The Alpha's Choice (23 page)

She ran to the edge of the field, the
perimeter of the area around the house where Buddy was to patrol.
He couldn't have gone that far in such a short time. Buddy
travelled in a clockwise pattern, stopping at the spot where his
circuit began and trotting to the house to prance by the kitchen
windows before returning to the point of origin to begin the trek
again.

"Buddy! Buddy!" If Buddy had felt the call
and answered it, he could be anywhere and might take hours to find.
Or, God forbid, they might not find him at all. There were miles
and miles of forest on this mountain. Buddy could run forever and
never be found.

Calm down, she told herself. It was only a
few minutes. Even if he was running wild, he couldn't have gone
that far. She thought about going back to the house to get Tilda
and the others, but decided to follow Buddy's route instead. If she
could find him, maybe she could lure him back to his assigned task
and no one need be the wiser. If they were caught, Buddy would
never be allowed to run again.

Slowly, her eyes adjusted to the dark.
Following Buddy's route counterclockwise, Kat trotted along,
scanning to either side and hoped to run into him as he completed
his rounds.

It was full dark, darker still because of the
cloud cover and misty rain. The silence set her teeth on edge. Like
those gothic novels she read as a girl, the dark and the silence
brought a portent of evil.

"Don't go down those dark stairs alone with
only a candle to light your way!" Those words could easily be
translated into something more apt. "Don't go wandering along the
edge of the dark woods without any light at all." Nothing good ever
came of either one of those scenarios.

Where the lane curved around the barn, a
flash of white caught Kat's attention, so quick and faint, she
thought it must be her imagination. Then it happened again.

Buddy was running back and forth in a frenzy
as if he was caught behind some kind of invisible fence within the
trees. He ran back a few feet and then forward to a line
imperceptible to Kat, but very real to him. He suddenly changed his
direction and ran along the unseen fence for a couple of yards and
then turned back.

Kat watched, mesmerized by the white wolf's
strange behavior. She thought at first he might be tied, but there
was no telltale jerk of his head when he reached the end of his
tether. She stood, stock still, in the shelter of the trees and
watched and finally saw what held the wolf. It wasn't a fence or
tether, but two dark shadows, quietly working in tandem to drive
him back.

She saw the flash of vicious looking fangs as
one snapped at his panicked face. The other lunged at his side. The
wolves weren't attacking. They were confining him, preventing him
from moving forward to… to what?

These wolves weren't part of Charles' pack.
He would never send someone to test Buddy's strength of will and
certainly not to torment him this way. These wolvers, and she was
sure that's what they were, had a mission and suddenly she knew
what it was. They were there to prevent Buddy from alerting the
house to their presence. No, not their presence, someone else's.
Someone who was heading for the house.

The other women were back at the house alone,
asleep and vulnerable. If someone wanted to harm them, they would
have no warning and no defense. She should go back to the house and
alert them, but she didn't know where the intruder was. He would be
a wolver, too, and as man or beast, he'd be faster and stronger
than her.

Buddy, on the other hand, was fast and
strong, too. If she could distract one, he might be able to outrun
the other.

She reached around with her foot until she
found a branch that was long enough and felt sturdy. There was no
time to strip it down to create a pole and it would make too much
noise. Hefting the branch, she ran toward the wolves shouting.

"Run! Call the Alpha, Buddy. Run!" She took a
deep breath, charged the nearest wolf and screamed.

The scream was high and loud and it echoed
through the night and drew the attention momentarily away from
Buddy.

"Run! Call Charles! Buddy, run! Oooph." The
branch made contact with the wolf. It yelped, snarled and snapped
at the branch, breaking off the ends with his teeth and lunging
body. A fork in the branch was the only thing that saved Kat from
the lunge that followed.

"Char-r-r-les!"

The name turned into another scream, this one
unplanned, but just as loud and piercing. Kat swung the branch in
an arch, her only protection against the wolf. This was as far as
her plan went. It was up to Buddy now.

