Wolver's Reward (30 page)

The sex was good, better than good. It was
great. They'd quickly become so attuned to each other that it was
easy to discern their partner's moods and needs. Sometimes the sex
was fast and hard, sometimes slow and easy. Sometimes they were so
anxious for each other, they never made it out of the shower. That
was fine by River.

Reb seemed happy with it, too. River
wondered, but never asked, how she felt about it. She had nothing
to compare it to anyway. For him, a good fuck had always been
enjoyable, but strictly physical. He never expected it to be
anything more. With Reb, sex was different. Maybe because they did
it so often, he felt more exposed. Reb knew more about his body and
desires than any female ever had.

It was something else he was going to miss,
not just the sex, but the after sex part, too, where spent and
relaxed, they lay together and talked. Together, like they were
now. He'd never had that before, never wanted it.

What did he expect from the new rogues?

"I guess I expected them to be more like Scar
and less like Saint Dennis." River was thinking of Ben, not Dennis,
but he refused to say the wolver's name while they were in bed. It
was bad enough he had to put up with the bastard outside of it.

"I wish you'd quit calling him that," Reb
scolded. "Dennis wasn't a saint. He was a very normal wolver."

River didn't want to think about that. In his
mind, saints didn't have sex. Normal wolvers did. All of which led
to thoughts of Dennis, sex, and Reb, and that only pissed River
off.

"Everyone talks about him like a saint. Even
you."

"Now who's pouting?"

"This isn't pouting."

Reb giggled. "Would you like me to roll over
so you can get out of bed and stamp your foot?" She didn't roll
over, but snuggled closer. "Everyone always speaks well of the
dead."

He brought his hands down from his head so he
could encircle the girl in his arms. "I know."

It wasn't really Dennis's sainthood that
bothered him, either. It was that the deceased Alpha would have
been the perfect mate for Reb. Just the thought of Saint Dennis
made River's wolf snarl.

"Just one more day. I can't believe we'll be
there tomorrow."

River accepted her change in subject, but
continued to grumble. "Yeah, one more day and we'll have a whole
new set of problems to contend with."

"Oh, come on, we haven't had that many
problems," she argued.

"Easy for you to say. You didn't have to ride
around for two hours in the rain looking for that Barney guy that
took a wrong turn. How the hell do you take a wrong turn with all
those other cars in front of you taking the right one?"

"It's Bernie, not Barney, and it wasn't his
fault. He got behind those two semis and that slowed him down. By
the time he got to the turn, everyone was gone."

"Yeah, and big Ben should have been watching
the rear of the caravan instead of watching yours."

On one of their stops, River had dug into his
savings and outfitted Reb for a ride. He'd taken her out a few
times, but never for long. They'd seen neither hide nor hair of
Donavan and his men, but it still made him nervous. He couldn't
shake the feeling that they'd be back.

"It isn't Bernie or Ben that's upsetting you,
is it? It's Gordon and what happened with Jen. You're worried it
will happen again."

It was the only time during the trip so far,
that River had to demonstrate who was boss and he'd done it
wrong.

Gordon was one of those newbies that leaned
more toward Scar than toward Ben. Unlike Scar, however, Gordon
carried a constant sneer on his face. His lip was always curled. He
was tall, all bone and sinew, and strong. You could see it in the
way he carried himself, the way he moved. He seemed to be the
leader of a small group of wolvers, men who looked much like him.
They sat apart at meals and their eyes roamed over the others in
the group as if they were marking prey.

While some of the others grumbled about the
paces River put them through each evening, for the most part they
tried their best and in a few short days, he'd already seen some
improvement. Not so with Gordon and his merry little band. They
were slackers. River knew it, but didn't press the issue. He wanted
the trip to go as smoothly as possible. His mistake.

