The Alpha's Daughter (41 page)

Her she-wolf was snarling and ready to meet
this enemy. Her fury knew no bounds. This beast ran with the
contemptuous dog who had tried to put himself forward as a mate.
He'd wanted to claim her pup as his own. She threw herself at this
poor substitute with the vengeance she had not been able to inflict
on the cowardly Cho.

Jazz lunged, tore, and danced away. He was
bigger, but hard living had taken its toll. She was the stronger,
the faster, the superior wolf. She lashed out with razor sharp
teeth, tearing through the fur and flesh at his shoulder. Her human
fueled her fury. She, too, wanted revenge; for the things she'd
seen as a cub and a woman, for the things her mother suffered, for
the things women like Opal silently endured. She tore at this
pitiful excuse for a wolver because she would never be able to
reach her father's Alpha throat.

She battered him to the floor, slashing,
tearing, and taking satisfaction in every yelp and grunt of pain
this wolver made. He skittered away from her, claws scoring the new
wood of the porch. His muzzle foamed with yellow saliva and he bled
from the dozen deep wounds she alone had inflicted. Her beloved
rockers crashed against the house as he scrambled for escape. There
was none. He was beaten and he knew it. Jazz read the defeat in his
eyes as he cowered in submission. Now was the time to go in for the
kill.

"Fight like your life depends on it," Moose
used to tell her, "Because someday it will."

Seeing the cringing Ray, groveling on his
belly and whining for mercy, it suddenly occurred to Jazz that she
had been fighting for her life for years. All her wasted attempts
to prove herself as worthy as a son, her rebellion against what she
was born to become and her refusal to conform to what was expected,
her wild and fight filled life were all ways, however misdirected,
of preserving the person and wolf who lived inside. Fighting the
only way she knew to protect herself from what her father wanted
her to become.

She was tired of fighting, tired of using her
power and fists to prove that she had value.

This disgusting creature recoiling in the
corner deserved whatever punishment he had coming, but if she
killed him now, she would be no better than the wolver who sired
her. She would be judge, jury and executioner.

In Gilead, Jazz had found the person she'd
been fighting all her life to protect. She'd found the person she
was meant to be and the pack she was meant to be a part of. Let the
Alpha of Gilead hold Court and sentence this wolver as the Court
saw fit. It was out of her hands.

Jazz turned her back and walked away.

Brad staggered forward, shouting a warning.
Livvy screamed as Jazz turned. Ray's killing leap was intercepted
by a streak of golden brown rocketing over the railing of the
porch. Griz caught him mid-leap, his powerful jaws closing on Ray's
throat with deadly accuracy. With a growl, he shook the limp body
once and then released it, scraping his teeth along his tongue as
if the taste was foul.

Ray had not suffered his execution through
the Alpha's Court, but his death was lawful. Wolver Law required
that a wolver defend and protect his mate.

Jazz bowed her thanks and honor to the
magnificent wolver who'd claimed her and suffered silently through
the indignity of being sniffed and licked from nose to tail as Griz
inspected her for injury, his nose lingering at the most delicate
spot below her belly and beneath her tail. He chuffed, satisfied
she was healthy and whole.

The battle was over and Gilead had won, but
the celebration was short lived. Cutting through the relieved
laughter and cheers, slicing through the very soul of the pack, Miz
Mary's silent cry of heartwrenching pain instantly silenced them
all. Men halted their boasting. Women swallowed their nervous
chatter. The wounded ceased their groans. Pups stopped their
fearful crying. Even those suffering their own loss paused in their
grief. One by one, the pack fell to their knees under the crushing
weight of her sorrow.

In the silent and dreadful howl of the old
woman she had grown to love, Jazz recognized a terrible lesson.
Most feelings could be locked away in the secret rooms of your
heart, but some were simply too powerful to be contained.

Jazz suddenly returned to human and Griz
reached for Jazz's hand as he too became human and together they
ran for the Alpha and his Mate.

