The Alpha's Choice (25 page)

Of course. They would. They could feel their
Alpha just as he could feel them. They'd all known all along that
he wasn't a true Alpha. No wonder he didn't hold their respect. Kat
thought again about their resemblance to the rogues. Some of them
might not be too happy to learn that the mantle had fallen on
Charles' shoulders. Alex, perhaps, most of all.

"Well," Kat said and placed both hands on the
table, "they know he's their Alpha now."

"That they do." This time Tilda's nod was
decisive. "Rawley and Tanner are upstairs with Buddy moving beds
from one room to the other. I've put the three boys in one room and
the girls in another. Seeing as how they've been living, I figured
they'd want to be close, but there's no call to pack them all in
one room. By the time they're finished, I'll have the sheets ready
to make up the beds."

"Rawley and Tanner didn't go back to the
city?"

"Nope. Them and some of the others refused to
go."

"So the lines are drawn then." Kat wondered
how many had stayed.

"Maybe, maybe not. Some of them might not
understand who's giving the orders now. Seems to me that Alex
feller has been given a mite more power than he ought to have. For
some, the Alpha's going to have to lay down the law."

Kat thought of yesterday's scuffle. "I'd say
he's ready to do that."

"I'd say it's past time he did."

"Past time he did what?" Charles asked coming
into the kitchen followed by Ryker and a yawning Jo.

"Lay down the law as the Alpha should," Mrs.
Martin stated bluntly and without trying to hide the fact that she
was talking about him.

Instead of taking offense, Charles laughed as
he poured a mug of coffee and passed it to Ryker who passed it to
Jo. "I think you should have been born a male, Mrs. Martin. You
would have made one helluva Alpha."

Tilda's firm nod showed her agreement. She
unplugged her iron and set it aside and moved the ironing board out
of the way. "I've got pork chops and biscuits in the oven. All I've
got to do is scramble your eggs."

"Good, because I'm famished." Jo slid onto a
stool and rested her head in the hand propped up by the elbow on
the island. She still looked tired, but was no longer pale.

"Then why don't you cook the eggs," Ryker
suggested.

"Careful, Ryker, you'd be taking your life in
your hands," Hyatt said from the door. Of them all, he looked the
most rested. He was wearing a red plaid flannel shirt and a pair of
jeans that both looked like they'd been taken from their packages
that morning. "My sister has never cooked a decent meal in her
life. It was Mother's one failing as a teacher of domesticity and
it broke her heart."

"I can cook," Jo defended herself and
laughed. "If it comes in a package with the microwave directions on
the back. With a good variety of restaurants, who needs to
cook?"

"Have you seen anything that even looks close
to an eating establishment around these parts?" her brother
asked.

"No, but there will be some. I've seen the
plans." Jo stuck her tongue out at Hyatt. "In the meantime, we have
the marvelous Mrs. Martin, who's a better cook then dear old Mom
ever hoped to be."

The marvelous Mrs. Martin rolled her eyes at
the flattery.

Chapter 24

Charles went to his office immediately after
breakfast and from the dull roar emanating through the door, it was
clear to everyone what he thought of half his Council being sent
back to the city without his blessings. He then left with Hyatt to
meet with the wolver architect whose design they were using for the
new community.

Ryker took the remainder of the men and put
them 'through their paces'.

"They are taking them back out tonight," Jo
told her as they were making the beds in the children's rooms. She
was great with the fitted bottom sheets, but had to be shown how to
square the corners of the top ones. "You know, you can actually pay
someone to do this for you."

"Take them back out where?" Kat asked as she
folded the top of the sheet over the blanket. They looked like
they'd been ironed, too.

"To the same place they went last night."

"How? Half the men are gone." If, as Tilda
claimed, they were beaten the night before, what could they do with
only half the manpower?

"Ryker says he can do more with a few good
men, than with an army of halfwits. He says that after getting
their asses chewed last night they'll be paying more attention to
what he has to say today. Besides, tonight they'll have their Alpha
to hold them together."

