Burned

by Dean Murray

  "I was considering whether it is a good idea to trust me with such an important task. My history of carrying out critical missions is not a particularly good one. I—"

  I stopped him with a gesture before he could disclose anything that he would later end up regretting.

  "I don't care about what happened before we met, Carson. I care about what's happened during the time I've known you. Since we started working together you've been one of the pillars of our success. You were the one who brought Grayson down to our attempted rescue of Agony. Without Grayson, none of us would have survived long enough for Dream Stealer's people to arrive to our aid.

  "I was the one who killed the mentalist and the pyromancer in LA, but that would have been all for naught if you hadn't used your ability to lure the rest of the gang into an ambush when they returned to the warehouse. You've taught me how to use the sword I stole from my father, and you provided support and assistance in Minnesota that was critical to our victory there. I need your skills, your experience, and your contacts."

  "All three of those things are yours, Alec. They are yours regardless of whether or not I'm in charge of training the hybrids who join your cause. Perhaps it would be best to use me as nothing more than an instructor. Let someone else be in charge."

  I shook my head. "I appreciate your willingness to help in a less…glorious fashion, but there isn't anyone else, Carson. We have some good fighters, but anyone I put there will face nothing but a constant stream of challengers. You are the only one I can trust to do this."

  Carson sighed. "A long time ago someone much more like you than you would ever have believed said almost the exact same thing to me. I failed that man, Alec. I loved him like a father, and I failed him. If you demand this of me I will do it, but know that I accept with a heavy heart, sure that despite my best efforts I will end up failing you too."

  "It's settled then. You'll accept and do your best. It will be enough because that is the kind of man that you are, but if it isn't enough then I will make up the difference because that is my job."

  I turned and looked at the rest of the people gathered inside of the RV. "Up until now I've been dancing around the question of who was really in charge because I didn't feel qualified to lead all of you. I realized while I was gone that I don't have any other choice. Our culture—our very nature—requires that the best killer among us step up and lead. To do otherwise creates confusion when things get difficult and lives are on the line.

  "I've known most of you for years, and I owe all of you a debt that goes beyond money. I hope that you will stay, but if you decide to leave I respect that and you can go without any fear of future reprisals."

  I looked around, but all of them met my eyes without any trace of doubt in their countenance. For better or worse, they were now mine. I was going to have to lead and protect them to the best of my ability and just hope that it was enough to keep us alive.

  It wasn't the beginning I would have wanted, but it was a beginning—one that I hadn't actually ever expected to see. I spared a moment to wonder where we would eventually end up.

  We'd declared war on the Coun'hij, but just tearing the old structure down wasn't going to be enough. We were going to have to replace it with a new form of government, and it was only logical that whoever led the rebellion to its final victory would end up heading the new government.

  I knew all of the other major figures in the rebellion. None of them were my equal in power. Some of them had more experience, but if I stood aside for them it would create exactly the kind of problem that I'd been worried about Carson creating if he refused my assignment.

  No, that wasn't the answer. I was going to have to unite the entire rebellion under my leadership and just hope that I would be smart enough to keep us all from being outmaneuvered.

  None of the earliest records of the monarchy had survived, but in that moment I wondered if this was how Jaldul had felt when he'd begun his bid to create the first monarchy.

  Any sense of pride I might have felt was swept away as I met Rachel's eyes and remembered what I still needed to tell her.

  "Please split up between the various vehicles. We need to get moving south now in order to ensure we arrive in Arizona in time to make sure nothing happens to the Tucson pack. I'll provide more information about my plan at our next fuel stop, but right now I need to talk to my sister."

  Chapter 5

  Alec Graves

  I-15

  Southern Montana

  Brindi made it into our RV just before the vehicles started forward. She didn't try to come touch me—she'd had her fix in the SUV earlier—but I felt a weight lift off of my chest at the knowledge that she was close enough to get to me if her withdrawal symptoms suddenly took a turn for the worse.

  Rachel followed me into the bedroom at the back of the RV without saying anything. I wasn't sure what I was expecting. Rachel was normally like a puppy that had been given a double dose of lovability. Despite everything that had happened, despite the betrayal of both of our parents, she still rarely had any expression other than a smile on her face.

  I'd been dreading having to wipe that joyful look off of her face, but seeing her like this—somber and serious—was almost worse. It took a lot to bring Rachel that low—it didn't seem fair to add to her sorrows.

  "Are you okay, Rach? Nobody has been giving you any grief, have they? James and Carson both told me that they would keep an eye on you while I was gone."

  "No, nobody has bullied me. I'm just trying to prepare myself for the fact that you called me in here to send me away again."

  "What? No, that's not what I wanted to talk to you about at all. Why would you think that?"

  "The right question is why wouldn't I think that? You kept me at arm's length for weeks while you traveled all over the western hemisphere. First the Cayman islands, then New Mexico, then LA and Minnesota. I thought maybe things were going to be better when you let me help out with the mission to rescue Agony, but that was just a temporary blip. I don't know why I thought things were going to be better when you let me rejoin everyone after Minnesota. You've barely spent any time here at all since I arrived, and now you are here trying to figure out a way to break the bad news to me again.

