by Dean Murray
"I gave you an order. Smile and then go get your luggage like you don't have a care in the world. You're above your pay grade on this one."
I wanted to flip him off, or shift and go for his throat right there in plain view of everyone, but the first idea was bad and the second one was even worse. I pasted a sarcastic smile across my face and then turned and stalked off towards my bag.
It took all of two minutes for us to pile into the SUV with James and Alec in the front and Jess and I in the back seat. Our windows were heavily tinted, so I watched the other SUV as we pulled out onto the main road.
Whoever was driving it was good. They waited until we were quite a ways ahead before they pulled out and followed us. They kept two cars between us at all times, but I still caught occasional glimpses that confirmed my fear that they were following us.
I managed to bite my tongue for nearly ten minutes before I couldn't stand it anymore.
"Alec, you can tell me to shut up all you want, but it isn't going to make that SUV from the airport go away. We've got a serious problem on our hands."
Alec looked like he wanted to bite my head off, but he took a deep breath and pointed out our exit for James before turning back to look at me.
"I tried telling you to shut up already, but it didn't work the first time so I don't suppose yelling at you again is going to make any difference. You're right, that SUV is following us and it's probably full of either Kaleb's people or maybe Coun'hij enforcers if Kaleb has finally come clean with the Coun'hij about the fact that we're in open rebellion against him. Either way, there's a reasonable chance that we're screwed, but you telling me that we've got a problem when I already know about it isn't going to solve the problem. Please shut up and let me concentrate. The only way to get out of a situation like this with our skins intact is for me to outthink whoever is back there."
I felt the shakes threatening to return. I wanted to scream at Alec, to tell him he was the alpha and it was his responsibility to make sure that we didn't get outmaneuvered like this, but I gritted my teeth and looked away from him. If I started yelling at him I was virtually guaranteed to lose control in other ways, and none of us could afford for me to have a breakdown right now.
The rest of the trip took less than five minutes with Alec navigating and James driving, but it wasn't until the very end that I surfaced enough from my internal battle to realize that something wasn't right. Alec's words weren't matching up with his actions. He didn't seem like someone who was worried.
As far as alphas went, Alec was pretty standup. Any dominant was going to treat you like crap from time to time simply because their beast wanted to push your nose in the fact that you were subordinate to them, but Alec usually kept that kind of stuff to a minimum.
We'd been through a lot together already and Alec valued loyalty too much to treat me like dirt without a good reason. Besides, his instructions to James were coming too smoothly. He wasn't choosing our route on the fly; he was following a preplanned route.
A second later we pulled into what had to be the largest parking garage in the city. We started down and with every level we descended the tension inside of our SUV ratcheted up a little tighter. I counted seven levels before Alec sat up in his seat and pointed at a line of orange cones to our right.
"Run over the cones."
The cones were placed in a curved line to guide the traffic down to the next level and there were a couple of signs indicating that there was some kind of construction going on, but James didn't even hesitate. He turned the wheel hard to the right and mowed over three of the cones, crushing them under our tires.
"Go on to the very back. There, pull into a space behind that Escalade and kill the engine."
It wasn't a very good plan. Alec seemed to be hoping that the guys who'd been following us wouldn't notice the crushed cones, or if they did that they wouldn't pick our SUV out of the line of six cars we were parked next to. It wasn't bad considering how little time he'd had to plan, but it was a slim hope to be risking our lives on.
Fifteen seconds after our engine died, the black SUV that had been following us pulled into view. I hadn't gotten a good look at the plate back at the airport, but I knew it was the same one. There was simply no way that a different black GMC had decided to drive over the cones and come our direction.
My suspicions were confirmed when the other vehicle coasted to a stop and all of the doors opened up simultaneously. The five guys who got out weren't anyone I recognized, but they were the kind of big bruisers who seemed a fixture of Coun'hij operations.
"They aren't from our pack, I mean the Sanctuary pack. I'm kind of surprised, I thought Kaleb would try and keep our disappearance a secret for longer than this. It must have really hurt his position inside of the Coun'hij to admit that he'd lost control of his own son and needed help hunting us down."
My voice came out calm, disinterested even, but inside I still felt like I was going to go to pieces at any minute. I knew I wasn't fooling anyone. Alec and the rest could hear my heart racing, could probably smell the perspiration trickling down the back of my neck.
Alec looked back at me and I expected him to tell me to stop freaking out, but he just grunted. "Yeah, I expect he's lost some pull as a result. I'm not entirely sure that's something to be celebrating. As bad as Kaleb is, there are others on the Coun'hij who are worse. Okay, everyone out."
It was pretty much the same as ordering us all to jump out of an airplane without a parachute, but we all piled out of the SUV and lined up opposite the Coun'hij enforcers.
"We're here to take you in, Graves. Your daddy still has enough influence to make sure you aren't executed out of hand, but we've got more flexibility when it comes to your friends. Resist and we'll kill all of them, really piss us off and we'll kill you too and just tell Kaleb to go screw himself."
