The Alpha's Mate (Werewolf Romance) (15 page)

I urged her with my eyes to do it already, but she held back. I realized then that she wouldn’t save me, she didn’t care if Ronnie raped me or if I lived or died. She’d meant every word she’d said earlier. Well, so had I.

I roared up and head butted Ronnie with everything I had. He jumped up, clutching his head. It didn’t take him long to rec
over while I still heard a high-pitched ringing noise in my ears. Even with my shocked senses, I knew I couldn’t stay still. I needed to stand up because staying prone would be a death sentence. I rolled off the air mattress just as he pounced. His nails pricked the air mattress, discharging a loud whoosh of air.

I rolled again when he
followed me. I wanted to get my knees under me and then pull myself to my feet, but the head butt had left me a stunned, which, combined with the lingering effects of Kelsey’s shot, was not a good thing.

Lucky for me, Vicki decided to strike. With a harsh yell, she charged Ronnie. The spear caught him in the shoulder.
She didn’t do much damage, but did draw blood.

Everyone froze
. Ronnie and Vicki stared at the tiny rivulet of blood dripping out of his shoulder while I stared at Vicki. There was a beat and then we were all moving again. Vicki yanked the spear out and tried to nail the rogue alpha again, but he grabbed the spear and broke it in half. Throwing the pieces to the ground, he lunged for her, his hands wrapping around her throat.

She dropped to her knees, making awful choking sounds.

I grabbed what was left of the spear and rose to my feet. Sidling up behind him, I aimed for his heart. Vicki’s eyes met mine, they were wide and full of fear, but they were also losing their light as she became starved for oxygen. She would be unconscious soon, leaving me and Ronnie alone. Call me crazy, but I wasn’t looking forward to any amount of one-on-one time with the rogue alpha.

I took a deep breath and said a silent prayer.
Like the head butt, I put everything into my thrust. Vicki was strong and she’d barely broken skin, I was going to have to do better. I just wasn’t sure if I could.

My attempt to off Ronnie went better than Vicki’s.
The spear slammed into his back, pierced his skin and punched through his ribs. Ronnie reared back with a howl. He tried to turn around to face me, but I jumped up, going air borne as he whirled around and keeping a death grip on the spear. I put all my weight into the jump and the spear slid forward into the organs underneath his ribs. I used the force of my landing to thrust the spear point up in the general direction of his heart. Then I let go and scrambled back.

“Let’s get out of here
,” I screamed to Vicki who huddled, paralyzed in the corner. Now was the time to run, while Ronnie was distracted by the splintered wood in his gut. I dashed over to her and grabbed her by the elbow and dragged her out of the tent. Once we were outside, she seemed to come to her senses and quickly shifted into wolf form. She melted into the woods without looking back, which left me to deal with Ronnie on my own as he stormed out of the tent.

It had been a stroke of luck to attack him from behind. I realized this as I watched him try and fail to remove the spear. With it still inside him, he wouldn’t be able to heal. The only problem, I hadn’t killed him and the damage I had done didn’t seem to be slowing him down.

He lunged for me, his claws reaching, wanting to pinch me in his grip. I jumped to the side and evaluated my options.

I wanted to
run like Vicki, but a quick check of my wolf showed me that, while she could move now, shifting was still a ways off. The drug was taking longer to leave her system than mine. For once, my human form had the advantage, at least in terms of how fast I cleared medications. The downside? I didn’t think I could outrun the rogue alpha while human. I needed the speed of a wolf.

So running was out. I couldn’t shift and I couldn’t hide. My only option was to fight. Or die trying.

Ronnie growled, punctuating my train of thought with an ominous threat. He squared off in front of me preparing to come at me again. I slowly backed up, unable to think of anything else to do. I didn’t have a weapon and he was taller as well as stronger than me.

I really
was going to die. I was sure of it.

He sprang forward once more, a snarl twisting his lips
.

With a scream,
I scrambled backward until I hit the coarse bark of a tree.

I’d moved fast enough that he’d missed me, but he was already coming at me again.