"Was it really that bad?" Kat straightened
the last coverlet, a pretty yellow with a ruffled edge, one of a
pair that Mrs. Martin produced from the huge linen closet on the
third floor. They were bright and cheery and perfect for the
girls.

"According to Ryker, it was a near disaster.
They were lucky someone didn't get killed." Jo lowered her voice to
a whisper. "We've got a traitor. Someone tipped them off. Charles
says this time no one is to know until it's time to go."

"Do they know who it is?"

"No, but they have their suspicions. They
knew about those guys months ago when we first started bringing
things down here and getting this place ready. Alex, Stephanie, and
a few others met with them and Alex paid them off. They never said
anything about rogues. There are a lot of illegal businesses down
here in these mountains. The Rabbit Creek pack over on the other
side has had trouble before, but this side of the mountain is our
land now and Alex said there was a more civilized way to take care
of the problem."

"Looks like his way didn't work."

Jo lifted her eyebrows and shrugged. "Looks
that way doesn't it?" She stood back and admired their handiwork.
"Now that we're done with your work, come on downstairs take a look
at mine. I'll show you what Wolf's Head Bluff is going to look like
in a few years."

Jo led Kat to a small room next to the one
Charles used as an office. It had been set up like a makeshift
conference room with two long white folding tables pushed together
to make one large one and folding chairs all around. From the
closet in the corner, Jo withdrew a large tube of rolled paper and
several heavier office items to weigh down the corners after the
paper was unrolled. Once the paper was spread she stepped back and
opened her arms.

"This is Wolf's Head Bluff, a modern
community for the modern wolver."

"Holy shit!"

"Yeah," Jo nodded with a satisfied smile.
"This is my baby. We needed an architectural team to pull it all
together into a detailed plan, but the basic concept is mine. It
can't be done overnight. The whole thing will take years to
complete, but what the hell. We'll be around a long time."

It was, as Jo said, a community. Not just a
sub-division, but a whole village, with a square surrounded by
small businesses and winding lanes dotted with mixed housing that
included a small development of condominiums, and both smaller and
larger single family homes. Except for the condos, each dwelling
came with a good portion of land with plenty of green space in
between.

It wasn't, as Jo said, an architectural plan,
but an artist's rendition of what that plan could look like. It was
an amazing piece of work that covered thousands of acres of land.
Kat was speechless for long minutes as she traced her finger along
the roads and read the small print under each tiny drawing. Some of
the homes already existed.

After giving Kat some time to absorb it all,
Jo started pointing out special features.

"There's Hell Hall right there and the school
and the clinic. A lot of packs have to make do with a vet for their
medical needs. We're not exactly built like our human cousins and
visiting a doctor can be risky. Charles is hoping his brother,
Mike, might come back to run the clinic. He's a doctor, you know.
More and more of our people are getting higher educations and we
should be making a place for them within the packs instead of
forcing them to work in the human world."

"How many of you are there?" Kat had been
thinking in terms of a half dozen packs of fifty to a few hundred
members.

"Compared to the human population? Not many,
but we're in the thousands and growing. There are packs all over
the world. Some we don't even know about. Look at Rawley. His
ancestors sure as hell didn't hail from the Scottish Highlands,"
she laughed. "We come in all shapes and colors and sizes. You ever
hear about the rediscovery of red wolves in Mexico?" Jo raised her
eyebrows. "I don't know for sure, but it makes me wonder…"

"How have you been able to keep the secret?"
This was amazing, mind boggling.

"In the past, we settled in isolated areas,
but the world's a smaller place now and the wilderness is
disappearing. Times are changing faster than we have. We have to
adapt. We were almost wiped out of this country and not so very
long ago. If you kill us in wolf form, that's the way we stay. We
have to make sure it doesn't happen again. And someday when our
numbers are high enough…"

"You'll have to come out of the woods."

Jo laughed. "I like that. If you'd said out
of the closet, I was going to have to rip you up. We're not ashamed
of who we are, but we know what can happen. We've seen it before,
silver bullets and all."

"Is that true? The legends?"

"Nah. Any old bullet will do." Jo cocked her
head. "Your cute little puppies have arrived. Got your rolled up
newspaper ready?"

