The Alpha's Mate (14 page)

“Take over the pack? Could someone do that?”
These people weren’t the mob and this was the United States of
America for heaven’s sake. Then she laughed at her assumptions. The
constitution was written for all-human-all-the-time type people.
She shouldn’t assume that those rules applied to… “What do you call
yourselves?”

“Wolvers. Only outsiders refer to us as
werewolves. And don’t go believing all that stuff you read or see
in the movies. Nobody goes around biting people. We prefer to
maintain our population the old fashioned way.” She tried to smile,
but it was a poor effort. Her worried eyes stayed glued to the
front door. “What kind of shape was he in?”

“Who?”

Max rolled her eyes heavenward. “Marshall.
How did he look when he left?”

Elizabeth almost said, “Like a pissed off
wolf,” but she understood Max was seeking something else. “I can’t
make that kind of judgment. I wouldn’t know what to look for and
when I saw him changing, I was just a teensy bit in shock. All this
is little outside my norm.”

“You saw him change? Tell me.”

As best she could, Elizabeth recounted what
she’d seen. Max’s face fell and if possible, she looked more
worried than before.

“When Henry changed, Marshal couldn’t hold
form,” Max whispered more to herself than Elizabeth. “You shouldn’t
have been able to see him change. There should have been a flash of
light and…” She snapped her fingers. “Wolf. It takes a lot of magic
to change and the Alpha uses even more to keep his Wolver troops
when the moon’s not full. Marshall’s made the change a couple of
times today and then had to heal me. He’s running real low.”

He’d changed more than twice, Elizabeth knew
and she suspected it was done to keep her ignorant. She was
reminded of Charles’s warning that these friendly people were not
what they seemed.

“What happens if he doesn’t have enough?”
‘Magic’ should be an easy step from werewolf, but she couldn’t
bring herself to use the word. There was something too surreal
about this whole night and she knew when reality hit, it was going
to hit big time.

“He can’t change. And if he can’t change,
neither can anybody else. They’re not meant to be wolves in the
daytime and that’s when they’ll be most vulnerable. If GW’s daddy
is right, it could be dangerous. They’ll have to find a place to
hole up.” Max’s eyes filled. Her face was no longer pale, but ashy.
Her hands shook badly.

“We need to get you back to bed,” Elizabeth
said gently. She’d been so impressed with the young woman’s
recovery, she’d forgotten the side effects of such trauma.

“I need to wait for GW,” Max said miserably.
“He’ll come. He knows about me. He felt it. He won’t hole up. He’ll
come.”

Elizabeth nodded sympathetically while she
pulled Max to her feet and led her to the bedroom.

“Then you need to be rested when he gets
here. The better you look, the less worried he’ll be. Come on, now.
We’ll find you something clean to wear and you get some sleep. I’ll
wake you if he comes. Better yet, I’ll let him wake you.”

“You were brave tonight and I never thanked
you for taking me in.” Max’s eyes were already closing as Elizabeth
drew the yellow nightgown over her head.

“I wasn’t brave. I was scared shitless from
the moment I saw you in the yard. I’m still scared.” She tucked the
covers around Max and because it was something that comforted her
when she was a girl, she smoothed her friend’s hair back and kissed
her forehead. “Sleep tight, Max. I’ll keep watch.”

Max stopped fighting and let her eyes close.
She didn’t speak again until Elizabeth was closing the door.
“That’s what brave is, you know. Doing what needs to be done when
you’re scared shitless. You’re a good one, Miz Elizabeth, and I
surely am glad you answered the call.”

It was a long night. Elizabeth desperately
wanted a shower but she knew the noise of the water would smother
any sounds she might need to hear. She settled for a quick wash at
the kitchen sink and clean clothes. Brushing what she could out of
her hair, she pulled it back into a ponytail.

Then she settled in to wait. She sat by the
window looking over the front yard waiting for someone to come with
news or for daylight to set them free.

They came about four AM; not the men as she
had hoped, but the women. Led by the elderly Maggie, six women
crossed the yard. They carried coolers, cloth sacks, and guns.
Maggie and the last woman in line carried camp lanterns.

Elizabeth went out on the porch to meet them.
The others hung back while Maggie stopped at the foot of the
stairs.