On the first night out they stayed in another
middle-of-nowhere motel. Gordon and his gang cut out early from
conditioning, but River said nothing. He did, however, ask Scar to
keep an eye on them. Later, the wolver reported that they went to a
bar, threw back a few beers, and came home. What the hell, River
wasn't a babysitter and there were no rules against a few
beers.

On the second night, they stayed in a hotel
that offered a workout room to its patrons. River assigned the
pairs that would work together; old and new, weak and strong.
Making it clear they liked the equipment more than the partners
they were assigned, the other wolvers in the band reluctantly
cooperated. Gordon flatly refused, and River ignored him, thinking
that for the others, at least, it was a step in the right
direction.

Each time he talked to the Alpha about the
problem, Roland urged tolerance.

"It will take time, my boy, for some of these
wolvers to adjust. They aren't accustomed to more enlightened
behavior. We must set for them an example of tolerance and good
manners. Ignore the bad and compliment the good and they will seek
the compliment. Over time their behavior will change. Try it and
you'll see."

All River saw was bad behavior getting worse
and on the third night it came to a head.

Giving him the credit that was his due, River
had to admit that Roland had planned this trip well. The motel they
stayed in was cheap and clean, the hotel was a little better. By
the third night they'd reached a place where accommodations for so
large a group couldn't be found, and so they camped in an open
field with the permission of the owner. River didn't mind. Anything
outdoors was fine with him, but he expected some of the others to
complain, particularly the Sweet Valley pack. He'd never met a
group of wolves so uncomfortable in the great outdoors.

As it turned out, they were thrilled to
finally be getting a taste of their back to nature adventure. Some
slept in their cars and some in small tents. Reb was offered her
former bed in the RV, but chose, to Rivers great relief, to share
the bed of his truck. After sitting around a small fire for a
while, everyone called it a night. Peace settled over the camp
until a little after midnight when the woman screamed. She'd
stepped out to relieve herself and been accosted by Gordon.

Instantly awake, River had sped across the
camp and was first on the scene. He heard others running and
shouting behind him.

The female was fighting back, though her
attempts did little to stop the attack.

He shouted for Gordon to stop, but the tall
wolver ignored him, just as he'd ignored all of River's other
orders. River grabbed Gordon's shirt collar to pull him off the
crying female. Partially unbuttoned, the shirt came away, but
Gordon didn't. It was the restriction of his arms by the sliding
sleeves that caught his attention.

He turned, head and shoulders toward River.
"Stay out of this," he snarled.

When Gordon turned, the woman pinned beneath
him struggled, pushing with her feet. Knees rising, she must have
clipped him between the legs, not hard enough to make him stop, but
hard enough to make him angrier.

"Stay still, bitch." Gordon raised his
fist.

This all happened in a matter of seconds, all
clearly imprinted on River's mind, but suddenly all surrounding
sight and sound was gone. Through the red haze of his anger, all he
saw was the raised fist. All he heard were the words, echoing from
his past.

"Stay still, bitch."

Inside him, the blind rage that lived in the
space between him and his wolf exploded. River felt his control
falling apart and could do nothing to stop it.

He remembered that moment, the red haze, the
anger, and then nothing more until he was struggling against the
hands that held him.

"Stop!" someone shouted and a wave of an
Alpha's power struck him.

It was like waking from a nightmare to find
it was real. He fought against that, too.

"River, stop. It's over. It's done." Reb's
worried voice cut through the remains of the red haze.

He was surrounded by staring wolvers, the
Alpha Roland among them. It wasn't Forest standing among the other
women and holding her dress together where it had been torn. It was
Jennifer, a member of the Sweet Valley pack. It wasn't an Alpha
with a bleeding nose and mouth, held between two strong wolvers. It
was Gordon.

"I'm fine. I'm fine." River pushed himself up
from the ground with a helping hand from Scar.

"I thought you were going to kill the
fucker," Scar muttered next to River's ear.

"You should have let me," River snarled.

"Couldn't. That would make you like me." The
black clad wolver gave a single, slow nod in response to River's
searching look. Scar was a killer.

