The Alpha's Choice (31 page)

When she'd asked for River's help, he curled
his lip, shrugged and did nothing.

After two weeks, she'd finally managed to
impose some kind of order and discovered one way to get them to sit
and listen. They liked stories. When she pulled out a book and read
to them or told them stories from memory, they sat quietly and
listened to her speak. Even River, who pretended not to,
listened.

Perhaps she could use stories to open the
door to other forms of learning. Today, she had one for Meadow, who
was afraid of everyone, but particularly of Charles.

Once upon a time," she began when the
children were all seated and waiting, "There was a ferocious
looking wolver who lived far away across the sea in a land called
Scotland." Kat growled the word 'ferocious' and snarled a
little over 'wolver' and that was enough to make little Meadow
shiver. Not wanting a wet lap, Kat shifted gears.

"Ranger? Would you bring us that globe,
please? I'd like you to show Meadow where Scotland is." She steered
the boy's finger in the right direction. "Yes, that's it. See,
sweetie? Scotland is a far away land. Here we are, way over here."
Leaving Ranger to point to Scotland and placing her own finger over
their home. "Nothing can hurt you from way across the ocean." After
a little geography lesson and listening to the other's questions,
Meadow was ready to move on. Settling her arm more firmly about the
girl's waist, Kat continued.

"Now, everyone knew how mean and cruel those
wolvers in the woods could be, so when her mother insisted she
bring a basket of food to her ailing grandmother, Little Red Riding
Hood, whose real name was Meadow, was very worried and a little
afraid, but she was also very brave."

Meadow's head snapped up to question Kat with
those big blue eyes.

"Oh, my! Will you look at that? The girl in
the story has your name. She must be a very special girl, don't you
think?" Kat kissed the real Meadow's forehead and earned another
smile.

"You made that up," Dakota accused.

"Oh no," Forest defended, "I think I read
somewhere that was her name."

The girl's defense of her warmed Kat and she
smiled her thanks. Forest beamed.

"That's a lie." Dakota wasn't going to let it
go.

"How would you know? You can't read?" Ranger
piped.

Kat could see where this was going so she
quickly resumed her story. "Meadow knew her grandmother needed help
and she was determined to bring her that basket, no matter what. So
she donned… that's a fancy word for put on and I'll be checking to
see who uses the word tomorrow. Meadow donned her bright red cloak
with its winter warm hood and carrying her basket over her arm, she
set out for Grandmother's house."

"Is that Grandmother's house like your house
or like our house? Does it have lots of rooms or just one?" Ranger
asked. He liked details.

"It's a good, sturdy house," Kat told him,
thinking of the hovel in which they'd been found. "Made of stone,
but not so big and fancy as
our
house. Our house would be
much too big for one Grandmother to live in." They needed to
understand that this was their home. She described the three room
cottage of her imagination and Ranger questioned her until he was
satisfied. She then went on with Red Riding Hood's walk through the
woods.

"She's going to get eaten," Dakota said in
his froggy croak, "Or at least get beat up. It's what they always
do."

Kat wasn't sure if he was concerned or
excited by the thought.

"They do worse than that," Forest
whispered.

The words and the way they were said broke
Kat's heart. Forest was at the age where boys and men should be a
fascinating subject of speculation. She should be wondering about
first kisses and first dates or if a boy's smile meant he liked her
a little bit more than a friend. Instead, she hunched her shoulders
to hide her blossoming body and wore her hair dirty and ragged to
hide her face.

That face became bright and animated in the
classroom or when she was with Mrs. Martin in the kitchen. It was a
beautiful face that went slack and vacant in the presence of any
adult male. Forest even became shy around Buddy and River who, to
Kat's knowledge, had never been offensive to her. This girl had
seen too much sexual abuse and yes, perhaps rape, to instantly
change her opinion of men and no matter how gentle, Buddy was a man
and a giant one at that and River was a big, rough, boy.

"Why don't we listen to the story? You may be
surprised at how it ends."

