Free Wolver's Reward by Jacqueline Rhoades Page B

door.
    The girl had run out of ammunition and was
now in the narrow hallway, grappling with a man twice her size.
River couldn't see much of her beyond the broad expanse of naked
back, but he recognized her scent. It looked like she was putting
up one hell of a fight and he almost felt sorry for the guy.
Almost.
    " She-cub . Mate ."
    "I got it," River said, this time to his
wolf. Their sexy thief was the bait in this Chase. Her scent and
the white dress kind of gave it away.
    With another exhausted sigh, he leapt to the
man's back and crossed his arms afore and behind the guy's neck in
a move he'd used on one of the guys at the bar, but this guy was
wolver, not human. He didn't pass out. He thrashed and fought
against the hold. River was thrown from side to side. His body was
hammered against door knobs and drawer pulls. A mirror broke. The
battering worked. River's grip slipped and he fell back.
    His opponent roared with his freedom, turned,
and continued his attack. River slid on a pile of something silky
and slick, and fell heavily onto his back. He landed in a pile of
kitchenware. The wolver immediately fell on him, pounding his fist
into River's face. Arms crossed to shield himself from the blows,
he searched for a weapon and found one a few feet beyond his reach.
Ignoring the blows raining down on his body, he turned, crawled,
and silently screamed when a fist of iron pounded into his lower
back. He caught the handle of the iron skillet, and turning again,
swung it with all of his might.
    Now it was his opponent who fell back, but
falling back wasn't enough. River kept pounding until the wolver
stopped moving. Only then did he look up to reassure the girl.
    She wasn't there. The open emergency window
in the bedroom at the back told him she had escaped. River figured
she was now in the safety and comfort of her parents' loving
arms.
    "Good," he mumbled as he staggered to the
door, "because if I got to her first, I'd have to kill her. This
whole fucking disaster was all her fault."
    The howl of a wolf picking up the scent of
prey sounded from the woods beyond. It was echoed by another. River
ignored it. It wasn't his fight.
    " She-cub . Mate ."
    "I figured that out, pal, and I don't care if
she's the fucking Queen of Sheba. We are fucking done here. We are
going to our fucking truck. We are going to get in. We are going to
fucking drive away. We will never fucking stop to help another
fucking soul, wolver or human, in our entire fucking lives. Got
it?"
    "No!" the Mate cried softly in a fully human
voice.
    Holy shit. River winced with the expectation
of a lecture on his language. He'd heard them often enough from
Kat. The Mate couldn't have heard him, could she? He'd been
speaking in his head, the same head he reluctantly stuck out the
door to see what was going on. She was speaking to her Alpha.
    His relief was short lived, however, when he
saw how she clutched the pack leader's arm, and pointed across the
parking lot to a figure in a white dress entering the woods beyond.
Orange neon sneakers flashed beneath the white as her long legs
stretched out in a run.
    The girl was as graceful as a deer and fast.
He had to give her that.
    The Alpha rose painfully to his feet. "Don't
fret, old girl, I'll..."
    "Drop dead before he gets there," River
thought. With a dead Alpha, the shit would really hit the fan.
Again. He stepped from the RV and raised his hand as he skirted the
couple. "I got it," he said aloud. Another set of howls sounded
from the woods. "You need to gather your people and see to your
wounded." He looked around the field beside the parking lot where
other wolvers were doing the same. A curling tendril of warning
crept up his spine as he counted the survivors. "And then you need
to run," he said.
    The Alpha looked him up and down with raised
eyebrows and an incredulous look on his face. He waved his hand as
if to reject River's offer and suggestion, but the Mate caught the
hand in hers and brought it to her lips for