I looked over at Alec. Taking your eyes off of a group of thugs who'd just threatened to kill you wasn't exactly the smartest thing to be doing, but he was my alpha, he was the one who got to decide whether or not I was about to die. Alec examined the five guys facing us and then smiled.
"I'll make you a counter-offer. Surrender now and I'll let the five of you live long enough to have a fair hearing. If you're not guilty of the disgusting excesses most of your fellows are so fond of, I'll even give you a chance to swear allegiance to me."
I looked at Jess out of the corner of my eye and she looked terrified. Her breathing was coming nearly as fast as mine, and James was shifting back and forth from foot to foot, but apparently none of us were stupid enough to think that turning ourselves in would guarantee us any kind of safety.
We'd made our bed when we'd helped Rachel escape and there wasn't anything we could do about it now. I wasn't exactly sorry I'd helped save Rachel. I would have done it again if faced with the choice, even knowing how things were going to end up, but I'd hoped that we'd have a longer run than this.
One of the Coun'hij enforcers, a massive guy with a neck like an ox and at least a dozen different facial piercings, started laughing. The rest of them joined in over the next couple of seconds, but Alec's voice cut through all of that like it didn't matter.
"Very well, don't say I didn't give you a chance."
A maroon van thirty yards behind the Coun'hij guys opened up and seven people exited it in short order and shook out into a loose line. Even if I hadn't recognized them I still would have known that they were shape shifters. They were all wearing ha'bits and they all moved with the easy grace of someone whose balance and reflexes were literally superhuman.
It was Jack, the squad leader we'd worked with in St. Louis, and his entire group. He was the only hybrid, but that meant we had three hybrids and eight wolves against their five hybrids. They didn't stand a chance.
I looked over at Alec and saw that he'd kicked off his shoes. "I'd offer to make introductions, but there really isn't any point."
The enforcers all shifted at the same time, flaring power like a single metaphys
ical supernova, but Alec and the rest of us shifted a split second later and Jack's people were only a heartbeat behind us. The next three or four seconds would determine the course of the fight and we all knew it.
The five hybrids had three choices. If they stayed where they were and waited for all of us to come to them then they'd lose. They might hurt a few of us, maybe even kill a couple of us, but they would lose, the odds were just too far against them. If they'd had someone with some kind of useful ability like Brandon or Kaleb with them, then it would have been a whole different matchup, but they didn't, not based on the way Alec had been looking them over.
He'd been checking them against the files he carried around in his head, the files that listed every really dangerous hybrid in North America along with their picture and a description of their power. Alec could bluff, but I knew that smile. He'd smiled because he knew we were up against five normal hybrids.
Since the first option was out that meant that the hybrids all either needed to charge the four of us or they needed to charge Jack's people. If they charged us then there was a chance they could kill us before Jack's people arrived and then they'd be able to turn on Jack and the others and probably beat them too.
It was a workable option, but my money had been on them going the other direction. By charging Jack they would be up against only one hybrid, but the other four hybrids would be up against six wolves. The odds were still in their favor with that kind of matchup, but it wasn't as good as three hybrids against two wolves.
No, the real reason to go after Jack's people rather than us was that it gave them a chance to break free of the ambush. It gave them room to move and the psychological reassurance of not being trapped anymore.
I ended up being right. All five of the enforcers shifted to wolf form and bolted towards Jack and the others. Wolves were faster than hybrids in a long race, which was why Alec and James had likewise shifted to wolf form. It was a race and the stakes were life and death for all sixteen of us.
My earlier jitters had disappeared as soon as Jack and the others showed up. I tore across the concrete with reckless abandon, Alec hot on my heels, James and Jess a couple of yards back. Alec was strong and he was fast, faster than most wolves, but this was the kind of fight I'd been born for. Nobody else in the Sanctuary pack was as fast on four legs as I was.
I was gaining on the five Coun'hij wolves, but even I couldn't make it to them before they reached Jack and the others. To an uninformed eye, the five lithe shapes running towards Jack's massive hybrid form didn't seem like a threat, but this was actually the trickiest part of the whole ambush.
If Jack and the others just scattered then the enforcers would get away. Not all of them certainly, I'd be able to run one of them down and Alec might be able to catch another of them, but at least some of them would get away.
If we'd been out in the wilderness that wouldn't have been the case, but we didn't have forever to run them down, eventually we'd be out in full view of the public, at which point things would get a lot more dicey. Jack might have one or two people who were fast enough to catch an enforcer, those of us who only fought on four legs tended to be faster than the hybrids even when they were in wolf form, but if even one enforcer got away, then Jack's role in rescuing us would make it back to Kaleb and the rest of the Coun'hij.
I was pretty sure that Jack didn't want that to happen, but if he and the others stood their ground then they risked having the hybrids shift forms at the last instant and crash into their line as hybrids instead of as wolves. There was no way that six wolves and a hybrid could possibly stop more than a ton of determined hybrids who were already moving at full speed, it was suicide to even try.
All of which explained my shock when Jack refused to back down in the face of the oncoming enforcers. His wolves melted away, getting out of the way, but Jack simply set himself as if to stop the charge singlehandedly.