“We need to use the Home Place,” she said
bluntly.

“Of course, come in.” Elizabeth would always
wonder what would have happened if she’d said no. “You’ll need to
be quiet. Max was badly injured tonight and I won’t have her
disturbed.”

Maggie nodded solemnly. “We know. You need to
talk to Gwenna. She’s been elected to tell you some things you need
to know. It’s bad timing, but it can’t be helped.”

“About the Wolvers in general or where you’re
going to hide them come daylight?”
Or are the pixies on the
warpath and the elves are getting antsy
? She turned her laugh
into a yawn. The hysteria was rising again and she stuffed it down.
She could fall apart tomorrow. Tonight, she needed what few wits
were left.

Maggie grinned and waved the others forward
“Come on ladies. She already knows and she ain’t locked and
screaming in the bathroom.”

Gwenna and Brie gave her a thumbs up as they
entered the house and Vickie grinned. They were followed by Ruby
and a woman she recognized as Ma Gruver, who was so kind to her at
the fire. She thought her first name might be Loretta.

“Vickie, you take the bedroom,” Maggie
ordered. “Brie, side yard. You see a shadow out of place, you call,
hear? Don’t go thinking it’s just nerves.”

The young woman raised her rifle in salute
and trotted off to the side.

The older woman nodded at Elizabeth and gave
her a wink. “I get the front porch where I can rest these weary
bones in one of your rockers. Come set a spell and keep me
company.”

Chapter 14

“Can I get you something? Coffee? Tea?”
Elizabeth wasn’t sure what the protocol was here. What were the
requirements of a hostess whose house had been commandeered at 4 AM
by armed women?

“Gwenna’s got that handled. You come set. I
hear you had quite a night.”

The windows behind them suddenly went dark.
Elizabeth could hear the women inside quietly moving things
around.

Maggie took the rocker closest to the door
and with the clearest view of the yard. She placed her rifle across
her lap and bent to open the duffle she had placed beside the
chair.

“Brought you a present from Marshall.” She
grinned as she pulled the shotgun from the bag. “He figured you
were already cozy with it.”

It was the one from Marshall’s mudroom.
Elizabeth returned Maggie’s grin. “Sure as hell beats a broom.”

“That it does. Don’t have the range of a
rifle, though.” Once seated, Maggie never took her eyes from the
yard. “You ever shoot one?”

“A rifle?” Elizabeth laughed and patted the
shotgun. “I never held a firearm of any sort until I held this
one.”

Maggie sucked on her teeth obviously thinking
something over. “It’s gonna hurt to do it,” she said finally, “But
I owe my brother an apology. When he told me about you I thought
he’d plum lost his mind. I figured you to be some fancy miss too
good to get her hands dirty. Figured you’d run right back to where
you started at your first sight of a mouse.”

“Max told you!”

“Honey, you a-waling’ on those poor creatures
with that broom of yours was a story too good not to pass along.
She said you looked like the young David marching to do battle with
Goliath. She acted your part during the tellin’ and I laughed so
hard I wisht I’d been there to see it for myself.”

“This is so embarrassing.”

“No more’n me chasing Roy naked in the
street. Just makes you one of us.” Before Elizabeth could comment,
Maggie used her thumb to point at the shotgun. “Your job is to
catch the ones I miss.”

Remembering the story in the Dizzy Dish,
Elizabeth said, “I hear you don’t miss much.”

Maggie gave an unladylike snort. “That I
don’t, but these eyes have dimmed a bit over the years. I might
just miss one.”

The older woman took her eyes from the yard
to look Elizabeth up and down. When she did, Elizabeth’s eyes
automatically slid to the yard to take up the watch.

“I think you don’t miss too much either,”
Maggie commented. There was approval in her voice. “You might need
a bit of interpreting, but you don’t shut your eyes.”

Elizabeth shrugged and frowned, keeping her
eyes on the yard. “I missed a lot, a helluva lot.”

“Give yourself some credit, girl. You only
been here a week. Most city girls would’ve high tailed it out of
here that first night. Hell, most any girl would’ve. But you stuck
it out, did what needed to be done. Folks saw right off what you’re
made of. You don’t run.”

“Only because I don’t have a car.”

