Free The Alpha's Choice by Jacqueline Rhoades

her easily
with one hand while the other went to the buckle on his jeans.
    "You should have minded your own business,
bitch." He turned to his partner who was crawling away from the dog
that now lay still as death. "Go get the fucking truck."
    "It bit me," the partner complained. "The
fucking thing bit me." He held his hand to his neck. "It could have
torn my throat out."
    "I wish it had," Kat hissed. She stopped
fighting and stared at the two men, squinting in the fading light.
She needed to memorize their faces. If she got out of this alive,
she wanted to be able to identify them, to make them pay.
    Her arm was pinned beneath her and she could
feel the canister of spray digging into her back. It was her only
chance and only good if she used it while the partner was away at
the truck.
    Her captor ignored her comment. "Good," he
said, "Give it a taste of blood it might fight harder in the ring.
Shame to use a dog that size for bait."
    "That's no dog. It's a wolf, I tell ya, a
fucking wolf. I told you there were wolves up here."
    Kat risked another look at the dog, relieved
to see its sides heave with labored breath. It was certainly big,
bigger than her friend from the pool. Could it be another wolf?
    Beyond the dog, a good distance away across
the field, she saw the figure of another man, little more than a
darker shadow in the night, running toward them. Her heart knotted
in her chest and she shrank with the knowledge that her luck had
just run out. Her chance for escape was now reduced to nothing.
    All those nights in the city walking home
alone in the dark, she'd often worried that she'd end up raped or
dead in some dark alley. How ironic to meet her fate in the peace
and quiet of a country meadow.
    Kat's eyes widened and she gasped again as
the running man burst into a flash of light moving faster than any
man could. The light seemed to leap through the air momentarily
blinding her and then the light was gone, leaving in its place not
a man, but a beast. The beast soared over the injured animal on the
ground, a vicious snarl contorting its face. She knew him in an
instant. She knew his golden coat and blazing green eyes. It was
her Wolf Lord from the pool.
    Before her captor had a chance to turn, the
wolf was on him, knocking him away from Kat and driving him to the
ground. Kat rolled in the opposite direction and shoved herself up
onto her knees. One foot planted firmly on the ground, she started
to rise, saw her attacker's companion fumble with his hand in his
pocket. His eyes were wide with panic and his hands were shaking
badly as he withdrew the gun.
    In a half leap, half stagger, Kat lunged
forward and reached for the arm rising with the gun while she drove
her shoulder into the stomach of the frightened man. The gun went
off with a deafening roar in the stillness of the night as Kat and
the gunman tumbled to the muddy ground inches from the trapped and
beaten animal's head.
    The white wolf, and this close she was sure
that's what it was, made one last effort to slice its tormentor
with its wicked looking jaws, but it hadn't enough strength to
finish the job. It collapsed back onto the ground.
    The sight of those jaws snapping so close to
his face was enough, however, to send the gunman into a screaming
panic. Screeching obscenities, he threw the gun aside and kicked
and punched his way out from under Kat who was clawing her way up
his body to do her own damage to his face. He ran, stumbled, fell,
clambered to his feet and took off at a dead run.
    Kat, screaming obscenities of her own,
scuttled after him on all fours, until she too, collapsed face
first in the mud. Her nose landed on Tilda's muddy umbrella.
Grunting, she pulled herself to her feet and shook her purple
weapon at the retreating man.
    "Fucking bastard! Come back here so I can
kill you," she shouted irrationally.
    Bright light burst behind her and she spun
around to find Charles Goodman brushing flecks of dirt from his
bare chest. "I doubt he'll take