Riven

by Dean Murray

  Jaclyn shook her head. "You absolutely care what form the alliance takes. This is nothing like we discussed unless you're really offering to come down off of the little throne you're building yourself and join the Tucson pack."

  My beast took exception to that comment, but I forced the surge of power down to something barely more than a flicker and offered Jaclyn a cold smile.

  "This is exactly what we were discussing previously. The weaker pack will join the stronger pack in return for a greater degree of protection."

  Jaclyn surged to her feet with a flare of power and I reached for my ability, but she hadn't changed shapes yet so I didn't take the chains off of my pocket nuke.

  "You've yet to prove that you're more powerful than me, Alec. You go too far in making that kind of statement. You killed Agony. So what? I could have done that years ago."

  I turned to those who had been in the room before Jaclyn and Tasha arrived and asked them to leave. Ash tried to protest but I shut him up with a look. Jaclyn was an impatient buzzsaw of power off to my left as everyone filed out of the office. Once it was just Jaclyn, Tasha and I, I turned back to the two women.

  "A wise woman once told me that it was smart to settle the issue of dominance right up front. I take no joy in this."

  Jaclyn sprang at me as the words left my mouth, but I'd already opened my mental fist nearly as far as it would go. She transformed mid-leap, but I stepped to the side and plucked her out of the air, gently bringing her to the ground so that she wouldn't be injured.

  Tasha had slid out of her chair and looked up at me with anger in her eyes but a complete inability to move. I looked back at Jaclyn and sighed.

  "You could still kill me if you caught me by surprise, but there can't be any question between you and me as to who is dominant to whom. All of the reasons that caused you originally to consider an alliance with me are still in operation. I'm just bringing infinitely more to the table now than I was back then."

  Jaclyn wasn't happy. She pushed against my ability, momentarily flooding it with enough power that she was nearly able to sit back up, but I just opened the channel up even wider. It was enough to cause her to slump back down, but she hadn't given in yet, I could see it in her eyes.

  I did the only other thing I could. I grabbed the oversized sweater off of the back of Donovan's chair, draped it across Jaclyn's torso for modesty's sake, and then took the last bit of restraint off of the hungry hole in my abdomen.

  The absorption wobbled momentarily as the void on the other end nearly reached its capacity, and then it happened. Jaclyn shrank back down to the smaller shape she'd worn when she'd walked into the room, only it wasn't her choice. She'd wanted to remain a hybrid and continue to fight me but I'd temporarily robbed her of the energy she needed to manifest any other form but the one she'd been born with.

  For the briefest of moments Jaclyn stopped breathing and then I closed off my ability and stepped back so that she could pull herself into a sitting position.

  "I didn't know that was possible."

  "It wasn't, not until a little while ago when my ability finally manifested fully."

  The shock was starting to wear off. Jaclyn was scared, but she was also as dominant as anyone else alive.

  "So this is it? You'll just kidnap the other alphas and beat them into submission one at a time until you've replaced the Coun'hij as our evil overlords?"

  This time my beast wouldn't be denied. I managed to hold onto my shape by the thinnest of margins, but I couldn't stop the arc of energy that rushed out from me.

  "I'm not going to force anyone to swear fealty to me, Jaclyn, but you needed to know just exactly what I'm capable of now. I want your help, but if you refuse me then I'll put you back on a plane and that will be that."

  I could tell by the look in her eyes that she was finally listening to me.

  "You said that you brought us here for two reasons. What was the other thing you wanted?"

  "Agony is dead and the Coun'hij has been knocked back on their heels for the first time in centuries. I want you to open up the southern border."

  Jaclyn's beast was starting to recover; a surge of power lashed out from her at my words. "You don't know what you're asking, Alec. The cats will wreak nine kinds of destruction."

  Tasha was finally meeting my gaze, but the fear that had replaced the hate I'd seen when she'd first arrived wasn't any kind of improvement. I tore my eyes away from her and shook my head at her mother.

  "I know exactly what I'm proposing. The Coun'hij pretend to be some kind of benevolent dictatorship, but the truth is that they have left the border packs more or less on their own and you're paying the price for all of those years of neglect. I'm not going to force anyone to my side, but I'm not going to continue propping up a system that is grinding us away like this. The Las Cruces pack will be relocating within a few weeks and once that happens it's only a matter of time before the Carlsbad pack throws their lot in with me."

  The horror in Jaclyn's expression hadn't left but she was too smart to be doing anything other than following the chain of logic I was setting out. "The border will leak like a sieve. The humans are struggling just to deal with the drug gangs, they'll be routed once the cats start crossing over en masse. The second-tier packs aren't even close to ready to deal with that kind of combat. They'll join you in droves just to keep from being swept away."

  I nodded. It wasn't something I was looking forward to, but it was long past time to call the Coun'hij's bluff. They would either step in and start to limit the damage or our entire race would finally be forced to choose sides.

  "It will be tough on the Tucson pack, but it doesn't have to be that way. You can join me. We'll hire security guards to keep an eye on your homes and you can relocate further north."

  "You don't have to do this, Alec. Bring your people down to the border and help us push further south. Show everyone that you're a king in the old tradition."

