by Dean Murray
"Report."
Isaac gave me a surly look, but he gestured back at the main structure of the house. "There isn't anyone else alive back there. We ran into one more werewolf in there. I think that Puppeteer forgot about it or was busy with other stuff because it was just destroying the house randomly rather than actively hunting for survivors."
"You guys put it down?"
"Yeah, but it was a close thing."
"Who'd you find?"
Brutus and Arnold had reached us now, but the extent of the injuries to the two forms they were carrying made it hard to say for sure who they'd dragged out of the building just moments before the fire would have consumed them.
"Rex and Jane."
Arnold shook his head as he cradled the smaller figure in his arms. "Jane didn't make it, she died five minutes ago, but I couldn't bear to just leave her in there."
Jane was just one casualty among many, but I still swayed slightly on my feet. She'd never even had a chance. Most of the dead were submissives or noncombatants who hadn't managed to find help before the werewolves had found them. It was too easy to see myself or Kristin in the bodies that were lined up on one side of the driveway.
I forced myself to concentrate on the living and turned to Brutus. "Donovan and Mallory are still working on the injured. Please take Rex into the garage and help Donovan. Hopefully you guys found him in time."
Isaac waited until Brutus and Arnold left and then stepped into my personal space, his voice low and menacing. "Alec hasn't shown up yet, has he?"
"No, he hasn't, but that doesn't mean that he's dead."
"Yes, it does. We looked through the whole damn house and there are bodies everywhere in there. I don't even know half of the people who died tonight, but there was no sign of Alec. I held out hope until we made it to his room. That's where the fire started, but it looked like the roof collapsed long before the fire started weakening the structure. My bet is that Puppeteer made sure to take him out at the very start of the attack."
"That doesn't make sense. The werewolves clearly hit the section of the house with Ben in it first. That's clear on the other side of things from Alec's room."
"Maybe it was all a giant ruse to concentrate the resistance on that side of the house so that he could sneak a kill team into Alec's room. All I know is that Alec isn't here and that means that I don't have to take orders from you."
I let the muzzle of my rifle rise slightly as I gave Isaac my best blank face. "You really want to do this right now? We've got bodies in the house, more bodies in the garage, and nobody who's still alive is unwounded. Based on what the lights are doing out there, we still have werewolves in the area and unless the Coun'hij has all become a bunch of idiots they have a bunch of their enforcers en route to mop up whoever the werewolves don't tear through. Do you really want to rock the boat right now?"
"I'm dominant to you."
"Yes, yes, you are. You're not dominant enough though to survive a chest full of five seven rounds and if that's what it takes to carry out Alec's order to assemble everyone here and keep them safe then that's what I'll do, Isaac."
Our standoff stretched out for several seconds until movement off to our right brought both of us around. The smoke was even worse than it had been before and it almost made me doubt what I was seeing.
Alec stepped out of the darkness with his mother clasped in his arms and Adri trailing along behind him. All three of them looked like they'd been through hell, but Alec was covered in blood. That wasn't the most incredible thing though. The thing that positively blew my mind was the unearthly light coming off of their skin. I knew it was only my moonborn eyes that allowed me to see anything, but I'd never seen anyone glow that brightly, let alone two humans.
Alec took in the tension between Isaac and me and then handed his mother off to Isaac. "Please report, Ash."
Isaac looked for a moment like he was going to protest, but Alec turned pale blue eyes that were only a hairsbreadth from transforming on him and Isaac finally nodded and headed towards the garage.
"It's a relief to see you."
"You too, now tell me what's going on."
"We've got all of the survivors gathered here inside and around the garage. Isaac just took a team back through the house and it wasn't pretty. We've lost a lot of people."
Alec closed his eyes for a moment and then nodded. "I figured as much. It was unavoidable considering how little warning we had and the fact that most of the fighters had already been through the wringer once tonight."
We stood in silence for nearly a minute before Adri wrapped her arms around Alec and whispered into his ear. She probably meant for it to be inaudible to anyone other than Alec but I was close enough to hear her.
"Concentrate on the living. Your mom and Rachel are both still alive and we couldn't have done anything different than we did."
Alec nodded and then looked back at me. "Did Grayson make it out alive?"
"Yeah. He got beat up pretty good, but he's alive still. He won't leave Wyatt's side though. Carson was killed in the fighting and it doesn't look like Wyatt will make it."
Alec flinched a little at Adri's gasp, but he just stroked her hand and nodded. "Go get Grayson and as many effectives as we still have. We only have a couple of minutes before they come for us."
I paused midway through turning to carry out his order. "How do you know?"
"I can feel them out there, all of them."
I didn't understand, not really, but I nodded and double-timed it into the garage. Things were even worse than I'd remembered from the last time I'd been inside our 'sanctuary.' Wounded were on almost every open inch of the concrete, blood soaking through bandages, their breathing labored.
Donovan was working on Wyatt while Mallory played nurse, but I could see defeat in every line of his posture. I stepped into Grayson's field of vision and pointed outside. "Alec is back and he needs you outside."
"I'm not leaving Wyatt."