  "Don't try to tell me otherwise, Alec. You may have the rest of the world fooled, but I've known you for my entire life. You get a particular look when you feel like you have to disappoint someone for their own good. You have that look right now."

  I shook my head. "I'm not sending you away, Rachel. I mean I probably would be, but now that I've finally manifested my ability this is actually the safest place for you. Before I was trying to keep you away because I knew I couldn't protect you. I'm still not positive that I can deal with everything headed our way, but I think you have a better chance of surviving the next few months with me than without me.

  Rachel gave me a confused look. "I don't understand—if you're not getting ready to ditch me again, what are you so worried about?"

  "It's kind of complicated. You know what Dream Stealer and Adri do, right?"

  "Yeah. Dream Stealer has been the pack's boogeyman for as long as I can remember. It's honestly been kind of hard to remember that we're all on the same side now. You said that Adri is like Dream Stealer—she can visit people in their dreams too."

  "That's right—only with one key difference. Dream Stealer has never been able to do anything more than torture people inside of their dreams. Adri can do more than that, she can actually hold people inside of her dreams—hold them there until they are dead."

  "I don't understand what this has to do with me, Alec."

  Rachel's expression and scent both gave lie to her words. She knew where I was going, she just didn't want to believe that her suspicions were correct.

  "For a long time now Adri hasn't been willing to target people, but that all changed a little while before she lost her parents. When you combine that with the fact that my power makes me the next best thing to unbeatable,
we now have a chance to start eliminating the worst of the Coun'hij without having to cut our way through all of the enforcers and half of the loyalist packs in order to get to them."

  "You're talking about murder, Alec."

  "Are we? Maybe you're right, but I'm having a hard time seeing the difference between killing them in their sleep or hunting them down in the real world. Any human court in the world would have condemned most of the enforcers and all of the Coun'hij to death for even half of what's happened in the last fifteen years. Killing them is going to make the world a better, safer place."

  She turned away from me. "You're going to go after Dad first, aren't you?"

  "Yes. He's a key member of the Coun'hij and his death will throw them into a state of confusion. We can't even identify half of the members of the Coun'hij. Anyone who's really high up has kept their identity a secret, but there is one person who we know has met every single member of the Coun'hij. Dad is the key to all of this. We can break him—force him to tell us everything he knows—and then we can kill him and make sure that the Sanctuary pack is too busy trying to work out a new dominance chain to bother us. With a little bit of luck we can remove half of the Coun'hij leadership before the month is out."

  "This is a bad idea, Alec. You should start with someone else."

  "Why is it a bad idea, Rach? Kaleb tried to sell you to Vincent as a way of securing Brandon's loyalty for another few months. There isn't any good in him—maybe there was at one time, but not anymore—not for years. I don't understand why you keep defending him. Every once in a while it seems like you're going to finally see the truth, but somehow you always end up right back here trying to give him the benefit of the doubt."

  She whirled on me and hit me in the arm. It was like being assaulted by a hamster. "You're right, you don't get it. It's true, there isn't any objective reason that I should believe Dad is anything other than evil, but that doesn't change the way I feel. I think there is still something else going on that none of us understand, but this isn't even just about that.

  "This is about you, Alec. Killing Dad isn't going to be something that you can just blow off after it happens. It's going to change you, and that scares me more than anything else."

  "I've killed before, Rachel. Vampires, werewolves, jaguars, even other wolves and hybrids. This isn't going to be anything new."

  "That's where you're wrong, big brother. Before this you've always fought because your back was against the wall. You killed because you had no other choice. This is going to be the first time you go after someone when you don't have to. This is going to be murder and you know it."

  Chapter 6

  Adriana Paige

  The Verdant Canopy Motel

  Beaumont, Texas

  Things between Taggart and I were back to being strained. He'd been right to yank me up short when I'd torn into Alec, but that didn't make it any easier to deal with. I knew that he was just trying to keep me from saying anything I would end up regretting later, but the truth was that for months now I'd thought that Taggart had my back no matter what.

  Finding out that he was as concerned about Alec as he was about me was a slap to the face, one that I hadn't been ready for. It was enough to send me to Nellie in tears, but at least I managed not to break down in front of Taggart.

  I was all about small victories these days—they seemed to be the only kind of victories I could manage as of late.

  His request that I help him with the attack he and Alec were going to carry out against Kaleb was another bitter pill. It shouldn't have been—I was the one who'd told him I was ready to do whatever was necessary to bring down the Coun'hij—but it was. After spending so long telling me that he didn't want to turn me into a weapon for other people to use, he'd jumped on my first moment of weakness to do exactly that.

  I knew that there was a good reason to do what we were going to do—lots of people were going to die if we didn't stop the Coun'hij—but I was still having a hard time with how fast everything was moving.