Just as I slipped behind the tree, praying it would offer some protection, two slender forms darted forward. I turned my head, following the flash of motion and was surprised to see they were wolves. Narrowing my eyes to sharpen my vision, I realized they were Mara and Sara’s parents.

The two wolves
yipped a quick greeting to me and then launched a coordinated attack on Ronnie’s legs, aiming for his hamstrings. I wasn’t alone anymore. A flash of hope went through me.

I almost felt sorry for the rogue a
lpha as he spun in circles in a futile effort to stop the wolves. They were so agile and quick, he never even saw who or what was attacking him. Every time someone snuck up on him from behind, he was outmatched. He may have been big, but he wasn’t a nimble or strategic fighter. For all I knew, maybe the testosterone had stunted his intellect.

While the wolves kept him busy, I decided
on my next step. With the wolves’ help I could take Ronnie. Maybe not on strength alone, but on speed and strategy. I would give him a wound no wolf ever came back from. Grabbing a stick thick as my middle finger off the ground, I moved toward him, but he didn’t notice. He’d worked himself into a frothing, slobbering fit of anger as the wolves danced around him, sinking their fangs into his flesh every chance they got. Blood dripped from multiple wounds on his legs, splattering to the ground in a red rain.

Ronnie swatted at them with his hands, as if trying to crush them like flies. I stalked the edges of the action, waiting for my opening
. Mara and Sara’s parents barked at me with excitement. I didn’t dare take my eyes of Ronnie to look at them, it took concentration to stay out of the rogue’s reach.

As if tiring of all the running, the two wolves latched onto the back of Ronnie’s knee on some unseen signal. This time they didn’t let go, but clamped down. They were going to tear out the backs of his knees
and hamstring him.

Ronnie screamed and when he couldn’t dislodged them with his hands he dropped to the ground, rolling in an effort to shake them off.  The wolves yelped and backed off to regroup. This time they attacked him where it would really hurt, the massive dick hanging between his legs.

His howls of pain when their teeth broke the skin made me wince. He tried to wedge his hands into their jaws and force them off, but they held on. When he picked up a rock the size of a grapefruit intent on bashing their heads in, I decided that was as good a time as any to act. No way could I stand by and let Mara and Sara’s parents die like that. It would devastate the girls.

With a harsh battle cry, I came in close and stabbed the stick at his face, aiming for his eye. The first thrust caught him on the cheek bone and slid off. I didn’t even blink as I
went for a second strike. I would have to be faster than Ronnie or I would be dead. This time, I got his eye and shoved it through to the soft brain underneath. It took more strength than I would’ve expected to breach his skull, but I did it.

His jaw went slack and his remaining eye wide as I drove the stick home. Once it was in deep, I jacked it up and down and side to side, wanting to be sure to scramble any brains inside. Brain dead wolves don’t heal. They die human quick. Thank God.

Ronnie’s body went slack and he almost deflated a bit as he sank to the ground, looking smaller than he’d been. Mara and Sara’s parents stepped back with a questioning whine.

“I had to do it,” I said to them. “He wasn’t a normal wolf. You know that right?”

They nodded, showing human intelligence for the first time since I’d met them.

“Thanks for your help. I’l
l tell Cal and your girls. They’ll be proud of you.”

At that
, the wolves howled and then they faded into the forest, going where, only they knew.

“I hope you’ll come back someday,” I called afte
r them. “I’ll watch out for the girls until you do.”

That earned me another howl
, one that sounded much further away than it should’ve been.  Alone and no longer in imminent danger, I began to register my injuries. My arms ached like I’d been bench pressing a semi carrying an overweight load. Somehow I’d twisted my knee and my body was covered in dozens of small cuts and abrasions.

Yet, despite my injuries, a euphoric satisfaction filled me. All along Vicki had said I was weak. I hadn’t been sure I was strong enough myself. Not until I killed a rogue alpha with my bare hands. I’d done it.
Me.
The newborn wolf who hadn’t even grown into her full power. My fear that Vicki had been right, that I really was an Omega dissipated. For the first time since I’d changed, I felt sure of myself.

