The Alpha's Daughter (45 page)

"How can you say that after what I've done?"
He sounded so miserable, like his heart was tearing in two.

"What did you do, Griz? What awful thing did
you do?" she shouted, hands in the air.

"I forced you to become the Mate, that's what
I did. I told you I didn't want you as a Mate and then I turned
around and made you one. I didn't ask. I didn't talk. I didn't
think. I just got down on my knees and accepted the mantle because
Leonard begged me to for the sake of the pack. Now I've turned you
into something you never wanted to be!" he shouted back.

"Oh."

Jazz looked up at the man she had mated. His
hair, half pulled from its ponytail, was flying wild all over his
head. It went well with his eyes which glittered with the kind of
panicked frenzy you saw in those gazelles on TV right before they
were caught by the lion.

"Oh? Is that all you have to say to the man
who ruined your life?"

She couldn't help it. She smiled. "You're
right. I should have a lot more to say to the guy who ruined my
life, probably with a few f-bombs thrown in, but you're not him. So
yeah, all I've got to say is oh."

She grabbed a bottle of beer and twisted the
top off before passing it to him, opened another and took a long
draft and sighed.

"Okay, I do have more to say. You did think.
I watched you. You made a conscious decision to become Alpha of
Gilead and it was the right choice, Griz. Leonard wouldn't have
asked if he didn't know it was right. He gave his life to this
pack. He would have given his eternity, too. Miz Mary understood
that. Pack comes first." She took another swig of her beer.

"But I had no right to make that choice for
you," he argued.

"You didn't. I did." Jazz put her bottle
down, twisting it to form a little holder in the dirt so it
wouldn't fall. "You asked. I answered."

"I didn't…"

"Damnit, Griz, you did. I was there. I can
understand why you don't remember. You had a lot of shit coming
down on you at the time, all that power pumping in and your mind
blowing out under the weight of it, but that's exactly why it means
so much to me. You called to me from the depths of your soul and I
heard you, baby, and I answered. Open your mind to me, Griz. Open
your heart."

Jazz played the scene over in her mind

"Hang on, Jazz. Don't let
me go. Please. Don't ever let me go.
"

"
I'm here, Papa Bear. Not letting go.
I told you then and I mean it now.
Not ever letting go
."

Jazz laughed at her mate's stunned look and
punched him in the arm. "That's what I was going to tell you on the
way up here. If it's about the pack I don't want to hear it," she
mimicked his deep voice. "Maybe later, you said. So now it's later
and you need to listen up, Papa Bear. You're right, I don't want to
be an Alpha's Mate, unless the Alpha is you. I don't want to be the
Mate for any pack unless that pack is Gilead. You and Gilead might
be sorry someday, but I won't ever be. I can guaran-damn-tee you
that."

Griz stared at her for a moment as if he
couldn't believe what he was hearing and then he started to laugh
and the sun was shining through his eyes as he lifted her high
enough to wrap her legs around his waist. He spun them around and
around until she was laughing, too, and then he howled his
happiness to the sky.

He brought them to the ground, covering her
with his body, and when he kissed her, Jazz learned that Miz Mary
was right about something else.

Her grizzly was the Alpha now and when the
Alpha touched his Mate, it set off a round of sensations in her
body that was hard to describe.

"Fireworks," Jazz mumbled hazily as another
wave hit her when he kissed her again. "Like fireworks, but
better."

Griz pulled back from her lips and studied
her through eyes with lids at half-mast. He was breathing as
heavily as she. "It works both ways, Hellcat," he told her as his
head descended and he kissed her again, longer this time and his
taste was sweeter and deeper than anything Jazz had tasted
before.

Their kiss was long and leisurely and at
first, Griz kept his hands by her shoulders and she kept hers
wrapped around his middle and Jazz could happily have stayed in
this chaste embrace forever as long as his lips met hers. Her
nipples were hard and wetness seeped between her legs. She was
ready for him, but she wasn't ready to move. She wanted to savor
each touch of his tongue, each tiny sound of pleasure he made.

