Wolver's Reward Read online

  Fate has played River for a fool. Again. He thought he'd earned the respect of a decent and admirable wolver pack. He was grateful for it. He was content...until they took it all away, and left him alone and angry. Again.

  Yet Fate rewards him with another pack, one that needs his survival skills, and one where he meets the girl of his dreams, but River is no longer a fool. The beautiful Rebecca is an Alpha's daughter. She can never be his and she knows it, too. But knowing the outcome, changes the game, and both River and Reb decide to play this one on their own, but different, terms.

  What Fate knows, and River must learn, is that happiness comes when you least expect it, and finding a love worth fighting for is what brings a Wolver's Reward.

  WOLVER'S REWARD

  By

  Jacqueline Rhoades

  Copyright © Jacqueline Rhoades 2015

  Published at Smashwords

  Cover art: E-Covers by Georgi ©2016

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  In Memoriam

  And with all my love to my father,

  James Miller

  (July 8, 1918 – November 20, 2015)

  That dash between those dates was a long and wonderful one.

  I was so blessed

  To be a part of it.

  The reference is from the poem, The Dash Between by Ron Tranmer©

  You can find it at http://www.rontranmer.com/the-dash-between

  Special Thanks

  Character names are always hard for me. I stew over them and change some of them a dozen times in search of the one that fits. This time it was for the young woman meant for River. I saw her in my mind, heard her speak, knew her history, but she wouldn't give me her name. Two wonderful readers who belong to my Facebook group, Rhoades' Runners, came up with the same suggestion and it was perfect.

  Thank you, Linda Baker and Donna Carder.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Epilogue

  About the Author and Her Books

  Prologue

  One of the many odd things about Eugene Begley was that physically he didn't look like an Alpha. He was short, slightly built, and carried a bit of a paunch up front. Alpha Charles Goodman had met him once before at the Convocation of Wolvers where pack Alphas met to discuss the growing needs, problems, and successes of the Wolver race. Every Alpha who participated in the Convocation knew that Eugene was a matchmaker. Only certain women qualified for the position of an Alpha's Mate, and Begley had a knack for finding them. The little Alpha had, in fact, found Charles' own Mate, Katarina.

  Every Alpha also knew that Eugene Begley was a problem solver. He had the means and the men to take care of things beyond the scope of a single pack. Some said he ran a Wolver Security Force, though it had no official name and no one knew for sure. Exactly who he was, and what specific role he played in the wolver world was open to argument and speculation, but on two things, they all agreed. The first was that Eugene Begley was one of the most powerful Alphas they'd ever come across. The second was that an Alpha would be a fool to argue with him.

  Alpha's Mates, however, were a different story. When it came to defending the wolvers in their pack, they had no fear of anyone.

  Kat folded her arms across her chest. Her head snapped side to side in emphasis to her words. "No, no, no. I won't do it. What you're asking me to do is essentially turn my back on the boy."

  "He's not a boy, Katarina." Her mate reminded her of an issue they'd argued over many times before.

  "I know, I know. River isn't a boy. He's never been a boy. He never had the chance to be a boy," she repeated his argument before he made it. "I get that, but what you don't get is that knowing that, he's still my boy and always will be, and…" She raised her finger in the air. "He never had a home or a pack either until we found him. Don't ask me to do this. I can't." The accusing finger pointed to Begley.

  "This is your fault. You made me a Mate. You gave me the power to feel what each and every member of my pack feels. I feel their pain. I feel their losses. I've felt enough from River to last a lifetime and now you're asking me to betray every promise I ever made him and send him away."

  Eugene raised his hands in denial. "I don't make Alphas and I don't make Mates. I just make opportunities. Y'all made it happen, not me. None of us made River happen. You've given him more than he ever dreamed of, but it ain't enough. I'm here to offer him an opportunity is all."

  "River isn't happy," Charles told her gently. "You know that."

  "He's content," Kat snapped back.

  Eugene sat back and wove his fingers together over his soft belly. He nodded sagely. "Content is a fine thing for a man my age. But at River's age? Content is likely to give you an itch. You itch, you scratch. You keep scratchin' and that itch is gonna fester, and what pours out of it won't bring no good to anybody. That wolver's already itchin' and a-scratchin'. Deep down he knows the cause, but he won't seek the cure. We gotta do that for him."

  "He has the right to happiness," Charles said, taking Kat's hand in his and tugging her to him. "Or at least the right to pursue it."

  Kat bowed her forehead against his chest. "I don't know if he's capable of it."