  "I can't do that, Jaclyn. I would like to see that cesspool cleaned up as much as anyone. Dominic is proof of the fact that not every cat is a murdering thug, but helping her people has to wait until I've put our house in order."

  Tasha's anger finally boiled over. "So everyone who has kept the cats from ripping through your tender hides has to leave their homes while you sit here in your pretty little mansion?"

  I shook my head, sincerely sorry that things had gotten so bad between Tasha and me. "We won't be staying here either. I'm serious when I say that I won't prop up the current system. The Sanctuary pack will move north too. If I have my way then every single pack in North America will either join me or they'll feel the full weight of what you've dealt with for so many centuries."

  It was Jaclyn's turn again to try and dissuade me from my chosen path. "What if you can't put that genie back in the bottle, Alec? Once the cats get a taste for the U.S. you're going to have a hell of a time pushing them back down into Mexico."

  "They should disperse as they come north. We'll have a fight on our hands, but the real difficulty will be identifying them. Once we track one down I'll send in kill teams. You and Grayson should be capable of taking out nearly any cat, especially if I back you up with picked teams."

  "And if you're wrong? The only thing that has allowed us to stand against them for the last few centuries is the fact that they spend most of their time and energy fighting each other. If they see the weakness at the border as their grand chance to defeat us and come up in greater numbers than you anticipate, then you'll be looking at another great war."

  "It's a risk that has to be run. The alternative is to allow the Coun'hij to run us all into the ground over the next few centuries."

  There was fire in Jaclyn's eyes, but when we locked gazes she was the first one to look away. "I understand your position. Will you answer two questions for me?"

  "Yes, if it's in my power to do so without betraying an oath to someone else."

  "What about Tasha?"

  Tasha opened her mouth as i
f to protest, but her mother stared her down. I waited until Jaclyn looked back at me and then nodded.

  "I've always understood that your primary concern is for your people, Jaclyn. Believe it or not, I can empathize with your worries about Tasha's future. Rachel is in a similar position in many respects. If you throw your lot in with me then I'll put Tasha on my advisory council. I'm already starting to enforce a slightly artificial power structure here, one based on loyalty and intelligence in addition to who's the best killer. I can't promise to put Tasha at the top of the food chain, but as long as I'm alive I'll make sure that she's off limits when it comes to the petty dominance games she'd otherwise be subjected to."

  I could see that Jaclyn was about to protest, but I got the rest of my statement out before she could say anything.

  "More importantly, I'll clear the way for Tasha to rise based on her loyalty and intelligence. Ash is even weaker than Tasha, but he sits at my right hand because he gives me good advice and I know that I can count on him when things get rough. I'm dedicated to bringing down the Coun'hij, but I'd like to make other changes along the way. The moonborn are never going to be fit for human-style civilization, but it's past time for us to take a few steps in that direction."

  I was pretty sure I'd won her over with that statement. It was too close to what she was trying to accomplish inside of her own pack for it not to resonate with her. I'd always had respect for Jaclyn's aims, it had just been Tasha's callousness that had bothered me.

  "I think that I could live with that, Alec. It's not the position I would have chosen for Tasha, but in some ways it might be better for her in the long run than what I'd originally planned. She'd still have access to the family wealth and finally be in a position to rise on her own merits, despite never having manifested a hybrid form."

  "Do we have a deal then?"

  "Not quite. I'm concerned about your judgment in a few areas. Most important is these dispossessed wolves you've accepted oaths from."

  "All of them or someone in particular?"

  Jaclyn gave me a grim smile. "What do you think?"

  It was a test, but I was going to face much worse before all was said and done. I expressed silent thanks once again for Adri and Shawn as I walked over to one of the two wall vaults behind Donovan's desk.

  It was apparently past time for me to get an office of my own, but up until now I'd always made do with using Donovan's office anytime I needed to stash something. I was the only one who knew the combination to this particular lock and Donovan's office had always been the most secure room in the estate.

  I spun the massive dial and listened to the complex mechanism and the clicking of the tumblers. The design was my father's. Shape shifter hearing was so good as to make normal combination locks questionable so he'd designed a lock that had dozens of tumblers that dropped into place at random intervals. With all of that noise it was almost impossible to hear the real mechanism operate.

  I fished Adri's folder out of the top shelf and leafed through it until I found the pictures of the two submissive wolves who had arrived a few minutes before Grayson.

  "These two can't be trusted. They are very good liars, but they didn't mean a word of the oath they swore to me last week. I'll be very careful to keep them away from anything important, and as soon as I have a few more like them I'll use the group for assignments that they can't mess up, probably werewolf hunts, but I'm open to other ideas if you've got any."

  I pulled the photos of Grayson, Wyatt and Carson out of the file and dropped them on the desk where Jaclyn could get at them. "These three are a mystery. They refused to swear an oath of fealty to me, but then proceeded to swear something even more binding except that it's time-bounded."

  "The question is whether or not you can believe their oath."

  "I can trust them. Only until the time limit they agreed to runs out, but I can trust them."

  Jaclyn shook her head. "There's no way to really know that, Alec. I've seen some exceptional liars in my time."