I pressed my rifle into his chest and gave him a cold smile. "You swore an oath. If you use your power on me now the convulsions will make my finger tighten on the trigger. Get out there before Alec has to come in here and get you himself."
I'd just made an enemy, but he nodded and slowly backed away from me. I watched him leave out the side door and then turned to find that Jasmin had come over to see what all of the fuss was about.
She'd pulled a ha'bit on, probably from one of the RV's, but that wasn't the only thing different about her. Even with all we'd been through in the last hour or so, the rumor mill was still working and everyone here knew that she'd manifested a hybrid shape well after such a thing should have been impossible.
The piece that hadn't made the rounds yet was just how big her hybrid form was. Kristin had quietly told me that Jasmin was the largest hybrid she'd ever seen, that she towered over James and was nearly the size of one of the smaller, younger werewolves.
"What's up, Ash?"
"Alec just arrived. He says that we're due for another attack and wants me to gather everyone that can still fight."
"Don't worry about it. I'll go round everyone up and meet you outside in a minute. You don't need to be pissing anyone else off today."
There was the rub. Right now Jasmin wasn't any more dangerous than I was, but she was a hybrid now. Unless someone killed her over the next couple of months she'd grow into the potential of her new form and then she'd be the next best thing to unstoppable.
I nodded and walked back outside just in time to see Alec gently send Adri into the garage. Once it was just the three of us, Alec turned to Grayson and pointed off to the east. "They're clustered out there. When I give you the signal I want you to use your power to immobilize the northern half of the attacking force."
Grayson shook his head tiredly. "My power won't work on werewolves. Even if there are shape shifters with them the werewolves will still short-circuit my ability. I'm no more valuable to you right now than any other hybrid."
A
lec's smile was as unworried as I'd ever seen out of him. "You just act on my signal and leave the werewolves to me."
Jasmin walked out a couple of seconds later followed by a battered string of men and women who were the best we had left to offer up to the gods of battle.
Alec looked them over, the strange glow from a few minutes before mostly gone, and gave them all a sad smile. "Thank you. I know that each of you has probably lost someone tonight. I'm sorry to ask you to step up once again, but we have one last battle tonight before we can stop and nurse our wounds."
There was a low, unhappy murmur, but a sudden gesture from Alec stopped it. "I want you to look around right now. Take in the faces of those next to you and remember them. You're all witnesses. After tonight nothing will ever be the same again. You'll be different; each of you will be something more than you are right now. After tonight you are all truly mine."
Silence reigned supreme for a handful of heartbeats and then the sound of taloned feet brought us all around.
Alec unconcernedly stepped out in front of us as the first of the werewolves appeared out of the smoke, running towards us with the inexorability of time. The half-dozen werewolves were flanked by the better part of thirty shape shifters and I felt my heart drop. Even if we could somehow defeat the werewolves, we wouldn't be a match for the Coun'hij's bully boys.
I pulled my rifle up and sighted on the lead werewolf, waiting for it to close the distance slightly as my finger started to tighten down on the trigger.
In the split second before my first shot rang out, Alec lit up even more brightly than he'd been when he'd first arrived.
The enemy line disintegrated into a sudden melee as most of the werewolves instantly turned on the shape shifters flanking them. I felt a surge of euphoria at the sight of our opponents tearing each other to shreds, but even then I knew it was too much to hope that they'd kill each other to a man.
The fight was brief but brutal and five seconds later the werewolves had all been cut down and the shape shifters had lost a third of their number. It took a few seconds for the Coun'hij enforcers to shake back out into a loose line, but then they once again started towards us, confident in their greater numbers.
Alec waited until they were only fifteen yards away from us before tapping Grayson on the arm. Grayson immobilized half of the opposing force while Alec dropped the other half. The fight was over less than a minute later and Alec was right. With one fight we had changed everything and every single one of us belonged to him in ways that we didn't fully understand.
Chapter 27
Adriana Paige
Graves Estate
Sanctuary, Utah
I spent another terrified fifteen minutes inside the garage waiting for the werewolves to overrun Alec and the rest. I knew what I'd seen when we went to save Alec's mother, but it still seemed too unreal for me to believe that Alec would be able to turn the tide of the fight.
My fear for Alec and the rest was strong enough to cushion me from the horror around me right up until I heard a cheer of celebration break out from just outside the garage. Once I knew we were safe, I looked at my surroundings and felt a wave of near despair wash over me. There were so many people who were on death's doorstep.
I found Dominic first and nearly cried at the massive hole in her stomach that someone had tried to cover up with gauze. I picked her hand up and felt my hopes fall even further at just how cold she was. Shape shifters could maintain their body heat in almost any environment. For Dominic to be this cold she had to be hurt badly enough that even her natural regenerative abilities weren't working any more.
I sat there holding Dom's hand and finally let all of the tears out. Tears for Carson, tears for Dom, tears even for Rachel who was probably still alive but out there in a world she no longer understood without anyone to watch out for her.
As my tears splashed onto Dom's hand I realized that something had changed. Her skin wasn't just warming up because I was holding her, it was heating up on its own with a rapidity that was impossible. It had to be some kind of flash fever. I was looking around for someone I could ask for help from when Dom tugged on my hand.