  In her mind, she substituted love for happiness, because for her, one stemmed from the other. She wasn't sure River was capable of love. It was an emotion that needed to be learned in the early years of life. River's early life contained nothing but cruelty and abuse. He was protective of those closest to him and Kat felt privileged to be among them. He cared in his way, but caring wasn't love. He was loyal to a fault, but loyalty wasn't love.

  That intangible emotion couldn't be found in River. She knew this because she was the Mate and she opened her heart to him regularly to see if the situation had changed. She prayed for it and fought to light the flame, but the spark never took hold and she was beginning to think it never would. In the Wolf's Head pack, he was safe. His caring and loyalty, and their love for him would help him control what was raging inside. What would happen if he was out there alone?

  "What if he can't find happiness?" she whispered aloud. "What if we're the closest he can come? What if no one out there sees what we see?" And finally, she admitted the tru
th. She had felt River's anger and self-loathing. Laying her head over her mate's heart to find what comfort she could in its steady and reassuring beat, she spoke to the little Alpha.

  "You talk about a festering itch, Mr. Begley. I'm worried about a fetid and vile infection that runs much deeper than that. It's been, as you say, festering a long time. If it pours out, there'll be no cure, no happiness or contentment, either. For any of us."

  Charles tightened his arms around her, understanding how hard it was to admit her deepest fear.

  Eugene Begley understood it, too, but had none of her mate's sympathetic concern. His voice became hard. "Good or bad, the truth of a man's soul always wins in the end. There's nothing you or I can do to stop it. You know what he feels. Only River can find out how much truth those feelings bear. Charlie here can talk about the pursuit of happiness. You can talk about love. I don't give a good goddamn about either one of 'em. Good or bad, that wolver is ready to jump and I need to know which way he's jumpin' before too many get hurt. One way or t'other, he's got to go."

  "I've felt other things, Katarina," Charles added gently. "Other things that could be dangerous. I've told Eugene about them and he's felt them, too. He knows about these things. We need to trust him. You need to trust me."

  That was the end of the argument, because as much as Kat loved her pack and River, she loved and trusted her Alpha more.

  "I won't fight you," she said in surrender. "I'll do what I can to soften the blow, but don't ask me to like it. If he goes, he'll go with all the love I can send with him."

  Eugene Begley smiled and nodded. His easy downhome twang was gone. His diction became formal. "I'd expect no less from an Alpha's Mate."

  Chapter 1

  River laid his foot on the gas pedal and shot the pickup into a space between two cars with barely a foot to spare on either end. He stuck his arm out the open window and raised his middle finger in answer to the blaring horn behind him.

  "Fuck you," he muttered, "And fuck them, too."

  They'd kicked him out. Oh, sure, they'd been all nicey-nice about it. Charles hinted that there were things River needed to work out that couldn't be worked out in the confines of the Wolf's Head Pack. Ryker kept pointing out that he had no intention of either dying or retiring and River would be an old man before the Security Chief's job was open. Kat guiltily danced around the subject when she asked if he ever thought about going out into the world to see what it might hold for him.

  They were fucking cowards, all of them. Only Eugene Begley had the nerve to lay it on the line. It was while River was taking a break in the shade offered by the striped umbrella next to the pool. An assortment of wolvers, mostly female, was enjoying the water. River always took his break by the pool.

  He was sitting there, minding his own business, and staring out over the land that used to be wild and free, but was now dotted with roads, homes, and businesses. The pack had grown. It was all part of their Alpha’s design to bring wolver society into the modern world. It was a planned community with room for more growth that still left plenty of land for their wolves to run and hunt. It made sense, yet River felt every tree that fell in the name of progress, every neatly mowed lawn that replaced the fields and meadows where the rabbits and other small game lived and died. Thinking about it, as he often did, brought a tightening to his chest and an anger rising within him.

  “You can’t stay here, River. You don't belong.”

  River wasn’t sure if he disliked the little wolver sharing his patio table because the guy spoke the truth, or because he voiced aloud what River already knew. He’d never felt like he truly belonged to Charles Goodman’s Wolf’s Head Pack. He’d made the best effort he could, but it wasn’t enough.

  He had no interest in computers or high finance, which was the main source of Wolf’s Head income. He had no hankering for fast new cars, when everything he needed could be reached on foot or carried in the back of a basic Ford F150. He felt no need to build dwellings that could house twenty, but were meant for two or four. He had no reason to leave his mark upon the land, preferred, in fact, to leave no mark at all.

  Charles Goodman, the Alpha, had offered him a place in the pack and River had served it loyally for a little over seven years, yet the woods and hills still called him to run and each time he went over the moon, it became harder to come home, and that shamed him. Kat, the pack’s Mate, had offered her love and acceptance to the cubs he’d protected when he was still a cub himself. He owed her his loyalty, too. He owed them his life.