  "I can't tell you how I know, Jaclyn, but I do. I have a method for detecting lies that involves something other than just listening to someone's heart rate and detecting when their body temperature starts to fluctuate."

  "You're serious."

  "Absolutely. I can trust these three more than any of those idiots who are still jockeying for position as they throw their daughters at me in the hopes that I'll lose interest in Adri. No, there are plenty of questions still around Grayson and his fellows, but I trust them to do what they're told and not to leak our secrets."

  "What are you worried about then?"

  It was my turn to test her. "Why don't you tell me what you think I should be worried about with regards to them?"

  "Fine. This Grayson has always kept a low profile. I always assumed he was just another dispossessed until I started hearing rumors that he had some kind of superpower."

  "He does. I watched him send more than a dozen wolves into uncontrollable convulsions. He completely neutralized some very powerful hybrids but left his friends untouched."

  Jaclyn went a little white. It had to be hard on her to find out that there was yet another person out there who could take her down before she could get close enough for her ability to kick in.

  "It's hard to believe, but it's not any more powerful than what you just did to me. He'd be able to kill whomever he pleases at any time."

  I shrugged. "The process seemed to take a lot out of him. He went into convulsions himself, but they weren't as bad. I expect he could probably kill one or two people before he exhausts himself and depletes his ability, but I suspect that he'll really shine when he's got backup. In a larger-scale fight he can drop the other side for a few critical seconds while whoever is with him dispatches them all."

  "You're sure about that?"

  "No, but when he tested me I...got a feel, for lack of a better term, for his power. I don't think it operates by blanketing an area. I think he targets individuals, even individuals that he can't see. It actually makes him more valuable in a fight than I am. I can't narrow my focus down that far. I can drop an opposing force but I'd have to personally kill everyone I'd dropped."

  Jaclyn's eyes lit up. "But his power is ineffective against you?"

  "Correct. Assuming he has the brains to match, he'd be the perfect lieutenant. Incredibly deadly, but still submissive to me."

  Jaclyn rubbed her hands together slowly and then looked back up at me. "The biggest question is who these three are already sworn to."

  "Exactly. It's the logical reason for their inability to swear to me and it could be incredibly significant. There's a whole other power bloc out there that none of the rest of us know about and whoever is in charge is powerful enough that they're even more deadly than Grayson. If I can bring them around to our side they could alter the whole balance of power between us and the Coun'hij."

  Tasha looked uneasy, but she finally joined back in the conversation. "What kind of group as powerful as these guys seem to be would just sit out the last couple of hundred years given everything that the Coun'hij has done recently?"

  I pulled out the last picture of Grayson, the one where Shawn had zoomed in on the circle of scar tissue on his chest, and dropped it on the table next to the others.

  "I don't know, but this is our first clue."

  Chapter 8

  Adriana Paige

  Graves Estate

  Sanctuary, Utah

  Kami and Rachel hit it off immediately. If the Graves family fortune ever evaporated I was pretty sure that Rachel could make a very good living as a wedding planner. Alec had mentioned hiring help with the wedding, but I'd still been a little surprised when Kami had been ushered into the main library by Donovan.

  Less than five minutes after Kami handed me her elegant white business card, she and Rachel were lost inside Rachel's wedding binders. It took half an hour before the two of them surfaced enough to fill me in, but it turned out that Kami wholeheartedly endorsed everything
Rachel was doing, she just thought we needed to change up our priorities slightly.

  An hour later we were touring different parts of the estate looking for a suitable location for the ceremony. It would have been impossible to cover the kind of ground we needed to cross on foot, but luckily Alec and Rachel's garage was stocked with a host of four-wheeled ATV's in various shapes and sizes.

  Rachel had gotten a topographical map from Donovan and then we'd set off on our scouting expedition. Only 'we' included way more than just Rachel, Kami and I. Kristin's attack dream hadn't turned out to be a legitimate precognitive warning, but had caused Alec to reassess security around the estate. I now had at least one bodyguard with me anytime we left the house.

  Today it was two and I was starting to feel more than a little claustrophobic. Jasmin wasn't too bad, but I didn't know Carson very well so it felt awkward to have him sitting next to me as Jasmin drove our ATV.

  Rachel and Kami's vehicle was being driven by Jess while Carson's friend, Wyatt, ranged around us on a smaller ATV. I knew that Wyatt was trustworthy because Shawn had vouched for the intentions behind the oath Wyatt had sworn to Alec. Even so, it was hard to believe he was very reliable with the way he was darting all over the place.

  We came over a small rise as Kami checked the map again and then as we reached the bottom of a bowl-shaped depression she asked Jess to stop. Rachel jumped out of the vehicle before it had completely stopped moving and bounded over to me.

  "What do you think, Adri? There are a couple of other places that could work, but I think this one has the most potential."

  I looked around at the brown, dying vegetation and the sharp rocks and shrugged. "It's kind of desolate, isn't it?"

  Kami smiled at me as she made her way over at a slightly more sedate pace. "You're right, as it is right now you wouldn't want to use it, but look more at the underlying shape of the ground and try to think about what it could look like. Here, let me show you."