Maggie suddenly turned her head toward the
opening of the trail, listened for a few seconds and gave a slight
nod of her head. When she seemed satisfied there was no threat, she
continued.

“Some of our men, our beasts, will be here
come sunrise. Others’ll be going somewhere else. I don’t know where
and it’s best that way. Mothers and children are hunkered down at
the church.”

Elizabeth immediately understood. The women
standing watch over her house were childless. “Miz Maggie?”
Elizabeth had already learned that Miz was a term of respect. “I
don’t understand about the guns. Why didn’t Marshall just shoot the
wolves when they were at his barn? Why weren’t he and Henry and the
others carrying guns tonight? Why are we carrying them now?”

“Pack Law. If another pack wants to take our
territory, it has to be in wolf form, else it won’t be recognized.
Marshall Goodman won’t break Pack Law. If an alpha wants to
challenge Marshall, it’s got to be in wolf form; else another alpha
in the pack will step forward to fight.”

“There’s more than one alpha?” This wasn’t
what she’d read about wolves, then again…

“There’s alphas and there’s The Alpha.”

Elizabeth nodded. It made sense. If something
happened to The Alpha, someone would have to step up and take his
place. “So why are we sitting here with guns?”

“Because whoever these wolvers are, they’ve
already broken Pack Law. They burned Shirl Cooper’s place tonight.
Martha and the twins were in bed. Shirl barely got them out. One of
the boys got burned bad.”

Elizabeth closed her eyes and swallowed hard.
It didn’t take much to figure this one out. “Women and children are
off limits. That’s why the others are at the church.” She looked a
Maggie wide-eyed. “You’re afraid they’ll break the Law and attack
as men against wolves. You’re going to shoot them as men.”

“Yep.”

“I don’t know if I can shoot a man.”

The old woman cackled. “Can’t shoot ‘em, but
you can wallop ‘em to death with a poker.”

Elizabeth blanched. “That was before I knew
they were men.”

“Man, beast, don’t matter. Something aims to
kill you, your kin, your friends, you kill it first. You weren’t
carrying that poker to protect yourself against no wolf.”

They sat in silence for a while; Maggie
watching the night, Elizabeth lost in thought.

“They did this on purpose,” she said when she
finally had it worked out in her head.

“What’s that hon?”

“They beat Max. I thought it was random. She
was in the wrong place at the wrong time. She thought I interrupted
their plan to toss her down the ravine, but they never intended to.
They dumped her in my yard on purpose. Everyone knows I have no
phone. They knew I’d go for help and they waited on the path.” She
stopped and revised. “No, Marshall knew she was hurt. He was
already on the way.” She paused for Maggie’s confirmation.

“Yep. The Alpha can feel every member of his
pack. It’s part of his burden to know their pain and sorrow. It’s
his obligation to use his magic to heal them if he can.”

Elizabeth nodded. It all made horrible sense.
“They knew he’d come and they ambushed him. Maybe they thought they
could kill him, but I don’t think so. They would have sent more
wolves to make sure the job was done. No, they wanted him to shift
and shift again. They knew he would to keep the truth from me. They
beat Max with a purpose, Maggie. They hurt her as badly as they
could without killing her. They used her to drain Marshall. Then
they went to the Cooper’s, knowing he would shift again. They were
hoping someone would be hurt and he’d have to heal them, too. This
was all part of the plan.”

“Eugene knew what he was about when he sent
you here. Like I said, you don’t miss much.”

“Do you have any extra shells for this
thing?” Elizabeth hefted the shotgun.

Maggie reached in her pocket and placed a
handful of shells on the table between them. “You think you’re
going to need them?”

“I’m not a very good shot, but I promised Max
if I found the men who did this to her, I’d kill them.”

Elizabeth couldn’t believe she’d just said
that. Not only said it, but meant it. Men, wolves, it didn’t
matter. To do this to women and children as a means to an end,
whatever that end might be, was warped and evil. She almost
suggested they call in the State Troopers, but what could they
say?

Maggie cocked her head to the side; a very
canine movement that Elizabeth was coming to realize was common to
them all.

“They’re coming, aren’t they?” she
whispered.

“Listen.” Maggie raised her finger.
“Concentrate. You can hear them, too.”