A frightened howl tore through the night.
That was Buddy. She was sure of it. Her heart soared at the sound
and then sank in misery when the howl became a scream of pain and
then abruptly cut off. Sorrow filled her, but she didn't let
herself cry. She hadn't sent Buddy for help. She'd sent him to his
death.

The wolf snarled and grabbed the branch that
she'd begun to lower in her defeat. His jaws slowly crunched down
on one thick length of the fork and the wood splintered under the
crushing force. It was a threat, a warning of what he could do. The
animal's eyes never left Kat's face.

Across the yard, two upright shadows ran
toward them. The wolf's ears flickered at the sound of their boots
clumping across the ground. His eyes, however, never strayed from
Kat's face and she knew he recognized the runners.

Kat also saw what the wolf and men did not.
Two long dark shadows slinked along in their wake. She shoved the
branch at the wolf with renewed effort.

"Bastard! Bastard! Bastard!" she screamed to
keep attention on her and not on the shadows.

"Shut her up!" one of the runners hissed.
They slowed to a trot.

"At least we got somethin' out of this," the
other one laughed and Kat recognized the voice. "And I owe this
one, big time." It was one of the men who'd trapped Buddy.

Both men's heads turned in the direction of
an approaching wolf running at full speed from the field behind the
barn. It yipped and snarled and barked as it ran. Kat thought it
was the second wolf, but the one guarding her snarled and turned to
face the newcomer as if he was the enemy.

Kat took advantage of his neglect to attack
with what was left of her branch. She stabbed at the wolf's side,
but the wolf's body spun with her thrust and her failed blow only
served to draw his attention back to her. His snarling jaws grabbed
the useless branch and wrenched it from her grasp.

The next few moments were a blur of flesh and
fur. One of the men drew a gun from his waist. Kat screamed. The
two slinking shapes sprang into the forms of leaping wolves. The
running wolf leapt with no decrease in speed, driving the enemy
wolf into Kat who was rolled to her back in a torrent of snarling
fur.

Pain lanced through her head as they rolled
over her, driving the breath from her lungs and when she was
finally free of their crushing weight, she curled herself into a
ball, her mouth opened in another scream that had no air to fuel
it.

The screams tearing through the night weren't
hers. Something wet and sticky spattered her face and she clamped
her mouth shut, covered her ears with her hands and closed her eyes
in an attempt to shut out the mayhem surrounding her.

Chapter 22

Her eyes were still closed, but her hands
were no longer covering her ears. Her knees were no longer curled
into her chest. She was flat on her back and the ground beneath her
was no longer hard and damp. She was, however, still wet and cold
and when she finally managed to open her eyes, it was to find a
mouth full of white teeth grinning into them. It was a full ten
seconds before she realized the battle was over and done and the
teeth were no longer sharp and pointed, but even and flat. The
teeth were surrounded by pale lips in a paler face with sparkling
eyes.

"Buddy?" Kat whispered.

He was alive and whole and happy.

"There. What did I say? She's fine. Had a bit
of a bump is all."

Mrs. Martin was standing over them, wrapped
in an old flannel robe. It took Kat a moment to figure out that her
eyes were fine and the housekeeper's misshapen head was the result
of curlers.

"Were you scared, Kitty Kat? Mama said you
was scared, but you didn't look scared to me. You looked like one
of them lion tamers at the circus, 'cept he weren't no lion and you
got no chair." Buddy laughed and then frowned. "But then you curled
into a ball and wouldn't wake up and Charlie had to carry you
home."

"Charles? Where is he?" She sat up on the
sofa, swung her legs to the floor and grabbed Buddy's hand until
the wave of dizziness passed.

"The Alpha says you're to stay right where
you are. He'll be back," Tilda said firmly. She wrapped a fleece
throw around Kat's shoulders. "He's busy with Jo. The fool girl got
herself tore up some, but he's taking care of it. She'll be fine
and he'll be back down to take care of you."

"Jo? What happened to Jo? Did they get in the
house? Is everyone else okay?" Oh, God, what had she missed?

"Everyone's fine," Tilda assured her. "Or
they will be. The Alpha took her over the moon and set her to watch
same as Buddy, but he kept that to himself. She wasn't to do naught
but sound the alarm if someone should come snooping around."