Kat heard a rustling outside the door and
glanced up to see Charles' blond head and green eyes pop out and
back to hide behind the jamb. She heard a snicker that wasn't his
coming from the same direction and assumed she had an audience.
River heard it, too, and she felt him stiffen at her back where he
always seemed to be, always watching, always waiting.

She drew the story out as long as she could,
switching to a schoolroom lesson when Meadow became too upset at
the scary parts. Kat felt bad about adding those parts, but being
scared was part of the story and necessary to the lesson.

"We all know that poor Meadow grew up in the
city and had no wood ways at all. I'm pretty sure she would poison
us with her choice of mushrooms and it was a good thing there was a
path to follow or the poor Miss Red Riding Hood would fall over her
own feet." There was some giggling at this reference to herself and
even the dour faced River's mouth curled upward a bit instead of
his usual downward frown.

"But that was the problem, wasn't it? There
were too many paths turning this way and that and before you know
it, Meadow, our Little Red Riding Hood, found herself turned around
and completely lost."

"Are you sure this girl's name isn't Miz
Kat?" croaked Dakota.

"Oh no, Miz Kitty Kat wouldn't be alone in
the woods," Buddy said from the doorway. He crossed his ankles and
sat with a thump on the floor. "I'd be with her so she wouldn't get
lost. She might fall down some, though."

"Oh, no, it's definitely not Miz Kat," Kat
laughed and the silent child on her lap looked up into her eyes and
smiled. After a hug, Kat continued. "Meadow was lost and alone and
very, very frightened. It was getting dark and the woods called to
her with strange sounds that she'd never heard in the day. The path
branched off in three different directions and she no long knew
which path to choose. She'd chosen so many wrong ones before. Poor
Meadow didn't know what to do and she started to cry."

The real Meadow looked like she was about to
cry, too. Buddy crawled over and placed his hand on her knee.
"Don't you worry, Meadow. If nobody comes to save you, I will."

Meadow relaxed somewhat, but her thumb went
to her mouth and her tiny finger curled around her nose. With her
arm around the child and Buddy's hand on her knee, Kat went on. She
tried to sound growly and fierce.

"Why are you crying? a terrible voice
demanded. A mean looking giant stood in the middle of the path. His
blond hair was all messy and his face was all grizzled because he
hadn't shaved in days," Kat said as a hint to the man behind the
door.

"Stop your crying and tell me what's wrong.
Meadow knew who this man was. He was a wolver and she'd heard the
stories about how terrible he was. At first, Meadow was afraid to
speak, but the big wolver pestered and pestered and finally, Little
Red Riding Hood told him."

"Now that you've told me what the problem is,
I can fix it, the scary man told her and quick as a flash he turned
into a wolf. Climb on my back and I'll carry you to Grandmother's
house. And that's exactly what he did."

"And then he ate her." Dakota really was a
little savage.

"He did not!" Kat wasn't about to have her
story ruined now. "There were bad wolvers in those woods, but he
wasn't one of them. He took her straight to Grandmother's house and
when Grandmother was fed and cared for, that wolver took Red Riding
Hood home and after that, every time Red Riding Hood needed help,
he was there. He was the Alpha of a very good pack and guess
what?"

Meadow looked up with her questioning big
eyes.

"When Little Red Riding Hood grew up, she
mated that wolver. Yes she did, because she was an Alpha's Mate.
And that big wolver whose name was Charles, brought Meadow to
America along with his pack and they lived happily ever after. The
End."

Everyone seemed satisfied with her story,
including Dakota, which surprised Kat because it included no murder
and mayhem. Ranger stared out the window, daydreaming she hoped of
being the wolver who rescued damsels in distress. Forest had a
faint smile on her face. She was old enough to know it was only a
fairytale, but hopeful at the end that it just might be true.

Buddy sat up and offered his hand to a
smiling Meadow to help her slide from Kat's dry lap and Kat stood
and stretched, satisfied with a story well told until she turned
and found River with his eyes blazing with anger.

"Why do you tell them that bullshit when you
know it isn't true?" he snarled. "That's not the way it is."