  We'd spent the entire day driving to meet up with Isaac and the rest, which meant that I'd been cooped up in a small space with Cindi and Nellie for hours. Nellie wasn't so bad—she seemed content to let me work things out on my own—but Cindi kept asking me if something was wrong. I was just glad that Taggart had finally agreed to buy a second vehicle. Things would have been really horrific if we'd been all crammed into one vehicle—especially one as small as the ones that Taggart seemed to favor.

  I ended up putting in my earbuds and pretending to sleep. I didn't actually sleep though. Either my training had decided to kick in so that I wouldn't get off of my normal sleep schedule, or I was just still freaked out about what I would see if I closed my eyes. I hadn't seen the older, more judgmental version of Alec the night before after I'd left his dream, but it was too soon to be chalking those dreams up to a phase that was dead and gone.

  Still, even without sleeping I managed to zone out enough that I lost track of a few hours in there somewhere. I opened my eyes as the car slowed down and I realized that it was getting dark outside.

  "What's going on?"

  Nellie looked back at me. "I'm getting tired, and we're basically out of gas. Taggart took the last exit and seems to be headed into town looking for a place to spend the night. I'm guessing he's got some kind of dream meetup that he doesn't want to miss out on."

  I grimaced, but didn't say anything. I would have told Nellie exactly what we were planning on doing once we fell asleep—talking to her would have helped me work through my feelings—but Taggart had knocked on my door only moments after I woke up and made me promise not to talk about our plans with anyone.

  He was probably just being paranoid, but he did have a point about the fact that he and I were going to move to the very top of the Coun'hij's list of enemies once they realized that we were helping Alec take them out one by one in their sleep. It was unlikely that they would be able to track us down—Taggart was very good at staying off the grid—but there was no reason to move forward the time when they figured out that their fellow despots weren't just dying in their sleep from natural causes.

  Nellie wasn't a traitor, but if we told her then Cindi and Tristan would know too, and one of them was almost guaranteed to let our secret drop by accident once we got back together with Isaac and the rest. Hopefully Alec was being just as cagey about what was going on with his people.

  Nellie yawned and I shook my head at her, but I didn't say anything. Shape shifters didn't generally need as much sleep as us humans, but there were exceptions to every rule, and Nellie seemed to be one of those exceptions. I'd thought about asking her exactly how much sleep she needed every night, but with my luck her need for extra sleep was tied to the fact that she was weaker than most other wolves, and then I'd have offended her over something that didn't matter.

  Taggart had agreed to have her along because he'd wanted help defending Tristan, Cindi and me, but Nellie had become way more than just a bodyguard in the last couple of weeks. It wouldn't have mattered to me if she'd been the weakest wolf in the world, she was still the one person other than Taggart that I wasn't sure I could have lived without.

  It took us less than an hour to find a hotel and get ourselves situated in our rooms. Taggart and Tristan shared a room—Taggart was too cheap to pay for any more rooms than we absolutely had to have—but Tristan had taken to spending the first few hours in Cindi and Nellie's room. Usually by the time he went to bed, Taggart was already done sleeping for the night.

  Nellie supposedly shared a room with Cindi because Cindi knew even less about defending herself than I did, but we all knew it had more to do with the fact that I was a freak who was only half a step away from falling apart at any given minute. We were an odd number, so it wasn't likely that we'd cram down to just two bedrooms anytime soon, but maybe now that I was supposed to be pulling myself together Taggart would suggest different sleeping arrangements.

  Cindi would love that idea. She was desp
erate to share a room with Tristan, but Taggart was pretty old-fashioned when it came to stuff like that. My bet was that Cindi would end up with her own room and Nellie would bunk with me because even a weak wolf was better protection than no wolf at all.

  For now though, I was still sleeping by myself because Taggart didn't want to risk anything getting in the way of our mission. I showered in the hopes that it would help me unwind and then pulled on shorts and a tank top before double-checking the lock on the door and setting my pistol on the nightstand next to me.

  In the long weeks since my parents had been killed I'd completely stopped wearing it. Maybe that was because I'd associated it with the violence that had killed them, or maybe I'd just been trying to deny the world I now lived in.

  I wasn't ready to wear it again—not really—but there wasn't any other choice. The world I shared with Taggart and the rest of the shape shifters was simply too dangerous for me to be walking around unarmed. Like it or not, that gun was a part of my new existence.

  I dropped down onto the bed, and was asleep within seconds, and dreaming sooner than I would have liked. The plan was to remain in my normal dreams for a few minutes and then hunt down Alec's dreams so that I could join him there.

  It was a valid plan—Alec's dreams were the place where he would have the most control and be most likely able to use his power to immobilize Kaleb—but I suddenly decided that I wasn't going to follow it.

  I didn't want to be in Alec's power, I wanted to be here where I had the most control. Without thinking twice, I sat down on the ground and visualized Alec at the same time that I remembered how he made me feel.

  Gone were the feelings of security and the kind of breathless crush that rarely survived spending real time with someone. The second part had probably been inevitable ever since the first time we'd met, but I was sad about the change in the first emotion. I liked feeling safe, and the conflicted, guilty dislike that had replaced my feelings of security was a definite change for the worse.