Wolver's Reward (4 page)

"I think we can do it," Lawrence said. Arms
cocked, he raised his fists in front of him and positioned his
feet. "We've studied the pugilistic arts, have we not?" Like his
partner, Arnold, he liked the idea. "Man against adversity. I think
it sounds like a marvelous way to begin this new adventure. We're
taking matters into our own hands, meeting misfortune head on,
conquering our..."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Darla cut him off.
Lawrence could be long winded once he got going. "You think you can
do it?" she asked the others.

"We've been practicing, sparring in the
ring," Arnold said and then shivered with his two fists in the air
by his shoulders. "And what the hey?" he added daringly. "We'll be
accosting a human and there are six of us."

"Victory is assured." Lawrence nodded in
agreement.

"Five," Darla said. "Reb stays out of it. She
has to stay pretty for her Alpha, whichever one it happens to
be."

Reb didn't like it, but Darla was right. It
wouldn't do to meet your intendeds with a black eye. Her mother
would be embarrassed.

Darla laid out the plan and everyone took
their places. Three cars passed, but none of them stopped. After
the third, Lawrence raised his hand from the ditch where he was
hiding.

"This isn't a classroom, Lawrence. No need to
raise your hand," Reb laughed. "Speak up."

"But keep it short," Darla added.

"I think we need to add a bit of sexual
allure to our enticement and I think we should use Rebecca for the
purpose. No, no, Arthur, hear me out." He closed his eyes and put
the tips of his fingers together as if holding together his
thoughts. "Studies show that males tend to have a sympathetic
response to a weaker subject in distress, particularly if the
subject is a sexually alluring female."

"Then why not me?" Celia asked with the
beginnings of a pout. "Don't you find me sexually alluring?"

Darla snorted. "You play for the wrong team,
Celia."

"Well so does Becky." The petite brunette's
eyes narrowed in on Reb. "Don't you?"

"My dear Celia, you're perfectly delightful,
I'm sure, as is our Rosemary," he added to deflect any hurt
feelings that might arise from that quarter. Rosemary blushed at
the compliment. "I merely thought that since Rebecca has no role
here to play, this would be something she could do without
endangering her ...um..."

"Good idea." Leaving no room for further
discussion, Darla pointed to the van. "Park yourself on that
bumper, Reb, and try to look pretty and pitiful at the same
time."

Reb took up the position, but she wasn't sure
how pretty she looked once it started to rain. Looking pitiful
wasn't a problem.

Chapter 3

Mid-morning brought rain and loneliness.
River was surprised by that. He'd never been one for socializing.
When hanging out with the guys in the evening or in the security
offices at work, he never really joined in. He listened, nodded,
smiled or frowned at the right times, but never added to the
conversation unless someone asked him a question. Most of those
times, he wanted to be someplace else, someplace where he could run
as man or wolf. It didn't matter which. In one form or another,
River had to run, and except for the full moon when he was expected
to run with the pack, River always ran alone. So why the
loneliness?

The thumping of the windshield wipers offered
no answer, but their steady rhythm helped him think.

Alone wasn't the same as lonely. He ran
alone, but the pack was still there. He was a wolver, and wolvers
needed pack. There was something inside them that craved the
companionship of others of their kind. It was why rogue, or
packless, wolvers tended to band together in loosely organized
groups. They craved the company even if the company was shit.

Shunning was used as a punishment. The
offender was allowed to stay within the pack and allowed to
continue their work, but was denied all social contact with
packmates until the sentence was served. Being outcast was worse.
Other than a death sentence, it was the most serious punishment in
the wolver world and was used only for the worst of offenses,
including betrayal of the pack. River had never been truly alone,
so never understood the pain involved in such punishments. In the
pack he was born into, such a punishment looked more like a holiday
to him with no one to cuff or kick him as they ordered him
around.

One and a half days on the road, he was
learning fast. Being shunned or outcast was no picnic. River
frowned.

Was he shunned? Was he outcast? Fuck no. He
couldn't be. He'd done nothing wrong. There'd been no trial, no
sentence handed down by the Alpha. They'd simply thrown him out. He
wasn't wanted. Big surprise. He hadn't been wanted from the day he
was born.

River's hand shot to the radio and he poked
at the buttons until he found what he was looking for. Heavy metal
screamed through the cab, drowning out his thoughts.

He'd left the Interstate a few hours before,
and chose instead to travel a secondary road that ran beside it. He
had nowhere to go, no timetable to keep, and no destination in
mind. The pace was slower, but what the hell. Speed in enclosed
vehicles had never done much for him. The truck was simply
transportation that kept him dry. It was good for hauling shit.
That was about it.

Driving the truck wasn't
like driving the bike. The Roadliner S was a cruiser with a comfy
seat and plenty of power
in its pushrod V-twin engine. There were faster
motorcycles out there with sleeker builds, but River liked the way
this one handled even on the sharper corners. Unlike some of the
other big bikes he'd ridden, the Roadliner could lean pretty deeply
into a turn before scraping the floorboards. And that was another
thing. His size fourteens fit the floorboards with plenty of room
to spare.

It
was a
n impressive
looking ride. It turned heads when he rumbled past, but that wasn't
why he bought it. He bought it for the way it made him feel. It was
the closest he'd found to running as a wolf. His wolf thought so
too, and when he rode, River felt the animal purr right along with
the engine. That bike was a symbol of everything he wanted to be;
fast, powerful, and respected. It was his prized
possession.

