kat sat and immediately leaned forward toward the furious River who was standing in front of her. She had to stop this before it escalated.

  "You can't keep going off like that, sweetheart," she said gently. "You have to talk it out and not in front of the other children." She reached for his arm to comfort him, but he slapped her hand away.

  Charles raised his hand, his power rolling off him in waves. Kat could only imagine what it cost him to keep his tone quiet and even. "You need to listen to her, son."

  "I'm not your damn son," River snarled at Charles and turned to Kat. "And I'm sure as hell not your sweetheart. I don't have to tell you shit. So you can both fuck off." River turned his back on Charles and walked away.

  Charles was around the desk and across the room faster than Kat could rise from her chair. River managed to get his hand on the doorknob and began the twist of his wrist to open it, but the latch never clicked.

  There was a sudden blur of bodies, a roar of anger, another curse or two and an animal-like growl and then a crash as River was thrown up against the door. Back to it, toes barely touching the floor, River dangled from Charles' hand which was large enough to circle the front half of the boy's throat. Charles' thumb and fingers touched the door.

  Charles brought his face so close to River's, Kat thought they were about to touch noses, but the Alpha stopped a couple of inches away. And this was The Alpha, the Lord of his Domain. The air hummed with his power.

  "I am your Alpha," Charles snarled. "You eat at my table. You sleep under my roof. You exist by my will alone. You will be my omega until I tell you otherwise. If I call you Dirt, you will answer with respect. Do you hear me?"

  River stared at Charles, his eyes wide and frightened.

  "Do you?" he shouted when the boy didn't answer.

  With his neck pinned to the door, the teenager couldn't speak, couldn't nod. Kat held out her hand to Charles, ready to point this out.

  Charles must have sensed her movement. His head snapped around and he glared at her. "Don't," he said sharply. Just that one word. Don't.

  Kat was a poker player. She knew when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em. She folded her hands together and sat back. It wasn't obedience so much as a show of trust that he knew how best to handle the boy. Her way wasn't working.

  Charles turned back to River. "Katarina is mine. Mine. She will be The Mate. More importantly, she will be my Mate. You will treat her with the respect she deserves or you will answer to me, just as any other full adult would answer to me. Are we clear?"

  This time, he didn't have to ask twice. River blinked and his chin moved a fraction of an inch in an attempted nod.

  "Thirdly, you feel the need to swear at me, you go right ahead, but you do it in private. Out at the barn, in my office, I don't care. You need to express yourself? I'm the Big Bad. I can take it. But…" Charles' hand closed a little tighter over the boy's throat. "No one talks that way to my woman or any other woman in my pack. Not if they want to keep their tongue. Blink if you'd like to keep yours."

  River blinked and Charles eased him to the floor.

  Kat had expected a snarl or a surly look after the dressing down but instead, River straightened his shoulders and looked Charles in the eye.

  "I am your Alpha," Charles repeated. "As a member of my pack, you will obey me in all things, but this one first and foremost. You will not raise a hand to any woman in anger. Harm any woman inside my pack or out and I will deliver the penalty myself and that penalty is death. If punishment is to be meted out to a woman of my pack, then it will be done by my hand or under my orders and it will be rare, if ever. Are you with me, son?

  River nodded and Charles nodded back in some masculine wolver exchange and then Charles stood aside and the boy came and stood in front of Kat.

  "I'm sorry, Miz Kat. It won't happen again."

  "I know it won't, River. You're a man of your word," Kat said solemnly and was grateful the words came so smoothly. Inside, she was shaking.

  He was a man. Before her misty eyes, River changed from the boy she thought he was into the young man Charles expected him to be.

  And then he smiled. This man, created by the magic of the Alpha just moments before, smiled where the boy never could. Kat went up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. Charles cleared his throat behind her.

  "Oh stop it." She waved her hand at Charles. "Our boy's become a man. I'm proud of him and I can kiss him if I want. Look at him, Charles. When he smiles, he's almost as handsome as you," she teased and winked to share the joke with River and his grin broadened.

  "Next time shake his hand. Save your kisses for little boys. And me."

  Charles couldn't have said anything better to raise River to the ranks of men.