Miz Mary knelt over the old gray wolf, stroking the grizzled
muzzle and running her hand over his ears as she whispered softly
of the love they'd shared. She only looked up when Griz knelt
across from her and placed his hand over hers.

"I'm sorry, Mary," he told her gently.
"There's nothing I can do. He wouldn't want me to."

"What he wanted," she whispered, "Was to
leave this world wearing the mantle as he received it, standing
tall and proud. He wanted to meet his Maker and hear the words,
"Well done, my good and faithful servant." Her body shook with
emotion and tears slipped unchecked down her cheeks. "He wanted to
run the woods and fields with his sons. He can't do that if he
can't cross over. He can't do that if he doesn't come home."

Of the many stories passed around for laughs
at her old haunt, Benny's Bar, Jazz remembered hearing the one
about wolvers who believed they couldn't enter Heaven in the form
of a wolf. It was their humanity that gave them their souls. At the
time, she had laughed with the others.

Having lived with and grown to love these
wolvers and their pack, she wasn't laughing now. Her heart broke at
the thought of this loving couple being denied their final wish.
She also knew there was nothing to be done.

Miz Mary clutched Griz's arm in a claw-like
grip. "Bring my mate home. I'm begging you. He hasn't the strength
to do it himself."

Most wolvers held a small spark of their
power in reserve to bring themselves home to their human form when
their last moment came. If they were too weak to do this
themselves, their Alpha could do it for them as long as their heart
still beat or they drew breath. For the Alpha, this reserve of
power was even more important. If he died as a wolf, there was no
one to bring him home. The old Alpha had exhausted the last of his
power in defense of his pack. He hadn't the strength to bring
himself home.

"Mary, I can't." Griz reached out to stroke
the Mate's cheek.

She reared back from his show of compassion.
"You mean you won't, not can't." She looked up at Jazz, standing
above them not knowing what to do or say.

"My Leonard was born into this pack and gave
over seventy years to it as its Alpha. He led them. He loved them.
He took them as his children when God had taken his own. He would
have laid down his life for any one of them. He made sure the taxes
were paid on this land so we would have a place to run and he added
to that land year after year. He never took a dime or his
service."

The mate was crying freely now, sobbing out
the words. Jazz knelt beside her and tried to comfort her with an
arm around her shoulders, but the Mate rejected her offer as she
had Griz's hand. Miz Mary's grief was too intense to accept solace
from anyone's arms but her mate's.

"This is all he ever wanted, this place, this
pack and he asked nothing in return. I'm asking now. I'm begging.
Bring. Him. Home."

The old wolf lying beneath her constantly
moving hand stirred. His eyelids flickered and then opened to stare
not at his mate, but at Griz. He whined weakly.

Griz brought his face close to the Alpha's.
The old wolf's breath was coming in short, uneven pants.

"Don't ask this of me, Leonard." Griz sealed
his lips and closed his eyes, as if sealing off what he was about
to say. His chest heaved with an emotion that was tearing him
apart.

Jazz felt his agony, but she couldn't reach
his mind. Griz had shut her out, shut everything out except what
was passing between him and the old wolf.

Griz suddenly sighed, his inner battle lost.
He straightened and took in a great gasp of air. His chest expanded
and his head snapped back and power swelled. Blinding light
surrounded both him and the Alpha. The change to man was almost
instant, but when it was complete, the light remained. No longer
blazing, it hovered over the two men; one drawing his last few
breaths, one with his head now bowed so that only Jazz and the Mate
saw the tears coursing down his cheeks.

In the magical glow of the moonlight that
surrounded them, Griz grasped the Alpha's hand in the thumb locked
grip of brotherhood among men. He bent low over the dying man, but
there was no need. The words that passed between them were heard
only by the two women who shared their bonds.

"
I
do this for you, my Alpha
," Griz whispered
in reverence of the man he loved and admired.

"
No, son, you do it for them
." Even
in their minds, the Alpha voice was little more than a wisp of air.
He closed his eyes slowly and slowly opened them again seeking not
Griz, but those of the woman he'd met by chance one early morning
so many years ago.