"Where am I, Adri? What happened?"
"You're in the garage, there was an attack and you were hurt."
She looked up at me with curiosity in her eyes. "I remember the fight to save Ben, I remember being stabbed, but I feel fine."
Before I could stop her she pulled off the gauze that had been the only thing keeping her from bleeding to death. I went to grab the bloody material and put it back on her stomach but there was no need. She wiped the dried blood away and underneath there was nothing but a perfect expanse of unbroken skin.
"It's finally working again."
"What do you mean, Dom?"
She ignored my question and pulled herself to her feet. "Who's hurt the worst?"
None of it made any sense, but after what I'd seen Alec do earlier it was hard to deny that anything was possible. I helped Dominic over to Rex, who had a series of bandages across his head and chest, yelling the entire time for Donovan.
I watched as Rex's color visibly improved and then Dominic was blindly reaching for me again. Her eyes remained closed as I led her over to Rebekka and by the time Rebekka's breathing had normalized Donovan was there to help guide Dom.
We were an odd procession, Donovan, Dominic and I followed by those who Dominic had healed, but we made our slow, steadily weakening way through the garage and then just when I didn't think that Dominic could continue, Alec arrived and placed his hands on Dominic's shoulders.
I still didn't have any explanation for what was happening, but I caught the very fringe of what Alec did to Dominic and it was like he washed away all of my pain and exhaustion. I suddenly felt like I'd just rolled out of bed after the best night's sleep ever.
Sheer chance had put Wyatt in the corner of the garage farthest from where Dom and I had started, and by the time we worked our way through everyone else Dom was stumbling and exhausted again.
She collapsed on the floor next to Wyatt and put her hands over his chest. I felt his skin heat up even from several inches away as he almost seemed to go into convulsions. A few seconds later he collapsed back down onto the concrete and Jessica frantically started unwrapping bandages.
Wyatt's chest was unmarred again except for the odd circular scar that we'd noticed shortly after he'd arrived in Sanctuary. I didn't think anything of it necessarily until I realized that Donovan hadn't been limping for the last fifteen minutes that he'd been helping Dominic.
"Donovan, I'm sorry if this is inappropriate, but could you please lift your pant leg?"
I received odd looks from everyone, Donovan included, but then I saw the same realization dawn in his eyes that I'd just experienced. Donovan slowly rolled one side of his pants up to his knee and there wasn't a single trace of scar tissue.
Chapter 28
Adriana Paige
I-80
Northern Nevada
We'd all wanted to sit there and revel in the miracle of Dominic's healing powers, but Alec had cajoled everyone into vehicles and got our huge convoy moving away from the estate.
I spent the first leg of our journey crying over all of the people that we'd lost. Some of them had already started to get fuzzy inside my mind, almost as though I was subconsciously trying to shield myself from the pain of our losses, but my mental picture of Carson was still incredibly vivid.
I wanted to stay curled up in a ball in the back bedroom, but once the initial rush of tears passed, my mind started playing back Carson's advice from the last time we'd been in the park together.
I knew I needed to pull myself together and start exercising the influence I did have to help keep everything together. It wouldn't be fair to just leave that entirely on Alec's shoulders. It was hard to talk to Alec with everyone else around and I spent a little while worrying that Alec was going to keep everyone together rather than dispersing us as Rachel had warned in her recordi
ng, but Alec addressed that point once we stopped in Nevada at a tiny rest stop. Alec asked for Grayson and Wyatt as soon as our massive RV stopped moving. Predictably Jess arrived trailing along behind Wyatt.
"Your oaths to me are at the point of expiring. What are your plans?"
Grayson didn't say anything, instead looking at Wyatt like the younger man was in charge.
"I'm not sure. I...I need some time to process Carson's death, so I'll be leaving for a while, but I think that maybe it's almost time for you to meet someone."
"Who?"
"I can't tell you, not really. All I can say is that he's the one who started all of this and that I'm finally starting to understand why Carson was so adamant that the two of you need to meet."
I could tell that Alec wasn't satisfied with the answer, but he also didn't seem willing to push Wyatt right now, not when it meant risking alienating Grayson.
"The two of you will both be leaving then?"
This time it was Grayson who nodded. "The three of us left together, it is my duty to finish the journey with Wyatt. Carson would have done the same had he any choice."
I suddenly felt as though I'd been slapped as I realized that Rachel's cryptic warning about 'the three' was the second time I'd heard that reference. I grabbed Alec before he could respond to Grayson.
"Rachel's warning. The last bit about the three, that wasn't talking about Jasmin, Jess and Ash, it was talking about Carson, Wyatt and Grayson. They need to go their separate ways, two of them because they have a choice, the third because he no longer has any choices."
Alec considered my words for a moment and then nodded. "Rachel left a recording warning us of the attack last night. I've spent hours trying to figure out how she knew, but I'm sure that she wasn't working with Puppeteer and the rest. All I can assume is that she's got a precognitive feeding her hints about the future. Possibly Adri's priest. I think we should follow her advice in this instance. Grayson, I'd like you to swear fealty for another two months and accompany Tasha. I promised to keep her safe and you represent the best odds of making that happen."