  "You'd better get going while the going's good," she told River in a conspiratorial whisper and motioned to the door that was now free to open. "Go tell the others your news. They'll believe it if it comes from you. We'll see you at supper."

  "Dining room," Charles added which earned them both another grin.

  Charles held the door open and when it closed behind the young man, Kat was on her feet and throwing herself into Charles' arms. She slid her fingers over shoulders that had never seemed so broad, up that glorious neck and into that noble head and crown of golden hair. Drawing his lips down to hers, she kissed him. Hard. And he kissed her back.

  "If this is what it gets me," Charles laughed when the need to breathe finally broke them apart, "Poor River will be apologizing every day for the next twenty years."

  "It wasn't the apology, though that was really sweet. It was you. When you go all Alpha like that, work your magic like that, you are so hot. What was that all about, anyway? What did you do to make him change like that?" She poked his chest with her finger. "And don't tell me nothing."

  Charles' hands cupped the cheeks of her ass and pulled her so close she had to lay her head all the way back to look up. He brought his nose down to hers.

  "I told him he was an adult and that I would treat him like an adult. I issued an invitation to join the pack. He accepted."

  She understood it now, River's elation, but, "You said he'd be your omega. That's the last in line, the bottom of the barrel."

  "It is, because that's where he belongs. That's where every young wolver begins. It's up to him to rise above it and he will. I know he will. He's had a hard life and he's stood up to it well. He's strong and he's looked out for those kids. Ryker will find a way to channel that anger. River's ready to be taken over the moon."

  "That's why you argued with me, told me to stop treating him like a child. He's not a child. Probably never was."

  "Never had the chance to be and we can't give him those years back." Charles kissed her nose and gave her ass cheeks a quick squeeze. "What we can give him is the support of the pack to complete his journey into manhood. That's what I was offering him."

  "You also said I'll be your mate. Were you asking me to marry you?" She tried to ask it lightly, as if his answer didn't matter, but it did. Oh, how it did.

  "No," he said and locked his arms around her to hold her close when she would have pulled away. "It was a statement, not a question. I said you'll be my mate. The way we are now, you sharing my bed, is setting a bad example for the children. We need to make this right."

  "So you're only marrying me for the sake of the children," she huffed.

  "That and so you don't run off with some fifteen-year-old omega. I have a reputation to maintain you know."

  "Well that's the suckiest proposal I've ever had," she complained and she meant it, too.

  "You had the flowers, ring, and bended knee last time and look what it got you."

  She pushed away from his chest and turned t
o walk away. "Yeah, a lame-ass pack of wolvers and a Big Bad who doesn't know his dick from his elbow when it comes to romancing a girl."

  "I think the little kitten needs a reminder of what this Big Bad can do with his dick," he growled.

  Kat felt the ripple of his sexual power, squealed and ran for the door, found it locked, and laughing, circled around the chair and ran behind the desk with Charles hot on her heels. She dodged one way and then the other until Charles lost patience with the game and vaulted over the top of the desk, scattering papers and pens everywhere. He captured her lips with his mouth as he captured her body with one arm. The other arm swept the remainder of the desktop contents onto the floor.

  "Big Bad and his dick are about to fuck your brains out," he whispered in her ear.

  Kat struggled against him, but not too hard. "Hey! What about using bad language to your woman?"

  "That wasn't bad language. It was a statement of intent."

  Kat squealed again as he bent her over the desk and proceeded to show her exactly what he meant.

  ****

  Later, when she'd pulled herself back together and straightened her clothes, Kat went back to the classroom and found them working quietly at their books. Dakota looked as if he was finally making an effort and Ranger was trying to hide his grin.

  For the first time, Forest was scribbling away in her journal, something Kat had encouraged her to do, but never required. She glanced up a little worriedly at Kat, blushed and quickly lowered her eyes and Kat understood. She was covered with the Alpha's scent and not even River's word could convince her that Kat wasn't hurt. Time and example would be the only cure for that.

  She put her hand on Forest's shoulder and bent to whisper in her ear. "He asked me to be his mate. I'm the happiest woman on earth." She smiled at the girl's wide eyed shock. "He's never hurt me. He never will. Ask River what he said about women in his pack."