"It was a story, River. I wanted to…"

"Keep your fucking stories to yourself. They
need to hear the truth. The Alpha and his Mate lived happily ever
after." He spit the words. "You think you know so much. They think
they know it all." He hissed, referring to the others in the house.
"A band of rogues can't have an Alpha. Where in hell do they think
we came from? We had an Alpha. Ask Forest. She's his daughter and
she watched him kill her mother, his perfect Mate. He would have
killed us, too, but we ran. Tell her, Forest."

Forest's eyes were watching the floor. Her
lips trembled. Meadow was staring at him with big frightened eyes.
The other two boys just stared.

All her work here today was for nothing.
She'd try again. It was all she could do. But worse than ruining
her story, she knew Charles was listening at the door. She had to
handle this and quickly or they'd be arguing about the boy
again.

"Now is not the time, River. We'll talk about
this later and you can tell me…" She placed her hand on his
arm.

Kat didn't think he meant it, not even as it
happened. He threw up his arm to cast her hand off and when he did,
his arm flashed out and pushed her hard enough to make her stumble
back against the chair which crashed to the floor.

"Get off me, bitch!" River shouted.

Chapter
30

"River!" Charles roared the name so loudly
Kat was convinced the windows rattled.

Dakota hit the floor and belly crawled under
the table. Forest froze and the pencil she'd been holding in her
hand snapped in two. Her eyes were still glued to the floor. Ranger
inched his way behind the overstuffed chair and ducked. Little
Meadow's thumb plugged her mouth and a puddle formed on the
floor.

Charles stood in the doorway, pointed his
finger at the offending teenager, then slowly swung his arm to
point toward his office door. He was the ghost of Christmas Future
pointing to Scrooge's gravestone. "My office. Now."

"Honey, it's all right. He didn't mean it. We
were just…" Kat tried to explain.

Charles ignored her, cut her off, in fact.
"You, too," he said to her and then to the frozen girl at the
table, "Forest, help your sister get cleaned up."

River curled his lip as he slunk by his
guardian and Kat winced when she saw Charles' hand twitch. She
tried again.

"Charles, it was an argument. He's just a
boy."

She saw his jaw tightened and he continued to
point down the hall. "Now," was all he said.

Kat followed River to Charles' office. This
wasn't something that should be taken care of in front of the
children anyway.

Charles shut the door behind him. It wasn't
quite a slam, but he did it with more force than was necessary. He
pointed to the chair in front of his desk and looked at Kat.

"Sit." He rounded the desk and took his place
behind it.

Kat sat and immediately leaned forward toward
the furious River who was standing in front of her. She had to stop
this before it escalated.

"You can't keep going off like that,
sweetheart," she said gently. "You have to talk it out and not in
front of the other children." She reached for his arm to comfort
him, but he slapped her hand away.

Charles raised his hand, his power rolling
off him in waves. Kat could only imagine what it cost him to keep
his tone quiet and even. "You need to listen to her, son."

"I'm not your damn son," River snarled at
Charles and turned to Kat. "And I'm sure as hell not your
sweetheart. I don't have to tell you shit. So you can both fuck
off." River turned his back on Charles and walked away.

Charles was around the desk and across the
room faster than Kat could rise from her chair. River managed to
get his hand on the doorknob and began the twist of his wrist to
open it, but the latch never clicked.

There was a sudden blur of bodies, a roar of
anger, another curse or two and an animal-like growl and then a
crash as River was thrown up against the door. Back to it, toes
barely touching the floor, River dangled from Charles' hand which
was large enough to circle the front half of the boy's throat.
Charles' thumb and fingers touched the door.

Charles brought his face so close to River's,
Kat thought they were about to touch noses, but the Alpha stopped a
couple of inches away. And this was The Alpha, the Lord of his
Domain. The air hummed with his power.

"I am your Alpha," Charles snarled. "You eat
at my table. You sleep under my roof. You exist by my will alone.
You will be my omega until I tell you otherwise. If I call you
Dirt, you will answer with respect. Do you hear me?"