Miz Mary's hand once again rested on his
cheek. "We did it, my love," she whispered and in her tearful but
smiling face, Jazz could see the young woman she once was. "The
pack is in good hands. You can rest easy and so can I. We've done
our final duty and now we can go home."

The old man smiled and his face relaxed in
peace. His eyes closed and he was gone.

Miz Mary gave a small cry and buried her face
in her mate's shoulder.

Jazz wanted to reach out to this woman who'd
opened her heart and home to her, but she understood in her own
heart that Miz Mary needed this moment of private grief.

"
Open your heart and love them. Learn and
remember
," Jazz heard in her head and she
thought how wonderful this Mate was that even in her deepest grief,
she could remind herself…

Griz straightened his back once more, rising
upward on his knees. His hands reached for the setting moon and
then opened as if in welcome. Once again his head fell back, but
this time his eyes were wide open as was his mouth. His wordless
shout, one that fell somewhere between agony and ecstasy, rang out
across the star studded night and echoed though the surrounding
trees.

Jazz reached him as he collapsed back on his
heels, his head bent, his shoulders heaving. She wrapped her arms
around him from behind, not understanding what was happening to
him, only that she couldn't bear to watch him endure it alone.

"I'm here, baby, I'm here," she whispered
against his back.

"
Hang on, Jazz. Don't let me go. Please. Don't ever let me
go.
"

His whole body shook and trembled with an
earthquake of emotion and Jazz clung to his back, grounding him
with her body. Her hands gripped his shoulders from the front,
drawing his curved body back into hers, spooning herself around him
the way he did to her at night, keeping him safe from whatever this
was that had taken control of him.

"
I'm here, Papa Bear. Not letting go
," she whispered in her mind, echoing his words. Her cheek
rubbed against his shoulder blade. "
Not
ever letting go.
"

She found herself taking great gulps of air
along with him and her heart raced to the beat in his chest. And
then she felt it. His trembling stopped. His heartbeat calmed. His
chest expanded with cleansing air as he breathed deeply and slowly
let it go.

With the second inhalation of cleansing air
came a surge of power, stronger than anything Jazz had seen or felt
in her life. Her father's power, frightening in its intensity and
abuse, paled in comparison to this. This was the power she'd felt
Griz use against her father magnified ten-fold.

Jazz felt the blood drain from her face.
Suddenly lightheaded, she now needed Griz's body for support. She
kept her head bowed so as to give nothing away to the surrounding
crowd.

She understood now what the Alpha wanted,
what the Mate wanted from Griz. She'd thought they were asking Griz
to use his healing gift to give the Alpha the strength he needed to
bring himself home. That was something Griz's healing magic
couldn't do. He could heal, but the strength for recovery had to
come from within and the Alpha had nothing left.

That wasn't what they were asking. What they
were asking from Griz was more than a moment of power. It was a
lifetime commitment to the pack and he had reluctantly agreed.

Her mate had become the Alpha. What she'd
just witnessed was Griz's acceptance of the weight and power of the
mantle and with his acceptance, Jazz had become the Alpha's
Mate.

Encased in Griz's cocoon of warm light, Jazz
had felt nothing from the crowd around them. With Griz's reception
of the mantle, the sheltering light dissipated, wisps of it curling
upward to be carried away by the breeze. Her protective cover gone,
the emotions of the pack, both female and male, came crashing
in.

Griz rose to his feet and carried her with
him. Holding her head against his chest, he waited until she had
sorted the emotions that were screaming inside her head into their
appropriate rooms.

The pack's collective grief over the loss of
their Alpha was almost overwhelming. There were only a few who
remembered a time when Leonard and Mary weren't Alpha and Mate.
Those few understood that this was how it must be, one Alpha
following another, carrying the pack forward. For some, the loss
left a hole in their lives with a what-will-we-do-now feeling
beside it. For others, their mourning was tempered with relief in
the choice of their doctor to lead them. They wanted Griz as their
Alpha.