It was Griz who made the first move, his hand
sliding down over the silk of her gown, along her sides and over
her hips as far as he could without leaving her lips and when he
hitched it up and fisted it in his hand, Jazz felt every silken
thread racing over her skin.

Griz lifted himself off her and she
whimpered, missing his heat and the feel of his clothes and her
hands at his back found their opening to bring back that warmth
skin to skin. He groaned and even the sound of him was richer,
better, than before. She wanted him, all of him, touching her body
as their lips and tongues touched, all fiery softness and love.

He peeled the silken gown from her body and
she could smell the earth and blood that soiled it. Rather than be
repulsed by the smell and what it represented, she savored it, too.
This was the blood of her pack, the blood of her Alpha and all she
held dear.

When he raised his shirt up over his head,
she heard it pass over each hair on his chest. She saw the slight
sheen of sweat and smelled his readiness for her to make love. She
clearly heard the rapid beating of his heart. Her senses were alive
with the knowledge of what she was and who she was meant to be.

Griz rose to his knees and she followed,
digging her hands into his hair and grasping his head and bringing
her lips to his. He groaned into her mouth and she whimpered in
response and the tingly warmth that suffused her body turned into a
conflagration of need.

They were skin to skin,
the heat of his chest burning against her breasts. Jazz's sigh of
pleasure turned into a moan of loss as the kiss broke and she was
hoisted to his waist. She wrapped her long legs around him, locking
her ankles over his waist and moaned again when he forced her to
arch backwards. His mouth latched onto her breast and drew the
excited nipple in deeply. Jazz felt the scorching pull link to her
core triggering a flood of moisture that pooled between her legs,
enflaming her desire and his response and she pressed her body more
firmly into him. Her fingers gripped his shoulders. Her nails bit
into his flesh.

Her body was screaming
with the need to be filled and she felt him in her mind, holding
his own desire back, letting her enjoy the sensations that were
coursing through them both.

"
Don't hold back, Griz. Don't ever hold back."

Jazz fell back, letting
her legs fall open to receive him and the world became a whirlwind
of the colors and scents and sounds of the forest. She could taste
the flavors running through the wind and feel the moon calling in
her soul. And as her body reached the pinnacle of sensation, she
knew what she saw and felt and heard and smelled and tasted was
Griz, more than a man, more than a wolf, more than a wolver. He was
her Alpha and she was his Mate.

As she came down from her
incredible high, she had the opportunity to experience his. Minds
linked together, open to each other, she finally saw herself
through his eyes and what she saw made her weep with joy. He saw
her as an equal, as a partner and as the woman he
adored.

Miz Mary had told her to love the man, not
the Alpha, but Jazz decided she loved them both.

Jazz used the broom to sweep a spiderweb from
the upper corner of the porch. She made sure she swept it outward
to avoid its landing on the small table she'd just finished
setting. The tablecloth was a gift from Ellie, one of a box full
she'd asked for when Miz Mary's things were shared out among the
women of the pack.

Ellie insisted Jazz take this one because, as
she laughingly said, "You need one when you serve tea and this one
matches your house."

The tablecloth was white with a lacy looking
cut out design in the center and bordered with a design of lilacs
that looked like they were cut fresh that morning. It was a girly
looking cloth that Jazz never would have bought for herself and yet
she loved it. Ellie was right. It matched the house.

Painting the house was Jazz's idea and when
she'd broached the subject with Griz, he only had two
questions.

"Can we afford it?" and "Do I have to paint
it?"

The answers were yes and no respectively, so
his conclusion was, "Go for it."

He wasn't, however, quite so enthusiastic
about the color.

"What the hell have you done to my house?
It's purple," he said, glaring at her fiercely. "The Alpha can't
live in a purple house."

"The Alpha can live in whatever house he
likes and it's not purple. Okay, it is, but only the accents," Jazz
laughed. "And not just any purple, Passionate Purple. The body is
Lingering Lilac with Winter White trim."

