The Alpha's Daughter (43 page)

"They took our Alpha and Mate!"

"They should pay!"

"Goddammit! They already have!"

Jazz was willing to take their hurt, their
fear, their grief and yeah, even their anger, but she'd be damned
if she took their hate. She snarled, advancing on them with fists
clenched. Her wolf was so close to the surface she was surprised
her hands still had fingers instead of claws.

"Is this what Leonard and Miz Mary devoted
their lives to teach you? Hatred?" she shouted. "Is this how you
honor their memory? With revenge?" The crowd stepped back as she
stepped forward and threw her hands in the air. "Your wolves tasted
blood and now they want more. Are you so ready to violate primal
law? Are you ready to let your wolves rule?"

They took another step back and that was when
she felt the wave of power that originated behind her. They weren't
backing away from her. They were backing away from their Alpha.

"Little pot calling the kettle black there,
Hellcat?" Griz laid a calming hand on her shoulder, but Jazz was so
angry, she ignored the offer.

"Hell no," she said and grinned up at him
with a vicious smile and then nodded at the crowd. "If I gave in to
my wolf, one of them would be dead," she told him loud enough for
others to hear.

She was feeling better, though, as if
something inside her had been released. The rooms in her heart had
shrunk to a manageable size.

"Kindness and compassion might work just as
well," Griz whispered out of the side of his mouth.

"Wrong Mate." This time her grin had some
humor in it. "That was the old one. This is the new. I'll save my
kindness and compassion for those who deserve it. Pissed off," she
shouted at the wolvers who stared at their new Alpha and Mate, "Is
what I save for asshats who can't tell the difference between
enemies and grieving mothers."

She felt Griz's mental shake of the head and
saw him smile in her mind.

"
What am I going to do with you, Hellcat?"

"
Get me out of here before I hit someone?
" She smiled back at him to let him know her anger had
subsided. Maybe it was because he was her Alpha or maybe because he
was her mate or maybe it was simply because he was her grizzly
bear, but she felt more calm and rational when he was by her
side.

"We've lost good wolvers tonight, wolvers
we'll bury with honor and remember with pride," Griz told the group
who now waited for his words. "The Seawards won't have that
comfort. Your Mate is right. They've lost their son. Don't let your
anger take away their dignity, too."

Then he smiled at them and Jazz wondered if
he knew how much power was in that smile. The gathering visibly
relaxed as a wave of soft and reassuring strength washed over
them.

"I really don't want to go down in history as
the first wolver Alpha of asshats," Griz said quietly.

Heads snapped up. Someone snorted a laugh and
others began to smile. Some turned their heads toward home.

"
Damn, Griz, do you eat with that mouth?"

This time Jazz smiled openly as she wrapped
one arm around him and looked up at him with everything she felt
for him shining in her eyes. She opened the doors of her heart and
let those feelings flow into them, surrounding the hurt and fear
and anger that each room held, diminishing those feelings with a
power she'd never understood until she came to Gilead.

"Open your heart and love them. Learn and
remember," Miz Mary had said. Those words weren't a reminder for
Miz Mary. They were instructions for her, Jasmine Goodman, the new
Alpha's Mate.

"We've been through enough today. We're all
tired and a little cranky," she told the gathering, smiling with
them when some of them laughed, cautiously. "Go home to your
families and friends. Hold them, hug them, share your grief with
them, but remember to tell them how blessed you are to belong to a
pack where each member is valued, where we tolerate each other's
quirks and shortcomings…" Another laugh of relief. "…And love each
other anyway. That's Leonard and Mary's legacy to us and they left
us all wealthy with it."

To love them. That was her job as Mate. It
was as simple and as complicated as that. It didn't mean she
couldn't be angry with them. Hell, Miz Mary had a temper, too, she
thought, remembering the woman's slap. It didn't mean she had to
agree with everything they felt. Miz Mary didn't agree with some of
Jazz's feelings either, but from the first moment Jazz met her, she
felt the old Mate's willingness to love.

