The Alpha's Choice (8 page)

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.