"You sent me runnin' to Charlie," Buddy took
over. "I was scared, but I was runnin'. Trouble was, that mean old
wolf was runnin', too. He almost got me, but Jo, she come flyin'
out of nowhere and wham!" Buddy clapped his hands together so
suddenly, Kat jumped and a whoosh of pain expanded in her head.
"Knocked him clean over. I kept runnin' and I called, just like you
told me to do. I howled my heart out."

"I heard you, Buddy. I heard you. You were
wonderful."

"Charlie, I mean the Alpha, he heard me, too.
He was in my head and I knew he was a-coming." Buddy patted the
side of his white head. "In here. I knew it plain as day." Buddy
was silent for a moment and then he spoke to the floor. "Charlie
told me what to do, but I didn't do it. He told me to call and then
lay low, hide until he came, but I didn't. That mean old wolf had
Jo and he was hurting her bad. He had his teeth in her just
a-shakin' and a-tearin' at her."

Buddy raised his head and his finger and Kat
knew there was another rule coming.

"Boy wolvers are bigger and stronger than
girls and you ain't never supposed to hurt a girl. He made her cry,
Mama," he said as if that would explain everything.

And it did. Tilda stroked her son's head.
"You did good, son. I'm right proud of you."

"Finish it, Buddy! What did you do?" Kat
wanted to hear the rest.

"It made me mad, so I ran back and I whupped
him. I whupped him good." Honest to a fault, he added, "Jo helped.
We whupped him together and he ain't gonna hurt no one no
more."

"Oh Buddy, you're a hero." Kat gave him a
quick kiss on the cheek and his pale pink face turned red.

"No ma'am, that was Jo," he said, "She was
bleeding bad and I wanted to hide, but she made me follow her and
we snuck up on those two men. They were going to hurt you, Miss
Kitty Kat. We jumped on them and then Charlie came running in and
then Tanner and Rawley and it was a big ole mess and Jo was just
lying there all bloody and you wouldn't wake up and Mama came
running and then I was really scared, but Mama said the Alpha would
make it all right." Buddy grinned. "And he did."

"Well, you're my hero, Buddy, and so is Jo."
She looked around. "Where are the others? How long have I been
here?"

"Some's upstairs, some's across the way
waiting on the Alpha, and some's cleaning up in the kitchen and the
bathrooms. They came back as he was carrying you here. That man's
going to be wore out with all the fighting and coming and going and
now the healing. You've only been out but a few minutes." Tilda
glanced over her shoulder at the murmuring from beyond the door. "I
need to get back to the kitchen. They're not likely to sleep and
after a night like tonight, they'll want to be fed."

"I can help," Kat volunteered and this time
rose with only a wince. If she held her head straight and steady,
it hardly hurt at all.

Tilda hesitated. "I don't know, the Alpha,
he's…"

"Busy and tired and has more to worry about
than me helping you make sandwiches. God," Kat started to shake her
head and thought better of it, "I can't believe I did that, Tilda.
I have never, ever fainted in my entire life."

"It happens," Tilda said, smiling cryptically
and then immediately reverted to her role as housekeeper. "There's
ham, roast beef, chicken salad and half a dozen cheeses. We ought
to be able to put something together out of that. We'll lay it out
on the kitchen counter and while they're busy chowing down, I'll
get that front hall mopped up." Mrs. Martin shook her finger at no
one in particular. "There's got to be some changes around here,
I'll tell you that. Half of them came in shaking their wet coats
and padding about with their muddy paws as if nobody ever taught
them no manners." She was still grumbling to herself as she headed
down the hall. "Hmph. Acting no better than untrained dogs. From
now on, they want fed, they'll do they're changing before they come
into the house and they'll use the back door."

"Mama tends to get grumpy if you don't wipe
your feet," Buddy explained helpfully. He put his finger in the air
in the gesture Kat now realized he learned from his mother. "Just
because you was born a beast don't mean you can't act like a
civilized human being."

"She's got a point," Kat laughed and then
winced and rubbed the back of her head where the pain was centered.
"We'd better go help before we're in the doghouse, too."