  Without the Wolf’s Head pack, he would likely be dead by now or running with a rogue pack, which was pretty much the same thing. This pack had given him a home when no one else would.

  Ryker had taken River under his wing, and, at twenty-two, he was seen as the gruff Chief’s second in command. This sounded good until you considered that with a force of six, being second was no great accomplishment and Security Specialist was just a fancy term for village cop. River spent most of his time tracking down cubs who'd rather run the woods or go fishing than sit in a classroom. It was the worst part of the job since he'd rather go fishing, too.

  “What the fuck do you want me to do?” he asked the little wolver in the tropical print shirt.

  Eugene Begley pulled out the thin, plastic stick that decorated the fruity drink in the tall glass. He used his teeth to slide a chunk of pineapple off the end. Wolvers didn’t eat much fruit, unless it came in the form of pie, but Begley seemed to enjoy it.

  “It’s not a matter of what I want, son. It’s a matter of what’s best for the pack. Pack comes first," he quoted. It was the first Primal Law. "You know that as well as the next wolver. Ranger and Dakota are old enough to go over the moon. You’re holding them back. After all this time, their loyalty is still to you and not to the Alpha, to the pack. That’s not your fault, but there's no denying it’s a fact. They won’t ever transfer that loyalty to Charles as long as you’re here.”

  This was something else River already knew. The little female, Meadow, who was now a happy and healthy eleven year old, made the transition to pack and family easily from the day the Alpha had given her a ride on his back and while there was no blood relation, she saw Charles as her father.

  The two boys were different. At fifteen and sixteen, they were no longer the little devils they once were, but they stuck together and, except for their sense of humor which their idol had never developed, tried to emulate River in all things. He tried to stay away from them and encouraged them to look to others for support. There were better wolvers to emulate, but those early years, when he was all they had, formed a bond they couldn't seem to break. And it had to be broken if they were to lead full lives within the pack.

  “Forest sees you as her future mate,” the older wolver added, uncannily pinpointing another of River's concerns.

  “That’s no business of yours,” the younger wolver said sharply. The girl was like a sister and just the suggestion of the possibility brought with it a shiver of disgust.

  "That's where you're wrong, son. Alpha's Mates are my business and she was born to be one. I've got plans for that one."

  River was immediately on his feet. Jaws clenched as tight as the fists he held to his sides, he leaned over the smaller wolver and released a trickle of the power all wolvers carried within them. "I don't care what you think your business is or who you think you are. You leave Forest alone. She doesn't want to be a Mate and I won't let anyone force her into it."

  Watching River carefully, Eugene Begley ignored the swimmers in the pool who'd suddenly become quiet and watchful. He smiled around the straw as he took another sip of the fruity drink before he released a little of his own power, which was a lot more potent than River's, and toasted the look of surprise on the young wolver's face with his half empty glass.

  "Yes, sir, you have just learned a valuable lesson," Begley said conversationally. "Never judge a wolver by his clothes or his drink. I've never forced a Mate to do anything she didn't cho
ose to do, so watch your tongue and listen to what I have to say, think hard on it, and then tell me what you decide."

  River listened, but all he heard was that he had to leave and he was surprised by the anger that welled up inside him. Without reading them, he grabbed the papers Begley had laid on the table, stuffed them into the front pocket of his jeans, and stalked off.

  He'd been waiting for this day for a long time, so long in fact, he'd begun to think it wouldn't happen. But now it had, and he sure as hell didn't need to think about it. He was Outcast and Rogue from the moment he was born and nothing could ever wash that stink away. Wolf's Head had finally gotten sick of the smell.

  "Fuck it. Fuck 'em all."

  He went immediately to his room, took the small metal box from the top shelf of his closet, and pulled clothing from hangers and drawers. Within a half hour he had his duffle packed and his motorcycle secured in the back of his truck, along with a few other things he would need. He took only the things he'd paid for from his own earnings. He wanted nothing from the Wolf's Head Pack.

  He felt the Mate's love flood through him as he drove away. He rejected that, too. He was a rogue now, without home or pack. It was what he was born to be.

  He spent his first night in the city. It was already dark when he found a rundown neighborhood and a cheap motel that smelled of sweat, urine, vomit, and sex. The scents were human, but familiar. As a cub, it was his job to sneak into the rooms of places like this and empty the pockets of human men while the females of their rogue band kept the mark busy. He was good at it. He had to be. If he got caught, one of the males would have to step in and River would get the same beating as the mark.