I was the alpha’s mate, damn it and nothing could stop me now.

I threw back my head and howled loud and proud, not caring who heard me. Hell, I
wanted
to be heard. Let Vicki and Kelsey hear me and tremble to know I was coming for them next. If they were smart, they would start running. They wouldn’t get far with me after them, but let them try.

Before I left the camp, I
checked for survivors, hoping against hope for a happy ending for everyone. I found Tonya’s limp body in the tent Vicky had said held the dead. Sure enough, she’d left this world for the next, her stomach split open like rotten fruit. There were three other bodies too, the women from Nashville. All my earlier euphoria deserted me as I faced the sober reality of their deaths.

I said a little prayer for them all,
gulping back sobs as I did so. Tonya had almost been a friend, my only one. The loss hurt.

Fighting for control of my emotions, I
made sure Ronnie was truly dead by cutting off his head. I used a hunting knife I found in what I assumed was the tent he slept in and sawed and hacked my way through his flesh. I wasn’t squeamish. I’d eaten my share of freshly killed rabbits, their bodies warm and their tiny hearts practically beating against my tongue, but chopping up a human like so much meat made me queasy. I coped by closing my eyes, holding my breath, and taking lots of breaks to walk into the nearby woods to deeply inhale the scent of pine.

Once
I was done, I grabbed Ronnie’s head by the hair and made my way to the nearest road. Without clothes, hiking through the woods would be difficult. My best bet was to run into someone from Hunstville. Luckily, my thinking was sound and a search party found me a few miles into my walk.

A gray Ford pick-up squealed to a stop next to me. I stopped walking, waiting to see who it was.

Todd, one of the bartenders in town, hopped of his truck along with Frank, one of the younger wolves from the pack. “Chloe! You’re alive!”

“Yep. I’m alive.” I held up the head. “He isn’t. Not anymore.”

Todd gave a low whistle. “Damn. That’s the rogue?”

I nodded.

Frank shook his head. “Shit. You kill him, girl?” Frank ran on the edges of Vicki’s social circle and he sounded suspicious. He probably believed all the Omega shit she was spewing.

“Yep.” I stared at Frank
until he looked away. “Where’s Jackson?” I needed to smell him, to feel his arms around me. It had been a long fucking day and I wanted my mate.

“Downtown. Vicki came in about an hour ago,” Todd said.

“She seemed to think you was dead,” added Frank.

I shrugged. “She thinks a lot of things that aren’t true.” I shivered as a cold wind brushed over me. “You guys got a blanket?”
I wanted to ask them about Kelsey, but that was a sensitive subject. I didn’t want to start any talk, not until I spoke to Jackson and Cal first. If Vicki hadn’t told them about the bitch, I would. If she had, maybe Kelsey had already been dealt with.

“Yeah, yeah. Sorry.” Todd hustled to the back of his truck and pulled out a thick fleece blanket. “Jackson will kill me if you get sick.”

“And what should I do with this?” I lifted the head again, holding the fleece around me with one hand. The guys’ eyes went wide as they took in the severed head.

“I’ve got a box
you can use. We’ll stow it in the bed.” Todd dumped some stuff from a plastic milk crate and held it for me as I set the head inside. He stashed it in the pick-up bed and secured it in place with a few bungee cords. “We don’t want it rolling around like a bowling ball.”

“Great. Thanks.” I looked at
Todd’s truck. It was an old two-seater. The big console in the middle wouldn’t let a third sit comfortably. “So Frank, I guess you’re sitting in the back with the head.”

He glared at me,
sullen, but I just stared him down again. I was the alpha’s mate, no matter what lies Vicki spread. I outranked him and since I’d pretty much killed Ronnie single-handedly, Frank couldn’t match me on strength. Maybe when I’d first started shifting, I’d been weak, but not anymore. Now I was stronger than most of the pack except for Jackson and Cal. I’d come into my own and just in the nick of time, too.