"Open your heart and love them."

It wasn't about gathering up their hurt and
heartache and storing it away in closed rooms. It was about taking
it in and surrounding it with something better to make it bearable.
It was about sharing the pain, not taking it into herself and
leaving it there to embitter her soul.

She wasn't Miz Mary and never would be and
that would take some getting used to, but as the old Mate pointed
out, Jazz was born for this job and she therefore had it in her to
do it well.

"Open your heart and love them. Learn and
remember."

"
I
will, Miz Mary, I will."

Jazz looked up to find Griz looking down.

"Are you all right?" he asked and Jazz shook
her head no.

"Not yet, but I will be," she answered
truthfully. "Do you think we can find some time to share a beer or
take a walk?

"We need to talk," he said solemnly.

"No," she smiled and ignored those dreaded
words. She rested her forehead against his chest. "We don't need to
talk. I need time to absorb what's happened. We," she said with
emphasis on the 'we', "Need time to absorb what happened and figure
out where we go from here. We're tired and shell shocked and we
need a few minutes alone. Do you think we could share those beers
in bed? It's the only place I can think of where people might leave
us alone."

Drinking beer in bed would be a great idea as long as that
was as far as it went and you didn't mind sharing that bed with a
woman with a torn up leg. Otherwise, anything involving a real need
for privacy would have to wait. Her grizzly's den had become a
communal cave and the house was bursting at the seams with wolvers
who had obviously settled in for the duration.

Tom and Harvey were dozing on the front porch
with a half a dozen other men awaiting their Alpha's return. Roger
was conspicuously absent and Jazz hoped that meant he was seeking
the comfort of Didi in his own warm bed.

Brad, with injuries on top of barely healed
injuries, was back in his invalid's bed upstairs being coddled by
his someday mate who needed his presence to believe the second
horror of her life was truly over and he had once again survived.
Livvy, being the kind and generous girl she was, shared her
coddling with her young wolver's present day mother, who needed the
touch of the cub she had left. The two women were bonding over the
wolver they both loved.

Ellie wasn't about to leave either one,
therefore her family had moved in, too. Twelve year old Lucy was
helping her Aunt Donna and Opal in the kitchen and feeling very
grown up. Tommyboy and Justice were assigned the task of keeping
Opal's two toddlers out from underfoot and Matt, along with his
almost grown friends, was off lending a hand to Merle Nelson who
needed to move a bed downstairs for his mate who was currently
residing in Jazz's.

"We had nowhere else to put her," Donna, who
was giving them the roster of who was doing what where, told them.
"Doc saved the leg, but she's going to need care and Merle can't
keep running those stairs. I'm sorry," she added, "It's your mating
day and this isn't the way it's supposed to be."

Donna was right. This was Jazz's mating day
and she should be spending it in bed making love with her new mate
while the pack celebrated outside. When hungry, they'd emerge and
join the fun, eating and drinking and listening to and laughing at
the crude jokes that always made the rounds at matings. But what
was supposed to be wasn't going to happen and there was no sense
crying over it. Too many tears had been shed already.

"Pack comes first," Jazz said and smiled to
show she understood.

Griz left Jazz standing in the middle of it
all with the order, "Don't move."

Jazz didn't. She couldn't. Her eyes were
glued to Sandy, curled into the corner of the lumpy couch, feeding
her new pup while Edna and Edith chattered happily about babies and
their care. Oldest to youngest, this was her pack, remembering
happiness past and looking toward a bright future and she, Jazz
Goodman, would be a part of it all.

This was something else to be learned and
remembered. What she gathered into her heart should not be all
heartache and pain. There was plenty of room for love and joy and
laughter. Miz Mary would want it that way and Jazz was determined
to be the kind of Mate Mary would be proud of.

Griz came back from the kitchen with four
bottles of beer and a paper sack, their mating feast. "Ready?" he
asked. He didn't sound as if he was looking forward to their being
alone.