* * *

A half hour later, Kat wasn't sure if a
rolled up newspaper would do the job. The phrase 'raised by wolves'
came to mind, but wolves would have done it better.

First contact was at the dark blue panel
truck used to transport the children and Kat was offended on their
behalf. Damnit! These were children, not cargo. She was horrified
until she saw the condition of the driver, Marcus, who leapt from
the driver's seat with surprising agility for a man shaped roughly
like a barrel of muscle.

Marcus looked a little beat up and torn. He
also looked like he was using the last of his restraint not to kill
someone. Ryker, who'd come running with the rest of the men when
the van pulled up, sealed his lips, pulled on his earlobe and
turned his back, but his shaking shoulders gave his mirth away.

"Next time, you pick the little bastards up,"
Marcus growled, "See who's laughing then." He used a key to open
the side door. "Had to break off the lock heads and handles on the
inside, so they couldn't escape. Again. They busted the windows out
of the passenger van we had them in."

He slid the door open, reached inside and
snatched his arm back. "Goddamnit! The little bastard bit me! Can I
get some help over here?"

Ryker and another man moved forward and
removed a child of no more than eight or nine who growled and
fought like his life depended on it. A third man rushed forward to
grab the boy and held him, the boy's arms pinned to his sides with
feet kicking the air. Another boy, a little older, followed. This
one seemed a little more cooperative or perhaps a little smarter.
He calmly allowed his captor to walk him away from the van and then
bit the man's hand and took off running.

It would have been comical if he hadn't drawn
blood. The boy was fast and almost made the trees before he was
caught. This one's vocabulary seemed to be limited to four letter
words which he used freely as he was dragged back to the
others.

While the boy was chased down, two girls
emerged from the van. Not willing to take the chance that she
wouldn't run off, too, Tanner grabbed the elder of the two by her
upper arm, not cruelly, but firmly. The girl went ramrod straight
and wouldn't move.

"Stop it!" Kat ran to the girl who was frozen
in terror. She slapped at Tanner's arm. "You're frightening her,
you big ox. Come on, sweetie," she said to the girl. "They're big
and ugly, but they won't hurt you. I wouldn't let them. Come on,
Forest. You'll be safe with me. My name is Miss Kat and I'll be
your teacher." She put her arm around the girl's shoulders to lead
her to the house.

Forest blinked twice and her eyes focused on
Kat. She gave a quick nod and began to move with her. After a few
steps and frightened as the girl was, she stopped and turned and
reached her hand out toward the van.

"Meadow," she whispered.

"They'll bring her. She'll be all right."

"Damn right she will." Jo, who'd been
watching the debacle from a front window, came striding through the
door. "Damn fools. More jackass than wolver. You," she pointed at
Tanner, "Go tell Charles to get his a-a-… his Alphaness out here.
Knock some sense into these idiots."

She marched to the van where Ryker held the
fort and stuck her head inside. Words were exchanged and if Kat
hadn't already heard a mouthful from the runaway, Ranger, who now
seemed quite content with his inactivity, she might have covered
poor Forest's ears.

As it was, the girl stared at the open van
door as if she expected blood and screams to come pouring out of
it.

All that emerged was Jo with the tiny girl
called Meadow in tow. The child's thumb was stuck in her mouth like
a cork and she looked up at Jo with big blue eyes.

When they came abreast of Kat and Forest, Kat
stooped to child eye level to say hello and was greeted by a snarl
of blond hair on the back of Meadow's head.

"It's all right, Meadow. No one here is going
to hurt you," Kat said to the snarl. "Why don't you come to the
kitchen with Forest and me? I'll bet Mrs. Martin has some cookies
and milk just waiting for a tea party."

Jo rolled her eyes and mouthed, "Tea party?"
She looked down at the child who held her two fingers in an iron
grip. "Don't mind her, kid. She means well, but doesn't know sh…
shazam about some things. Cookies and milk sound pretty good,
though, but not until you wash those hands. What is that? No, wait,
don't tell me. I'd rather not know until after I've washed
mine."