The rain was
coming harder, the wipers slap-slapping at full speed and not quite
doing the job, when he saw the red emergency flashers up ahead. A
small dark cargo van was stopped half on, half off the two lane
road. River slowed more out of courtesy than curiosity. On the rear
bumper sat a girl, shoulders hunched over her knees, head in hands.
He wondered if she was crying. She was wearing shorts and had the
hood of her sweatshirt pulled up over her head, but in that rain,
it wasn't doing anything to keep her dry. Long strands of wet,
straggly hair falling to either side obscured her face, but he
could tell she was young by the long and slender legs and the neon
orange sneakers she wore.

"
Tough luck,
kid," he muttered.

As he drove by,
the girl raised a delicate looking hand in a hopeless wave that
whispered of defeat, but River didn't stop. It wasn't his problem.
Hell, he had enough problems of his own.

He
made it another two miles before he pulled over
, came to a stop, and after checking
his mirrors, made the U-turn back the way he had come.

It
was that damned hand and its hopeless wave that did it. In his
mind, he saw it as Forest's hand. His foster sister had those
sa
me long fingers
and narrow palm formed with bones so fine and fragile looking,
River thought he could crush them just by shaking hands. What if it
was Forest back there? What if she needed help and some bastard
passed her by because he was too busy feeling sorry for himself?
And what about the bastard who would stop, not looking to help, but
looking for something else? What if that was Forest stranded on a
cold and rainy deserted road?

Oddly, the thought made him smile. Forest wouldn't be driving
in the rain. Her hands shook when Kat suggested she do it on warm
sunny days. Poor Fo
rest was afraid to drive, just as she was afraid to do
anything else that was new. Mrs. Martin, the Alpha's housekeeper,
insisted Forest drive down and pick up the cubs from school each
day. She said the girl needed the practice. She wasn't wrong. The
cubs complained that they could run the mile faster than Forest
drove it.

Still, Forest had come a long way from the girl she'd
been.
Her smile
was shy, but it was a genuine smile, and she no longer jumped like
a scared cat every time a man walked into the room. She liked her
job helping Mrs. Martin in the kitchen and she'd become a helluva
cook. Pups and cubs loved her. She was good at soothing their hurts
and fears even though she couldn't soothe her own.

He
was thinking these things when he passed the
cargo van again, pulled another U-ey
and parked back a ways behind the disabled vehicle. The girl was
still sitting on the bumper. He got out of the truck and walked
slowly toward her, turning up the collar of his leather jacket
against the rain.

"Looks like you
could use some help," he called to her.

She stood as he
approached and peered at him, using her hand like a visor to keep
the rain from her eyes. Those eyes widened as if surprised by what
she saw.

"No."

He saw her lips
form the word, but the sound of it was drowned out by the thrumming
of the rain. He was thin, but he was tall and his shoulders had
broadened to an impressive width. Dressed all in black and walking
toward her through the haze of rain, he understood how she might
see him as frightening. With Forest and her timidity still on his
mind, River raised his hands to show her he meant no
harm.

"I just stopped to
help," he called. Keeping his hands high, he stopped.

If Ryker hadn't
trained him well, River might have missed the slight movement of
her head as her eyes flickered to a spot behind him and to his
right.

"No!"

This time he
heard her clearly just as a shadow loomed up from the ditch beside
the road. He turned to meet the attacker, a woman, big and broad
and wearing a man's coat and cap. Raised hand now curled into a
fist, River drove it downward and felt the satisfying crunch of
cheekbone. He had no time to savor his quick response, however, as
another figure, this one male, dove for the backs of his knees. His
knees buckled, but he threw himself backward, rolling over the body
behind him and landing on his feet. He kicked and sent the attacker
sprawling in the mud. Still another came at him.

These were wolvers,
three females and two males, and they'd set him up.
They'd expected a human, not one of their own. They were counting
on their superior strength and speed, and outnumbering their
victim. Surprise!

His
fist landed in a soft belly
. He heard the grunt of pain as the wolver fell away.
Another came from behind and he bent to capture the female wolver
on his back and drag her over his shoulder. That the shifter was
tiny bothered him not at all. He'd made that mistake years ago and
had a scar on his back to prove it.
Females could be more vicious than males.
He tossed her forward like a sack of
Mrs. Martin's flour. She landed atop another who was charging
toward them.

"Ow, that
hurt," the male squealed.

"You said this would
be fun. You lied," the little one whined.

Did
he really just see her kick the guy?
River didn't have time to think about it. His
boot took another off his feet. They weren't well trained, but they
kept coming at him like flies that needed to be swatted
away.

"That wasn't fair,"
the wolver on the ground complained.

"Tough shit,"
River shouted back. What the hell did they expect?

A
red headed
female who'd done nothing up to this point, now ran forward and
slapped his shoulder, yelling, "Shame on you!" before she ran
away.

River didn't
retaliate. He couldn't. It was too bizarre.

It
was now obvious that t
he girl in the orange sneakers was the bait. Hadn't he seen
his old band use Forest in the same way? He could hear her crying
just as Forest had cried. Forest always felt sorry for the
victim.

"No. No. Please
don't hurt..."

All
the anger he'd felt back then came surging forward.
He'd been too young and weak to help Forest. He
wasn't weak now.

She started running forward and he knew what
would happen next. A backhand or punch would send her flying; her
punishment for having a heart. He didn't want to see her hurt.

It was time to end it, to show these shifters
they'd messed with the wrong wolver. He didn't care how incompetent
they were. Howls of pain followed his blows. He fought them off
until he was in position to do the most damage.

He caught the heavily muscled bitch who'd led
the charge. Arms angled, forward and back, around her head and
throat, one twist would break her neck. He didn't intend to kill
her, but they didn't know that and if they challenged him, he'd do
it. Her death would be on them.

"Dare me," he roared. He released a surge of
power that was greater than anything they could muster. The others
fell back. The young woman kept coming.