Jack had treated us well when we'd been in St. Louis and he'd risked a hell of a lot in coming here to bail us out. I liked Jack, at least as much as any wolf could like a hybrid. I reached inside and came up with a little more speed, but it wasn't going to be enough, nobody could possibly get there in time.
It was a sacrificial play, but it was one that the enforcers had to honor. If they just charged past as wolves then they were going to get hurt. Wolves are fast, but hybrids are practically purpose-built for killing fast things. Jack couldn't chase them down, but he'd get claws into two of them, he'd probably kill them before they even hit the ground, and then the other three would be faced with even worse odds when it came to trying to escape.
They might be able to outrun one or two wolves apiece, but there wasn't much chance they'd be able to get away from three of us. That meant that at least two or three of the hybrids were going to have to shift form and hit Jack as hybrids rather than as wolves. They'd mow him over like he wasn't even there, but that would slow them down, which meant that the four of us would be that much closer to them when they tried to make a break for it.
It wasn't much to trade your life for, but it was the best option that Jack had available to him. The mechanics of the situation were stark and merciless. We all knew them and we were all ready to play our part. I jumped lengthwise over a Ford sedan and slid past a concrete column so close that I felt my fur brush it.
My feet just about came out from underneath me as my pads landed on a strip of dry paint that was slightly slicker than the unpainted concrete, and I had to look down to make sure that my next step wouldn't put me on more paint. I looked back up just in time to see three of the enforcers shift forms a split second before they collided with Jack.
Only there wasn't any collision. Instead of just throwing himself forward to try and offset their momentum, Jack leaped straight up, just managing to clear the center hybrid as the three of them flashed past him.
It was a masterful display of strength and timing. Hybrids are strong, but they are also massively heavy. The three Coun'hij hybrids who had been charging him had been running full speed, so they'd been leaning forward, but in order to get high enough up to clear the reach of their claws he'd still had to jump nearly seven feet straight up. Some parking garages didn't even have tall enough ceilings for him to do what he'd just done, but this one did and as he came back down he managed to turn slightly in the air and get a single toe talon into the back of the center hybrid.
Jack's people sprang into action even before the center hybrid crashed into the ground. Two wolves, presumably his fastest, streaked after the two enforcers who had stayed in wolf form, while the other four attacked the two hybrids who were still on their feet.
The melee was a blurring mess of blood, claws and fur that couldn't last for very long. Hybrid-on-hybrid combat is plenty brutal; hybrid-versus-wolf combat tends to end even more abruptly. Either the wolves manage to slip past the hybrid's defenses and get a killing hold on their neck or we die. We aren't sturdy enough to trade blows with them like another hybrid.
A two-to-one matchup was a fight in which the wolves could come out on top, but it was by no means guaranteed. Luckily Jack's wolves didn't need to last for very long because I was almost there.
The hybrid on the far left of the fight stumbled, but it was a feint to try and lure one of his opponents into a bad attack. It worked and I saw a gray form plant and throw itself at the hybrid from the side. The hybrid recovered with preternatural quickness and spun around, claws flashing to rip the wolf out of the air.
It was the perfect play on the hybrid's part and it was a major screwup for the wolf. The hybrid had chosen an instant in which the second wolf was off balance and unable to attack, but that shouldn't have been an issue because the gray wolf should have known that time was on his side for once. All he'd needed to do was distract the hybrid long enough for Alec and James to arrive, but he'd tried to push the issue and it was probably going to cost him his life.
The one mistake that the hybrid made was not realizing just how close I was or just
how much faster I was than any normal wolf. I didn't plant, the concrete was too slick for that, but I put a little extra force into my next bound.
The hybrid's attack had turned him so that his right flank was towards me. It wasn't a perfect setup like an attack from directly behind would have been, but it was close enough. The air clawed at me, trying to slow me down, but I still hit the hybrid at more than thirty miles per hour.
I'm only something like a hundred and twenty pounds in human form, but I push almost two hundred when I'm a wolf. My jaws clamped onto his neck and then I felt the familiar wrench of deceleration as all of my kinetic energy was shifted to him over the course of a few fractions of a second.
We wolves look a lot like real wolves, albeit much bigger than a normal wolf, but there are differences if you know what you're looking for. The biggest is just how much more muscle we have around our neck and shoulders relative to the rest of our body.
Real wolves are strong—they have to be to bring down elk that are several times their weight—but they are dealing with prey animals. Granted, they are relatively dangerous prey animals, but that's not quite the same thing as trying to snap the neck of something like a hybrid. There's no such thing as an apex predator in the supernatural world, but hybrids came close.
I spun around, my jaws still anchored on the enforcer's neck even as my back legs slipped over his shoulders and slid down his left arm. Hybrid necks are incredibly well-muscled and those muscles are full of the same kind of unnatural vitality that makes me so strong and fast, but any physical construct has its limits and I'd exceeded those limits.
The hybrid's neck cracked and he dropped bonelessly to the ground.
I'd achieved the perfect kill, something that some wolves said wasn't even possible, but then again it might not have been possible without the special advantages that my bloodline bestowed upon me.