"Maybe I already am," River told him.

"Nah, you're nowhere near as far along that
road as me and you've got a chance to turn back. My advice is to
take it."

Right before sunrise the Alpha held Court,
where he carefully explained his decision before the entire
assembly.

"Because he is not a sworn member of the
Sweet Valley pack, I cannot declare this wolver Outcast and Rogue,
nor do I feel comfortable with the taking of his life only because
he has not been rightfully informed of the rules of this pack. In
this, it is I who have been remiss. I can, however and by the Law,
banish him from my territory without recourse. All his worldly
goods shall be forfeit and divided equally between his victim and
the pack. Should he attain redemption elsewhere and return to seek
our forgiveness, he will find none here. If he is found within our
domain at any time in the future, whether by purpose or by
accident, he will face a penalty both swift and permanent and that
penalty is death."

The Alpha followed his declaration with an
impressive flow of power that touched everyone in the small crowd,
proving he was still a force to be reckoned with.

Gordon was dropped off a hundred miles away.
Two of his friends left with him. The Alpha's verdict was enforced,
but the Alpha wasn't finished. He called River into his 'office',
the table in the RV's kitchenette.

Roland was still pale and weak. River could
see how much his show of power cost him. To walk the short distance
without halting his step was painful. Margaret swore the wound was
healing as it should. It probably was, but the process was slow and
he would never regain the muscle tissue that had to be cut
away.

"You think my decision is wrong," he said
when both of them were seated.

"I think he'll do it again." It wasn't an
outright yes. Roland was the Alpha, after all. But it also made
River's position clear.

"Had you not tried to kill him, I would
have." Roland nodded at his Champion's surprised look. "I believe
in the law, River. An Alpha should not rule his pack solely through
the use of his power. He should use his power only to enforce the
law and not to satisfy some current whim. One leads to stability,
the other to chaos.

"Our newcomers have little experience with
stability, but a great deal of experience in chaos. They need to
know that my emotions and by extension, yours, do not rule here.
You cannot kill someone simply because you believe they deserve it,
even if they do," he conceded. "If I were to allow that, what would
stop me from killing you for spilling coffee on my good trousers?
You'd certainly deserve it. I love those trousers."

River opened his mouth to speak, but shut it
before the words came out. The Alpha laughed.

"You think my example foolish and perhaps
you're right, but my point is this: one act opens the door for
another and then another until we kill each other over things every
bit as foolish as spilled coffee."

River thought of Charles Goodman in a way
that he never had before. The Alpha of Wolf's Head didn't flex his
power often, but when he did, no one was afraid except the
wrongdoer. River had felt that power once or twice when he was
definitely in the wrong. He'd also seen power work the other way,
grew up with it, in fact.

"It isn't foolish," he confessed, head bowed.
"I saw a pup killed for less."

He heard the Alpha draw his breath and slowly
release it. "Then you, more so than many others, understand that of
which I speak. You must learn to control your emotions, River, lest
you become the thing you hate."

"I don't know if I can." Another
confession.

"Of course you can," the Alpha declared in
that highhanded way he had. "You have the power to do it. There is
a strength in you, River Goodman, not just of muscle, but of will.
Whatever your ghosts, whatever darkness haunts you, you must expose
it to the light. Share these things, if not with me, then with
someone you trust.

There was no one he trusted more than his
Reb.

"It isn't what happened with Gordon, Babe.
It's what happened with me," he told her later.

He didn't think she could get any closer, but
she tried. Reb slid her thigh over his hips and her hand all the
way over to his opposite shoulder. She pressed her lips to his
chest.

"I know," she whispered. "I was so frightened
when I saw your face."

She'd never showed it.

"I never want you to be frightened of me."
She was the last person he ever wanted to hurt.

"I wasn't frightened of you, River. I was
frightened for you. You looked terrified."

"No. No, I was angry."