Feeling his apprehension, Jazz nodded and
followed him out the door.

With a word to the men who would be his new
Council, Griz led the way back up to the Point.

"Griz," she called softly when they were half
way up the path, but Griz shook his head before she could go
on.

"No. If it's about the pack, I don't want to
hear it. Later maybe, but not now. Now, it's just you and me. I
need to do this, Jazz, more than ever. It has to be just you and
me."

Everything was there as they'd left it, as if
nothing down below had happened and for a moment, the fantasy held
them both. And then Griz spoiled it all by repeating those dreadful
words in a way that could not be ignored.

"We need to talk."

This time, Jazz didn't let the words panic
her. This time she would listen to what he had to say. It didn't
have to be bad, but by the look on his face, it would be. She
opened a beer and passed it to him and then opened one for
herself.

Griz nodded his thanks and took his to the
edge of the point where he stood looking out over the valley below.
His mind was closed to her and yet she could feel him formulating
the words he needed to say. She used the time to formulate her
response since the only thing she could think of was his regret
that they hadn't been able to talk about becoming Alpha and Mate
before the event occurred. She was not, therefore, prepared for
what she heard.

"I was mated once before, Jazz."

"Angelica," she whispered. She wasn't his
lover. She was his mate.

He turned to her, surprised. "Mary told
you?"

"Miz Mary knew?" The sense of betrayal was
like a stab to the heart until she heard the old Mate's voice in
her head.

"
You'll hear things you wish you didn't and some you'll share
with your mate, but some you'll keep locked in that room in your
heart.
" Mary couldn't betray a confidence,
not even one so important to Jazz.

"Leonard and Mary both knew, but if she
didn't…"

"The first time we had sex. You thought you
hurt me. You said you were sorry and called me by her name," she
said quietly. "I didn't know who she was, but I knew you loved
her."

Griz ran his hand through his hair. "Oh God,
Jazz, I'm sorry. I wasn't calling you by her name. I was
apologizing to her for breaking my promise."

Jazz wasn't sure how that was supposed to
make her feel better. She drank half her bottle of beer before she
said, "Maybe you should start at the beginning."

Griz nodded and Jazz waited. It was a few
more minutes before he began.

"I was becoming a big name as a young surgeon
in the human world. I couldn't use my gift on my human patients. It
doesn't work, but the magic was there, guiding my hands just the
same. I 'saw' what others might miss. I 'felt' what needed to be
done. Some of my patients said I performed miracles and I let it go
to my head.

"I was so caught up in my own success and
power, I neglected the first Law. I didn't put my pack first. Hell,
I didn't even put being wolver first. I chose my human side. I put
my own personal glory ahead of everything. I forgot where I came
from and looked only at where I was going."

"That's not a crime, Griz," Jazz said softly.
"It's not the end of the world."

"It was the end of mine," he said.

There was such pain in his voice that Jazz
couldn't stay away. Setting her own hurt aside, she went to him,
running her hands up his back to his shoulders and resting her head
against his stiff spine.

"Angelica was a sweet girl, small and
delicate, soft spoken and gentle," Griz told her. "Her face lit up
when she laughed and when I spoke, she had eyes for no one but
me."

Jazz heard him loud and clear. Angelica was
everything Jazz was not.

"Her father was high up in the pack. He
wasn't the Alpha, but his brother was and her father was part of
his Council. Angelica was raised in a family of wealth and comfort,
protected from the real world in every possible way." He chuckled
softly in remembrance. "You're afraid of being bit by another
snake. I doubt if Angelica ever saw one. The women of her family
ran once a year by choice, on the park-like grounds of the Alpha's
home. It was a big deal for a guy to be invited to run with the
ladies. Boring as hell, but a big deal nevertheless."

"And you were invited to run," Jazz
concluded. Angelica wouldn't roll in the leaves and dirt satisfying
her animal urges. She would have taken him to her pristine bed
wearing something silky and feminine.