"I didn't know my house had accents." His
head began to shake back and forth.

"It didn't, but Edna and Edith remembered
what it used to look like and Mark Dawson put them back. This was
the color it once was, Griz, or as close as we could find. I wanted
the pack to see what once was; a pack that was strong and vibrant
and yeah, colorful."

Griz had given her 'the look'. "You know what
happens to little girls who tell big fibs, don't you?"

"No, but I'm not a little girl and it's not a
big fib." She'd sidled up to him and bumped him with her hip.
"Unless it's something sexy and fun and then I could pretend I'm a
little girl telling big fibs."

And that made him laugh and once he laughed,
she knew her argument was won.

The house really was part of her plan for
Gilead and in the six months following, the village sported a
bright yellow house and a green one. Other wolvers had straightened
their shutters and painted their doors. People were taking pride in
their village and homes. Roger wasn't the only one growing
petunias.

Jazz had used the money from the sale of the
antique barber pole and chair to paint her house. She kept the case
of tools in memory of times gone by, but the pole and chair took up
too much space and they needed the room. While she and Griz
traveled to Rabbit Creek for a long overdue reunion with his
brothers, Harvey gathered a group of volunteers and the deed was
done.

The idea for the trip came from Eugene Begley
when he personally delivered the big Victory bike whose theft had
begun her journey to Gilead. It was his motorcycle, bought for the
purpose of her theft and taken away from Millie's bar by people
he'd hired. Her money and purse he knew nothing about and he
clucked his disapproval at the dishonesty and grinned when he
explained his was merely a deception.

Mr. Begley wasn't alone. Moose and Janice
came with him and the news they carried wasn't good, but it wasn't
bad either.

Bronson Phillips was dead, not by the disease
Jazz was convinced was eating him away, but by Challenge. His
obsession with making Jazz the Mate of his pack had created so much
greed and lust for power within the ranks that one Challenge had
followed another until he was too weakened to fight and was
deposed.

Jazz didn't mourn his passing. She couldn't.
The Alpha who would have mated her off to fulfill his dynastic
dreams had brought too much pain and heartache to the people she'd
grown to love.

Phillip's pack was now falling apart. His
death did nothing to settle the unrest and one Alpha followed
another as the pack split into warring factions. Without the
stability of someone permanently in charge, rival human gangs had
begun to move in on the business end, so the pack was now at war
from without and within. It wouldn't be long before it dissolved
into separate bands of rogues. Moose and Janice wanted no part of
it.

"We're too old for this shit," Moose told
them as he bumped shoulders with his mate. "We've got a little
money put by. We can live off of it if we're careful. Janice here
has been squirreling our money away for years."

"Gilead would welcome you," Griz told him
without the slightest hesitation. He knew Moose had taken care of
Jazz as best he could when she was young.

"Appreciate the offer," Moose told him as his
eyes took in the house and surroundings, "But I'm thinking it
wouldn't be such a good fit. Running rogue won't be bad compared to
what we left."

Jazz knew he was right. She'd loved what she
found in Gilead. Moose and Janice would not.

"There's someone I want you to meet before
you go," she told them and went into the house to call Boss
Seaward. It was the perfect fit.

Lots of things in Gilead had been the perfect
fit. Opal was now mated to RJ. When she moved in to keep his house
and care for his children while he worked, her quiet presence had
eased his guilt and pain over the death of his young mate. Love
blossomed slowly over time and if the bonds that held the two
together weren't as deep as those she shared with Griz, Jazz knew
it was still a good and lasting match. Each held what the other
needed.

Roger finally mated Didi Haines and they were
expecting their first pup any day. In spite of her prominent belly,
Didi still managed to strut her stuff in five inch heels on the
dirt and gravel roads and she still wore her blouses unbuttoned to
the point of danger. Some things never changed.

But other things did and mostly for the
better. Mark Wardman now had a thriving rocking chair business and
his handcrafted chairs were sold in shops all over the Ozarks. He
had four men working full time in the shop at the back of his
house.